BOOK TWO. MANIFESTATIONS

CHAPTER 10


The darkness was almost like a living thing, curling around her, grasping her, strangling her.

She reached out, tried to struggle with it, but it was like trying to struggle with water: no matter how she tried, the darkness slipped through, flooded back over her, made it difficult to breathe.

She was alone, drowning in the darkness.

And then, as if a tiny glimmer of light had appeared in the blackness, she knew she was not alone.

Something else was there, reaching out to her, trying to find her in the darkness, trying to help her.

She could feel it brush against her, just a faint tickling sensation, at the edge of her consciousness.

And a voice.

A soft voice, calling to her as if from a great distance.

She wanted to answer that voice, to cry out to it, but her own voice failed her; her words died in her throat.

She concentrated on feeling the presence, tried to draw it close, tried to reach out and pull it to her.

Then the voice again, clearer now, though still far away.

“Help me … please help me …”

But it was she who needed help, she who was sinking into the black void. How could she help? How could she do anything?

The voice faded away; the darkness began to brighten.

Michelle opened her eyes.

She lay very still, uncertain where she was. Above her there was a ceiling.

She examined it carefully, looking for the familiar patterns she had identified in the cracked paint.

Yes, there was the giraffe. Well, not really a giraffe, but if you used your imagination, it could almost be a giraffe. To the left, just a little bit, should be the bird, one wing stretched in flight, the other bent strangely, as if it was broken.

She moved her eyes, just slightly. She was in her own bed, in her room. But it didn’t make sense. It was at the cove. She remembered. She was having a picnic at the cove with Sally and Jeff, and Susan. Susan Peterson. There were some others, but it was Susan she remembered as the morning came flooding back to her. Susan had been teasing her, saying horrible things to her, telling her that her parents didn’t love her anymore.

She had decided to go home. She was on the trail, and she could hear Susan’s voice echoing in her mind.

And then — and then? Nothing.

Except that now she was home, and she was in bed.

And there had been a dream.

There had been a voice in the dream, calling to her.

“Mom?” Her own voice seemed to echo oddly in the room, and for a second she wished she hadn’t called out. But the door opened, and her mother was there. Everything was going to be all right.

“Michelle?” June hurried to the bed, bent over Michelle, kissed her gently. “Michelle, are you awake?”

Her eyes wide and puzzled, Michelle stared up at her mother, seeing the fear that lay like a haunting mask over June’s face.

“What happened? Why am I in bed?”

Michelle started to sit up, but a stab of pain shot through her left side, and she gasped. At the same time, June put her hands on Michelle’s shoulders and gently pushed her back down.

“Don’t try to move,” she said. “Just lie very still, and I’ll get Daddy.”

“But what happened?” Michelle pleaded. “What happened to me?”

“You tripped on the trail and fell,” June told her. “Now just lie still, and let me call Daddy. Then we’ll tell you all about it.”

June left the bed and went to the door. “Cal?” she called. “Cal, she’s awake!” Without waiting for him to respond, she came back into the room to hover once more over Michelle’s bed.

“How do you feel, darling?”

“I–I don’t know,” Michelle stammered. “I feel sort of—” She hesitated, searching for the right word. “Numb, I guess. How did I get here?”

“Your father brought you,” June told her. “Jeff Benson came up and got him, then—”

Cal appeared in the doorway, and as Michelle’s eyes met her father’s, she knew something had changed. It was the way he looked at her, as if she had done something — something bad. But all she had done was have an accident. Could he be mad at her about that? “Daddy?” As she whispered the word, it seemed to echo in the room, and she saw her father step back slightly. But then he came toward her, took her wrist in his hand, counted her pulse, and tried to smile.

“How bad does it hurt?” he asked softly.

“If I lie still, it’s only sort of an ache,” Michelle replied. She wanted to reach up to him, put her arms around him, and be held by him. But she knew she couldn’t.

“Try not to move,” he instructed her. “Just lie perfectly still, and I’ll give you something for the pain.”

“What happened?” Michelle asked again. “How far did I fall?”

“Everything’s going to be fine, honey,” Cal told her, avoiding her questions.

Very gently, he eased the covers back and began examining Michelle carefully, his fingers moving slowly over her body, pausing every few inches, prodding, pressing. As he moved close to her left hip, Michelle suddenly cried out in pain. Instantly, Cal withdrew his hands.

“Get my bag, will you, darling?” He kept his eyes on Michelle as he spoke, and tried not let his voice betray the fears that were building inside him. June slipped from the room, and as he waited for her to return, Cal talked quietly to Michelle, trying to calm her fears, and his own as well.

“You gave us quite a scare. Do you remember what happened? Any of it?”

“I was coming home,” Michelle began. “I was coming up the trail, sort of running, I guess, and — and I must have slipped.”

His blue eyes clouded with worry, Cal watched Michelle intently. “But why were you coming home? Was the picnic over?”

“N-no …” Michelle faltered. “I–I just didn’t want to stay any longer. Some of the kids were teasing me.”

“Teasing you? Teasing you about what?”

About you, she wanted to cry out. About you and Mom not loving me anymore. But instead of speaking her thoughts, Michelle only shook her head uncertainly. “I don’t remember,” she whispered. “I don’t remember at all.” She closed her eyes and tried to force the sound of Susan Peterson’s mocking voice out of her mind. But it stayed there, crashing around in her brain, nearly as painful as the dull ache that permeated her body.

She opened her eyes as June came back into the room, and watched as her father took a vial out of his bag, filled a hypodermic needle from it, then swabbed her arm with alcohol.

“This won’t hurt,” he promised. He forced a grin. “At least, not next to what you’ve already been through.” He administered the injection, then straightened up. “Now, I want you to go to sleep. The shot will make the pain go away, but I want you to lie still, and try to sleep.”

“But I’ve already been sleeping,” Michelle protested.

“You’ve been unconscious,” Cal corrected her, a smile softening the worry lines that seemed etched into his face. “One hour unconscious doesn’t count as a nap. So take a nap.” Winking at her, he turned and started out of the room.

“Daddy?” Michelle’s voice, sharp in the sudden quiet of the room, stopped him. He turned back to her, his face questioning. Michelle gazed at him, pain clouding her eyes. “Daddy,” she said, her voice now little more than a whisper, “Do you love me very much?”

Cal stood silent for a moment, then went back to his daughter. He leaned over her, and kissed her gently on the cheek. “Of course I do, sweetheart. Why wouldn’t I?”

Michelle smiled at him gratefully. “No reason,” she said. “I just wondered.”

As Cal left the room, June came over and very carefully sat down on the edge of the bed. She took Michelle’s hand in her own. “We both love you very much,” she said. “Did something make you think we didn’t?”

Michelle shook her head, but her eyes, moist with tears now, remained fixed on June’s face, as though asking for something. June bent forward and kissed Michelle, her lips lingering on her daughter’s cheek.

“I’ll be all right, Mommy,” Michelle said suddenly. “Really, I will!”

“Of course you will, darling.” June stood up and tucked the covers over Michelle. “Is there anything I can get you?”

Michelle shook her head, then, a thought occurring to her, changed her mind. “My doll,” she said. “Could you get Mandy for me? She’s on the window seat.”

June picked up the doll, brought it to the bed, and placed it on the pillow next to Michelle. Though her face twisted in pain at the effort, Michelle turned Mandy around, tucked her under the covers, then lay back, the porcelain figure nestled like a baby against her shoulder. She closed her eyes.

June stood watching Michelle for a moment, then, thinking that her daughter had already fallen asleep, she tiptoed out of the room, easing the door dosed behind her.

Cal sat at the kitchen table, staring out the window, his unseeing eyes fixed on the horizon.

It was all going to happen again.

Only this time, the victim of his incompetence was not going to be a stranger, someone he barely knew. This time it was going to be his own daughter.

And this time, there were going to be no easy excuses, no salving of his conscience by telling himself that anybody could have made such a mistake.

Without realizing quite what he was doing, Cal got up and poured himself a tumbler of whiskey.

June came into the kitchen just as he had taken his first swallow of the liquor. For a moment she wasn’t sure he was aware of her presence. Then he spoke.

“It’s my fault.”

June knew instantly that he was thinking of Alan Hanley, and connecting his death to Michelle’s accident.

“It’s not your fault,” she said. “What happened to Michelle was an accident, and though I know you don’t believe it, Alan Hanley’s death was an accident, too. You didn’t kill him, Cal, and you didn’t push Michelle off the bluff.”

It was as if he didn’t hear her. “I shouldn’t have brought her up.” His voice was dull, lifeless. “I should have left her on the beach until I could get a stretcher.”

She stared at him. “What are you talking about? Cal, what are you saying? She’s not that badly hurt!” She waited for an answer. When none was forthcoming, she began to feel the fear that had subsided as Michelle came out of her unconsciousness surge through her once more, clutching at her stomach, choking her. “Is she?” she demanded, her voice rising sharply.

“I don’t know.” Cal’s empty eyes met hers, then shifted to the bottle. He refilled the tumbler, then stared at it, as if realizing for the first time what he was drinking. “She shouldn’t be hurting as much as she is. She should be bruised, and she should be aching, but she shouldn’t have those sharp pains when she moves.”

“Is something broken?”

“Not as far as I can tell.”

“Then what’s causing the pain?”

Cal’s hand crashed down on the table. “I don’t know, damn it! I just don’t know!”

June reeled at his outburst, then, seeing that he was on the edge of some Kind of breakdown, forced herself to stay calm.

“What do you think?” she asked when she felt she could trust her voice.

His eyes took on a wildness that June had never seen before, and his hand began to quiver. “I don’t know. I don’t even want to guess. But there could be all kinds of damage, and it’ll all be my fault.”

“You can’t know that,” June objected. “You don’t even know that anything serious is wrong.”

It was as if he didn’t hear her. “I shouldn’t have moved her. I should have waited.”

He was about to pour some more whiskey into his glass when there was a rapping at the back door, and Sally Carstairs stuck her head in.

“May I come in?”

“Sally!” June said. She’d thought the children had left long ago. She glanced at Cal. He appeared to have calmed down slightly — enough, anyway, that she was able to shift her concentration to Sally. “Are you all out there? Come in.”

“There’s only me,” Sally said half-apologetically as she let herself into the kitchen. “Everybody else went home.” She stopped uncertainly, then: “Is Michelle all right?”

“She will be,” June said with an assurance she didn’t feel. She offered Sally a glass of lemonade, and invited her to sit down. “Sally,” she began as she poured the lemonade, “what happened down on the beach? Why was Michelle coming home early?”

Sally fidgeted at the table, decided there was no reason not to tell what had happened.

“Some of the Kids were teasing her. Susan Peterson, mostly.”

“Teasing her?” June kept her voice level, curious but not condemning. “What about?”

“About her being adopted. Susan said that — that—” She fell silent with embarrassment.

That what? That we wouldn’t love her anymore, now that we have Jennifer?”

Sally’s eyes widened in surprise. “How did you know?”

June sat down at the table, her eyes meeting Sally’s. “It’s the first thing everyone thinks of,” she said quietly. “But it’s not true. Now we have two daughters, and we love both of them.”

Sally’s eyes fell to her glass, and she seemed intent on its contents. “I know,” she whispered. “I never said anything to her at all, Mrs. Pendleton. Really, I didn’t.”

June could feel herself slipping. She wanted to cry, wanted to lay her head on the table, and weep. But she couldn’t let herself. Not now. Not yet She stood up, struggling to maintain her self-control, and made herself smile at Sally.

“Maybe you should come back tomorrow,” she said. “I’m sure by tomorrow, Michelle will want to see you.”

Sally Carstairs finished her lemonade, and left.

June sank back onto her chair and stared at the bottle, wishing she dared have a drink, wishing there was some way she could make Cal see that whatever had happened to Michelle wasn’t his fault. She watched him refill his glass, started to say something to him. But as she was about to speak, she suddenly had the feeling that she was being watched. She turned quickly.

Josiah Carson was standing in the kitchen door. How long had he been there? June didn’t know. He nodded at her, then he stepped into the room and placed his hand on Cal’s shoulder.

“Want to tell me what happened?” he asked.

Cal stirred slightly, as though Carson’s touch had brought him back to some kind of reality.

“I hurt her,” he said, his voice almost childish. “I tried to help her, but I hurt her.”

June stood up, deliberately shoving the table against Cal. The sudden movement distracted him from what he was saying. June spoke quickly.

“She’s in pain, Dr. Carson,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. “Cal says she hurts more than she should.”

“She fell off a cliff,” Josiah said bluntly. “Of course she hurts.” His eyes moved from June to Cal. “Trying to drown her pain in alcohol, Cal?”

Cal ignored the question. “I may have injured her myself, Josiah,” he said.

“Perhaps so. Or perhaps not. Suppose I go up and have a look at her. And just what is it you think you did to her?”

“I brought her home. I didn’t wait for a stretcher.”

Carson nodded curtly and turned away, but just as his face disappeared from her line of sight, June thought she saw something.

She thought she saw him smile.

Michelle lay awake in bed, listening to the voices below. She had heard Sally a while ago, and now she could hear Dr. Carson.

She was glad Sally hadn’t come up, and she hoped Dr. Carson wouldn’t either. She didn’t want to see anybody, not right now.

Maybe not ever.

Then the door to her room opened, and Dr. Carson stepped in. He closed the door and came close to the bed, leaned over her.

“Want to tell me what happened?” he asked. Michelle looked up at him, and shrugged.

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember anything?”

“Not much. Just—” She hesitated, but Dr. Carson was smiling at her, not forcing himself to, as her father had, but really smiling. “I don’t know what happened. I was running up the trail, and then all of a sudden it was foggy. I couldn’t see, and — and I tripped, I guess.”

“So it was the fog, was it?” There had been fog the day Alan Hanley fell, too. He could remember it clearly. It had come on suddenly, the way it did sometimes with sudden changes in temperature.

Michelle nodded.

“Your father thinks he hurt you. Do you think so?”

Michelle shook her head. “Why would he?”

“I don’t know,” Carson said softly. His eves moved to the doll on the pillow next to Michelle. “Does she have a name?”

“Amanda — Mandy.”

Josiah paused, then smiled, more to himself than to Michelle. “Well, I’ll tell you what. You lie here, and let Amanda take care of you. All right?” He patted Michelle’s hand, then stood up. A second later he was gone, and Michelle was alone once more.

She pulled her doll closer to her.

“You’re going to have to be my friend now, Mandy,” she whispered into the empty room. “I wish you were a real baby. I could take care of you, and we could be friends, and show each other things, and do things together. And you’d never say bad things to me, like Susan did. You’d just love me, and I’d just love you, and we’d take care of each other.”

Fighting against the pain, she moved the doll around until it lay on her chest, its face only inches from her own.

“I’m glad you have brown eyes,” she said softly. “Brown eyes, like mine. Not blue, like Jenny’s and Mom’s and Dad’s. I’ll bet my mother — my real mother — had brown eyes, and I’ll bet yours did, too. Did your mama love you, Mandy?”

She fell silent again, and tried to listen, tried to hear whatever voices might be talking in the house. Then she began wishing that Jenny were in the room with her. Jenny couldn’t talk to her, but at least Jenny was alive, was breathing, was — real.

That was the trouble with Mandy. She wasn’t real. Try as she would, Michelle couldn’t make her be anything but a doll. And now, as she lay alone, her whole body throbbing with pain, Michelle wanted somebody — somebody who would be hers alone, belong to her, be a part of her.

Somebody who would never betray her.

Slowly, the drug began to take effect. In a little while, Michelle drifted back to the darkness.

The darkness, and the voice.

The voice that was out there, calling to her.

Now, as she slept, the darkness no longer frightened her. Now she only wanted to find the voice, or have the voice find her.

CHAPTER 11


For the Pendletons, there was a sense of waiting for something — something unforeseen and unknowable, something that would bring them all back to the real world, and tell them that life was going to be again what it had been before. It had been that way for ten days now, ever since Michelle had been brought back from the hospital in Boston, riding into town in an ambulance, making the kind of entrance she would have loved only a month ago.

But something inside her had changed. It was more than the accident — it had to be.

