Nathaniel

by John Saul

  A few moments later Michael was excitedly talking about the birth of the colt, describing in detail everything that had happened, everything that he and Eric had done.

  "Well, it all sounds fascinating," Janet said when he was done. She stood up, then tucked the covers around her son, and leaned down to kiss him goodnight. "Now you just think about all those things you learned tonight, and in a few minutes you'll be sound asleep. By tomorrow morning, you'll have forgotten all about your accident." She started toward the door, but Michael's voice stopped her.

  "Mom?"

  She turned back.

  "Mom, Aunt Laura had her baby tonight, didn't she?"

  Janet frowned. "How did you know that?"

  "I—I saw Dr. Potter go into Ryan's house. And I saw Grandpa's car there, too." He fell silent for a moment, then his brow furrowed. "Mom, did something happen to the baby?"

  Janet returned to the bed, and sat down agaiu. "What makes you ask a question like that?"

  "Did it?" Michael pressed.

  For a moment Janet wondered how to explain to Michael what had happened, then decided to face the question head on. "It was born dead, honey," she said quietly. "Those things happen sometimes. It's called a miscarriage, and all kinds of things can cause it. For your Aunt Laura, it was probably a blessing in disguise."

  "Why?"

  "Well, sometimes things go wrong with babies, and they just don't develop right. That's what happened to Aunt Laura's baby. Her miscarriage was just nature's way of correcting a mistake." Suddenly she frowned. "How did you know Aunt Laura had her baby tonight?"

  Michael hesitated only a moment before shrugging. "I don't know. I guess Mrs. Simpson must have told me."

  "All right." Once again Janet kissed her son goodnight. Then she went to the door of his room, turned to smile at him one last time, and switched off the light.

  For a long time, Michael lay in the darkness, thinking.

  Aunt Laura's baby hadn't been born dead.

  He knew it hadn't, because Nathaniel had told him so…

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "What am I supposed to say?" Michael asked anxiously as Janet pulled Amos Hall's Olds into the Shieldses' driveway.

  "You probably won't have to say anything at all," Janet replied. "You can talk to Ryan while I talk to Aunt Laura. She's in bed, and you won't even have to go upstairs."

  Relieved, Michael got out of the car and started across the lawn, his mother behind him. Then, as they mounted the steps to the porch of the white clapboard house, the front door opened and Buck Shields appeared, weariness etching haggard lines around his eyes. He nodded a greeting to Michael, then turned to Janet.

  "Thanks for coming," he said. "She's upstairs in our room, the first one on the left."

  Janet slipped her arms around her brother-in-law. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I wish I'd been here—"

  "There was nothing you could have done." There was a flat lifelessness in Buck's voice that wrenched at Janet, and she had to turn her head away as her eyes flooded with tears. Brusquely, Buck extricated himself from her embrace. "Go on upstairs. She's waiting for you. I've got to get down to the store." An uncharacteristic grin played at the corners of his mouth. "My mother's looking after it. She means well, but she never quite manages to make things add up. Can you stay with Laura 'til I get back?"

  "Of course," Janet assured him. "I can stay all day, if you need me." Her eyes fell on Michael, who was fidgeting near the front door. "Where's Ryan?"

  "Out back, I think. Somewhere around, anyway." He started down the steps, then turned back. "Janet. Laura's— well, she's taking this hard. Don't upset her." Then, before Janet could reply, he hurried down the steps and across the yard. A moment later, he was gone.

  As Michael headed around to the backyard, Janet went directly upstairs. She found Laura propped up against some pillows, her pale face framed by her dark hair, her eyes closed.

  "Laura?" Janet whispered. "Are you awake?" Slowly Laura's eyes came open, and she stared at Janet as if she didn't recognize her. Then a soft smile came over her face. "Janet? Janet, is that really you?"

  Janet moved across the room, pulling a small chair close to the bed. "Who were you expecting?"

  Laura's smile faded away. "Nobody, really," she said. "I've just been lying here, trying to pretend nothing happened." Her eyes met Janet's. "Did you do that when Mark died? Try to pretend it hadn't happened?"

  Janet hesitated, then nodded. "It's shock, I suppose. You can't handle the pain, so you deny the injury. But all it does is postpone it." She paused, then: "Do you want to talk about it?"

  A sigh escaped Laura's lips, and she turned her face away from Janet to stare at the wall. "I think they killed my baby, Janet," she whispered as her resolve to believe what she'd been told slipped away. "They said it was born dead, but I think they killed it."

  Janet's mouth opened, but no words came out. Then, a moment later, she felt Laura's hand in her own.

