Bag of Bones by Stephen King Page B

what I hoped was the right note of incredulity into my voice, just as if I hadn’t had Helen’s Promise in a safe-deposit box foralmost eleven years. It had been the first nut I had stored; it was now the only nut I had left.
    â€œNo, no, you could have until January fifteenth, at least,” he said, trying to sound magnanimous. I found myself wondering where he and Debra had gotten their lunch. Some fly place, I would have bet my life on that. Maybe Four Seasons. Johanna always used to call that place Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. “It means they’d have to crash production, seriously crash it, but they’re willing to do that. The real question is whether or not you could crash production.”
    â€œI think I could, but it’ll cost em,” I said. “Tell them to think of it as being like same-day service on your dry-cleaning.”
    â€œOh what a rotten shame for them!” Harold sounded as if he were maybe jacking off and had reached the point where Old Faithful splurts and everybody snaps their Instamatics.
    â€œHow much do you think—”
    â€œA surcharge tacked on to the advance is probably the way to go,” he said. “They’ll get pouty of course, claim that the move is in your interest, too. Primarily in your interest, even. But based on the extra-work argument . . . the midnight oil you’ll have to burn . . .”
    â€œThe mental agony of creation . . . the pangs of premature birth . . .”
    â€œRight . . . right . . . I think a ten per cent surcharge sounds about right.” He spoke judiciously, like a man trying to be just as damned fair as he possibly could. Myself, I was wondering how many women would induce birth a month or so early if they got paid two or three hundred grand extra for doing so. Probably some questions are best left unanswered.
    And in my case, what difference did it make? The goddam thing was written, wasn’t it?
    â€œWell, see if you can make the deal,” I said.
    â€œYes, but I don’t think we want to be talking about just a single book here, okay? I think—”
    â€œHarold, what I want right now is to eat some lunch.”
    â€œYou sound a little tense, Michael. Is everything—”
    â€œEverything is fine. Talk to them about just one book, with a sweetener for speeding up production at my end. Okay?”
    â€œOkay,” he said after one of his most significant pauses. “But I hope this doesn’t mean that you won’t entertain a three- or four-book contract later on. Make hay while the sun shines, remember. It’s the motto of champions.”
    â€œCross each bridge when you come to it is the motto of champions,” I said, and that night I dreamt I went to Sara Laughs again.
    *   *   *
    In that dream—in all the dreams I had that fall and winter—I am walking up the lane to the lodge. The lane is a two-mile loop through the woods with ends opening onto Route 68. It has a number at either end (Lane Forty-two, if it matters) in case you have to call in a fire, but no name. Nor did Jo and I ever give it one, not even between ourselves. It is narrow, really just a double rut with timothy and witchgrass growing on the crown. When you drive in, you can hear that grass whispering like low voices against the undercarriage of your car or truck.
    I don’t drive in the dream, though. I never drive. In these dreams I walk.
    The trees huddle in close on either side of the lane. The darkening sky overhead is little more than a slot. Soon I will be able to see the first peeping stars. Sunset is past. Crickets chirr. Loons cry on the lake. Small things—chipmunks, probably, or the occasional squirrel—rustle in the woods.
    Now I come to a dirt driveway sloping down the hill on my right. It is our driveway, marked with a little wooden sign which reads SARA LAUGHS . I stand at the head