At first she had refused to get out of bed at all. When June, backed up by the doctors, had insisted that it was time for her to begin taking care of herself, they had discovered that she could no longer walk by herself.

She had been given every examination possible, and as far as the doctors could tell, there was nothing wrong with her except for some bruises that had long since begun to heal.

Her left hip hurt her, and her left leg was nearly useless.

They had given her more tests — X-rayed her brain and spinal column again and again, injected dyes into her bloodstream, tapped her spine, checked her reflexes — gone over her until she wished she could simply die. Still unable to determine the cause of her lameness, they had brought in a physical therapist, who had worked with Michelle until, ten days ago, she had finally been able to walk by herself, though painfully, and only by leaning heavily on a cane.

So they had brought her home. June told herself that time would make the difference.

In time, Michelle would regain herself, would begin to recover from the shocks and indignities of the hospital, would begin dismissing her lameness with the same humor with which she had always dismissed whatever problems she had faced.

Michelle was taken up to her room and put in her bed.

She asked for her doll.

And there, for ten days, she lay, the doll tucked in the crook of her arm, staring idly at the ceiling. She responded when she was spoken to, called for help when she needed to go to the bathroom, and sat uncomplainingly on a chair for the few minutes it took June to change her bed each day.

But for the most part, she simply stayed in bed, silent and staring.

June was sure there was more to it than even the accident, the pain, or the crippling. No, it was something else, and June was sure it had to do with Cal.

Now, on Saturday morning, June glanced across the breakfast table at Cal, who was staring into his coffee cup, his face expressionless. She knew what he was thinking about, though he hadn’t told her. He was thinking about Michelle, and the recovery he claimed she was making.

It had started the day after they had brought her home, when Cal had announced that he thought Michelle was getting better. And each day, while June was horribly aware that nothing was changing for Michelle, Cal had talked of how well she was doing.

June knew the cause of it — Cal was convinced that whatever was wrong with Michelle was his fault. For him to live with himself, Michelle had to get better. And so he insisted that she was.

But she wasn’t.

As June watched him, she found herself becoming angry.

“When are you going to stop this charade?” she heard herself saying. As Cal’s head came up and his eyes narrowed, she knew she had chosen the wrong words.

“Would you like to tell me what you’re talking about?”

“I’m talking about Michelle,” June replied. “I’m talking about the fact that every day you say she’s better, when it’s obvious that she’s not.”

“She’s doing fine.” Cal’s voice was low, and June was sure she could hear a desperation in his words.

“If she’s doing fine, why is she still in bed?”

Cal shifted, and his eyes avoided June’s. “She needs to get her strength back. She needs to rest—”

“She needs to get out of bed, and face life! And you need to stop kidding yourself! It doesn’t matter what happened, or whose fault it is. The fact is she’s crippled, and she’s going to stay that way, and both of you have to face up to it and get on with things!”

Cal rose from his chair, his eyes wild, and for a split second, June was afraid he might hit her. Instead, he moved toward the hall.

“Where are you going?”

He turned back to face her.

“I’m going to talk to Josiah Carson. Do you mind?”

She minded. She minded very much. She wished he would stay home, and if he did nothing else, at least finish the reconstruction of the butler’s pantry. But Cal was spending more and more time with Josiah, hanging on to him, and she knew there was no way to stop him.

“If you need to talk to him, talk to him,” she said. “What time will you be back?”

“I don’t know,” Cal replied. A moment later, she heard the front door slam as he left the house.

June sat alone at the table, wondering what to do. And then it came to her. Today she was going to get through to Michelle, make her see that her life was not over.

As she was about to start upstairs, there was a soft rapping at the kitchen door. She opened it to find Sally Carstairs and Jeff Benson standing on the porch.

“We came over to see Michelle,” Sally announced She seemed slightly uncertain, as if she wasn’t sure they should have come. “Is it all right?”

June smiled, and some of the tension left her. Every day she had hoped Michelle’s friends would come. For a while she had toyed with the idea of calling Mrs. Carstairs, or Constance Benson, but each time had rejected it — visitors forced to come would be worse than no visitors at all “Of course it’s all right,” she said. “You should have come a long time ago.”

She settled the children at the kitchen table, gave them each a cinnamon roll, then went upstairs.

“Michelle?” She kept her voice soft, but Michelle was awake, her eyes, as usual, fixed on the ceiling.

“Um?”

“You have visitors — Sally and Jeff are here to see you. Shall I bring them up?”

“I–I don’t think so” Michelle’s voice was dull.

“Why not? Don’t you feel well?” June tried to keep her irritation out of her voice, but failed. Michelle peered at her mother.

“Why did they come?” she asked. She sounded frightened.

“Because they want to see you. They’re your friends.” When Michelle didn’t respond, June pressed the issue. “Aren’t they?”

“I guess,” Michelle replied.

“Then I’ll bring them up.” Not giving Michelle time to protest, she went to the head of the stairs and called down to the children below. A moment later she ushered them into Michelle’s room. Michelle was struggling to sit up in bed. When Sally made a move to help her, Michelle looked at her angrily.

“I can do it,” she said. Summoning all her strength, she heaved herself up, then flopped against the pillows, wincing at the strain.

“Are you all right?” Sally asked, her eyes wide as she realized the extent of Michelle’s injuries.

“I will be,” Michelle said. There was a pause. “But it hurts,” she added. She looked from Sally to Jeff, an unspoken accusation in her eyes.

June hesitated in the doorway, watching the interplay among the three children. Perhaps it was a mistake — perhaps she shouldn’t have brought Sally and Jeff upstairs. But Michelle had to face them, had to talk to them; they were her friends. Without a word, she slipped out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

There was an awkward silence after June left, as each of the children waited for someone else to speak first. Jeff shuffled restlessly, and avoided Michelle’s eyes.

“Well, I’m not dead, anyway,” Michelle said at last.

“Can you walk?” Sally asked.

Michelle nodded. “But not very well. It hurts, and I limp something awful.”

“It’ll get better, won’t it?” Sally sat carefully on the edge of the bed, trying not to shake Michelle.

Michelle didn’t answer.

Sally’s eyes filled with tears. It just didn’t seem fair. Michelle hadn’t done anything. If anybody should have gotten hurt, it should have been Susan Peterson. “I’m sorry,” she said aloud. “Nobody meant for anything to happen to you. Susan was only teasing …”

“I slipped,” Michelle said suddenly. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault. I just slipped. And I’ll be all right — you’ll see! I’ll be fine!” She turned her head away from Sally, but not before Sally saw the bitter tears beginning to form.

“Do you hate us all?” Sally asked. “I hate Susan …”

Michelle looked at Sally curiously. “Then why didn’t you make her shut up? Why didn’t you help me?”

The tears welled over and ran down her cheeks, and Sally quietly began crying too. Jeff tried to ignore the girls, and wished he hadn’t come. He hated it when girls cried — it always made him feel as though he’d done something wrong. He decided to change the subject.

“When are you coming back to school? Do you want us to bring you your work?”

Michelle sniffled. “I don’t feel like studying.”

“But you’ll get so far behind,” Sally protested.

“Maybe I won’t come back to school.”

“You have to,” Jeff said. “Everybody has to go to school.”

“Maybe my parents will send me to another school.”

“But why?” Sally’s tears had disappeared.

“Because I’m crippled.”

“But you can walk. You said so.”

“I limp. Everybody will laugh at me.”

“No, they won’t,” Sally assured her. “We won’t let them, will we, Jeff?” Jeff nodded in agreement, though his expression was uncertain.

“Susan Peterson will,” Michelle said lifelessly, as if she didn’t care.

Sally made a face. “Susan Peterson laughs at everybody. Just ignore her.”

“Like everybody did at the picnic?” Michelle’s voice was bitter now, and her face turned angry. “Why don’t you leave me alone? Why don’t all of you just leave me alone!”

Abashed at Michelle’s outburst, Sally stood up quickly. “I–I’m sorry,” she stammered, her face reddening. “We were just trying to help …”

“Nobody can help,” Michelle said, her voice quivering. “I have to do it myself. All of it!”

She turned her face away and closed her eyes. Jeff and Sally stared at her for a moment, then started toward the door.

“I’ll come back again,” Sally offered, but when there was no response from Michelle, she followed Jeff out into the hall.

June was waiting for them downstairs. She knew immediately that something had gone wrong. “Did she talk to you?”

“Sort of.” Sally’s voice was unsteady. June saw that she was on the verge of tears. She put an arm around the girl and hugged her gently.

“Try not to let her worry you,” she urged. “It’s been terrible for her, and she’s been in pain all the time. But she’ll be all right. It’ll just take time.”

Sally nodded mutely. Then her tears overflowed, and she buried her face in June’s shoulder.

“Oh, Mrs. Pendleton, I feel like it’s our fault. All our fault.”

June drew the girl to her. “It’s not your fault, or anyone’s fault, and I’m sure Michelle doesn’t think it is.”

“Are you really going to send her away to school?” Jeff asked suddenly. June looked at him blankly.

“Away? What do you mean?”

“Michelle said she might be going to another school. I guess a school for — cripples,” he finished, stumbling on the word as if he hated to use it.

“Is it true?” Sally searched June’s face, but June carefully remained expressionless.

“Well, we’ve talked about it …” she lied, wondering where Michelle had gotten such an idea. It had never even been mentioned.

“I hope she can stay here.” Sally’s voice was eager. “Nobody will laugh at her — really they won’t!”

“Why, whatever put such an idea into your heads?” June exclaimed. She began to wonder exactly what had transpired upstairs, but knew better than to try to pry it out of Jeff and Sally. “Now why don’t you two run along and come back in a couple of days. I’m sure Michelle will be feeling much better then.”

June watched the two children retreat along the bluff. She could see them talking animatedly together. When Jeff glanced back at the house, June waved to him, but he ignored her, turning almost guiltily away.

June’s spirits, buoyed by the appearance of Sally and Jeff, sank again. She started upstairs to have a talk with Michelle. But as she was about to go into her daughter’s room, Jennifer suddenly began crying. June stood indecisively at Michelle’s door for a moment. As Jennifer’s howls increased, she decided to see to the baby first. Then she would face Michelle, and have a talk with her. A real talk.

Michelle lay in bed, her eyes open, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, listening to the voice.

It was closer now, closer than it had ever been before. She still had to listen carefully to make out the words, but she was getting better at it.

It was a pleasant voice, almost musical. Michelle was almost sure she knew where it came from.

It was the girl.

The girl in the black dress, the one she had seen first in her dreams, then that day at the graveyard. The day Jennifer had been born.

At first, the girl had only called out to her, calling for help. But now she was saying other things. Michelle lay in bed, and she listened.

“They’re not your friends,” the voice crooned. “None of them are.

Don’t believe Sally. She’s Susan’s friend, and Susan hates you.

“All of them hate you.

“They pushed you.

“They pushed you off the trail.

“They want to kill you.

“But it won’t happen. I won’t let it happen.

“I’m your friend, and I’ll take care of you. I’ll help you.

“We’ll help each other …”

The voice faded away, and Michelle became aware of a soft tapping at her door. The door opened, and her mother came in, smiling at her, Jennifer in her arms.

“Hi! How’s everything?”

“All right, I guess.”

“Did you have a nice visit with Sally and Jeff?”

“I guess.”

“I thought you might like to say hello to your sister.”

Michelle stared at the baby, her face expressionless.

“What did Sally and Jeff have to say?” June was beginning to feel desperate. Michelle was barely answering her questions.

“Nothing much. They just wanted to say hi.”

“But you must have talked with them.”

“Not really.”

A heavy silence fell over the room. June began fiddling with Jennifer’s blanket while she tried to decide what tactic to take with Michelle. Finally, reluctantly, she made up her mind.

“Well, I think it’s time you got out of bed,” she said flatly. At last there was a reaction from Michelle. Her eyes flickered, and for a moment June thought they filled with fear. She shrank further down under the covers.

“But I can’t …” she began. June quietly interrupted her.

“Of course you can,” she said smoothly. “You get out of bed every day. And it’s good for you — the sooner you get out of bed and start exercising, the sooner you can go back to school.”

“But I don’t want to go back to school,” Michelle said. Now, suddenly, she was sitting up straight, staring intensely at her mother. “I never want to go back to that school. They all hate me there.”

“Don’t be silly,” June said. “Who told you that?”

Michelle glanced wildly around the room, as if searching for something. Her eyes came to rest on her doll, sitting in its usual place on the window seat.

“Mandy,” she said. “Amanda told me!”

June’s mouth fell open in surprise. She stared first at Michelle, then at the doll. Surely she didn’t think it was real! No, she couldn’t. Then June realized what had happened. An imaginary friend. Michelle had made up an imaginary friend to keep her company. And yet, there was the doll: its glass eyes, large and dark as Michelle’s, seemed to see right through her. June closed her mouth, and stood up.

“I see,” she said hollowly. “Well.” Dear God, what’s happening to her? she thought What’s happening to all of us? Trying to keep her confusion from her voice, and forcing herself to smile at Michelle as if nothing were wrong, she got to her feet.

“We’ll talk about it later.” She bent over and kissed Michelle lightly on the cheek. Michelle’s only response was to lower herself, so she was once more lying on the bed. As June watched, all expression seemed to fade from Michelle’s face. Had her eyes not remained open, June would have sworn she had fellen asleep.

Hugging Jennifer close to her, June backed slowly out of the room.

Cal came home in the middle of the afternoon, and spent the rest of the day reading and playing with Jennifer. He spoke only briefly to June, and didn’t go up to Michelle’s room at all.

As June finished setting the table for dinner, and was about to call Cal into the kitchen, an idea came to her. Without pausing to think about it, she went into the living room where Cal sat with Jennifer in his lap.

“I’m going to have Michelle come down for dinner,” she said. She saw Cal flinch, but he quickly recovered himself.

“Tonight? What brought this on?” His voice was guarded, and June prepared herself for another argument.

“She’s spending too much time by herself. You never go up there—”

“That’s not true,” Cal started to protest, but June didn’t let him finish.

“Whether it’s true or not isn’t the point. The point is that she’s spending too much time alone, feeling sorry for herself. And I won’t let it continue. I’m going to go up and tell her to put on her robe and come downstairs. And I’m not going to take ‘no’ for an answer.”

As soon as she left the room, Cal put Jennifer in the extra bassinet they had installed in the living room, and fixed himself a drink. By the time June returned, he had finished it and begun on a second, which he brought with him when June called him to the table.

They sat silently, waiting for Michelle. As the hall clock ticked hollowly, Cal began twisting his napkin.

“How long are you going to wait?” he asked.

“Until Michelle comes down.”

“What if she doesn’t?”

“She will,” June said firmly. “I know she will.” But inside she did not feel the assurance of her own words.

The minutes dragged. June had to force herself to stay at the table, not to go upstairs, not to give in at all. And then it hit her.

Maybe Michelle couldn’t come down. She got up from the table and hurried into the hall.

At the top of the stairs, Michelle, her robe tied tightly around her waist, was clutching the bannister with one hand, while with the other she tested the top step with her cane.

“Can I help?” June offered. Michelle glanced at her, then shook her head.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll do it by myself.”

June felt the tension that had been building up in her suddenly release itself. But then, as Michelle spoke once more, the knot of fear that had been clutching at her all afternoon regained its grip, more tightly than ever.

“Mandy will help me,” Michelle said quietly. “She told me she would.”

Very carefully, Michelle started down the stairs.

CHAPTER 12


The morning sun, crackling with an autumnal brightness, flooded through the windows of the studio, its rays seeking out every corner, its brightness lending a new mood to the canvas on the easel. June had begun it several days ago. It depicted the view from the studio, but it was moody, somber, cast in heavy blues and grays that reflected all too well her own mood over the past few weeks. But this morning, bathed in the sunlight, its colors seemed to have changed, brightened, capturing the excitement of a suddenly gusting wind churning the cove on a dark day. Dipping her brush in white paint, June began adding whitecaps to the boiling sea that erupted over her canvas.

In one corner of the studio, Jennifer lay in her bassinet, cooing and gurgling in her sleep, her tiny hands contentedly clutching at her blanket. June tore herself away from her work long enough to smile at Jenny. As she was about to return to the canvas, a movement outside caught her eye.

