Lachesis: [He’s at the Civic Center now. His mother, whose life you and Lois also saved this morning, got a call from her babysitter less than an hour ago, saying she’d cut herself badly on a piece of glass and wouldn’t be able to take care of the boy tonight after all. By then it was too late to find another sitter, of course, and this woman has been determined for weeks to see Susan Day ... to shake her hand, even give her a hug, if possible. She idolizes the Day woman.]

Ralph, who remembered the fading bruises on her face, supposed that was an idolatry he could understand. He understood something else even better: the babysitter’s cut hand had been no accident. Something was determined to place the little boy with the shaggyblond bangs and the smoke-reddened eyes at the Civic Center, and was willing to move heaven and earth to do it. His mother had taken him not because she was a bad parent, but because she was as subject to human nature as anyone else. She hadn’t wanted to miss her one chance at seeing Susan Day, that was all.

No, it’s not all, Ralph thought. She also took him because she thought it would be safe, with Pickering and his Daily Bread crazies all dead. It must have seemed to her that the worst she’d have to protect her son from tonight would be a bunch of sign-waving pro-lifers, that lightning couldn’t possibly strike her and her son twice on the same day.

Ralph had been gazing off toward Witcham Street. Now he turned back to Clotho and Lachesis.

[“You’re sure he’s there? Positive?”]

Clotho: [Yes. Sitting in the upper north balcony next to his mother with a McDonald’s poster to color and some storybooks. Would it surprise you to know that one of the stories is The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins?]

Ralph shook his head. At this point, nothing would surprise him.

Lachesis: [It’s the north side of the Civic Center that Deepneau’s plane will strike. This little boy will be killed instantly if steps are not taken to prevent it ... and that can’t be allowed to happen. This boy must not die before his scheduled time.] - Insomnia