She thought: Something was different about him … is different about him. What is it? She didn't know. But for a moment, almost subliminally, her dream flickered back to her – that arrow of poisonous green light … and her teeth all falling painlessly out of her gums.
Then it was gone and she set off toward the place where it was, that odd thing in the ground, listening to the crickets make their steady ree-ree-ree sounds in this small back field which would soon be ready for its first cutting.
3
At three that afternoon it was Peter who raised her from the semi-daze in which she had been working, making her aware she was two damn-nears: damn-near starving and damn-near exhausted.
Peter was howling.
The sound raised gooseflesh on Anderson's back and arms. She dropped the shovel she had been using and backed away from the thing in the earth – the thing that was no plate, no box, not anything she could understand. All she knew for sure was that she knew she had fallen into a strange, thoughtless state she didn't like at all. This time she had done more than lose track of time; she felt as if she had lost track of herself as well. It was as if someone else had stepped into her head the way a man would step into a bulldozer or a payloader, simply firing her up and starting to yank the right levers.
Peter howled, nose pointing toward the sky – long, chilling, mournful sounds.
'Stop it, Peter!' Anderson yelled, and thankfully, Peter did. Any more of that and she might simply have turned and run.
Instead, she fought for control and got it. She backed up another step and cried out when something flapped loosely against her back. At her cry, Peter uttered one more short, yipping sound and fell silent again.
Anderson grabbed for whatever had touched her, thinking it might be – well, she didn't know what she thought it might be, but even before her hand closed on it, she remembered what it was. She had a hazy memory of stopping just long enough to hang her blouse on a bush; here it was.