The Touch

* * *

Finally, the storm was dying. The lightning was now dim flashes and the thunder only low-pitched rumbles, like an overfed stomach with indigestion.

Thank God! Sylvia thought. Now, if only the lights will come back on…

Phemus began to bark.

Sylvia went to the window that looked out on the driveway, but saw no car. She glanced at her watch and.saw that it was 10:40. Three minutes to high tide. A chill ran over her. Someone was out there in the darkness, moving this way across the lawn toward the house. She wished she could turn on the outside spotlights. At least then she could see him. Not that it really mattered. She could sense his presence.

Alan was coming.

But how could that be? How could he get all the way here from lower Manhattan? It just didn't seem possible. Yet he was out there. She was sure of it.

Flashlight in hand, she took Phemus by the collar and led him back to the utility room where she closed him in with the washer and dryer. As she was moving toward the library, she heard the front door swing open. She stopped for a minute, listening to her heart thudding in her chest. She thought she had locked that door! What if it wasn't Alan? What if it was a burglar—or worse?

Turning her flashlight off, Sylvia steeled herself and crept softly along the hall until she got to the front foyer. A distant flash of lightning flickered though the still-open door, reflecting off wet footprints on the floor and backlighting a dark figure starting up the stairs.

"Alan?"

The figure didn't reply, but continued to climb. It seemed to be limping as it took the steps one at a time. Ba had said that Alan was limping when he left Chac's. It had to be him.

She flicked on the flashlight and angled the beam until she caught his face.

Yes, it was Alan, and yet it was not Alan. His face was slack, his eyes vacant. He was different.

"Alan—don't go up there."

Alan glanced her way, squinting in the beam of light.

"Jeffy," he said in a voice she barely recognized.

Cajole him, she told herself. Talk him down. He's not all there.

She held the light under her own face. "It's me—Sylvia. Don't go to Jeffy now. He's asleep. You'll only disturb him. Maybe you'll frighten him."

"Jeffy," was all that Alan said.

And then the lights came on.

Sylvia gasped at the sight of Alan in his entirety. He looked terrible. Wet, dirty, his hair matted and twisted by wind and rain, and his eyes—they were Alan's and yet not Alan's.

He continued up the stairs one at a time at his painfully slow pace, moving like an automaton.

With fear and pity mixing inside her, Sylvia started toward him. "Don't go up there, Alan. I don't want you to. At least not now."

He was halfway up the staircase now and didn't look around. He simply said, "Jeffy."

"No, Alan!" She ran up the stairs until she was beside him. "I don't want you to go near him! Not like this. Not the way you are."

The lights wavered, flicked off for a second, then came back on.

"Jeffy!"

Fear had taken over now. There was no longer any question in her mind that Alan was completely deranged. In the distance she heard a siren. If it was the police, she wished they were coming here, but it was too late to call them now. She couldn't let Alan near Jeffy. She'd have to stop him herself.

She grabbed his arm. "Alan, I'm telling you now—"

With a spasmodic jerk of his left arm, he elbowed her away, slamming her back against the banister. Sylvia winced at the pain in her ribs, but what hurt more was that Alan did not even look around to see what he had done.

The siren was louder now, almost as if it were passing directly in front of the house. Sylvia scurried up to the top of the stairs ahead of Alan and faced him, blocking his way.

"Stop, Alan! Stop right there!"

But he kept on coming, trying to squeeze by to her left. She tightened her grip on the banister and wouldn't let him pass. She was so close to him now, and she could see the determination in his eyes. He pressed against her with desperate strength as the lights flickered again and the siren's wail became deafeningly loud.

"Jeffy!"

"No!"

He grabbed her arms to push her aside and then everything happened at once. Pain—it started at her core and began to boil within her, tearing at her, making her feel as if she were being turned inside out. Her vision dimmed. She heard a pounding sound—footsteps on the stairs or the blood in her ears? Then Ba's voice shouted,

"Missus, no!"

She felt an impact that knocked the wind out of her, felt strong arms around her, lifting her, carrying her, falling to the floor with her.

Sylvia's vision cleared as the pain faded away. She was lying on the second-floor landing. Ba was beside her, breathing hard, a bloody bandage around his head.

"Missus! Missus!" he was saying, shaking her. "You all right, Missus?"

"Yes, I think so." She saw Alan limp by. He looked down at her, and for a moment seemed to start toward her, a confused and concerned look on his face. Then he turned away, as if drawn by an invisible cord, continuing on his path toward Jeffy's room. "Alan, come back!"

"He must go, Missus," Ba said soothingly as he restrained her. "You must not try to stop him."

"But why?"

"Perhaps because he has always wanted to help the Boy, and perhaps his time with the Dat-tay-vao is near its end and he must complete this final task. But you must not try to stop him."

"But he could die!"

"As you would have died if you had barred his way any longer."

There was a note of such finality in Ba's voice, and such unfailing certainty in his eyes, that Sylvia did not dare ask how he knew.

The lights went out again.

Sylvia looked down the hall and saw Alan's shadowy form turn into Jeffy's room. She wanted to scream for him to stop, to run down the hall and grab him by the ankles. But Ba held her back.

Alan disappeared through Jeffy's doorway. A pale glow suddenly filled the room and spilled out into the hall.

"No!" she cried and broke away from Ba. Something awful was going to happen. She just knew it.

She rolled to her feet and ran down the hall, but was brought to a halt for a frozen second as a child's cry of pain and fear split the silent darkness.

And then the cry took form.

"Mommy! Mommy-Mommy!"

Sylvia's knees buckled. That voice! God, that voice! It was Jeffy! The lights flickered again as she forced herself forward, through the door, and into the room.

By the glow of his Donald Duck night-light she could see Jeffy crouched against the wall in the corner of his bed.

"Mommy!" he said, rising to his knees and holding his arms out to her. "Mommy!"

Sylvia staggered forward, heart pounding, mouth dry. This couldn't be true! This kind of thing only happens in fairy tales!

Yet there he was, this beautiful little boy, looking at her, seeing her, calling for her. Half-blinded by tears, she ran forward and gathered him up against her. His arms went around her neck and squeezed.

It was true! He was really cured!

"Oh, Jeffy! Jeffy! Jeffy!"

"Mommy," he said in a clear, high voice. "That man hurt me!"

"Man? What—?" Oh, God! Alan! She frantically looked around the room.

And then she saw him, crumpled on the floor like a pile of wet rags in the shadows by the foot of the bed.

And he wasn't moving. God in heaven, he wasn't even breathing!