“I’m not interested,” she said and clamped her mouth tight shut.

She turned around and went back up the stairs.

“She’s on the prod today,” Beasly said to Taine. “It will be a bad day. It always is when she starts early in the morning.”

“Don’t pay attention to her,” Taine advised.

“I try not to, but it ain’t possible. You sure you don’t need a man? I’d work for you cheap.”

“Sorry, Beasly. Tell you what—come over some night soon and we’ll play some checkers.”

“I’ll do that, Hiram. You’re the only one who ever asks me over. All the others ever do is laugh at me or shout.”

Abbie’s voice came bellowing down the stairs. “Beasly, are you coming? Don’t go standing there all day. I have rugs to beat.”

“Yes’m,” said Beasly, starting up the stairs.

At the truck, Abbie turned on Taine with determination: “You’ll get that set fixed right away? I’m lost without it.”

“Immediately,” said Taine.

He stood and watched them off, then looked around for Towser, but the dog had disappeared. More than likely he was at that wood-chuck hole again, in the woods across the road. Gone off, thought Taine, without his breakfast, too.

The teakettle was boiling furiously when Taine got back to the kitchen. He put coffee in the maker and poured in the water. Then he went downstairs.

The ceiling was still there.

He turned on all the lights and walked around the basement, staring up at it.

It was a dazzling white material and it appeared to be translucent— up to a point, that is. One could see into it, but he could not see through it. And there were no signs of seams. It was fitted neatly and tightly around the water pipes and the ceiling lights.

Taine stood on a chair and rapped his knuckles against it sharply. It gave out a bell-like sound, almost exactly as if he’d rapped a fingernail against a thinly-blown goblet.