by John Saul
She felt her muscles relax.
And then she heard it!
A faint creaking sound, so soft she almost missed it.
Had it come from inside the house? Maybe not. Maybe it came from outside. Maybe one of the huge old maples had a cracked branch and—
It came again, and this time there was no mistaking it. The creaking had come from inside the house.
Angel froze, willing her heart to remain calm so its throbbing wouldn’t drown out any sound that might betray whatever danger was creeping through the house.
Again she waited, straining her ears, unconsciously holding her breath.
Nothing.
Maybe she’d been wrong—maybe she hadn’t really heard anything at all! Maybe whatever it was had come from outside. Slowly letting out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding, she once more let herself relax.
And the sound came again.
This time she was certain it was right outside her door, and she had to fight to keep the scream that was building in her throat from erupting.
But maybe she should scream! Maybe she should scream as loud as she could, so her mother would wake up and—
Then she remembered what had happened when she tried to tell her mother about what her father was doing. And tonight, her father would just say he’d been worried about her and was listening to make sure she was all right.
And her mother would believe him.
Biting her lips, she held back her cry.
And heard the soft click of the door opening.
The squeal of its hinges as someone pushed it open.
The wind cleared the clouds away from the moon, and a silvery glow flooded through the window.
And Angel saw the same figure standing in her doorway that she’d seen standing in the road in her dream.
But she was awake now, and it wasn’t a dream, and even though the figure was wearing the strange black coat with the wide collar and lapels and didn’t even look like her father, she knew that it was her father.
She could feel him looking at her, feel his eyes peeling away the blanket and the sheet, stripping off her pajamas.
She clutched at the covers, holding them as tight around her neck as she could, but still felt as if she was lying naked on the bed, with her father gazing at her.
The figure moved, stepping into the room.
No, Angel cried silently. Oh, please, no!
The figure moved closer, and once again her heart was racing, and she shrank back into the pillows and prayed she could just disappear and—
Long fingers with cracked and torn nails closed on the bedding, and Angel felt it being pulled away.
Now the hand was reaching for her pajamas.
Just as the fingers were about to close on the thin material that covered her breast, she focused her mind the way she had that afternoon and visualized her father hurtling through the door.
But instead of flying backward as he had that afternoon, this time her father only hesitated.
His hand trembled in the air a few inches in front of her.
In the dim silvery light spilling through the window, she could see him struggling.
Then his hand came closer.
Angel shrank back and concentrated harder, closing her mind to everything but the image she visualized of her father being pushed away, pushed out of the room, pushed to the top of the stairs, and then—
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the hand reaching for her breast began to move away.
She could see it trembling again, see her father once again struggling against the unseen force. But this time she held her concentration, focused her mind so utterly on the one single image that she no longer even saw her father, or the room around her, or even the light of the moon.
She felt herself tiring, felt every muscle in her body begin to ache as if she’d been running for hours.
The image in her mind wavered.
She struggled to regain it, but it was too late.
Exhausted, she let go of the image. It was as if all the tension in her body were released at once, and as a muted cry escaped her lungs, her head collapsed into her pillow and all her muscles suddenly turned to jelly.
But when she opened her eyes, the dark figure of her father was gone.
She was once again alone in her room.
The door was closed.
The wind outside had died away.
The light of the moon was once more suffusing the room with a bright silvery glow.
And the house was silent.
Angel waited, listening for any sound at all that might betray her father’s return. Finally, after several long minutes, she slipped out of her bed and went to the door.
Opening it a crack, she peeked out into the hallway.
At the far end, her father was sprawled in a heap, as if he’d passed out just as he reached the top of the stairs.
Almost certain he wouldn’t awaken for the rest of the night, she silently closed her door and returned to her bed.
And this time she slept. But she didn’t sleep until close to dawn.
Chapter 39
YRA SULLIVAN NEARLY DROPPED THE FRYING PAN full of scrambled eggs as she turned away from the stove and caught sight of Angel for the first time that morning. For a moment she was too stunned to say anything as she gazed at the black-clad figure that stood framed in the doorway. Angel’s face was made up exactly as it had been on Saturday for the party at the country club, her skin a ghostly white, her eyes enlarged with shadow and liner, her lips the deep glistening red of blood. Myra could only gape, and then her mouth opened as if she were about to speak, but no words came out. Tearing her eyes away from Angel, she turned to Marty.
And saw that his face was almost as pale as Angel’s. His gaze was fixed on Angel, and his features were twisted into a look of such utter terror that for a second Myra thought he must be having a heart attack.
“Marty?” she finally managed to say. “Marty!”
It wasn’t until she spoke his name for a third time that Marty reacted to his wife’s words, and then it was only to rise unsteadily from the table, backing away so quickly that the chair behind him tipped over with a crash. “Get her away,” he said, his voice shaking. “Get her away from me!”
Now it was her husband Myra was gaping at. Had he gotten so drunk last night, and been left so hung over this morning, that he didn’t even recognize his own daughter? “For heaven’s sake, Marty, calm down—you look like you’ve seen a ghost! It’s only Angel.”
