John Saul by Guardian

them. It’s up to you.”
    Her tone of voice told Alan not to argue with her any further. And it also told him that if he hoped to put his marriage back together, he’d better go, too.
    “We’ll be there,” he said. “I’ll get the kids packed, and we can be on the same flight you took, tomorrow morning. Okay?”
    MaryAnne let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Thank you, Alan,” she said quietly. “I’ll have the tickets waiting for you at the airport. See you tomorrow.”
    She put the receiver back on the cradle, then leaned back in the chair.
    In the space of twenty-four hours her entire life had changed.

 CHAPTER 5 
    L ogan Carpenter snuggled deep into the soft mattress and pulled the down-comforter right up to his chin.
    “Ready for me to turn the light out?” MaryAnne asked, smiling down at her son.
    “But it’s only nine o’clock, Mom,” Logan protested, though he already knew it wasn’t going to work.
    “And it’s eleven where you woke up this morning,” MaryAnne replied. “You were falling asleep in the den half an hour ago.”
    “I was not,” Logan objected. “I was—”
    “You were sound asleep, just like you will be in another five minutes,” MaryAnne broke in. She bent down and kissed him, then snapped off the light that stood on the pine table next to his bed. “Want me to leave the door open?” she asked as she started out of the room.
    “I’m not a
baby,
” Logan protested with the full maturity of his ten years. Pointedly silent, MaryAnne pulled the door closed. As soon as Logan heard the latch click, he slid out of bed and dashed over to the window.
    Idaho!
    He was in Idaho, on Aunt Audrey’s ranch, and there was no one in the bedroom except him!
    He stared out into the moonlit Sugarloaf Valley, which seemed to spread away from the house forever. In the distance he could just see the glow of lights from the town at the mouth of the valley, and then, beyond that, a great black void hung over the Sawtooth Valley—he’d already memorized its name—and even farther away was the black silhouette of Castle Peak. The window was open—which never happened back home, where you always had to makesure everything was locked before you went to sleep—and the cool night air drifting down from the mountains caressed his face, entrancing him with the pure scents of nature, which were nothing like the sour smells at home that always made him want to hold his nose.
    There were sounds, too, that weren’t anything like the rumble of the trucks on the turnpike just a block from their house in New Jersey.
    Now the quiet of the night was broken by sounds he couldn’t ever remember hearing before.
    The cry of an animal drifted down from somewhere up in the mountains, and Logan shivered as he imagined a wolf, sitting on one of the huge granite cliffs that soared above the house, howling at the moon.
    There was a cracking sound, coming from the forest off to the right, and Logan was instantly sure he knew what it was.
    A bear—probably a grizzly—was stalking something.
    Maybe a mountain lion!
    Suddenly he wondered if maybe he shouldn’t close the window, after all. He peered down, staring at the roof of the porch, just a few feet below the window.
    What if a bear got up on the porch roof and crawled into his room in the middle of the night?
    Another crackling came from the woods, and Logan jerked his head up, a stab of panic shooting through him. But then, as he watched, a doe emerged from the forest, followed by two fawns, and trotted across the yard to the field beyond the barn. As he watched, transfixed, the deer and her young began grazing contentedly in the moonlight.
    Finally turning away from the window, Logan went back to his bed, crawled in, and lay staring up at the peeled logs that supported the cathedral ceiling above him.
    A ceiling so high, he probably couldn’t touch it even if he jumped up and down on the bed.
    Should he try it?
    Why not? For