The beginnings of a working theory hit Sam like a thunderbolt.
It was her monthly excursion to the Mainland for supplies. With the extensive shopping list completed, Sam was treating herself to lunch and a salty rimmed margarita at THE MEX before heading back to catch the late afternoon ferry.
Sitting alone in a corner booth, she was mulling over the recent happenings, trying to gain some sort of prospective on it all as she ate.
The very idea was so ludicrous that it caused her to choke on her chicken burrito. Got to take it easy on that hot sauce, the waitress mumbled, as she quickly brought Sam a glass of ice water.
Sam put her fork down and found her cigarettes and lighter. Try to think sensibly, she admonished herself wordlessly. Deliberately, one by one, she mentally began to lay out the recent events, trying to place them into some kind of order.
Where to begin? Her abduction. Happy’s abduction. Start with those. There had undeniably been many similarities between the two unrelated incidents. The same type of unfamiliar craft, light and faceless beings. Could they both have dreamed it? No, Sam didn’t believe in the possibility of that strong a coincidence. Besides, what about the disc - like object? If, as Happy claimed, it had really come out of his eye, wasn’t that some sort of physical evidence?
Next there were the enigmatic radio beacons. What if they hadn’t meant to be contact signals to Earth at all? Perhaps the signals really weren’t overtures from a friendly, distant civilization as she had assumed. What if they had simply been mistakenly intercepted?
And what about Wanda’s recent visions? Well, Sam reasoned, why not? Christians claimed to see Christ; Buddhists saw Buddha, so why couldn’t Wanda see Gluskabe?
Was there any significance there? Of course there was.
Here Sam paused to finish off her margarita in one gulp.
The one common thread running through all of these episodes was the constant allegation of an imminent end to the entire world.
Sam reluctantly weighed the possibility. Doom and damnation.
Now, that’s a cheerful hypothesis, she thought as she paid the bill.
She was queued up in a long line of cars to board the ferry in Bass Harbor when the next incongruous notion occurred to her.
Was Per somehow entangled in this pattern of events? Where had he in reality come from? Was it truly Norway, as he had claimed? Perhaps more importantly, why was Per on Swans Island? Once again, she realized how very little she actually knew about him. He, on the other hand, seemed to know a great deal about her.
Before the ferry had even begun to dock, Sam spotted first Spike, then Happy sitting on the wharf. She had to assume they were waiting for her. She departed the ferry and pulled off onto the side of the parking lot to pick them up. Sam tried very hard not to wince too noticeably as Spike eagerly clawed his way into the back seat.
As it was now the middle of June, the tourists were out in full force. Sam had to wait a bit before she could turn out onto Harbor Road. Traffic jams on the Island were generally a rare occurrence.
She took a quick glance at Happy as she drove. He had said absolutely nothing.
On the other hand, he didn’t have to. The audible crunching on the stem of his pipe spoke volumes by itself. For the first time in all the years Sam had known him, Happy looked every day of his age.
"When are you going to tell me what’s wrong?" she asked, pulling the car neatly into her driveway.
"I saw it again ..... last night." Sam nodded quietly, waiting for the other shoe to drop ..... knowing it would. "This time, though, I wasn’t alone. Someone else was there, too."
Sam was elated. "Happy, that’s wonderful! Someone else has seen it, too.
Who? Who was this person, Hap?"
Clearing his throat, Happy tried to pick his words carefully. "It was that Per fellow standing out there. He was waiting. That’s just what he was doing." He finished strongly.
"But Happy, I don’t understand. What’s the problem here? God, I’m delighted that someone else besides us has finally seen it!" Sam quickly snapped her head up to look Happy in the eye. "What do you mean, he was waiting? Waiting for what?"
"Them." Happy stated flatly. "He was waiting for them to come. And another thing, he’s not a he."
Sam couldn’t suppress a short, humorless laugh. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I watched him, Sam. Stayed out of sight in my old Impala, don’t you know, and I saw him ....... disappear before my very eyes. Jumping Jesus! His body just started vanishing from his head on down! People can’t do that, can they Sam?" He sounded like a plaintive child desperately seeking reassurance that all was right with his world.