Putting her palette and brush aside, she went to the window and looked out.

Michelle, leaning heavily on a cane, was making her way toward the studio.

As she watched, June fought to control her emotions, struggled against an almost overpowering impulse to go to Michelle, to help her.

Michelle’s pain was written boldly on her face: her features, even and delicate, were screwed into a mask of concentration as she made herself keep moving steadily forward, her good right leg moving easily, almost eagerly, while her left leg dragged reluctantly behind as if mired in mud, being moved by sheer strength of will.

June felt tears well up in her eyes. The contrast between this fragile child bravely limping toward her, and the robust, agile Michelle of only a few weeks ago tore at her.

I won’t cry, she told herself. If Michelle can take it, so can I. In a strange way, June drew strength from the pain-contorted body that drew steadily nearer, then, suddenly feeling self-conscious about watching Michelle, she turned back to her easel. When, a few minutes later, Michelle appeared at the door, she was able to feign surprise.

“Well, look who’s here!” she exclaimed, forcing her voice to a level of cheerfulness she didn’t feel. Reflexively, she took a step toward Michelle, but Michelle shook her head.

“I made it,” she said triumphantly, lowering herself on June’s stool so that her left leg hung nearly straight to the floor. She sighed heavily, then grinned at her mother, a trace of her old humor briefly illuminating her face. “If I hurried, I bet I could have made it twice as fast.”

“Does it hurt terribly?” June asked, letting her mask of cheerfulness fall away. Michelle seemed to consider her answer carefully, and June wondered whether she was going to hear the truth, or some evasion Michelle thought she might like to hear.

“Not as much as yesterday,” Michelle said.

“I’m not sure you should have tried coming all the way out here …”

“I needed to talk to you.” Michelle’s face turned serious, and she shifted her weight on the stool. Even that slight movement sent stabs of pain through her. She winced slightly, and waited for the spasm to pass before she spoke again.

“What is it?” June asked finally.

“I–I’m not sure. It’s—” She floundered for a moment, then her eyes moistened, and a tear began running slowly down her cheek. June quickly put her arms around Michelle and hugged her close.

“What is it, darling? Tell me. Please?”

Michelle buried her face against her mother, her body suddenly wracked with sobs. With each sob, June could feel Michelle’s body tighten with the pain in her hip. For several minutes June held her, until Michelle’s agony slowly passed.

“Is it that bad? Does it hurt that much?” June wished there were some way she could take the pain upon herself. But Michelle was shaking her head.

“It’s Daddy,” she said finally.

“Daddy? What about him?”

“He’s — he’s changed,” Michelle said softly, so softly June had to strain to hear her.

“Changed?” June echoed. “How?” But even as she asked the question, she knew the answer.

“Ever since I fell,” Michelle began, but then another storm of tears broke over her. “He doesn’t love me anymore,” she wailed. “Ever since I fell, he doesn’t love me!”

June rocked her gently, trying to comfort her. “No, darling, that isn’t true. You know that isn’t true. He loves you very much. Very, very much.”

“Well, he doesn’t act like it,” Michelle sobbed. “He — he never plays with me anymore, and he doesn’t talk to me, and when I try to talk to him he — he goes somewhere else.”

“Oh, now that isn’t true,” June said, though she knew it was. She had been afraid of this moment, sure that sooner or later Michelle was going to realize that something had happened to Cal, and that it had to do with her. She could feel Michelle shivering in her arms, though the studio was warm.

“It is true,” Michelle was saying, her voice muffled in the folds of June’s blouse. “This morning I asked him if I could go to the office with him. I only wanted to sit in the waiting room and read the magazines! But he wouldn’t let me.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that he didn’t want you with him,” June lied. “He probably had a busy day, and didn’t think he’d have much time for you.”

“He never has time for me. Not anymore!”

June pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket, and dried Michelle’s eyes. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I’ll have a talk with him tonight, and explain to him that it’s important for you to get out of the house. Then maybe he’ll take you along tomorrow. Okay?”

Michelle sniffled a little, blew her nose into the handkerchief, and shrugged. “I guess,” she replied, straightening up and trying to smile. “He does still love me, doesn’t he?”

“Of course he does,” June assured her once again. “I’m sure there’s nothing wrong at all. Now, let’s talk about something else.” She cast about in her mind quickly. “like school, for instance. Don’t you think it’s about time you thought about going back?”

Michelle shook her head uncertainly. “I don’t want to go back to school. Everybody will laugh at me. They always laugh at cripples.”

“Maybe they will at first,” June conceded. “But you just turn the other cheek, and ignore it. Besides, you’re not crippled. You just limp a little. And soon you won’t even limp anymore.”

“Yes, I will,” Michelle said evenly. “I’ll limp for the rest of my life.”

“No,” June protested. “You’ll get well. You’ll be fine.”

Michelle shook her head. “No I won’t. I’ll get used to it, but I won’t be fine.” Painfully, she got to her feet. “Is it all right if I go for a walk?”

“A walk?” June asked doubtfully. “Where?”

“Along the bluff. I won’t go very far.” Her eyes searched her mother’s face. “If I’m going to go back to school, I’d better practice, hadn’t I?”

Go back to school? A minute ago she said she didn’t want to go back to school. In confusion, June nodded her agreement. “Of course. But be careful, sweetheart. And please, don’t try to go down to the beach, all right?”

“I won’t,” Michelle promised. She started toward the studio door but suddenly stopped, her eyes fixed on the stain on the floor. “I thought that was gone.”

June shook her head. “We tried, but it wouldn’t come out. Maybe if I knew what it was …”

“Why don’t you ask Dr. Carson? He probably knows.”

“Maybe I will,” June said. Then: “How long will you be gone?”

“However long it takes,” Michelle said. Leaning on her cane, she slowly went out into the sunlight.

Josiah Carson stared up at the ceiling, ran one hand through his thick mane of nearly white hair, and drummed the fingers of his other hand on the desk top in front of him. As always when he was alone, he was thinking about Alan Hanley. Things had been going well until that day when Alan had fallen from the roof. Or had he fallen?

Josiah was sure he hadn’t. Over the years, too many things had happened in his house, too many people had died.

His mind drifted back to his wife, Sarah, and the days when life had seemed to him to be perfect. He and Sarah were going to have a family — a big family — but it hadn’t worked out that way. Sarah had died giving birth to his daughter. She shouldn’t have died — there was no reason for it. She had been healthy, the pregnancy had been easy, but as his daughter was born, Sarah had died. Josiah had survived the loss, pouring his love out to his daughter, little Sarah.

And then, when Sarah was just twelve, it had happened.

He still didn’t know how it had happened.

He came downstairs one morning and opened the huge walk-in refrigerator in the kitchen.

On the floor, holding a doll that Josiah had never seen before, he found his daughter, dead.

Why had she gone into the refrigerator? Josiah never knew.

He buried little Sarah and with her, he buried the doll.

After that, he had lived alone, and as the years, more than forty of them, passed, he had begun to believe that he was safe, that nothing more was going to happen.

And then, Alan Hanley had fallen.

In his own mind he was convinced that Alan hadn’t simply lost his footing. No, there was more to it than that, and the doll was the proof.

The doll he had buried with his daughter.

The doll he had found under Alan’s broken body.

The doll Michelle Pendleton had shown him.

Josiah had wanted to talk to Alan about the doll, but the boy had never regained consciousness: Cal Pendleton had let him die.

Had killed him, really.

If Cal hadn’t killed him, Josiah could have found out what had actually happened on the roof that day — what Alan had seen, and felt, and heard. He could have found out what was happening in his house, what had happened to his family. Now he’d never know. Cal Pendleton had ruined it for him.

But he’d get even.

He was already starting to get even.

It had been so easy, once he’d found out how guilty Cal felt about Alan. From there it was easy. Sell him the practice. Sell him the house. It had worked.

He’d gotten Cal into the house, and the doll was back.

Cal’s daughter had the doll now.

And whatever was happening, it was no longer happening to the Carsons.

Now it was happening to the Pendletons.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices from the examining room next to the office, where Cal was examining Lisa Hartwick.

Cal had tried to beg off examining Lisa, but Josiah hadn’t let him. He knew how frightened Cal was of children now, how he had a feeling — reasonable or not — that whatever he did with a child, it was going to be wrong, and he was going to hurt the child.

Josiah Carson understood those feelings.

In the examining room, Lisa Hartwick stared at Cal, her light brown bangs nearly hiding her suspicious eyes. When he asked her to open her mouth, she pouted.

“Why should I?”

“So I can look at your throat,” Cal told her. “If I can’t see it, I can’t tell you why it’s sore, can I?”

“It isn’t sore. I just told Daddy that so I wouldn’t have to go to school.”

Cal put down his tongue depressor, a feeling of relief flooding through him. With this child, at least, there was no immediate threat. Still, she wasn’t the nicest child he’d ever run across. In fact, he found himself disliking her intensely. “I see,” he replied. “Don’t you like school?”

Lisa shrugged. “It’s okay. I just can’t stand the snotty kids around here. If you weren’t born here, they never want to be your friends.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Cal replied. “Michelle’s made some friends.”

“That’s what she thinks,” Lisa said. “Wait’ll she goes back to school.” Then she cocked her head, and stared impudently at Cal. “Is it true that she can’t walk?”

Cal felt himself flush. When he answered, his voice was gruff. “She can walk just fine. There’s nothing wrong with her, and pretty soon she’ll be as good as new. She just got banged up a little.” He knew he was lying, but he couldn’t help himself — it made things easier if he pretended Michelle was going to be all right. And maybe — just maybe — she would be.

“Well, that’s not what I heard,” Lisa said, hopping off the examining table. Her expression changed suddenly, and her face took on a vulnerability Cal hadn’t seen since she showed up in the office. “I don’t have a mother, either,” she said softly.

For a moment Cal wasn’t sure what she meant, but then it came to him. “But Michelle has a mother,” he said. “We adopted her when she was just a baby.”

“Oh,” said Lisa, and Cal thought he could see disappointment in her eyes.

“Still,” Cal went on smoothly, “I suppose the two of you do have some things in common. Neither one of you was born here, and even though Michelle’s a full-fledged orphan, you’re half a one, aren’t you? Maybe you should come out and see Michelle sometime.…” He deliberately left the question hanging in the air. For a moment he thought Lisa was going to pick it up. But she didn’t, not quite.

“Maybe I will,” she said halfheartedly. “But maybe I won’t, either.” Before Cal could reply to her rudeness, she was gone.

• • •

When Cal came into the office they were sharing, Josiah Carson pretended to be engrossed in a medical journal. Only when Cal had seated himself at his makeshift desk did Carson glance up.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

Cal shrugged. “She’s a difficult child.”

“She’s a brat,” Carson stated.

“Well, life isn’t easy for her.”

“Life isn’t easy for any of us,” Josiah said pointedly.

Cal flinched visibly, then met Carson’s eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The old doctor shrugged elaborately. “Make of it what you will.”

It was as if he’d pulled a plug. Cal sagged in his chair, his eyes as lifeless as his posture. He looked bleakly at Carson.

“Josiah, what am I going to do? I can’t face Michelle, I can’t talk to her, I can’t even touch her. I keep thinking about Alan Hanley, and wondering what I did wrong. And what I did wrong with Michelle.”

“We all make mistakes, Cal,” Josiah said. “We can’t blame ourselves for showing bad judgment under pressure. We just have to accept our limitations, and live with them.”

He paused, trying to assess Cal’s reaction. Maybe he’d pushed him too far. But Cal was watching him, concentrating on what he was saying. Josiah smiled and took another tack. “Maybe it’s all my fault Certainly what happened to Michelle is my fault. If I hadn’t sold you that damned house—”

Cal glanced at Josiah sharply. “ ‘Damned house’? Why did you say that?”

Josiah shifted in his chair. “I probably shouldn’t have. Call it a slip of the tongue.”

But Cal was not to be put off.

“Is there something about that house I should know?”

“Not really,” Carson said carefully. “I guess I just think it’s an unlucky house. First Alan Hanley. Now Michelle.…” His voice trailed off.

Cal stared at him, feeling cheated. He loved the house, more every day, and wanted to hear nothing bad about it. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said. “For me, it’s a good house.”

He took off his white jacket, ready to go home for lunch. He was at the door when he suddenly turned back.

“Josiah?”

Carson looked at him inquiringly.

“Josiah, I just want you to know — I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I don’t know how I’d have gotten through all of this without you. I consider myself very lucky to have a friend like you.” Then, embarrassed by his own words, Cal hurried out of the office.

Alone once more, Carson’s mind went back to the words that had caught Cal’s attention.

Damned house.

And that’s what it is, he thought. An image came to his mind, an image of a stain, spread thickly on the floor of the potting-shed.

A stain that no one had ever been able to get rid of.

A stain that had haunted his life. Irrationally, he was convinced that it was somehow connected to Michelle Pendleton’s doll.

Now, he was sure, it would haunt the Pendletons.

Indeed, it was already beginning.

Josiah Carson didn’t pretend to know exactly what it was about the house that made things happen to the people who lived there, but he had his suspicions. And it was beginning to look like his suspicions were correct. For Michelle, it had already begun. And it would go on, and on, and on.…

Michelle stood in the cemetery, staring at the tiny stone with the single word on it:

AMANDA

She tried to make her mind blank, as if by closing out her thoughts, she would be able to hear the voice better. It worked.

She could hear the voice, far away, but coming closer.

As the voice approached, the bright sunlight faded, and the sea fog dosed around her.

Soon Michelle felt as though she were alone in the world.

Then, as if something had reached out and touched her, she knew she was not alone.

She turned. Standing behind her she saw the girl.

Her black dress fell nearly to the ground, and her head was covered by her bonnet. Her sightless, milky eyes were fixed on Michelle. She was smiling.

“You’re Amanda,” Michelle whispered. Her words hung in the fog, muffled. Then the girl nodded her head.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” The voice was soft, musical, and soothing to Michelle. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. I’m going to be your friend.”

“I–I don’t have any friends,” Michelle murmured.

“I know. I don’t have any friends, either. But now we’ll have each other, and everything will be fine.”

Michelle stood still, staring at the strange apparition in the fog, vaguely frightened. But Amanda’s words appealed to her, and comforted her. And she wanted a friend.

Silently, she accepted Amanda.

CHAPTER 13


“Now, you’re sure you’ll be all right?”

“If I need help, I’ll call you, or Miss Hatcher will, or someone will,” Michelle replied. She opened the car door, put her right foot on the sidewalk, braced herself with her cane, and pulled herself upright. June watched anxiously as she teetered, but Michelle quickly gained her balance, and slammed the door. Without waving or saying good-bye, she began limping slowly up the walk to the school building. June stayed where she was, watching, unable to drive away until Michelle was inside the building.

Carefully, her left hand holding on to the railing, her right hand maneuvering the cane, Michelle mounted the steps, leading with her right foot, then dragging her left leg after her. The process was slow, but steady. Only when she had reached the top of the seven steps did she turn, wave to her mother, then disappear into the school. Sighing, June put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. As she drove home, she prayed that everything would be all right. And, feeling a pang of guilt, she began to look forward to spending a day — a whole day — with her baby and her work.

Corinne Hatcher had already begun the lesson when the door opened and Michelle appeared, leaning on her cane, her expression uncertain, as if she might be in the wrong room. The class fell silent. The students shifted in their seats to stare at her.

Trying to ignore them, Michelle limped down the aisle, keeping her eyes fixed on her goal — the vacant seat in the front row, between Sally and Jeff, that had apparently been saved for her. As she reached the seat, and carefully lowered herself into it, she allowed herself to look at Miss Hatcher and smile.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said shyly.

“It’s all right,” Corinne assured her. “We haven’t even begun. I’m so glad you’re back. Doesn’t anyone want to say hello to Michelle?”

She looked at the class expectantly. After a moment, a murmuring began as each of the children, unsure of what was expected of him, muttered a greeting. Sally Carstairs, reaching across the aisle, squeezed Michelle’s hand, but Michelle quickly withdrew it. From the other side, she heard Jeff speaking to her, but when she turned to him, she saw Susan Peterson nudging him, and he looked quickly away. Michelle felt her face reddening with embarrassment.

