Two days later she came into his room early in the morning. Her fact was grey. Paul was alarmed. 'Miss Wilkes? Annie? Are you all right?' 'No.' She's had a heart attack, thought Paul, and the alarm was replaced by joy. I hope it was a big one. She came and stood over his bed, looking down at him out of her paper-white face. Her neck was tense and she opened her hands and then closed them into tight fists, again and again. 'You ... you . . . you dirty bird! she stammered. 'What? I don't understand.' But suddenly he did understand. He remembered that yesterday she was three-quarters of the way through Misery's Child. Now she knew it all. She knew that Ian and Misery could not have children; she knew that Misery gave birth to Geoffrey's child and died in the process. 'She can't be dead!' Annie Wilkes screamed at him. Her hands opened and closed faster and faster. 'Misery Chastain cannot be dead!' 11 'Annie, please . . . She picked up a heavy jug of water from the table next to his bed. Cold water spilled on to him. She brought it down towards his head, but at the last second turned and threw it at the door instead of breaking his head open. She looked at him and brushed her hair off her face. Two red marks had appeared on her checks, 'You dirty bird,' she said. 'Oh, you dirty bird, how could you do that: You killed her.' 'No, Annie, I didn't. It's just a book.' She punched her fists down into the pillows next to his head. The whole bed shook and Paul cried out in pain. He knew that he was close to death. 'I didn't kill her!' he shouted. She stopped and looked at him with that narrow black expression - that gap. 'Oh no, of course you didn't. Well, just tell me this, then, Mister Clever; if you didn't kill her, who did? Just tell me that. You tell lies. I thought you were good, but you're just dirty and bad like all the others.' She went blank then. She stood up straight, with her hands hanging down by her sides, and looked at nothing. Paul realized that he could kill her. If there had been a piece of broken glass from the jug in his hand, he could have pushed it into her throat. She came back a little at a time and the anger, at least, was gone. She looked down at him sadly. 'I think I have to go away for a while,' she said. 'I shouldn't be near you. If I stay here I'll do something stupid.' 'Where will you go? What about my medicine?' Paul called after her as she walked out of the room and locked the door. But the only reply was the sound of her car as she drove away. He was alone in the house. Soon the pain came.