"That's something I don't want to think about," Stanford said.
He had lost his favorite teddy bear and gone to hunt it in the dusk that was filled with elusive fireflies and the hush of a world quieting down for the time of sleep.
The grass was drenched with dew and he felt the cold wetness of it soaking through his shoes as he went from bush to hedge to flowerbed, looking for the missing toy.
It was necessary, he told himself, that he find the nice little bear, for it was the one that slept with him and if he did not find it, he knew that it would spend a lonely and comfortless night.
But at no time did he admit, even to his innermost thought, that it was he who needed the bear and not the bear who needed him.
A soaring bat swooped low and for a horrified moment, catching sight of the zooming terror, a blob of darkness in the gathering dusk, he squatted low against the ground, huddling against the sudden fear that came out of the night.
Sounds of fright bubbled in his throat and now he saw the great dark garden as an unknown place, filled with lurking shadows that lay in wait for him.
He stayed cowering against the ground and tried to fight off the alien fear that growled from behind each bush and snarled in every darkened corner. But even as the fear washed over him, there was one hidden corner of his mind that knew there was no need of fear.
It was as if that one area of his brain still fought against the rest of him, as if that small section of cells might know that the bat was no more than a flying bat, that the shadows in the garden were no more than absence of light.
There was a reason, he knew, why he should not be afraid—a good reason born of a certain knowledge he no longer had.
And that he should have such knowledge seemed unbelievable, for he was scarcely two years old.
He tried to say it—two years old.
There was something wrong with his tongue, something the matter with the way he had to use his mouth, with the way his lips refused to shape the words he meant to say.
He tried to define the words, tried to tell himself what he meant by two years old and one moment it seemed that he knew the meaning of it and then it escaped him.
The bat came again and he huddled close against the ground, shivering as he crouched. He lifted his eyes fearfully, darting glances here and there, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the looming house and it was a place he knew as refuge.
"House," he said, and the word was wrong, not the word itself, but the way he said it.
He ran on trembling, unsure feet and the great door loomed before him, with the latch too high to reach.
But there was another way, a small swinging door built into the big door, the sort of door that is built for cats and dogs and sometimes little children.
He darted through it and felt the sureness and the comfort of the house about him.
The sureness and the comfort—and the loneliness.
He found his second-best teddy bear, and, picking it up, clutched it to his breast, sobbing into its scratchy back in pure relief from terror.
There is something wrong, he thought. Something dreadfully wrong. Something is as it should not be.
It is not the garden or the darkened bushes or the swooping winged shape that came out of the night.
It is something else, something missing, something that should be here and isn't.
Clutching the teddy bear, he sat rigid and tried desperately to drive his mind back along the way that would tell him what was wrong.
There was an answer, he was sure of that.
There was an answer somewhere; at one time he had known it.
At one time he had recognized the need he felt and there had been no way to supply it—and now he couldn't even know the need, could feel it, but he could not know it.
He clutched the bear closer and huddled in the darkness, watching the moonbeam that came through a window, high above his head, and etched a square of floor in brightness.
Fascinated, he watched the moonbeam and all at once the terror faded. He dropped the bear and crawled on hands and knees, stalking the moonbeam. It did not try to get away and he reached its edge and thrust his hands into it and laughed with glee when his hands were painted by the light coming through the window. He lifted his face and stared up at the blackness and saw the white globe of the Moon, looking at him, watching him.
The Moon seemed to wink at him and he chortled joyfully.
Behind him a door creaked open and he turned clumsily around.
Someone stood in the doorway, almost filling it—a beautiful person who smiled at him.
Even in the darkness he could sense the sweetness of the smile, the glory of her golden hair.
"Time to eat, Andy," said the woman.
"Eat and get a bath and then to bed."
Andrew Young hopped joyfully on both feet, arms held out—happy and excited and contented.
"Mummy!" he cried.
"Mummy ...
Moon!"
He swung about with a pointing finger and the woman came swiftly across the floor, knelt and put her arms around him, held him close against her.
His cheek against hers, he stared up at the Moon and it was a wondrous thing, a bright and golden thing, a wonder that was shining new and fresh.
On the street outside, Stanford and Riggs stood looking up at the huge house that towered above the trees.
"She's in there now," said Stanford.
"Everything's quiet so it must be all right."
Riggs said, "He was crying in the garden.
He ran in terror for the house.
He stopped crying about the time she must have come in."
Stanford nodded.
"I was afraid we were putting it off too long, but I don't see now how we could have done it sooner.