She couldn’t concentrate on her lessons. Instead, she was terribly aware of the other children, feeling their eyes boring into her back, hearing their whisperings, kept so low she couldn’t make out the words.

For a while, Corinne Hatcher thought of stopping the lesson, of facing the issue of Michelle’s accident head on, but she discarded the idea: it would be too embarrassing for Michelle. So she pressed ahead, trying to keep the children’s minds on their work and off their classmate. As the first recess bell rang, Corinne gratefully released the class. All except Michelle.

When the room was empty except for the two of them, she pulled her chair over near Michelle’s desk.

“It wasn’t too bad, was it?” she asked in as conversational a tone as she could muster. Michelle looked at her blankly, as though she didn’t understand the question.

“What wasn’t?”

“Why — why your first morning back at school.”

“It’s fine,” Michelle said. “Why shouldn’t it be?” There was a challenging note in her voice that threw Corinne off. It was as if Michelle were daring her to talk about the whisperings that had pervaded the room for the last two hours.

“Perhaps we should go over some of the work you’ve missed,” she offered, taking her lead from Michelle: if Michelle didn’t want to talk about the class’s reaction to her, then it wouldn’t be talked about.

“I can catch up by myself,” Michelle said. “Is it all right if I go to the restroom?”

Corinne stared at the girl, so composed, so seemingly sure of herself. But she shouldn’t be — she should be nervous, she should be feeling insecure, she should even be crying. But she should not be calmly asking if she could go to the restroom. Suppressing the questions that were in her mind, and wishing that Tim Hartwick were here today, Corinne watched Michelle make her way toward the door. Corinne Hatcher was very worried.

• • •

Michelle was pleased to find the hall deserted — at least there would be no one to watch her as she made her slow progress toward the girls’ room, her cane tapping hollowly on the wood floors.

She wished she could disappear.

They were laughing at her, just like she thought they would.

Sally had barely spoken to her, and the rest of them hadn’t known what to say.

Well, she wouldn’t give in to them.

She pushed the door open and went into the restroom, where she stared at herself in the mirror, wondering if the pain was showing in her face.

It was important that it not show, that nobody know how she felt, how much she hurt.

How angry she was.

Especially at Susan Peterson.

Susan had said something to Jeff.

Said something that made him stop talking to Michelle.

Amanda was right — they weren’t her friends, not anymore. Michelle washed her face, then looked once more in the mirror. “It doesn’t matter,” she said out loud. “I don’t need them. Amanda’s my friend. The hell with them!” Then, surprised at her use of the swearword, she took a step backward and nearly fell. She caught herself on the edge of the sink, steadied herself. A wave of frustration swept over her, and she wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t give in. I’ll show them, she vowed silently. I’ll show them all.

Painfully, she started back to the classroom.

• • •

After recess, something in the classroom changed. The whispering stopped, and the children seemed to be keeping their minds on their work.

Except that every now and then, one of the children would glance surreptitiously first at Michelle, then at Susan Peterson. If the girls were aware of what was happening, they gave no sign.

Sally Carstairs was having a very bad time of it Every few minutes she looked up from her work, glanced at Michelle, then quickly glanced across both Michelle and Jeff Benson to Susan Peterson. When their eyes met, Susan’s lips tightened and her head shook almost imperceptibly. Sally went back to her work, her face flushing guiltily.

When the lunch bell rang, not even Sally Carstairs waited for Michelle. Instead, within seconds the room was empty except for Michelle and Corinne. Michelle reached under her desk for her bookbag and got out her lunch. Then she stood up and started out of the room.

“Why don’t you stay and eat with me?” Corinne suggested.

For a brief instant Michelle hesitated, then shook her head. “I’ll go outside,” she said.

“Are you sure?” Corinne pressed.

Michelle nodded. “I’ll just sit at the top of the steps where I can see everything.” She was almost out of the room when she stopped suddenly, and turned to face Corinne. “It’s important to be able to see. Did you know that, Miss Hatcher?” Without waiting for an answer, Michelle left the room.

Michelle sat on the top step, her left leg stretched stiffly away from her, her right drawn up against her chest. She rested her chin on her right knee and watched the children in the schoolyard.

Under the big maple she could see her own classmates, Susan and Jeff and Sally — all of them — clustered together in a group.

They were talking about her, and she knew it.

Susan Peterson, particularly. Michelle could see her, leaning over to whisper something in someone’s ear, then the two of them — Susan and whomever she had spoken to — glancing at Michelle, and giggling.

Once Susan started to say something to Sally, but Sally only shook her head and immediately started to talk to someone else.

Michelle made herself stop watching them. Her eyes wandered over the playground. Out near the back fence, some of the fourth-graders were playing softball, and Michelle felt a twinge of envy as she watched them run. She used to play softball. She had been one of the fastest runners in her school.

But that had been before.

Across the schoolyard, near the gate, Michelle saw Lisa Hartwick sitting by herself. For a second, she wished Lisa would come over and sit on the steps with her, but then she remembered — the other kids didn’t like Lisa, and even if they weren’t talking to her, she wouldn’t make things worse by being friendly with Lisa.

Close by her, at the foot of the steps, three girls — perhaps eight years old — were engrossed in a game of jacks, oblivious to Michelle above them. She watched the game for a while, and remembered when she had been their age. She’d never been good at jacks — the little pieces had always somehow slipped through her fingers. And yet, the game didn’t involve running, or jumping, or any of the things Michelle couldn’t do anymore. Maybe she should ask them—

The bell rang. Lunchtime was over.

Michelle stood up and went back into the building. She made sure she was the first to arrive in the classroom. As soon as she was inside the door, she slipped into a seat at the back of the room.

A seat where none of them would be able to see her unless they turned around and openly stared at her.

But she would be able to see them.

Watch them.

Know who was laughing at her.…

When the three-ten bell rang, Corinne Hatcher again asked Michelle to wait, and beckoned Michelle to her desk at the front of the empty room.

“I want to apologize for the class.”

Michelle stood before her expressionlessly, her face a blank mask of indifference.

“Apologize? For what?”

“Why, for the way they treated you today. It was very rude.”

“Was it? I didn’t notice anything,” Michelle said tonelessly.

Corinne leaned back in her chair, and tapped her desk with a pencil. “I noticed you weren’t having lunch with your friends.”

“I told you — it was easier not to try to get down the steps. Is it all right if I go now? It’s a long walk home.”

“You’re walking?” Corinne was aghast. She couldn’t walk — it was much too far. But Michelle was nodding calmly.

“It’s good for me,” she said affably. Corinne noticed that now that the subject had nothing to do with her classmates, Michelle seemed to relax. “Besides, I like to walk. And now that I can’t walk as fast as I used to, I see a lot more. You’d be amazed.”

In Corinne’s mind, Michelle’s own words rang out: It’s important to be able to see.

“What do you see?” Corinne asked.

“Oh, all kinds of things. Flowers, and trees, and rocks — things like that.” Her voice dropped a little. “When you’re by yourself, you really look around.”

Corinne felt very sad for Michelle. When she spoke, her voice reflected her emotions. “Yes,” she said, “I’m sure you do.” She stood up and began gathering her things together. Walking very slowly, so Michelle could keep up, she left the room and locked the door behind her.

“You’re sure I couldn’t give you a lift home?” Corinne offered when they reached the front steps.

“No, thanks. Really, I’ll be fine.” Michelle sounded distracted, and her eyes were searching the schoolyard, as if she were looking for someone.

“Was someone going to walk with you?”

“No — no, I just thought.…” Michelle’s voice trailed off, and she started down the steps. “See you tomorrow, Miss Hatcher,” she called over her shoulder. Reaching the bottom of the steps, she slung her bookbag over her shoulder, and limped toward the sidewalk.

Corinne Hatcher watched her until she disappeared around the corner, then started toward her car.

He could have waited for me, Michelle thought bitterly.

She walked as quickly as she could, but within a few blocks her hip began hurting her, and she slowed her pace.

She tried to force her mind off Jeff Benson, but as she walked, every sight she saw reminded her of the days they had walked home together. Now he probably walked Susan Peterson home, she thought.

She left the village behind and made her way along the road, staying well off the pavement. Even though the path was rough, and it was easier to walk on the asphalt, she knew she wouldn’t be able to get out of the way of an oncoming car — the path was much safer.

She stopped every few yards, partly to rest, but also to look around, to examine everything carefully, as if she were seeing it for the first, or maybe the last, time. Once or twice, she stood perfectly still, closed her eyes tightly, and tried to imagine what it would be like to be blind. With the cane, she poked at things around her, seeing if she could identify them by the way they felt.

Most of the time, she couldn’t.

It would be awful, she thought. Being blind would be the most awful thing in the world.

She was almost halfway home when she heard a voice calling to her.

“Michelle? Hey, Michelle, wait up!”

Stoically, ignoring the voice, Michelle kept walking.

A minute later, Jeff Benson caught up with her.

“Why didn’t you wait?” he demanded. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

“Well, why didn’t you stop?”

“Why didn’t you wait for me after school?” Michelle countered.

“I promised Susan I’d walk her home.”

“And you knew you could catch up with me?”

Jeff blushed. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” There was a silence, and Michelle continued on her way, Jeff keeping pace with her. “If you want to go home, you don’t have to wait for me,” she said.

“I don’t mind.”

They continued walking. Michelle wished Jeff would go away. Finally, she told him so.

“You make me feel like a freak!” she exclaimed. “Why don’t you just go on home, and leave me alone?”

Jeff stopped in his tracks and stared at her. His mouth opened, then closed again. His face reddened and his fists clenched. “Well, if that’s the way you feel, maybe I will,” he said at last.

“Good!” Michelle could feel tears welling up in her eyes, and for a moment she was afraid she was going to cry. But then Jeff turned away from her, and began loping down the road. When he was a few yards away, he suddenly looked back, waved, and broke into a run. To Michelle, it was like a slap in the face.

Jeff slammed into his house, and called out to let his mother know he was home. He tossed his books on a table and went into the living room, where he flopped down on the sofa and put his feet on the coffee table. Girls! What a pain!

First Susan Peterson, telling him that he shouldn’t talk to Michelle anymore, then Michelle, telling him that she didn’t want him to walk with her anymore. It was crazy, that’s what it was. He glanced out the window.

There she was, all by herself. Jeff watched as Michelle passed his house and started past the cemetery. Suddenly she stopped, and stared into the graveyard, as if she were watching something. But there was nothing to watch. To Jeff, the cemetery looked the same as it always did — choked with weeds, gravestones collapsing, deserted. What was Michelle looking at?

As Michelle drew abreast of the cemetery, the bright afternoon sun faded. Fog began to form around her. She had grown used to it now, and was no longer surprised when the damp coldness suddenly closed in around her, blotting out the rest of the world, leaving her alone in the mist. She knew she wouldn’t be alone long: when the fog came, so did Amanda. Michelle was beginning to look forward to the fog, look forward to seeing her friend.

There she was, coming toward her out of the cemetery, smiling to her, and waving.

“Hi,” Michelle called.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Amanda said as she came through the broken fence. “Was it as bad as we thought it would be?”

“Yes. They laughed at me, and kept whispering to each other.”

“It’s all right,” Amanda said. “I’ll walk with you and you can show me things.”

“Can’t you see things yourself?”

Amanda’s milky white eyes fixed on Michelle’s face. “I can’t see anything,” she said, “unless I’m with you.” Michelle took Amanda’s hand and started along the path. For some reason, she noticed, it was easier to walk with Amanda next to her. Her hip didn’t hurt nearly as much, and she hardly limped at all.

Amanda led her across the cemetery and along the bluff trail. Soon they arrived at the Pendletons’, and Michelle instinctively started toward the house.

“No,” Amanda said. Michelle felt Amanda’s grip on her hand tighten. “The potting-shed. What I want to see is in the potting-shed.” Michelle hesitated, then, her curiosity aroused, allowed Amanda to lead her toward her mother’s studio.

Amanda led Michelle around the corner of the little building, and stopped at the window.

“Look inside,” she whispered to Michelle.

Obediently, Michelle peered through the window.

The fog, thick around her, seemed to have permeated the studio as well. There was a mistiness inside; everything was indistinct.

And nothing looked quite right.

Her mother’s easel was there, but the painting propped up on it was not her mother’s.

Michelle stared at the painting for a second, then a movement caught her eye, and her glance shifted. There were people in the studio, but she couldn’t see them clearly. The mists swirled around them, and their faces were invisible to her.

Then Michelle heard the sounds.

It was Amanda, next to her.

“It’s true,” Amanda whispered, her voice constricted into a hiss. “She’s a whore … a whore!”

Michelle’s eyes widened in fright at the anger in her friend’s voice. She tried to pull her hand from Amanda’s grip, but Amanda hung on.

“Don’t!” she begged. “Don’t pull away! Let me see! I have to see!”

Her face twisted in fury, and her grip on Michelle’s hand became painful.

Suddenly Michelle wrenched free. She backed away from Amanda, and as their hands parted, Amanda’s sightless gaze fixed on her.

“Don’t,” she repeated. “Please? Don’t go away. Let me see. I’m your friend, and I’m going to help you. Won’t you help me, too?”

But Michelle had already turned away. She started toward the house. The fog seemed to lift a little.

By the time she reached the house the mist had cleared.

But her limp had slowed her nearly to a stop, and her hip was once more throbbing with pain.

CHAPTER 14


Michelle let the kitchen door slam noisily behind her, dumped her bookbag on the table, and went to the refrigerator. She was terribly conscious of her mother watching her, and struggled to control the trembling of her hands. It wasn’t until she had poured herself a glass of milk that June spoke to her.

“Michelle? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Michelle replied. She put the milk back into the refrigerator, and smiled at her mother.

June regarded her daughter cautiously. Something was wrong. She looked frightened. But what could have frightened her? June had watched her come along the path, hesitate for a moment, then continue on to the studio, where she had paused briefly at the window. When she had started toward the house, it was as if she had seen something.

“What were you looking at?”

“Looking at?” June was almost sure Michelle was stalling for time.

“In the studio. I saw you looking through the studio window.”

“But you couldn’t—” Michelle began. Then she caught herself, and glanced out the window.

The sun was shining brightly.

The fog was gone.

“Nothing,” Michelle said. “I was just looking to see if you were working.”

“Mmm,” June said noncommittally. Then: “How did it go at school?”

“All right.” Michelle finished her glass of milk and struggled to her feet, her hip throbbing. She picked up her bookbag and started toward the butler’s pantry.

“I thought you might bring Sally home with you this afternoon,” June suggested.

“She — she had some things she had to do,” Michelle lied. “Besides, I wanted to walk by myself.”

“You mean Jeff didn’t even walk with you?”

“He did for a while. He walked Susan Peterson home, then caught up with me.”

June looked sharply at Michelle. There was something her daughter wasn’t telling her. Michelle’s face was guileless. And yet June was positive she was hiding something, holding something back. “You’re sure nothing went wrong?” she pressed.

“It was fine, Mother.” There was a hint of irritation in Michelle’s voice, so June decided to drop the subject.

“Want to help me with the bread?”

Michelle considered it for a moment, then shook her head. “I’ve got a lot to catch up on. I think I’d better go up to my room.”

June let her go, then returned to her bread dough. As she worked, her eyes drifted outside to the studio.

What was it? What did she see in there? Something that frightened her, I’m sure of it. She pulled her fingers loose from the dough, wiped them off on her apron, then left the house. Whatever Michelle had seen, it must still be in the studio.…

Michelle closed her bedroom door, and sank onto the bed. She wondered if she should have told her mother about the people in the studio. But something had told her not to. What she had seen was a secret. A secret between her and Amanda. But it had been scary. Even as she remembered it, a shiver went through her body.

She got up from the bed and went to the window seat, picking up the doll that was propped there. She raised the doll to eye level, and gazed into its china face.

“What do you want, Amanda?” she asked softly. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to show me things,” the voice whispered in her ear. “I want you to show me things, and be my friend.”

