Ten

"The thing keeps coming around," Margaret said. "Ever since Dan Fulsom tried to kill him."
"Tried to kill him?" Sapphire interrupted. "I thought Fulsom killed himself?"
"He did, the same day, the day he was caught. Poisoned himself in his cell. He'd gone crazy, you know, kept rambling about how there were dragons living under the town, dragons that had to be fed. He'd been going around having homeless people murdered as part of his theory. Then he laid some sort of a trap for Argus and tried to shoot him, but Argus' friends saved the day. He was lucky with his friends, that's for sure."
"I had no idea," Sapphire shook her head. "I wonder why I never heard about that."
"They hushed it all up," Margaret said. "Fulsom had friends in high places, and since he went and offed himself, there was really no need to let everyone know what was what. Rumor had it there were officials who were looking the other way when he was only going after those street people. I don't really mean 'only'. It was awful, but you know what I mean."
"Fulsom was always lucky with his friends too, if by lucky you mean he'd paid them all off. It was how he got his way every time. It was how he got Snapdragon Alley in the first place."
"Argus told me about that, in his way. I don't think he told me everything, though. That's one reason I wanted to talk to you," Margaret said. "You were there. I have my own theories, but I've always wanted to know what you thought."
Sapphire wondered what Margaret meant by 'theories'. Was she some sort of amateur sleuth? Maybe a mystic or religious believer? Maybe she had too much time on her hands. The conversation could begin to get weird, Sapphire thought. After all, she had no theories herself.
"I don't want to keep you from whatever it is that you do," Sapphire said, thinking that maybe she could get out of it now.
"Oh, I have no classes today," Margaret said.
"You're in school?" Sapphire asked. "What are you studying?"
"Not quite," Margaret laughed. "I'm a professor. I teach nuclear physics at New Harbinger College."
Oh," Sapphire said, startled. "Wow."
"Yeah, wow," Margaret chuckled. "But what do you think? What did you think at the time?"
"Well, the way I remember it," Sapphire said, "is like this. We first found out about Snapdragon Alley when Argus noticed it on a map. It was only there for a year. The following year it was gone off the map. We thought that that was kind of weird, but actually it wasn't. It was Fulsom. He already had plans to build his shopping mall and football stadium there so the fix was in with the city, it was all a done deal, so it was put on the map. Only it turned out there was an old man who still lived there and he wouldn't sell, so the deal went through. At the same time, Fulsom got busted for something so the plan went on hold. When he got out, though, he went back to work, to get the old man out of the way. The old man, Mason, was still holding out. You see, his wife disappeared, and he said she went into what was some kind of portal, or wormhole or something, right there on Snapdragon Alley. Alex and Argus' Uncle Charlie said he did too, only it was different with him. With Henrietta, the thing was like a nice little neighborhood. With Charlie it was a bus, because he was a bus driver see? And she liked gardening or something like that. Anyway, it was all probably nothing. Charlie was being really weird this one day and he ran out into the street, and Argus followed after him. I don't know why, but I got suddenly scared and ran after Argus. I caught up to him and grabbed him, he was kicking and fussing, and when he all got calmed down we saw Charlie was gone. Now, Charlie, he had vanished before, and he could have gone anywhere. I wasn't paying attention. Alex tells me he never came back, though, not after that."
Sapphire paused to catch her breath. It was all coming back to her, as vivid as the day it occurred, and she was totally convinced now, as she was then, that there was nothing unusual about it. The boy could have been hit by a car. That had to be all she was thinking. The other stuff was just completely insane.
"That's pretty close to how Argus tells it," Margaret said thoughtfully, "only he saw the bus, and he saw Charlie get in."
"What bus?" Sapphire said. "There couldn't have been a bus. It wasn't even a street, and the bus didn't run there."
"He saw it," Margaret explained. "It didn't 'run there', you're right, it came out of nowhere, according to Argus. It simply appeared and then it was gone."
"I don't believe it," said Sapphire. "And I never did. Charlie was saying it was like another dimension, where there isn't any time, or something like that. There couldn't be any such place."
"Maybe not," Margaret said, "but maybe it isn't a place. Maybe it's more like a creature, like Fulsom's dragon."
"What are you talking about?" Sapphire asked. She was beginning to think her fears were about to come true, more wild-eyed, superstitious nonsense, just like all the crap on TV.
"Well," Margaret said slowly, "it's only a theory, but here's what I think. It's a creature, and somehow it's stuck. It doesn't belong to this world, or maybe it does, I don't know, but it's stuck, and maybe it's hurt. I think Fulsom was wrong about the thing being hungry, but he was right about it being a thing. I think it's alone and it's lonely. I think, and I know this is all based on nothing, but I think that it senses whatever's around it, it can pick up some signals, maybe brain waves or thoughts, and it sends out these snares, like the bus, like the girl. You think I'm crazy now, don't you?"
Sapphire didn't answer right away. She didn't want to offend this nice person, especially since it was Argus' wife and she was going to need her, sooner or later. On the other hand, she did think the woman was probably nuts. But she couldn't be sure. Nuclear physics? Obviously the woman was smart, and she didn't sound crazy. She talked like she'd thought the thing through, and did it make any sense? Sapphire drank more coffee to give herself time to keep thinking.
"Why Argus?" she finally asked.
"He was there," Margaret quickly replied. "He was there when it went after Charlie with the bus, and it sensed him, and it knew something about him."
"They put a stadium there," Sapphire countered. "It must have sensed millions of people if that's how it works."
"Maybe it goes dormant," Margaret replied. She had obviously considered this angle.
"It goes dormant," she continued. "Look at the pattern. It was seventeen years after Charlie when Fulsom went after Argus, and now? It's been seventeen years again now."
Sapphire wished she'd thought of recording this conversation, but at the time it began it didn't seem like it was going to be significant. Now she had to wonder. Maybe there was something to this theory. At the very least it was an angle to the story. She reached into her pocket to pull out her device. She was going to ask Margaret to repeat her ideas when her phone rang instead. It was Sneed.
"We've got trouble," Sneed shouted. "The girl, or whatever it is, she is gone."