“Lydia, for God’s sake, listen,” he said. “Look in that window! Look at that child, Tweety. She exists in a certain reality, one that may or may not take place. The same applies to Lars. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“You were easier to get along with when we were alive,” she said, glaring at him. “Besides, I’m being born as Tweety in the past, at least from our point of view. So, somehow, Tweety was born, no matter what I decide now. I’ve already figured that out.”

“You’re wrong,” Lawrence said anxiously. “All the time is at once. There isn’t really any past or future, so—” But her anger had taken her away where his love couldn’t reach. She’d vanished, along with the farmhouse and landscape. And Lawrence knew that he had to try and find her again as quickly as he could.

To Lydia, Lawrence had vanished. “Larry? Where did you go?” she cried.

Right beside her, he asked the same question of her. But neither one saw or heard the other, and each of them felt disconsolate; Lydia the most, because her memories of Lawrence kept swirling around her, vivid scenes appearing and disappearing. It was inconceivable, she thought for the tenth time, that she’d forgotten him. But he’d obviously returned because of their love, and to help her. Perhaps to warn her. But about what? And again, if she’d forgotten Lawrence, what else had she forgotten? And why?

Then, seemingly for no reason, she remembered the voices and presences she’d sensed about her at various times—the images that almost but not quite materialized, the voices that almost spoke.

She’d often suspected that she was surrounded by an entirely different dimension of actuality. For one thing, the sounds were too fast for her to follow, and the images that she felt would change too quickly for her to perceive them. She realized that she had the same sensations now, of straining to hear or see some indefinable activity. She sensed motion of a kind, replete with people—a world that somehow existed right now, beyond her grasp, but a world into which she was trying to materialize. But what kind of a world? And who was there? Would she find Lawrence there too?

And as soon as she thought of Lawrence, the name Roger came to mind. And she thought, Of course: Roger was my husband. But somehow that didn’t seem to be the right answer. Yet the name kept ringing in her mind until she could think of nothing else. And all about her, images began to waver and wobble and form.

Chapter Fourteen

Lydia Attends a Séance, Shocks the Sitters, and Keeps a Promise

“It’s Roger. Roger. Can you hear me?” Lydia spun around. She heard the voice but saw no one.

“If you can hear us, give us a sign.”