“But what do you want to see? How can I show you things if I don’t know what you want to see?”

“I want to see things that happened a long time ago. Things I could never see then … I’ve been waiting for you for so long — for a while I didn’t think I’d ever be able to see. I tried. I tried to get other people to show me, but they never could. And then you came …”

The whispering was interrupted by a sound.

“What’s that?” the voice whispered.

“Just Jenny. She’s crying.” From the nursery down the hall, the wails of the baby increased. Michelle waited a moment, sure she would hear her mother’s tread on the stairs. Then the voice whispered to her again.

“Show her to me.”

“The baby?”

“I want to see her.”

Jennifer’s cries had turned into a squalling sob. Michelle went to the door.

“Mom?” There was no response.

“Mom, Jenny’s crying!” When there was still no response, Michelle started down the hall toward the nursery. She was sure Amanda was with her, beside her: though she could see nothing, she could feel a presence. She decided she liked that feeling.

She opened the door to the nursery. Jennifer’s cries were suddenly louder. Michelle picked up the crying baby, cradling it against her chest as she had been taught by her mother.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” she whispered to Amanda.

“Do something to her,” Amanda whispered back.

“Do something? Why?”

“She’s like the others … she’s not your friend …”

“She’s my sister,” Michelle protested uncertainly.

“No, she isn’t,” Amanda told her. “She’s their daughter, not your sister. They love her, not you.”

“That isn’t true.”

“It is true. You know it’s true. You have to do something.” The whisper became intense, urging Michelle, commanding her.

She looked down into the face of the baby, saw Jenny’s tiny features, grimacing with unhappiness, and suddenly, unreasonably, she wanted to squeeze her, wanted to make her stop crying, wanted to punish her.

Her arms tightened, and she pressed Jennifer against her chest.

Jennifer’s screams took on a note of pain.

Michelle squeezed harder. Jenny’s cries seemed to fade away, and the sound of Amanda’s voice grew louder.

“That’s right,” the voice crooned in her ear. “Harder. Squeeze her harder …”

Jenny’s eyes began to bulge in her head, and her little arms flailed as she tried to breathe. The wailing was growing softer, turning into a whimper.

“Just a little more …” the voice whispered.

And then June appeared at the nursery door. “Michelle? Michelle, what’s happening?”

It was as if a switch had been turned. The voice in Michelle’s head was gone. She stared first at her mother, then down into Jennifer’s face. She realized she was squeezing the baby, squeezing it so hard, she was hurting it. She relaxed the pressure. Jennifer suddenly stopped crying and gasped a little. The slight bluish cast to her skin faded, and her eyes seemed to ease back to a normal position. “I–I heard her crying,” Michelle said. “When you didn’t come up, I came in to see what was wrong. All I did was pick her up …”

June took Jenny, who had once more begun to sob, and cuddled her against her breast.

“I was out in the studio. I couldn’t hear her. But it’s all right now.” She stroked the crying Jennifer, and made soothing noises. “I’ll take care of her,” she told Michelle. “You go on back to your room. Okay?”

For a moment, Michelle hesitated. She didn’t want to go back to her room. She wanted to stay here, with her mother and her sister.

Amanda’s voice came back to her, reminding her that Jennifer was not her sister. And this woman was not her mother. Not really. Her mind filled with confused images and thoughts, Michelle limped out of the nursery, made her way down the hall to her room.

She lay on the bed, cradling her doll in her arms, staring at the ceiling.

It was all starting to make sense to her now.…

Amanda was right.

She was alone.

Except for Amanda.

Amanda was her friend.

“I love you,” she whispered to the doll. “I love you more than anything in the world.”

When Cal came home that afternoon June was sitting in the kitchen, holding Jennifer on her lap, gazing out at the sea. He paused at the kitchen door, and watched them. The indirect light of the afternoon cast a soft glow over them, and for a moment Cal was overwhelmed by the beauty of the scene — the mother and child, his wife and daughter, with the window and the cove beyond framing them almost like a halo. But when June turned to face him, his feeling of well-being was shattered.

“Sit down, Cal. I have to talk to you.” He didn’t need to be told that she wanted to talk about Michelle.

“Something’s wrong,” June began. “It’s more than her limp, and God knows that’s bad enough. Something happened at school today, or after school. She wouldn’t tell me what, but it frightened her.”

“Well, it was her first day back—” Cal began, but June didn’t let him finish.

“There’s more. I was out in the studio this afternoon, working. I heard Jenny crying, and when I went up to take care of her, Michelle was there. She was holding Jenny, and she had the strangest look on her face. As if she wasn’t aware of what was going on. And she was squeezing Jenny.…” Her voice trailed off, the memory of the afternoon still vivid in her mind.

Cal remained silent for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained.

“What are you trying to say? You think something’s wrong with Michelle?”

“We know something’s wrong with her,” June began, but this time Cal didn’t let her finish.

“She fell, and she got bruised, and she’s missed some school. But she’s getting better every day.”

“She’s not getting better. You wish she were, but if you’d spend some time with her, you’d see that she’s not the same girl she used to be.” Against her will, June’s voice began to rise. “Something’s happening to her, Cal. She’s turning into a recluse, spending all her time by herself with that damned doll, and I want to know why. And as for you, you’re going to spend some time with her, Cal. You’re going to go with me when I take her to school tomorrow, and you’re going to go with me when I pick her up. And in the evenings, you’re going to stop burying yourself in Jenny and your journals, and start paying some attention to Michelle, Is that clear?”

Cal stood up, his face dark, his eyes brooding. “Let me handle my life my own way, all right?”

“It’s not your life,” June shot back. “It’s my life, and Michelle’s life, and Jenny’s life, tool I’m sorry about everything that’s happened, and I wish I could help you. But my God, Cal, what about Michelle? She’s a little girl and she needs us. We have to be there for her. Both of us!”

But Cal didn’t hear her last words. He had already left the kitchen, hurrying down the hall to the living room, where he closed the door behind him, poured himself a drink, and tried to shut out his wife’s words, accusing him, forever accusing him.

But the words would not be shut out.

He would have to prove her wrong.

Prove to her, and to himself, that everything was fine, that Michelle was all right. That he was all right.

That evening, after dinner, Michelle appeared in the living room, her chess set tucked under her arm. “Daddy?”

Cal was sitting in his chair, reading a journal, while June sat opposite him, knitting. He made himself smile at his daughter. “Hmmm?”

“Want to play a game?” She rattled the box of chessmen.

Cal was about to beg off, when June shot him a look of warning. “Okay,” he said without enthusiasm. “Set it up while I get a drink.”

Michelle carefully lowered herself to the floor, her left leg sticking out awkwardly, and began setting up the chessboard. By the time her father returned, she had already made her first move. Cal settled himself on the floor.

Michelle waited.

He seemed to be studying the board, but Michelle wasn’t sure. Finally, she spoke.

“It’s your move, Daddy.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Automatically, Cal reached out to counter Michelle’s opening. She frowned slightly and wondered what was wrong with her father’s game. Tentatively, she began setting him up for a fool’s mate.

Again, Cal sat silently staring at the board, sipping his drink, until Michelle reminded him that it was his move. When he made his play, Michelle looked up at him in astonishment Didn’t he see what she was up to? He’d never let her get away with this before. She advanced her queen.

June put her knitting aside, and came to look at the board. Seeing Michelle’s strategy, she winked at her daughter, then waited for Cal to spoil the gambit. But Cal didn’t seem aware of what was happening.

“Cal? It’s your move.”

He made no response.

“I don’t think he cares,” Michelle said quietly. Cal didn’t appear to hear her. “Daddy,” she said, “if you don’t want to play, you don’t have to.”

“What?” Cal came out of his reverie, and reached out to make a move. Michelle, tempted by his lack of concentration, quickly set her trap and waited for her father to slip out of it. He’d been baiting her, she was sure of it. Now he’d come up with something smart, and the real fight would begin. She began to look forward to the rest of the game.

But Cal only drained his drink, listlessly made a useless move, and shrugged as Michelle slid her queen into position and announced the checkmate. “Set ’em up, and we’ll do it again,” he offered.

“Why?” Michelle asked. She stared at her father, her eyes stormy. “It isn’t any fun if you aren’t even going to try!” Quickly, she tossed the chessmen back in the box, struggled to her feet, and went upstairs.

As soon as she was gone, June spoke. “I suppose I should give you credit for trying. Even if you didn’t look at her, talk to her, or react to her, at least you sat across from her. How did it feel?”

Cal made no reply.

CHAPTER 15


Cal sat in his car for a long time after Michelle had disappeared into the school building. He watched the other children arriving, sturdy, healthy children, skipping through the autumn morning, laughing among themselves.

Or were they laughing at him?

He could see them glancing over at him every now and then. Sally Carstairs even waved to him. But then they would turn away, giggling and whispering among themselves, as if they somehow knew how frightened he was of them. But they couldn’t know. They were only children, and he was a doctor. Someone to be trusted, and admired.

It was a sham, all of it. He neither trusted nor admired himself, and he was sure they knew it; he knew all about children’s instincts — their ability to pick up the vibrations around them. Even tiny babies, carefully shielded from reality, react to tension between their parents. These children, the children whose health he was supposed to be responsible for — what did they think of him? Did they know what he was really like?

Did they know he was afraid of them?

Did they know that fear was turning to hatred?

He was sure they did.

A car pulled into the parking lot next to the school, and Cal saw Lisa Hartwick get out, glance at him, wave, then follow the last of the stragglers up the steps. He twisted the key in the ignition, put the car in gear, and was about to pull away when he saw a man waving to him. Lisa’s father, apparently. Cal put the car in neutral, and waited.

“Dr. Pendleton?” Tim Hartwick was leaning down on the passenger side of Cal’s car, his hand poking in through the window. “I’m Tim Hartwick.”

Cal forced himself to smile genially and take the outstretched hand. “Of course. Lisa’s father. You have a wonderful daughter.”

“Even when she lies about being sick?”

“They all do it,” Cal replied. “Even Michelle did her best to stay in bed a few extra days.”

“But there was something wrong with Michelle,” Tim reminded him. “Lisa was out-and-out faking. Thanks for not letting her get away with it.”

Cal shrugged. “Actually, she owned up to it herself. I was about to stick a tongue depressor in her mouth, and she decided the truth was better than choking on the lie.”

“How’s Michelle getting along?” The question caught Cal off guard, and he hesitated for a second. Then, too quickly:

“Fine. She’s doing just fine.”

Tim Hartwick’s brow furrowed. “I’m glad to hear it.

Corinne — Miss Hatcher, Michelle’s teacher — was a little worried. Said something about yesterday being hard for Michelle. I thought I might have a chat with her.”

“With Michelle? Why?”

“Well, I’m the psychologist for the school, and if one of the kids is having a problem—”

“Your own kid is the problem, Mr. Hartwick. She lies, remember? As for Michelle, she’s fine. Just fine. Now, if you don’t mind, I have some appointments waiting for me.” Without waiting for a reply, he put the car in gear and drove away.

Tim Hartwick stood thoughtfully on the sidewalk, watching Cal’s car disappear down the street. Obviously, the man was under strain. Too much strain. If Michelle was, indeed, having problems, Tim was sure he knew where they were rooted. He made a mental note to talk to Corinne about it, and, if necessary, Michelle’s mother.

It was even worse today. Michelle felt like an outsider, a freak, and by the time the last bell rang, she was glad that her parents were coming to get her.

She made her way slowly down the hall. When she reached the front steps, all her classmates had disappeared. She halted at the top of the stairs and looked around.

There was still a group of little girls, the third-graders, playing with a jump rope. With her parents nowhere in sight, Michelle settled on the top step to watch them. Suddenly one of the little girls left the group, came to the bottom of the stairs, and looked up at Michelle.

“Do you want to play with us?”

Michelle frowned at the child. “I can’t,” she said.

“Why not?”

“I can’t jump anymore.”

The little girl appeared to consider this bit of information. Then she brightened.

“Well, you could turn the rope, couldn’t you? That way I’d have more turns.”

Michelle thought it over. The little girl didn’t seem to be making fun of her. Finally, she stood up. “Okay. But promise me you won’t ask me to try to jump.”

“I won’t. My name’s Annie Whitmore. What’s yours?”

“Michelle.”

Annie waited while Michelle came slowly down the stairs.

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“I fell off the bluff out by the cove,” Michelle said. She watched Annie carefully, but the child’s eyes held nothing but curiosity.

“Did it hurt?”

“I guess so,” Michelle replied. “I don’t remember. I fainted.”

Now Annie’s eyes fairly bulged with excitement. “Really?” she breathed. “What was it like?”

Michelle grinned at the wide-eyed child. “I don’t know — I was out cold!”

With that, Annie ran off, skipping ahead of her, and rejoined her group of friends. As Michelle approached the little girls, she could hear Annie saying excitedly:

“Her name’s Michelle. She fell off the bluff, and fainted, and she can’t jump, but she’s going to turn the rope for us. Isn’t that neat?”

Now all the little girls stared at Michelle. For a moment she was afraid they were going to laugh at her.

They didn’t.

Instead, they seemed to think she was lucky to have something so exciting happen to her. A few minutes later she was standing with her back braced against a tree, turning the rope, and chanting the rhymes along with the rest of them.

June had let the silence between her husband and herself remain unbroken as they drove into Paradise Point. She could sense Cal’s hostility, and didn’t need to hear him tell her that he thought she was being foolish. Only when they were in front of the school did he say anything, and when he spoke, his voice was triumphant.

“Take a look at that, will you? And tell me if you think she’s a ‘recluse.’ ” He spat the word out as if it was something bitter.

June followed his gaze and saw Michelle, leaning against a tree, merrily swinging the rope for the younger children. They could hear her voice, louder than the others, carrying across the schoolyard:

“Call for the doctor,


Call for the nurse,


Call for the lady


With the alligator purse …”

She stared at the scene, almost unable to believe what she was seeing. I was wrong, she told herself. Everything’s going to be just fine. I was overreacting. Today, in the clear sunlight of the fall afternoon, everything seemed perfectly normal.

Michelle saw them, waved, and handed her end of the rope to Annie Whitmore. She started toward them. When she reached the car, she paused, a smile lighting her face.

“Hi! What took you so long? I was getting worried. But not very worried.” She climbed into the backseat of the car.

“Everything’s fine, honey,” Cal said. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

But as he spoke, June wondered. His voice, though she knew he was trying to control it, was shaking. Not much, but enough so she knew he was lying. Her worries flooded back to her — perhaps Michelle was getting better. But was her husband?

Michelle turned restlessly in her sleep, moaned a little, then woke up.

It wasn’t a slow waking, the kind that makes you wonder for a few moments if you’re still asleep. It was, rather, the instant awakening that comes with a disturbance, an unusual sound in the night.

And yet, there had been no sound.

She lay very still, listening.

She could hear only the steady crashing of the sea against the bluff, and an occasional rustling as the autumn winds brushed branches against the house.

And Amanda’s voice.

The sound was comforting to Michelle. She snuggled deeper into the bed, listening.

“Come with me,” Mandy whispered.

Then, more urgently: “Come outside with me.”

Michelle threw off the covers and got out of bed. She went to the window and looked out.

The moon was nearly full, casting an ethereal glow on the sea. Michelle let her eyes wander over the scene. Finally they came to rest on the studio, sitting small and lonely on its perch at the edge of the bluff. Then, as her eyes remained fixed on the studio, a cloud seemed to pass over the moon, obscuring her sight.

“Come on,” Mandy whispered. “We have to go outside.”

Michelle could feel Mandy pulling at her. She pulled on her robe, tying it snugly at the waist, put on her slippers, then left her room, walking slowly, carefully, listening to Amanda’s voice.

In her room, her cane was still propped next to her bed.

She moved through the darkened house and went out by the back door. Steadily, Mandy’s voice guiding her, she walked across the lawn and let herself into her mother’s studio.

A canvas, the seascape her mother had been working on for so long, stood on the easel. Michelle stared at it in the gloom, its colors faded to shades of gray, the whitecaps appearing as strange points of light in the foreboding picture.

