For a second all he heard was the whusssh of the empty air waves.

The plane, committed now to landing, to crashing, fell into the wide place like a stone.

And now a jolt took him like a hammerblow.

It was as if his hands and arms were as heavy as lead.

He closed his eyes and slept, dreamless, deep and down.

The pilot nodded. "All of flying is easy. Just takes learning. Like everything else. Like everything else."

He ripped at it until it released and somehow—the water trying to kill him, to end him—

GOING TO DIE,Brian thought. Going to die, gonna die, gonna die—his whole brain screamed it in the sudden silence.

Then the bird started again, and some kind of buzzing insect, and then a chattering and a cawing.

His stomach tightened into a series of rolling knots.

Divorce. Secrets. No, not secrets so much as just the Secret. What he knew and had not told anybody, what he knew about his mother that had caused the divorce, what he knew, what he knew—the Secret. Divorce. The Secret.

The forest was largely made up of pines and spruce, with stands of some low brush smeared here and there and thick grass and some other kind of very small brush all over.