He took her by the arm and said, "Come on," and they walked, unspeaking, up the road.

As they entered the house through the kitchen door, he heard the Raygun Carnage music swell to a triumphant climax and end. A well-modulated voice said that John's crush on his teacher lands Brogan in hot water on Brogan's Boys next Tuesday at eight, seven Central, now stay tuned for the fun on That's My Emma! when Emma decides to teach Ed a lesson.

An hour? he thought incredulously. A whole hour?

He looked at Jane. She was staring fixedly at the space between the cupboard and the refrigerator. "Hon? Something wrong?"

She shook her head slowly.

"You sure nothing's bothering you?"

"No. I'm just tired. From all the walking."

"Then come sit down and rest in the living room. You can watch television with us."

Her eyes tracked from the wall to his face. They were flat, dark, opaque. "Okay, Dad. In a minute." She turned and walked away stiffly, as though it hurt her to bend her arms and legs.

He went quickly to the living room and stood by the sofa. He was about to speak when the slim, beautiful woman reappeared on the television and began raising her skirt again. The skirt was halfway up the sleek thigh before he managed to say, "Beth."

"Mmm?"

The skirt, the thigh, the merest hint of buttock. Cut. Station identification.

Beth looked up at him and said, "What's that on your pants?" She leaned forward slightly and plucked a dry grass stem from the leg of his trousers. "Were you outside just now?"

"Yes."

"You've got dirt on your hands, too."

"Beth..."

He heard the That's My Emma! music. Over his shoulder, he tried to read the title credits as they were flashed upon the faces of nineteenth-century tenements. On the floor, bathed in blue light, Deb clutched her knees, swayed in time with the music, sang the lyrics in a low, tuneless voice. The title sequence ended. A housewife complained that her cakes always collapsed.

Beth looked at his hands again. "Better go wash." Her head swiveled forty-five degrees to the right. Her eyes locked on the image of an elfin creature who emphatically declared that no husband had to come home to collapsed cakes. In the pulsating blue light, Beth's face shifted and moved and did not change expression.

He stepped around Deb, left the room, went down the hall. The door to Sheryl's bedroom was closed, but from within came theme music. He tried to place it as he passed. The Gonzos. No, The Gonzos was Monday night. Nell's Belles. Yeah. Nell's Belles.

The door to Jane's room was ajar. He saw the blank green face of the television set mounted dead-center among the shelves opposite the foot of her bed, the stuffed cartoon whale perched atop the set, the rows, stacks, mounds of books. Jane sat at her desk, her back to the door, the knuckles of her fists pressed against her temples.

Alarmed, he put a hand on the doorknob and set a foot across the threshold. "Jane, are you okay?"

She did not look around at him, did not move. He could not be sure that she was talking to him when she spoke. "Something's about to happen," she said in a low, inflectionless voice, "the animals and things all feel it, but hardly anybody's paying any attention. Just me. Everything's going to be changed, and I'm the only person who'll notice."

A terrible sadness settled upon him. He wanted to go to her and put his arm around her again. He tried to imagine what he could say to her, how he could say it. Jane, I want only what is best for you. Jane, I love you, you're my daughter, I want you to be happy like other girls your age. Jane, I've tried to give you a good home and everything, but I don't know what to make of you any more, I don't know what the problem is, but if we could just talk about it, hon, we could straighten everything out--

"...everything's going to twist out of shape..."

You had to be perfectly honest.

She needs help.

He closed the door softly and hurried along to the bathroom in the master bedroom. When he had washed the grim from his fingers, he returned to the living room.

"...so I tell him," the image of Ed was saying to the image of Emma, "'Look,' I say, 'you can't just come in here and say gimme a sandwich, this is a newspaper office, not a restaurant, can't you read what it says on the door there?' And he says, 'If I could read, I'd've ordered a menu!'" Laughter and blue light filled the room. Beth smiled and nodded.

He sat down beside her. "Beth."

"Mmm?"

Emma said something to Ed. Laughter and blue light filled the room.

"Beth, I'm worried about Jane." He kept his voice low so that Deb could not hear. "Really worried."

Ed said something to Emma. Laughter and blue light.

"Beth, she's not happy."

"What?"

"She's..."

His voice trailed off as Sasha came in and said something to Emma and Ed. Laughter, blue light.

"Uh ... she needs help, Beth. She's..."

Ed said something to Sasha. Laughter. Blue light.

"I don't know, she's..."

Emma said something to Sasha, and Beth smiled and nodded and said, "Jane'll be okay, dear," and Sasha said something back to Emma, and Ed said something to Emma and Sasha. He abruptly realized that he was bent forward at the waist, trying to catch the words, the sense of the words, but hearing only the distant yowling of beasts, the creakings of trees moving uneasily in still air, the sounds of shifting, of cracking, of flowing, of things bursting into flames, of wars, of uproars. He thought, Jane, and Sasha turned to Ed and said, and he braced his elbows against the back of the sofa and laughter filled the room and Emma said and he started to rise and Emma and Ed and Sasha and laughter and blue light and laughter and blue light and laughter and blue light filled the room forever and held him right where he was.