She felt herself being drawn away from the easel, and moved toward the closet “What is it?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

She opened the doset door and stepped inside.

“Make me a picture,” Amanda whispered to her.

Obediently, Michelle reached for a canvas and took it to the easel. Setting her mother’s painting on the floor, she replaced it with the canvas she had brought from the closet.

“A picture of what?” she asked.

In the darkness there was a silence, then Amanda’s voice, suddenly dearer, spoke to her once more.

“What you showed me. Make me a picture of what you showed me.”

Michelle picked up a piece of charcoal and began sketching.

She could feel Amanda’s presence behind her, watching over her shoulder as she worked.

She drew quickly, as if some unseen force was guiding her hand.

The figures emerged on the canvas.

First the woman, just the bare outlines, her limbs stretched languidly on a studio couch.

Then the man, above her, caressing her.

Michelle began to feel a certain excitement as she drew, an energy flowing into her from the presence at her shoulder.

“Yes,” Amanda whispered. “That’s the way it was … I can see it now. For the first time, I can really see it.…”

An hour later Michelle took the canvas off the easel, put it back in the closet, and replaced her mother’s picture exactly as it had been before.

When she left the studio, there was no sign that she had ever been there. No sign at all, except the charcoal sketch buried in the jumble at the back of the closet.

When she woke up the next morning, Michelle wondered why she still felt tired.

She had slept well that night.

She was sure she had.

And yet she felt tired, and her hip was throbbing with pain.

CHAPTER 16


June’s eyes filled with concern as Michelle came into the kitchen. In silence, she noted the pronounced increase in her daughter’s limp. There was a tiredness in the child’s eyes that worried her.

“Are you all right this morning?”

“I’m all right,” Michelle replied. “My hip hurts, that’s all.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t go to school,” June suggested.

“I can go. I’ll ride in with Daddy again, and if my hip isn’t better this afternoon, I’ll call you. Okay?”

“But if you’re too tired …”

“I’m all right,” Michelle insisted.

Cal glanced up from the newspaper he was reading, and gave June a look of warning, as if to say, If she says she’s fine, she’s fine — don’t push it. Reading the look, June turned her attention to the eggs she was scrambling. Michelle eased herself into a chair opposite her father.

“When are you going to finish the pantry?”

“When I get to it. There isn’t any hurry.”

“I could help you,” Michelle offered.

“We’ll see.” Though Cal’s voice was noncommittal, Michelle could feel his rejection of her offer. She opened her mouth to protest. then thought better of it. She decided to drop the subject.

Upstairs, Jenny began crying. At the stove, June glanced upward, then turned to her husband and daughter. “Michelle, do you think you could …?”

But Cal was already on his feet, starting toward the stairs. “I’ll take care of her. Be back in a minute.”

June watched as Michelle’s eyes followed her father out of the kitchen, but when her daughter’s gaze shifted and she seemed about to speak, June quickly busied herself with the eggs. There just wasn’t anything she could do. She felt helpless, and inadequate, and angry — at herself, and at Cal.

“Here’s my girl,” Cal said as he returned to the kitchen, Jenny cradled in his arm. He seated himself at the table and began bouncing the baby gently, making her laugh and gurgle with pleasure.

“Can I hold her?” Michelle asked.

Cal glanced at her, then shook his head. “She’s happy where she is. Isn’t she beautiful?”

Without answering, Michelle suddenly rose from the table.

“I forgot something upstairs. Call me when it’s time to go, okay?” Cal nodded absently, still engrossed in Jennifer.

“That was cruel,” June said when Michelle was gone from the kitchen.

“What was?” Cal looked up from the baby, surprised at the expression on June’s face. What had he done?

“Couldn’t you have at least let her hold Jenny?”

“I beg your pardon?” Cal’s baffled look told her that he hadn’t the vaguest idea of what she was talking about.

“Oh, never mind,” she said. She began serving the eggs.

As they drove into Paradise Point that morning, neither Cal nor Michelle spoke. It was not a comfortable silence, not the kind of close, companionable silence they had enjoyed back in Boston; instead, it was as if there were a gulf between them. A gulf that was growing wider, which neither of them knew how to bridge.

Sally Carstairs tried not to listen as Susan Peterson’s voice droned on.

They were sitting under the maple, eating their lunch, and it seemed to Sally that Susan just wouldn’t shut up. It had been going on now for nearly fifteen minutes.

“You’d think she’d go to another school,” Susan had begun. They’d all known whom she was talking about, since her eyes were fixed on Michelle, sitting by herself at the top of the steps. “I mean, do we really have to look at her, gimping around like some kind of a freak? Why don’t they send her to one of those schools for special children? If you can call retarded special.”

“She’s not retarded,” Sally objected. “She’s just lame.”

“What’s the difference?” Susan said airily. “If you’re a freak, you’re a freak.”

She went on, her voice vibrant with malice, listing her objections to Michelle’s being in the some school with the rest of them, let alone the same classroom.

Sally kept trying not to listen, but Susan’s voice was like a bee buzzing in her ear. Every few seconds, she glanced over to see if Michelle could hear what Susan was saying, but Michelle seemed to be ignoring them. Then, just as Sally decided she’d heard enough, and was about to get up and go over to Michelle, she saw Annie Whitmore run up to her. She could see the two of them talking, then Annie took Michelle by the hand, and started pulling her to her feet. As the rest of the group under the maple became aware of what was happening, Susan’s voice fell silent. They watched as Annie led Michelle down the steps, then walked with her to a spot a few yards away, where the rest of the third-graders were gathered. A moment later Michelle was holding one end of the jump rope, Annie the other, and the littler girls were starting to take their turns in the middle.

“Don’t tell me she’s not retarded,” Susan Peterson said. Around her, her group of friends began to giggle.

Michelle tried to ignore the sounds, telling herself that they were laughing at something else. But she knew it wasn’t true. She could feel them: looking at her, whispering among themselves, laughing. As the first twinge of anger knotted her stomach, she tightened her grip on the jump rope and forced herself to concentrate on Annie Whitmore, whose feet were lightly skipping in rhythm to the chant as she began her turn.

But as the laughter from Susan Peterson’s group increased, Michelle found it more and more difficult to ignore it. Her anger grew; she could feel her face growing hot. She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping that by shutting her classmates out of her vision, she could shut them out of her mind.

When she opened her eyes again, something seemed to have happened. The sun, so bright a moment before, was fading into a gray mist. And yet, it was too early in the day for the fog to be coming in. The fog always came in late afternoon, not lunchtime.…

In her ears, Susan Peterson’s taunts grew louder, carrying through the mist, tormenting her.

Turn the rope, she told herself. Just turn the rope, and pretend nothing’s happening.

Her vision was fading rapidly, and soon she was aware of nothing but the rope in her hand. She increased the tempo of the chant, turning the rope faster to keep up with the rhythm.

The happy grin on Annie’s face began to fade as she tried to keep up with Michelle’s suddenly furious pace. She skipped faster and faster, and soon gave up using the little intermediate hop that filled the time between the rope’s rotations. She was jumping now, facing Michelle, trying to make up her mind whether she should keep going or try to run out. But the rope was going too fast: she couldn’t run out, nor could she keep up.

The rope slashed against her ankles, and Annie screamed in pain, tripping, stumbling to the ground.

It was the scream that got through to Michelle.

Drowning out the laughter from Susan Peterson, it cut through the fog, piercing the mist like a shaft of lightning.

The rope, jerked from her hand when it hit Annie, lay at Michelle’s feet. She couldn’t remember dropping it, couldn’t remember what, exactly, had happened. But there was Annie, rubbing her ankle and looking at Michelle with more reproach than fear.

“Why did you do that?” Annie demanded. “I can’t do hot peppers.”

“I’m sorry,” Michelle said. She took a step forward, but Annie seemed to shrink away from her. “I didn’t mean to turn it so fast. Really, I didn’t. Are you all right?”

Again she moved toward Annie, and the little girl, seeing nothing but concern in Michelle’s face now, let herself be helped up.

“It hurts,” she wailed. “It stings!” A welt was rising on her leg, and she rubbed at it once more before getting to her feet. A small crowd had gathered, watching curiously, pointing first to Annie, then to Michelle. As Susan Peterson approached, Michelle hobbled away as quickly as she could. She was at the foot of the steps when she heard Sally Carstairs’s voice behind her.

“Michelle? What happened?”

Michelle turned to face Sally. Though there was nothing but curiosity in Sally’s eyes, Michelle was distrustful. After all, only a few moments ago Sally had been under the maple with Susan and the rest of them.

“Nothing,” she said. “I just turned the rope a little too fast, and Annie tripped.”

Sally watched her carefully as she spoke, and wondered if Michelle was telling the truth. But as the bell rang calling them back from lunch, she decided not to press Michelle. “Do you want me to walk back in with you?” she asked.

“No,” Michelle replied, her voice sharp. “I just want you to leave me alone!” Hurt, Sally stepped backward, then hurried up the steps. By the time Michelle regretted her words, it was too late — Sally was already inside the building. Slowly, Michelle started up the stairs, relieved to see the rest of the children streaming past her, chattering among themselves, the incident with Annie forgotten.

“I saw what you did,” Susan Peterson hissed in her ear.

Startled, Michelle nearly lost her balance and had to grab at the railing to keep from falling.

“What?”

“I saw it,” Susan said, her eyes glistening with malice. “I saw you deliberately try to trip Annie, and I’m going to tell Miss Hatcher. You’ll probably get expelled!” Without waiting for a reply, she hurried inside. Michelle, suddenly alone in the schoolyard, paused and looked back at the playground, as if she might somehow see what had really happened. She hadn’t done it on purpose. She was sure she hadn’t. But she couldn’t really remember what had happened, until Annie Whitmore had screamed. Sighing heavily, she started up the steps once more. I wish she were dead, she thought. I wish Susan Peterson were dead! As she reached the top of the steps, Michelle paused. In her head, she could hear Amanda’s voice, very soft, talking to her.

“I’ll kill her,” Mandy whispered. “If she tells, I’ll kill her.…”

June settled Jennifer into her bassinet, carefully tucked a blanket around her, then turned to her easel, and surveyed the seascape. It was nearly finished. Time to start on something else. She opened the closet door, pulled the string that hung from the naked bulb just inside and reached for the closest canvas. Its size didn’t suit her, and she went further into the closet, rummaging through the tangle of frames and canvases stacked haphazardly at the back. Finally she saw one that suited her and pulled it loose from the rest.

It wasn’t until she had it out in the studio that she realized it wasn’t blank.

She stared at the charcoal sketch, frowning. She couldn’t remember having done the sketch, and yet she must have. She set the canvas up on the easel, then stepped back and looked at it once more.

It was strange.

The sketch, two nude figures making love, was not bad.

But it was not hers.

The style was wrong, and the subject matter.

Over the years she had sketched dozens of canvases, then, displeased with them, set them aside, intending either to do them over, or clean them off. Invariably, when she came across one of them, she remembered the picture, or at least recognized it as her own — her technique, or a subject that interested her.

But this was different. The strokes were bold, bolder than her own, and more primitive. And yet the figures were good — the proportions were right, and they almost seemed to move on the canvas. But who could have done them?

The work had to be hers. It had to! And yet, she couldn’t remember it at all. She was about to clean the canvas, when she changed her mind. Feeling strangely uneasy, she put it back into the closet.

Michelle began gathering her books together, keeping her eyes on the floor as the rest of the class hurried out into the corridor. The afternoon had been miserable for her: she had waited in agony for the recess period. She was sure Miss Hatcher would want to talk to her. But recess had come and gone, and Miss Hatcher had said nothing. Now the day had passed. She got to her feet, picked up her cane, and faced the door.

“Michelle? Would you wait a minute please?”

Slowly she turned to the teacher. Miss Hatcher was looking at her, but she didn’t seem angry. Instead, she seemed worried.

“Michelle, what happened at lunchtime today?”

“Y-you mean with Annie?”

Corinne Hatcher nodded. “I understand there was an accident.” Her voice sounded concerned, but not angry. Michelle let herself relax a little.

“I turned the rope too fast, I guess. Annie tripped, and the rope hit her leg. But she said she’s all right.”

“But how did it happen?” Miss Hatcher pressed. Michelle wished she knew what Susan Peterson had told her.

“It — It just happened,” Michelle said helplessly. “I guess I just wasn’t paying attention.” She paused, then hesitantly asked a question. “What did Susan say?”

“Nothing much. Just that she saw Annie get hit by the rope.”

“She said I did it on purpose, didn’t she?”

“Why would she say that?” Corinne countered. It was exactly what Susan had said.

“She said I was going to get expelled for it.” Michelle’s voice was quavering, and she was struggling to hold back her tears.

“Well, even if you’d done it on purpose, I don’t think we’d expel you for it. Maybe make you write ‘I won’t trip Annie Whitmore’ on the blackboard a hundred times. But since it was an accident, it doesn’t seem to require punishment, does it?”

“You mean you believe me?” Michelle breathed.

“Of course I do.” The last of the tension went out of Michelle. Things were going to be all right after all. Now she looked beseechingly at Miss Hatcher.

“Miss Hatcher, why would Susan say I did that on purpose?” she asked.

Because she’s a mean, nasty little liar, Corinne thought to herself. “Sometimes some people see things differently from others,” she said evenly. “That’s why it’s important to find out what other people say about things. For instance, Sally Carstairs said you didn’t do anything deliberately. She said it was an accident, too.”

Michelle nodded. “It was an accident. I wouldn’t hurt Annie — I like her. And she likes me.”

“Everybody likes you, Michelle.” Corinne reached out and patted her shoulder affectionately. “Just give everyone a chance, and you’ll see.”

Michelle avoided her eyes. “Can I go now?” she asked.

“Of course. Is your mother picking you up?”

“I can walk.” The way Michelle said it made Corinne think it was almost a challenge.

“I’m sure you can,” she agreed gently. Michelle started toward the door, but again Corinne stopped her.

“Michelle.” The child stopped, but didn’t turn around, forcing Corinne to talk to her back. “Michelle, what happened to you was an accident, too. You mustn’t be angry about it, or blame anybody. It was an accident, just like what happened to Annie today.”

“I know.” Her voice was dull, the words sounding like an automatic response.

“And the children will get used to you. With the older ones, it will just take a little while, that’s all. They’ll stop making fun of you.”

“Will they?” Michelle asked. But she didn’t wait for an answer.

By the time she emerged from the school building, the grounds were deserted. Michelle limped slowly along, half glad there was no one to see her, half disappointed there was no one to talk to. She had almost expected Sally to be waiting for her. But why should she? Michelle reflected. Why should Sally waste her time on a cripple?

She tried to tell herself that what Miss Hatcher had said was true, that soon her classmates would get used to her limp and find something else to talk about, someone else to laugh at. But as she walked, her hip hurting her more with each step, she knew it wasn’t true. She wasn’t going to get better — she was going to get worse.

She paused when she got to the bluff road and leaned on her cane for a while, looking at the sea, watching the gulls soar effortlessly on the wind.

She wished she were a bird, so she could fly, too, fly high above the sea, fly away, far away, and never see anybody again. But she couldn’t fly, she would never even be able to run again.

She started on, her limp more pronounced than ever.

As she passed the graveyard, she heard the voice:

“Cripple … cripple … cripple!”

Even before she looked, she knew who it was. She stood still, then finally turned to face Susan Peterson.

“Stop that.”

“Why?” Susan called, her voice mocking. “What are you going to do about it? Cripple!”

“You’re not supposed to be in the cemetery,” Michelle said, trying to put down the anger that was rising in her.

“I can go where I want to, and do what I want,” Susan taunted. “I’m not gimpy, like some people are!”

The words rang in Michelle’s ears, stinging, hurting, cutting into her. Her anger swelled inside her, and once more the fog began closing in around her.

But now, with the fog, came Amanda.

She could feel Amanda before she heard her, feel her presence next to her, supporting her. And then Mandy began whispering to her.

“Don’t let her say things like that,” Mandy said. “Make her be quiet. Make her keep her mouth shut!”

Michelle started into the cemetery, her feet tangling in the weeds, her cane more a hindrance than a help. But she could feel Mandy beside her, steadying her, urging her on.