The shock of Angel’s appearance receding as quickly as it had washed over her, she pursed her lips and turned back to her daughter. “What on earth are you thinking of?” she asked. “You practically frightened your father half to death. Now go upstairs, change your clothes, and take off that ridiculous makeup. Of all the—”
“It’s not ridiculous, and I’m not taking it off,” Angel said, sitting down at the table and pouring some orange juice from the carton Myra had taken out of the refrigerator a few minutes ago. “May I have some eggs?”
Startled into silence by her response, Myra automatically scooped a spoonful of eggs onto Angel’s plate, then scooped another onto Marty’s plate, not even noticing that half of her husband’s serving dropped directly onto the table. Not that it mattered, for Marty was as oblivious of the eggs as Myra, his eyes still fixed on Angel.
“You do what your mother tells you,” he said, but there was a note in his voice that betrayed his fear.
“I can wear what I want,” Angel said, looking directly at her father.
Marty’s gaze wavered, then broke. “If you get kicked out of school, don’t come crying to me,” he mumbled. Picking up his lunch box, he moved toward the back door.
“Marty!” Myra protested. “You haven’t even eaten your breakfast!”
“I’ll get a doughnut on the way to work,” he said. And with one more quick glance at Angel, he was gone.
Frowning, Myra turned back to her daughter. “W
hat on earth are you trying to do?” she demanded. “You scared your father half to death! Your own father!”
For a moment Angel said nothing. Then looking directly into her mother’s eyes, she asked, “Why do you think that is? Why do you think Daddy would be scared of me?”
Instead of answering her daughter’s questions, Myra turned away from her, just as a few days earlier she’d turned away from Angel’s fears about her husband.
It’s not true, she told herself. It can’t be true. Marty wouldn’t do that.
A heavy silence hung between mother and daughter, a silence that wasn’t broken even when Angel left to begin the long walk to school.
Seth Baker gazed at himself in the mirror and rubbed a hand experimentally over his chin, but just as on every other day, there was no trace of a beard—just the same soft, smooth skin that had been there every other day of his life.
But this day he felt different, if for no other reason than what had happened last night when Zack Fletcher was about to beat him up and instead wound up lying semiconscious on the sidewalk. When Seth got home, he’d been terrified his father had already discovered what had happened. But his father was watching a football game on TV and barely noticed him as he scurried up the stairs to his room. Still, he’d been certain that sooner or later the phone would ring and his father would be told what he’d done. But the phone hadn’t rung. In fact, his father hadn’t paid any attention to him at all last night. And that was a good thing, because even after what he’d been able to do to Zack, Seth wasn’t sure he’d have the nerve to try the trick on his own father.
But when he awoke this morning, he felt better than he could ever remember feeling. He was no longer afraid of Zack Fletcher and Chad Jackson and Jared Woods. The feeling of well-being that had come over him persisted as he went into the bathroom, used the toilet, brushed his teeth, washed his face, and finally checked to see if there was yet any sign of a beard.
It hadn’t bothered him that there still wasn’t even a single whisker. He hadn’t really expected to find one. Besides, a beard—no matter how thick—didn’t have anything to do with what he’d done last night.
It was so easy. He’d just pictured Zack rising into the air, and it happened, just like it had happened with the rock out by the cabin where he and Angel had made the potion.
Now, turning away from his image in the mirror, he looked for something to experiment on, and focused on the bar of soap sitting on the edge of the sink.
In his mind, he pictured it rising into the air and floating over to the bathtub.
And nothing happened.
The soap remained where it was.
Stuck! That must be it—the soap was stuck to the sink!
Seth picked the bar of soap up, turned it over so its wet side was up, and set it on a dry spot on the sink.
Once again he imagined it rising into the air, and once again it remained where he’d put it, not moving even a fraction of an inch.
He stared at the bar of soap, focusing as hard as he could, and a cold knot of fear formed in the pit of his stomach as he realized what it meant if the bar didn’t rise.
The soap stayed exactly where he’d put it.
He took a deep breath and tried once more, but already knew what had happened: during the night, the effect of the strange broth he and Angel brewed in the kettle had worn off, just the way every medicine wore off if you didn’t keep taking it.
The knot of fear tightened in his belly, and he felt almost sick, thinking about what would happen that day.
Seth took the long way to school that morning, certain that if he followed his normal route, not only Zack Fletcher, but Chad Jackson and Jared Woods would be waiting for him somewhere. And he didn’t think that this morning they’d stop with just taking his backpack, or pantsing him, or figuring out some other way to humiliate him.
Today they would be out for blood.
“Where the hell is the little prick?” Zack Fletcher asked, his voice shaking with fury. He and Chad Jackson were around the corner from Seth Baker’s house, well enough concealed by a thick laurel hedge that there was no way Seth would be able to see them. And Jared Woods was stationed across the street, ready to cut Seth off if he happened to spot them and made a run for it.
“He’ll show up,” Chad said, staring at the lump on Zack’s head, which was now covered with a bandage. “Jeez, man—what did he do to you?”
