Stephen King - Sleeping Beauties

Clint thanked him, but declined.

Frank started to get up, then settled back. “Listen, that day at the Tree…”

“What about it?”

“Do you remember when the churchbells started ringing?”

Clint said he would never forget. The bells began when the women started to wake up.

“Yeah,” Frank said. “Right about then I looked around for that crazy girl, and saw she was gone. Angel, I think her name was.”

Clint smiled. “Angel Fitzroy.”

“Any idea what became of her?”

“None at all. She’s not at Curly, I know that much.”

“Barry, the insurance guy? He told me he was pretty sure she killed Peters.”

Clint nodded. “He told me the same thing.”

“Yeah? What did you say?”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish. That’s what I said. Because Don Peters was the problem in a nuthell.” He paused. “ Shell . That’s what I mean. Nut shell .”

“My friend, I think you should go home.”

Clint said, “Good idea. Where is it?”

Two months after what had become known as the Great Awakening, a Montana rancher saw a woman hitchhiking on Route 2, just east of Chinook, and pulled over. “Hop in, young lady,” he said. “Where you headed?”

“Not sure,” she said. “Idaho, to start with. Maybe out to California after that.”

He offered his hand. “Ross Albright. Got a spread two counties over. What’s your name?”

“Angel Fitzroy.” Once she would have refused the shake, used an alias, and kept her hand on the knife she always stored in her coat pocket. Now there was no knife and no alias. She felt no need of either.

“Nice name, Angel,” he said, fetching third gear with a jerk. “I’m a Christian myself. Born and born again.”

“Good,” Angel said, and without a trace of sarcasm.

“Where you from, Angel?”

“A little town called Dooling.”

“That where you woke up?”

Once Angel would have lied and said yes, because that was easier, and besides, lying came naturally to her. It was a real talent. Only this was her new life, and she had resolved to tell the truth to the best of her ability in spite of the complications.

“I was one of the few who never went to sleep,” she said.

“Wow! You must have been lucky! And strong!”

“I was blessed,” Angel said. This was also the truth, at least as she understood it.

“Just hearing you say so is a blessing,” said the rancher, and with great feeling. “What’s next, Angel, if you don’t mind me asking? What are you going to do when you finally decide to nail your traveling shoes to the floor?”

Angel looked out at the glorious mountains and the never-ending western sky. At last she said, “The right thing. That’s what I’m going to do, Mr. Albright. The right thing.”

He took his eyes off the road long enough to smile at her and said, “Amen, sister. Amen to that.”

The women’s Correctional Facility was fenced off and condemned, marked with signs warning against trespassers, and left to crumble while the government allocated funds to more pressing public works. The new fence was strong, and its base was embedded deep into the turf. It took the fox several weeks of digging, and all his reserves of patience to tunnel beneath it.

Once he had accomplished this engineering feat, he trotted into the building through the massive hole in the wall and set about constructing his new den in a cell close by. He could detect the scent of his mistress there, faded but sweet and tangy.

An emissary came from the rats. “This is our castle,” the rat said. “What are your intentions, fox?”

The fox appreciated how straightforward the rat was. He was a fox, but he was getting older. Perhaps it was time to quit with tricks and risks, find a mate, and stay close to his skulk. “My intentions are humble, I assure you.”

“And they are?” pressed the rat.

“I hesitate to say aloud,” the fox said. “It’s a little embarrassing.”

“Speak,” said the rat.

“All right,” the fox said. He tipped his head shyly. “I’ll whisper it. Come up close to me and I’ll whisper it to you.”

The rat came close. The fox could have bitten her head off—it was his talent, each of God’s creatures has at least one—but he didn’t.

“I want to be at peace,” he said.

The morning after Thanksgiving, Lila drives to the gravel turnaround on Ball’s Hill and parks. She pops Andy, bundled in his infant snowsuit, into a baby carrier. She starts to hike.

Maybe they could put their Humpty-Dumpty marriage back together, Lila muses. Maybe, if she wants him to, Clint could love her again. But does she want him to? There is a mark on Lila’s soul, the name of the mark is Jeanette Sorley, and she does not know how to erase it. Or if she wants to.

Andy makes small, amused noises as she walks. Her heart aches for Tiffany. An unfairness and a randomness knits into the fabric of everything and it inspires as much awe in Lila as it does resentment. The icy woods creak and tick. When she gets to Truman Mayweather’s trailer, it’s frosted with snow. She gives it just a passing glance and moves on. Not far to go now.

She emerges into the clearing. The Amazing Tree isn’t there. Jeanette’s grave is not there. There is nothing but winter grass and a haggard oak stripped of its leaves. The grass wavers, an orange shape flashes, vanishes, and the grass resettles. Her breath steams. The baby hums and expresses what sounds like a question.

“Evie?” Lila moves around in a circle, searching—woods, ground, grass, air, milky sunshine—but there’s no one. “Evie, are you there?”

She yearns for a signal, any kind of signal.

A moth flutters from the branch of the old oak tree and settles on her hand.

If a fantasy novel is to be believable, the details underpinning it must be realistic. We had plenty of help with those details while writing Sleeping Beauties , and we are enormously grateful. And so, before we leave you, here’s a tip of our Red Sox caps to some of those who helped us find our way.

Russ Dorr was our primary research assistant. He helped us with everything from RVs to facts on how quickly kerosene degrades. He also made valuable contacts for us in the world of women’s incarceration and corrections. Because we needed to visit a women’s prison—get boots on the ground, so to speak—our thanks to the Honorable Gillian L. Abramson, Justice, New Hampshire Superior Court, who arranged a field trip to the New Hampshire State Prison for Women in Goffstown, New Hampshire. There we met Warden Joanne Fortier, Captain Nicole Plante, and Lieutenant Paul Carroll. They took us on a tour of the prison and answered all of our questions patiently (sometimes more than once). These are dedicated corrections officers, both tough and humane. It’s quite possible that the situation at Dooling Correctional might have been resolved peacefully if any of them were on staff—lucky for us they weren’t! We can’t thank them enough.

We also want to express our gratitude to Mike Muise, a corrections officer with the Valley Street Jail, in Manchester, New Hampshire. Mike passed on lots of good info on intake procedure at police stations and prisons. Officer Tom Staples (retired) helped us furnish the armory at the Dooling Sheriff’s Office with a fine supply of weapons.

We conceived of the shaky ground on which Lion Head Prison was built from our reading of Michael Shnayerson’s superb nonfiction chronicle Coal River .

Where we got it right, thank those folks. Where we got it wrong, blame us… but don’t be too quick to do so. Remember that this is a work of fiction, and from time to time we found it necessary to bend the facts a little to suit the course of our story.