And through the fog, she could see Susan Peterson’s face, her grin gone, her laughter dying on her lips.

“What are you doing?” she whispered. “Don’t you come near me.”

Michelle kept going, dragging her lame leg, her pain forgotten, striking out with her cane at the brambles and rocks in her path, ignoring Susan’s words, listening only to Mandy’s encouragements.

Susan began backing away as Michelle approached.

“Get away from me,” she cried. “Leave me alone. You leave me alone!” Her face contorted into a mask of fear, she turned suddenly, and began running away across the graveyard, fleeing into the swirling gray mists. Relentlessly, Michelle started after her.

“Stay here,” Amanda whispered to her. “You stay here, and let me do it. I want to do it …”

And then she, too, was gone, and Michelle was suddenly alone, standing in the overgrown cemetery, resting on her cane, the damp grayness of the fog drifting around her.

The scream, when it came, was muffled, floating through the fog almost softly. Then, once more, there was only silence.

Michelle stood still, listening, waiting. When she heard Amanda’s voice again, she could feel the strange child close to her once more, almost inside her.

“I did it,” Mandy whispered. “I told you I would, and I did.”

The words echoing in her head, Michelle started slowly homeward. By the time she reached the old house, the sun was shining brightly again from a clear autumn sky, and the only sound she heard was the crying of the gulls.

CHAPTER 17


It had been a quiet day at the clinic. The last patient had left, and now the two of them were alone. Josiah produced a bottle of bourbon from his desk drawer and poured two glasses. This was one of his favorite rituals — an afternoon drink on quiet days.

“Anything new at home?” he asked casually.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Cal replied.

You’re a cool one, Carson thought to himself. But it’s getting to you. I can see it in your eyes. When he spoke, he kept his voice friendly. “I was thinking about Michelle. Any new ideas about what’s causing that lameness?”

Before Cal could answer, the telephone jangled from the outer office. Carson cursed softly.

“Isn’t that the way — the nurse takes off, and the phone rings,” he commented. He made no move to answer it, so Cal reached over and picked it up.

“Clinic,” he said.

“Is Dr. Carson there?” an agitated voice demanded. Cal was sure he recognized the caller.

“This is Dr. Pendleton, Mrs. Benson. Can I help you?”

“I asked for Dr. Carson,” Constance Benson snapped, her irritation amplifying her voice. “Is he there?”

Cal covered the mouthpiece as he handed Josiah the phone. “Constance Benson. She’s upset, and she’ll only talk to you.”

Josiah took the phone. “Constance? What’s the problem?”

Cal watched Josiah’s face as the old doctor listened to Mrs. Benson. As Carson paled, fear began to build in Cal. “Well be right there,” he heard Carson say. “Don’t do anything — anything you might try to do could only make things worse.” He hung up the phone, and stood up.

“Has something happened to Jeff?”

Carson shook his head. “Susan Peterson. Call an ambulance, and let’s get going. I’ll tell you about it on the way.”

“I hope to God the ambulance gets here in time,” Cal said darkly.

They were speeding out of town, and the tires on his car squealed as he turned south onto the cove road.

“I doubt we’ll need it,” Carson replied, his face set in grim lines. “If what Constance said is true, there won’t be much we can do.”

“But what happened?” Cal demanded.

“Susan fell off the cliff. Except that from what Constance said, she didn’t exactly fall. Constance said she ran over the edge.”

“Ran? You mean—ran?” Cal floundered. What could she have meant?

“That’s it. Unless I didn’t get the story straight. I may not have — she’s pretty upset.”

Before Carson could tell Cal all of what Constance had said, they arrived at the Bensons’. Constance was waiting for them on the porch, her face pale, her hands nervously wringing at her apron.

“She’s on the beach,” she called as they were getting out of the car. “Please — hurry! I don’t know if — if—” Her voice trailed off helplessly. Josiah started toward her, telling Cal to go down to the beach and see what he could do for Susan Peterson.

There’s a path behind the house. It’s the fastest way down, and Susan should be about a hundred yards south.”

Automatically, Cal’s eyes scanned the bluff to the south. “You mean by the graveyard?” he asked.

Josiah nodded. “Don’t be surprised by what you find — the bluff drops straight down there.”

Cal grabbed his bag and started around the house. Already, he could feel the panic gripping him. He fought it off, repeating to himself, over and over again, She’s already dead. I can’t hurt her. I can’t do anything to her. She’s already dead. As he drove the words into his consciousness, the panic began to subside.

The path, very much like the one on his own property, was steep and rough, making several switchbacks as it wound down to the beach. Half running, half sliding, Cal made his way down the trail, his mind involuntarily summoning up another afternoon, only five weeks ago, when he had also run down a path to the beach.

Today he wouldn’t make the same mistakes he had made then.

Today, he would do what had to be done, and do it right.

Except that today, there was nothing to be done.

He reached the beach, and finally was able to increase his pace to a run. When he’d covered fifty yards, he saw her, ahead of him, lying still.

Knowing there was no use in hurrying, he slowed to a trot, then walked the last few steps.

Susan Peterson, her neck broken, her head twisted around in a violently unnatural angle, stared blindly up at the sky, her eyes open, an expression of terror still contorting her features. Her arms and legs, spread limply around her, looked grotesque in their uselessness. The incoming tide was lapping hungrily at her, as if the sea were eager to devour the strange piece of wreckage that had only a little while ago been a twelve-year-old child.

Cal knelt beside her, and picked up her wrist, pressed his stethoscope to her chest. It was a useless exercise, merely verifying what he already knew.

He was about to pick her up when something stopped him. His muscles froze, refusing to obey the commands his brain was sending them. He stood up slowly, his eyes fixed on Susan’s face, but his mind seeing Michelle’s.

I can’t move her, he thought. If I move her, I could hurt her.

The thought was irrational, and Cal knew it was irrational. And yet, as he stood on the beach, alone with the remains of Susan Peterson, he couldn’t bring himself to pick her up, to carry her up the trail as he had carried his own daughter so short a time ago. His mind numb with shame, Cal started back up the beach, leaving Susan alone with the flowing tide.

“She’s dead.”

Cal uttered the words in a matter-of-fact tone, the sort of voice he might have used to announce the death of a cat to an owner who had brought the animal to him for destruction.

“Dear God,” Constance Benson muttered, sinking into a chair in her living room. “Who’s going to tell Estelle?”

“I will,” was Josiah Carson’s automatic response, though his eyes were fixed on Cal. “You didn’t bring her up?”

“I thought we’d better wait for the ambulance,” he lied, knowing he wasn’t fooling the old doctor. “Her neck’s broken and it looks like a few other things are, too.” His attention shifted to Constance Benson. “What happened? Josiah said she ran off the bluff.” He stumbled a little on the word ran, as if he still found it difficult to believe such a thing could have happened.

Constance did not answer. Instead, she looked to Josiah Carson, who nodded his head slightly. “I think you’d better tell him,” he said. Cal felt a twinge of fear go through him, and knew before Mrs. Benson began that there was going to be something more to the story, something terrible. Even so, he wasn’t prepared for what he heard.

“I was at the sink, paring some apples,” Constance Benson said. She kept her eyes fixed on a spot on the floor, as if to look at either of the doctors would make it impossible for her to repeat the story. “I was sort of looking out the window, the way you do, and I saw Susan Peterson in the graveyard. I don’t know what she was doing — I’ve told Estelle she should keep Susan away from there, just like I told your wife she should keep Michelle away, but I guess they just don’t listen to me. Well, maybe now they will.

“Anyway, I was sort of half watching my apples, and half watching Susan, not really paying much attention. Then all of a sudden Michelle came down the road. Susan must have said something to her, because she stopped, and sort of stared at Susan.”

“What did she say?” Cal asked. For the first time since she had begun her recitation, Constance glanced up from the floor.

“I couldn’t hear. The window was closed, and it’s quite a distance to the cemetery. But they were talking, all right, and Susan must have wanted to show Michelle something, because Michelle started to go into the graveyard. Climbed right over the fence, the weeds almost tripping her — how she did it with that limp of hers is beyond me, but she did. Susan waited for her, at least that’s what it looked like. Except for what happened next. That’s the part I can’t understand at all.”

She paused, shaking her head, as if she were trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together, and they just wouldn’t go.

“Well, what happened?” Cal urged her.

“It was the darnedest thing,” Constance mused. Then she fixed a cold eye on Cal. “Michelle must have said something to Susan. I couldn’t hear it, of course, but whatever it was, it must have been something pretty awful. Because all of a sudden Susan got a look on her face such as I hope I never see again. Fear, that’s what it was. Plain old outright fear.”

A picture of Susan flashed across Cal’s memory. The look Constance Benson had described tallied exactly with the expression Cal had seen on the dead child’s face.

“And then she took off running,” he heard Mrs. Benson saying. “Just took off, like she was being chased by the devil himself. She ran right over the edge of the bluff.”

The last words were whispered, barely audible, but they hung in the living room, chilling the atmosphere.

“She ran off the edge of the bluff?” Cal repeated dully, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “Was she watching where she was going? She couldn’t have been.”

“She was. She was looking straight ahead, but she didn’t even pause.”

“My God,” Cal said, his eyes closing in a futile effort to blot out the image he was seeing. Then he remembered that his own daughter had also seen what had happened. He opened his eyes again. Almost apprehensively, he faced Constance Benson.

“And what about Michelle? What did she do?”

Constance Benson’s face hardened, and she glared at him coldly. “Nothing,” she said, spitting the word at him.

“What do you mean, nothing?” Cal asked, ignoring her tone. “She must have done something.”

“She just stood there. She just stood there, like she didn’t even see what happened. And then, when Susan screamed, she waited a minute, then started walking home.”

Cal stood rooted to the floor, unable to move, unable to absorb what the woman was saying. “I don’t believe it,” he said finally.

“You can believe it or not, as you see fit,” Constance Benson said. “But it’s God’s own truth, and that’s that. She acted like nothing had happened at all.”

Cal turned to Josiah Carson, as if to appeal to him, but Josiah was lost in thought As Cal spoke his name, he came back to reality. He reached out and squeezed Cal’s arm, but when he spoke, his voice was strange, as if he was thinking about something else. “Maybe you’d better go on home,” he said. “I can take care of things here. You’d better go see if Michelle is all right. She could be in shock, you know.”

Cal nodded mutely and started out of the room. He paused a moment, turned back as if to say something. At the chilly expression on Constance Benson’s face, he seemed to change his mind. Then he was gone.

Josiah Carson and Constance Benson waited in silence until the ambulance had arrived. Then, as Carson was about to take his leave, Constance suddenly spoke.

“I don’t like that man,” she said.

“Now, Constance, you don’t even know him.”

“And I don’t want to. I think he made a mistake, bringing his family out here.” She fixed Carson with a look that was very nearly belligerent “And I don’t think you did him any favor either, selling him that house. You should have torn that place down years ago.”

Now Carson’s own expression hardened. “You’re being silly, Constance, and you know it. That house didn’t have anything to do with what’s happened out here.”

“Didn’t it?” Constance turned away from Josiah and went to the window, where she stood staring out across the cemetery. In the distance, etched against the sky, were the ornate, Victorian lines of the Pendleton house.

“Don’t see how they can live there,” Constance muttered. “Even you couldn’t live there, after Alan Hanley. It doesn’t make sense. If I were June Pendleton, I’d pack up my clothes, take my baby, and get out while I still could.”

“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way,” Josiah said stiffly. “I happen to think you’re wrong, and I’m glad the Pendletons are here. And I hope they’ll stay, in spite of what’s happened. Now I’d better go see Estelle and Henry Peterson.” As he left her house, without saying good-bye, she was still standing at her window, staring into the distance, keeping her own counsel.

Cal ran up the steps onto the front porch, opened the door, then slammed it behind him.

“Cal? Is that you?” June’s voice from the living room sounded startled, but not as startled as Cal felt when he found her calmly sitting in a chair, working on a piece of needlepoint.

“My God,” he swore. “What are you doing? How can you just sit there? Where’s Michelle?”

June gaped at him, surprised by his strangled tone.

“I’m doing needlework,” she said uncertainly. “And why shouldn’t I be sitting here? Michelle’s upstairs in her room.”

“I don’t believe it,” Cal said.

“What don’t you believe? Cal, what’s going on?”

Cal sank into a chair, trying to put his thoughts in order. Suddenly nothing made any sense.

“When did Michelle come home?” he asked at last. “About forty-five minutes ago, maybe an hour.” June set her needlepoint aside. “Cal, has something happened?”

“I can’t believe it,” Cal muttered. “I just can’t believe it”

“Can’t believe what?” June demanded. “Will you please tell me?”

“Didn’t Michelle tell you what happened today?”

“She didn’t say much of anything,” June replied. “She came in, had a glass of milk, said school went ‘okay’—which I’m not sure I believe — then went upstairs.”

“Jesus!” It was crazy, like a nightmare. “Michelle must have said something. She must have!”

“Cal, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to start screaming!”

“Susan Peterson is dead!”

For a moment, June simply stared at him, as if the words had no meaning. When she finally spoke, her voice was a whisper.

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. Susan Peterson is dead, and Michelle saw it happen. She really didn’t tell you?” As best he could, Cal recounted exactly what had happened at the Bensons,’ and what Constance Benson had told him.

As June listened, she felt an edge of fear begin to grow in her, sharpening with each word. By the time Cal was finished, it was all June could do to keep from shaking. Susan Peterson couldn’t be dead, and Michelle couldn’t have seen anything. If she had, she would have said something. Of course she would have.

“And Michelle really didn’t say anything when she came home this afternoon?”

“Nothing,” June said. “Not a word. It’s — it’s unbelievable.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself.” Cal got to his feet. “I’d better go up and have a talk with her. She can’t just pretend nothing happened.”

He started out of the room. June rose to follow him.

“I’d better go with you. She must be horribly upset.”

They found Michelle lying on her bed, a book propped on her chest, her doll tucked in the crook of her left arm. As her parents appeared at the door, she looked up at them curiously.

Cal came directly to the point. “Michelle, I think you’d better tell us what happened this afternoon.”

Michelle frowned slightly, then shrugged. “This afternoon? Nothing happened. I just came home.”

“Didn’t you stop at the graveyard? Didn’t you talk to Susan Peterson?”

“Only for a minute,” Michelle said. Her expression told June that she clearly didn’t think it was worth talking about. When Cal began to demand the details of their conversation, June interrupted him.

“You didn’t tell me you’d seen Susan,” she said carefully, trying not to betray anything. For some reason, it seemed important to hear Michelle’s version of the story from Michelle’s point of view, rather than in response to Cal’s impatient questioning.

“I only saw her for a minute or two,” Michelle said. “She was messing around in the cemetery, and when I asked her what she was doing, she started teasing me. She — she called me a cripple, and said I ‘gimped.’ ”

“And what did you do?” June asked gently. She settled herself on the bed and took Michelle’s hand in her own, squeezing it reassuringly.

“Nothing. I started to go into the graveyard, but then Susan ran away.”

“She ran away? Where to?”

“I don’t know. She just disappeared into the fog.”

June’s eyes flicked to the window. The sun, as it had all day, was glistening on the sea. “Fog? But there hasn’t been any fog today.”

Michelle looked at her mother in puzzlement, then shifted her gaze to her father. He seemed to be angry with her. But what had she done? She couldn’t understand what they wanted of her. She shrugged helplessly. “All I know is that when I was in the cemetery, the fog suddenly came in. It was really thick, and I couldn’t see much of anything. And when Susan ran away, she just disappeared into the fog.”

“Did you hear anything?” June asked.

Michelle thought a moment, then nodded. “There was something — sort of a scream. I guess Susan must have tripped or something.”

My God, June thought. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t even know what happened.

“I see,” she said slowly. “And after you heard Susan scream, what did you do?”

“Do? I–I came home.”

“But, darling,” June said. “If the fog was so thick, how could you find your way home?”

Michelle smiled at her. “It was easy,” she said. “Mandy led me. The fog doesn’t bother Mandy at all.”

It was only by the sheer force of her will that June kept from screaming.

