Стивен Кинг - Elevation

Then I got it, but that doesn’t mean I like it, or that you deserve it.

Scott, what you did the day of the race made it possible for us to stay in Castle Rock, not just because we have a business here but because now we can be a part of the town’s greater life. DeeDee thinks she is going to be invited to join the Jaycees. She laughs and says it’s silly, but I know that inside she doesn’t think it’s silly at all. It’s a trophy, the same as the ones she got in the races she won. Oh, not everyone will accept us, I’m not so silly (or naive) as to believe that, some will never come around, but most will. Many already have. Without you that never would have happened, and without you, part of my beloved would always have remained closed off to the world. She won’t tell you this, but I will: you knocked the chip off her shoulder. It was a big chip, and now she can walk straight again. She’s always been a prickly pear, and I don’t expect that to change, but she’s open now. She sees more, hears more, can be more. You made that possible. You picked her up when she fell.

She says there’s a bond between you, a shared feeling, and that’s why she has to be the one to help you at the end. Am I jealous? A little, but I think I understand. It was when you said you felt elevated. She is that way when she runs. It’s why she runs.

Please be brave, Scott, and please know I am thinking of you. God bless.

PS: When we go to the bookstore, we’ll always pet Bill.

Scott thought about calling her and thanking her for saying such kind things, then decided that was a bad idea. It might get them both going. He printed out her note instead, and put it in one of the pockets of the harness.

He would take it with him when he went.

The following Sunday morning, Scott went along the hall to the downstairs bathroom in a series of steps that weren’t steps at all. Each one was a long float that took him up to the ceiling, where he would push his tented fingers to bring himself back down. The furnace kicked on, and the soft whoosh of air from the vent actually blew him sideways a little. He twisted and grabbed a clamp to pull himself past the draft.

In the bathroom, he hovered over the scale and finally settled. At first he thought it wasn’t going to report any weight at all. Then, at last, it coughed up a number: 2.1. It was about what he had expected.

That evening he called Deirdre’s cell. He kept it simple. “I need you. Can you come?”

“Yes.” It was all she said, and all he needed.

The door of the house was shut but unlocked. Deirdre slipped in, not opening the door all the way because of the draft. She turned on the hall lights to dispel the shadows, then went into the living room. Scott was in the wheelchair. He had managed to get partway into the harness, which had been buckled to the back of the chair, but his body floated upward from the chair’s seat and one arm hung in the air. His face was bright with sweat, the front of his shirt dark with it.

“I almost waited too long,” he said. He sounded breathless. “I had to swim down to the chair. Breaststroke, if you can believe it.”

Deirdre could. She went to him and stood in front of the wheelchair, looking at him with wonder. “How long have you been here like this?”

“Awhile. Wanted to wait until dark. Is it dark?”

“Almost.” She dropped to her knees. “Oh, Scott. This is so bad.”

He shook his head back and forth in slow motion, like a man shaking his head underwater. “You know better.”

She thought she did. Hoped she did.

He struggled with his floating arm and finally managed to shoot it into the vest’s armhole. “Can you try to buckle the straps across my chest and waist without touching me?”

“I think so,” she said, but twice her knuckles brushed him as she knelt in front of the chair—once his side, once his shoulder—and both times she felt her body rise and then settle back. Her stomach did a flip with each contact, what she remembered her father calling a whoops-my-dear when their car went over a big bump. Or, yes—Missy had been right—like when a rollercoaster crested the first hill, hesitated, then plunged.

At last it was done. “Now what?”

“Soon we sample the night air. But first go into the closet, the one in the entry where I keep my boots. There’s a paper bag, and a coil of rope. I think you can push the wheelchair, but if you can’t, you’ll have to tie the rope around the headrest and pull it.”

“And you’re sure about this?”

He nodded, smiling. “Do you think I want to spend the rest of my life tied into this thing? Or having someone climb a stepladder to feed me?”

“Well, that would make a dandy YouTube video.”

“One no one would believe.”

She found the rope and the brown paper bag and took them back to the living room. Scott held out his hands. “Come on, big girl, let’s see your skills. Toss me the bag from there.”

She did, and it was a good throw. The bag arced through the air toward his outreached hands… stopped less than an inch above his palms… then settled slowly into them. There the bag seemed to gain weight, and Deirdre had to remind herself of what he’d said when he first explained what was happening: things were heavy to him . Was that a paradox? It made her head hurt, whatever it was, and there was no time to think about it now, anyway. He stripped off the paper bag and held a square object wrapped in thick paper decorated with starbursts. Protruding from the bottom was a flat red tongue about six inches long.

“It’s called a SkyLight. A hundred and fifty dollars from Fireworks Factory in Oxford. I bought it online. Hope it’s worth it.”

“How will you light it? How can you, when… when you’re…”

“Don’t know if I can, but confidence is high. It’s got a scratch fuse.”

“Scott, do I have to do this?”

“Yes,” he said.

“You want to go.”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s time.”

“It’s cold outside, and you’re covered with sweat.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

But it did to her. She went upstairs to his bedroom and pulled the comforter off a bed that had been slept in—at some point, anyway—but bore no impression of his body on the mattress or his head on the pillow.

“Comforter,” she snorted. It seemed a very stupid word under the circumstances. She took it downstairs and tossed it to him as she had tossed the paper bag, watching with the same fascination as it paused… bloomed… and then settled over his chest and lap.

“Wrap that around you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She watched him do it, then tucked the part trailing on the floor under his feet. This time the lift was more serious, the whoops-my-dear a double flip instead of a single. Her knees rose from the floor and she could feel her hair stream upward. Then it was done, and when her knees thumped down on the boards again, she had a better understanding of why he could smile. She remembered something she’d read in college—Faulkner, maybe: Gravity is the anchor that pulls us down into our graves . There would be no grave for this man, and no more gravity, either. He had been given a special dispensation.

“Snug as a bug in a rug,” he said.

“Don’t joke, Scott. Please.”

She went behind the wheelchair and put her hands tentatively on the jutting handles. There was no need of the rope; her weight stayed. She pushed him toward the door, onto the stoop, and down the ramp.

The night was cold, chilling the sweat on his face, but the air was as sweet and crisp as the first bite of a fall apple. Above him was a half-moon and what seemed like a trillion stars.