“Jumped me,” Zack said. “He was hiding over on Court Street—you know, where the Jacobsons live?”
“What do you mean, hiding?” Chad asked.
Zack glared at him. “Like, hiding, all right?”
“You mean he was waiting for you?”
“Well, you don’t think I just let him walk up and hit me with a baseball bat do you?”
Chad’s eyes widened as he pictured Seth Baker stepping out from behind a bush wielding a baseball bat and taking a swing at Zack’s head, and he winced as he thought about how hard the bat must have hit Zack to raise a lump the size he was sporting. “So, did you call the police?”
“You gotta be kidding! I didn’t call anybody—I was flat on my back, out like a light. Mrs. Jacobson found me, and called my folks and an ambulance. I had to go to the hospital and everything.”
“So, is your dad gonna sue the Bakers? I mean, you could have died, couldn’t you?”
“That little bastard Seth is going to die when I get my hands on him,” Zack said, his eyes narrowing to little more than slits. “I swear to God, I should’ve brought my own bat this morning.”
Jared Woods appeared then, dashing across the street.
“Are you nuts?” Zack demanded. “If he sees you, he’ll never come this way!”
“He’s not coming this way anyway,” Jared retorted. “You know what time it is? It’s ten of eight,” he went on, without giving either Zack or Chad time to answer. “You guys can keep waiting if you want, but if I get one more tardy, I’ll get three hours in study hall after school.”
“Well, where is he?” Zack asked. “He couldn’t have just walked right by us.”
Now it was Jared Woods who rolled his eyes. “Jeez, Zack! Seth’s geeky, but he’s not stupid. You think he didn’t figure out you’d be waiting for him this morning? Bet he went over his back fence and through the Shroeders’ yard, then cut down a couple of blocks.”
“Too chicken to face us,” Zack sneered.
“I guess he wasn’t too chicken last night,” Jared said, eyeing the lump on Zack’s head with a hint of a grin playing around the corners of his mouth.
“I told you,” Zack shot back, his voice belligerent. “He jumped me!”
Jared shrugged and started down the block. “Hey, anything you say.” As Zack glowered at him, Jared shifted his gaze to Chad. “You coming, or not?”
Chad glanced from Zack to Jared, then back to Zack.
“You calling me a liar?” Zack shouted at Jared, who was already a quarter of the way down the block.
Jared stopped short and turned back to face Zack. The other boy’s fists were clenched, and Jared knew that if he didn’t say exactly the right thing, Zack would come after him, and if he did, Chad would too. That was how it worked. “I’m not calling you anything,” he said, backing down as he saw the anger in Chad’s eyes as well as Zack’s. “All I’m saying is that if Baker was coming this way, he’d have been here long ago, and if we wait any longer, we’re all gonna be in trouble.”
Zack took a deep breath and one last look toward the corner where Seth Baker should have appeared at least fifteen minutes ago. “Okay,” he said, finally giving in. “But after school—”
“After school,” Chad broke in, “I’m gonna do what I should’ve done a long time ago. I’m gonna get him, and by the time I’m done with him, he’s gonna wish he’d never come near you last night.”
As Zack’s lips twisted into an ugly grin of anticipation, Jared Woods wondered whether Chad was just trying to impress Zack or if he was really going to help Zac
k Fletcher give Seth Baker the kind of beating he was talking about.
Teasing Seth all those years had been one thing.
Actually hurting him was something else.
Heather Dunne was waiting nervously by the front door as the three boys raced up the steps just as the first bell was ringing. As Zack reached the top step, Heather’s eyes widened. “Zack? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later,” he muttered, unwilling to try to convince Heather that there’d been nothing he could do to defend himself from Seth Baker, not until he had enough time to figure out an answer for every question she might ask. “Got to get to class.” Chad and Jared had already gone into the building and were racing up the stairs to their lockers, and now Zack hurried after them.
“Zack!” Heather called out. “Wait a minute! You’re not going to believe—”
“Later!” Zack yelled back over his shoulder. “Tell me at lunch!”
Not even pausing at the landing halfway up the staircase, he took the second flight two steps at a time. He came through the door to the stairwell running, and almost crashed into Chad and Jared. Instead of frantically working the combinations to their lockers, as they should have been, they were standing frozen in place, staring down the corridor. Barely keeping his balance, Zack was about to push Chad aside when he saw what his two friends were gazing at.
Halfway down the corridor, standing in the very center of the corridor, was a figure clad completely in black. The face was an almost ghostly white, slashed with a bloodred gash of a mouth.
Two enormous eyes—eyes far larger than Zack would have thought possible—seemed to be staring right through him.
As he too stood frozen between his friends, the figure moved slowly toward him, and just as slowly, Zack recognized the face.
Angel.
His cousin.
Except this morning everything about her had changed.
It wasn’t just the makeup she was wearing, and the black clothes.
There was something else.
Something in the way she moved.
Instead of edging along the wall as she usually did, looking like she hoped no one would notice her, she walked down the center of the wide corridor, her eyes fixed on him.