CHAPTER 18


Supper that evening was nearly intolerable for June. Michelle sat placidly, apparently unbothered by what had happened that afternoon. Cal’s silence, a silence that had begun as Michelle told them what had happened that afternoon, hung over the table like a shroud. Throughout the meal, June’s eyes flicked from her husband to her elder daughter, constantly wary, constantly vigilant, on the watch for something — anything — that would lend the atmosphere a hint of normality.

And that, she realized as she cleared the table when the meal was finally over, was the problem — the situation appeared too normal, and it seemed as though she was the only person aware that it was not. As she stacked the dishes in the sink, she found herself beginning to question her own sanity. Twice, she started to leave the kitchen, and stopped herself. Finally, the tension was too much to bear.

“I think we have to talk,” she said to Cal, coming into the living room. Michelle was nowhere to be seen: June assumed she was in her room. Cal was holding Jennifer in his lap, bouncing her gently and talking to her. As June spoke, he looked up from the baby and regarded his wife cautiously.

Talk about what?” Cal stared at her, and June could see a wall go up in front of his eyes, a wall that threatened to shut her out entirely. He frowned slightly, the skin around his eyes crinkling into deep lines. When he spoke, his voice was brittle. “I don’t know that there’s anything to talk about”

June’s mouth worked for a moment, then she found her voice. “Don’t know!” she exclaimed. Then she repeated the phrase, louder. “Don’t know? My God, Cal, we have to get help for her.” What was he doing? Was he shutting everything out? Ignoring everything that was happening? Of course he was. She could see it in his eyes.

“I don’t think anything’s so terribly wrong.”

And there it was. That was why he’d been so silent since Michelle had told them her version of the afternoon — he was simply blocking it all out. But she had to find a way to get through to him. “How can you say that?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice calm and reasonable. “Today Susan Peterson died, and Michelle was there — she saw it, or at least she should have seen it. If she really didn’t, then we’re in more trouble than I even thought. She hasn’t got any friends, except Mandy, who’s a doll, for God’s sake. And now there’s this thing with the fog. Cal, there wasn’t any fog today — I know, I was here all day, and the sun was out. Cal, she must be losing her vision! And you say you don’t think anything’s terribly wrong? Are you blind?” June stopped suddenly, realizing her voice had risen and become shrill. But it didn’t matter. Cal’s eyes were icy now, and she knew what he was going to say before he spoke.

“I won’t hear this, June. You want me to believe I’ve made Michelle crazy. I haven’t. She’s fine. She had a shock this afternoon, and blocked it. That’s a normal reaction. Do you understand? It’s normal!”

Stunned, June sank into a chair, and tried to gather her thoughts into some kind of coherency. Cal was right: there was nothing left to talk about — something had to be done.

“Now listen to me,” she heard Cal saying, his voice calm, his words maniacally reasonable. “You weren’t there this afternoon, and I was. I heard what Constance Benson had to say, and I heard what Michelle had to say, and it doesn’t make much difference whom you believe — Michelle had nothing to do with what happened to Susan. Even Mrs. Benson didn’t say Michelle did anything — all she said was that Michelle didn’t react to what happened. Well, how could she have? She must have been in a state of shock. So how could she react?”

Half of June’s mind was listening to what Cal was saying, but the other half was screaming in protest. He was twisting things, forcing things to sound the way he wanted them to sound.

“But what about the fog?” she asked. “Michelle said there was fog, and there wasn’t! Damn it, there wasn’t.”

“I didn’t say there was,” Cal said patiently. “Maybe Michelle did see what happened to Susan, and her reaction — the reaction Mrs. Benson said wasn’t there — was simply to shut it out of her mind. Her mind could have invented the fog, to screen out what she didn’t want to see.”

“Just like your mind is screening out what you don’t want to see?” June regretted her words as soon as they were out, but there was no way to recover them. They seemed to hit Cal with a physical force: his body shrank into his chair, and he raised Jenny just slightly, as if the baby were a shield.

“I’m sorry,” June apologized. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“If that’s what you think, why not say it?” Cal countered. “I’m going up to bed. I don’t see much point in going on with this.”

June watched him go, made no move to try to stop him, or to continue the conversation. She felt glued to her chair, unable to summon the strength to get up. She listened as Cal climbed the stairs, then waited until his footsteps had faded away toward their bedroom. Then, when the house was quiet, she tried to think, tried to force herself to concentrate on Michelle, and what was to be done for her. Steeling herself for whatever might be about to happen, June made her decision. She would not be dissuaded.

Time seemed to have stopped for Estelle and Henry Peterson. Now, near midnight, Estelle sat quietly with her hands in her lap, saying nothing. She wore a slightly puzzled expression, as if she were wondering where her daughter was. Henry was pacing the floor, his florid face flushed a deep red, his indignation growing every minute. If Susan was really dead, someone was to blame.

“Tell me again, Constance,” he said. “Tell me once more what happened. I just can’t believe you haven’t left something out.”

Constance Benson, perched uncomfortably on one of Estelle’s better chairs, shook her head tiredly.

“I’ve told you everything, Henry. There just isn’t anything more to say.”

“My daughter would not have run over the edge of a cliff,” Henry stated, as if by saying it he could make it true. That girl must have pushed her. She must have.”

Constance kept her eyes firmly fixed on her hands as they twisted nervously in her lap, wishing she could tell Henry Peterson what he wanted to hear.

“She didn’t, Henry. I suppose she must have said something, but I couldn’t hear it from my kitchen. And she wasn’t even very close to Susan, It was — well, it was very strange, that’s all.”

Too damn strange, if you ask me,” Henry muttered. He poured himself a shot of whiskey, bolted it down, then clapped his hat on his head. “I’m going to talk to Joe Carson,” he said. “He’s a doctor — he should know what happened.” He stalked from the room. A moment later the front door slammed, and a car engine raced.

“Oh, dear,” Estelle sighed. “I hope he isn’t going to do anything rash. You know how he can be, Susan gets so upset with him sometimes.…” Her voice faded away as she realized Susan would never get upset with her father again. She looked beseechingly at Constance Benson. “Oh, Constance, what are we going to do? I just can’t believe it. I just keep having the feeling that any minute Susan’s going to walk through that door, and it will all turn out to be a dream. A horrible dream.”

Constance moved over to the sofa and drew Estelle close to her. Only now, with Constance’s large and comforting arm around her, did Estelle give in to her tears. Her body trembled, and she dabbed ineffectually at her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief.

“You just let it out,” Constance told her. “You can’t keep it all bottled up, and Susan wouldn’t want you to. And don’t worry about Henry — he’ll calm down. He just has to make a fuss, that’s all.”

Estelle sniffled, and straightened up a little. She tried to smile at Constance, but the effort was too much for her. “Constance, are you sure you told us everything? Wasn’t there maybe something you didn’t want to say in front of Henry?”

Constance sighed heavily. “I wish there was. I wish there was something that would make sense out of the whole thing. But there isn’t. All I know is that I’ve told people time and time again, don’t let the kids play around that cemetery. It’s dangerous. But nobody believed me, and now look what’s happened.”

Estelle’s eyes met Constance Benson’s. For some time the two women simply gazed at each other, as if there were an unspoken communication going on between them. When at last Estelle spoke, her voice was low, and highly controlled.

“It was that girl, wasn’t it? Michelle Pendleton? Susan told me there’s something wrong with her.”

“She’s crippled,” Constance said. “She fell down the bluff.”

“I know,” Estelle said. “I don’t mean that. There was something else. Susan told me about it yesterday, but I can’t remember what it was.”

“Well, I don’t see that it matters much,” Constance sniffed. “It seems to me that what has to be done is see to it that everybody’s warned. I think we should warn everyone to keep their children away from that graveyard, and away from Michelle Pendleton. I don’t know what she did, but I know she did something.”

Estelle Peterson nodded.

It didn’t take long for the word to spread through Paradise Point. Constance Benson called her friends, and her friends called theirs. As the night wore on there were small family groups all over the village, huddled together in kitchens and living rooms, talking quietly to their sleepy children, warning them about Michelle. The older children nodded wisely.

But to the younger ones, it made no sense.…

At the Carstairses’, it was Bertha who talked briefly to Constance Benson, then murmured a few words of sympathy for Estelle Peterson before hanging up and facing her husband. Fred was watching her.

“A little late for phone calls, isn’t it?” he asked, pulling himself to a sitting position. He hated being disturbed in the middle of the night.

“That was Constance Benson,” Bertha said matter-of-factly. “She seems to think that Michelle Pendleton had something to do with what happened today.”

“Leave it to Constance,” Fred grumbled sleepily, but he looked wary, nonetheless. “What does Constance think Michelle did?”

“She didn’t say. I don’t think she exactly knew. But she said we ought to have a talk with Sally, and warn her to stay away from Michelle.”

“I wouldn’t warn a man to stay out of a beartrap on Constance Benson’s say-so,” Fred muttered. “She’s always yammering about that graveyard, too, but she hardly ever goes out of the house. Must be tough for that boy of hers.”

“Well, that’s between him and her, and nothing to do with us.”

Bertha was about to snap out the light when there was a soft tap at their door, and Sally came in. She sat down on their bed, apparently wide awake.

“Who was that?” she asked. “On the phone.”

“Just Mrs. Benson,” Bertha said. “She wanted to talk about Susan. And Michelle,” she added.

“Michelle? What about her?”

“Well, Michelle was with Susan today, you know,” Bertha pointed out. Sally nodded, but seemed puzzled.

“I know,” she agreed. “But it’s funny. Susan hated Michelle. Why would Susan have been with someone she hated?”

Bertha ignored the question. Instead, she posed one of her own. “Why did Susan hate Michelle?”

Sally shrugged uncomfortably, then decided that it was time she told someone how she’d been feeling.

“Because she’s lame. Susan kept acting like Michelle was some kind of freak — kept calling her retarded, and things like that.”

“Oh, no …” Bertha murmured. “How terrible for her.”

“And — and we all sort of went along with it,” Sally said miserably.

“Went along with it? You mean you all agreed with Susan?”

Sally nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “I didn’t want to — really I didn’t. But then — well, Michelle didn’t seem to want to be friends anymore, and Susan.… Well, Susan acted like anybody who wanted to be Michelle’s friend couldn’t be hers. And I–I’ve known Susan all my life.” She began crying, and Bertha hugged her close.

“Now, honey, don’t you cry. Everything’s going to be all right …”

“But now Susan’s dead,” Sally wailed. A thought struck her, and she pulled away from her mother. “Michelle didn’t kill her, did she?”

“Of course not,” Bertha said emphatically. “I’m sure it was just an accident.”

“Well, what did Jeff’s mother say?” Sally asked.

“She said — she said—” Bertha floundered, then looked to her husband for assistance.

“She didn’t say anything,” he said flatly. “Susan must have tripped and fallen, just like Michelle did a while ago. Michelle was just luckier than Susan, that’s all. And if you ask me, I think what Susan and the rest of you kids did to Michelle is rotten. I think you ought to tell her you’re sorry, and that you want to be her friend again.”

“But I already told her that,” Sally said.

“Then tell her again,” Fred Carstairs said. “That child has had a bad time, and if Constance Benson is doing what I think she’s doing, things are only going to get harder for her. And I don’t want anybody to say my daughter was a part of it. Is that clear?”

Sally nodded silently. In a way, what her father had just told her was exactly what she wanted to hear. But what if Michelle really didn’t want to be her friend anymore? Then what could she do?

It was very puzzling, and when she went back to bed, Sally was still unable to sleep.

There was something wrong.

Something very wrong.

But she couldn’t figure out what it was.

• • •

Although no one had called the Pendletons that evening, Cal could feel a tension in the air. Coming to Paradise Point, he sometimes felt, had been a mistake. What had it gotten him? Up to his ears in debt, a starvation-level practice, a new baby, and a daughter who would be crippled for the rest of her life.

But the problems would be solved, all of them. For as the weeks had gone by, Cal had come to a realization. For some reason, a reason he only vaguely understood, he belonged in Paradise Point. He belonged in this house, and he knew he wouldn’t leave it. Not for anything. Not even for his daughter.

But she wasn’t his daughter, not really. They’d adopted her. She wasn’t a real Pendleton.

As the thought struck him, Cal shifted in bed, his guilt at even entertaining such an idea making him even more restless. And yet, it was true, wasn’t it?

Of all his probems, why should the worst come from someone who wasn’t even his daughter?

He turned over and tried to think about something else.

Anything else.

Images began to flow through his mind, images of children. Alan Hanley was there, and Michelle, and now Susan Peterson as well. Faces. Faces twisted in fear and pain, blending one into the other, all of them staring at him, all of them accusing him.

And there were others. Sally Carstairs, and Jeff Benson, and the little ones, the ones Michelle had been playing with — when? Yesterday? Was it really Just yesterday? It didn’t matter, not really. They were all there, and they were all looking at him, asking him.

Are you going to hurt us, too?

Sleep began to swirl over him, but it wasn’t an easy sleep. Always they were there, helpless, appealing.

And accusing.

During the night, Cal’s confusion grew, and his anger grew with it. None of it was his fault. None of it! Then why were they accusing him?

The night, and his emotions, exhausted him.

The moon, going into its last phase, had reached its crest as Michelle awoke, and her room was filled with its ghostly light. She sat up in bed, sure that Amanda was with her.

“Mandy?” She whispered her friend’s name, then waited in the stillness of the moonlit night for an answer. When it came, Amanda’s voice was faint, faraway, but the words were clear.

“Outside. Come outside, Michelle …”

Michelle got out of bed and went to the window. The sea sparkled in the moonlight, but Michelle only glanced at it, then shifted her gaze to the lawn below her, searching the shadows for a flicker of movement that would tell her where Amanda was.

And then it came. A shadow, darker than the rest, suddenly moved out onto the lawn.

Her face tipped back, catching the strange light of the fading moon, Amanda beckoned to her.

Michelle slipped her bathrobe on and crept from her room. She paused in the hall, listening. When she heard no sound from her parents’ room, she started down the stairs.

Outside, Amanda waited for her. As Michelle approached she could feel her friend’s presence, pulling at her, guiding her.

She moved down the path, then along the bluff to the studio.

Letting herself in, Michelle made no move to turn on a light. Instead, knowing what Amanda wanted, she went to the closet, and took out a canvas.

She set it up on the easel, picked up a piece of her mother’s charcoal, and waited.

Whatever Amanda wanted to see, Michelle knew she would be able to draw it.

A moment later, she began.

As before, her strokes were bold, quickly drawn, and sure, as if an unseen hand were guiding her. And as she worked, a change came over her face. Her eyes, her brown eyes that had always seemed so alert, grew hazy, then seemed to glaze over. In contrast, Amanda’s milky pale, blind eyes came alive, flickering eagerly over the canvas, darting around the studio, drinking in the sights so long denied her.

The picture emerged rapidly, in the same bold strokes she had used the night before.

Only tonight, Michelle drew Susan Peterson, her face twisted in fear, at the edge of the bluff. Susan seemed to be suspended in mid-air, her body pitched forward, her arms flailing.

And on the bluff, her mouth curving in a mirthless smile, there was another girl, dressed in black, her face all but covered by her bonnet. It was Mandy. She seemed to be suspended in midair, her body pitched arms extended, not in fear, but as if she had just pushed something.

Her smile, though joyless, seemed somehow victorious.

Michelle finished the drawing, then stepped back. Behind her, she could feel Amanda’s presence, Peering over her shoulder at the canvas, breathing softly.

“Yes,” Amanda’s voice whispered in her ear. “That’s the way it was.”

Almost reluctantly, Michelle put the canvas back into the closet, obeying Amanda’s whispered command to hide it deep at the back of the closet, in a far corner, where it wouldn’t be found.

Then, leaving the studio as it had been when she came in, Michelle started back toward the house.

As they crossed the lawn, Amanda whispered to her.

“They’re going to hate you now. All of them. But it doesn’t matter. They hated me, too, and they laughed at me.

“But it’s all right, Michelle. I’ll take care of you. They won’t laugh at you. They’ll never laugh at you.

“I won’t let them.”

And then Amanda disappeared into the night.…

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