  "Why do they do that, Janet?" Laura continued. "Why do they kill my babies?"

  The agony in Laura's voice wrenched at Janet. "Laura. Oh, Laura, you mustn't even think such a thing."

  Laura's head turned once more, and Janet could see the tears that streaked her cheeks. "But it was all right, Janet. I know it was all right. They said it was born dead, but right up till the end, I could feel it moving." Her voice began to rise, and her grip on Janet's hand tightened. "I could feel it, Janet. If it had been dead, it wouldn't have moved, would it? Would it?"

  Janet wondered what to say, wondered if she ought to call Buck or Dr. Potter. "I—I don't know," she said at last. "But sometimes things happen, Laura. Sometimes things go wrong, and there's nothing anybody can do."

  Seeming to calm slightly, Laura let her head fall once more onto the pillows, and now her eyes fixed on the ceiling. When she spoke again, her voice was dull. "They wouldn't let me to go the hospital. They wouldn't take me to the hospital, and they wouldn't let mother come. I begged them, but they wouldn't let her come."

  "She wouldn't have been able to do anything," Janet said, trying to soothe the distraught woman. "I know how horrible it must have been for you—"

  Suddenly the fire came back into Laura's eyes, and she sat straight up in the bed. "Do you?" she demanded, her voice once more rising toward hysteria. "How can you know? Have you ever lost a baby? Have you ever been through what I went through last night? Have you?"

  And once again Janet's childhood memory flashed through her mind. But it hadn't been a baby she had lost. It had been her whole family, burning before her very eyes. But she couldn't tell Laura about that, not now.

  "N-no—" she stammered.

  "Well, just wait, then. Just wait 'til your baby comes. They'll do it to you, too, Janet. Just like they did it to mother when her last baby came. They didn't let mother go to the hospital, either. And they won't let you! When your time comes, you'll be all alone, and they'll do what they want, and you won't be able to do anything about it. Then you'll know how I feel!"

  Exhausted, she fell back onto the pillows, and her breathing became a strangling sob. Janet, on her feet now, glanced frantically around the room, her eyes finally alighting on a small vial of pills on the dresser. She picked them up and read the label, but the complicated name of the drug meant nothing to her. She took them to the bed. "Laura? Laura, do you want one of these?"

  For a long time Laura was silent, and Janet began to wonder if she'd fainted. Then, once more, her eyes opened, and she stared at the bottle. Finally she shook her head. "No." She hesitated, then reached out to Janet. "I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have said all those things. I must have sounded crazy. It was all just so terrible last night, Janet. It hurt so much, and I was so frightened and confused, and I knew they were killing the baby but I couldn't stop them. I couldn't stop them, Janet." Quietly, she began to cry. "I saw what happened," she repeated brokenly. "I saw it." Then her sobbing overcame her, and Janet took her in her arms, rocking her gently as if Laur
a herself were the baby she'd just lost.

  Michael found Ryan behind the garage, desultorily stacking a pile of split logs. "Whatcha doing?"

  Ryan glanced up, then stared openly at the scratches on Michael's face. "What happened to you?"

  "I—I fell off my bike. Whatcha doing with the wood?"

  "What's it look like? My dad says I have to get all this wood stacked by tonight. Wanta help?"

  Michael shrugged, and picked up a piece of wood. Beneath it, something moved, and he immediately dropped the wood back on the pile. "Something's under there."

  "Prob'ly a lizard," Ryan told him. "I caught three so far."

  "How do you catch 'em?"

  Ryan grinned. "Easy. You just hold real still, and pretty soon they think you're gone, so they come out to lie in the sun. Then you put your hand out real slowly, and sneak up behind them, and grab 'em. Wanta try it?"

  "Sure."

  Cheerfully abandoning work, Ryan picked a likely-looking spot and lowered himself onto a log, Michael taking up a position beside him. For a few minutes, the two of them sat silently.

  "Can we talk?" Michael finally asked.

  Ryan gave him a sidelong glance. "What about?"

  "I mean, will the noise scare the lizards away?"

  "Nah. They're deaf." Then: "How long'd the foaling take last night?"

  "A long time," Michael bragged. "I didn't go to bed 'til real late." He hesitated, wanting to tell Ryan what had happened the night before, but Nathaniel's strange words still lingered in his mind: "Never tell them the truth. Tell them what they want to hear." But Nathaniel hadn't been talking about Ryan, had he?

  Michael decided he had not: in his eleven-year-old mind, "them" meant "adults." It was grown-ups you had to keep secrets from, not other kids. "I—I think I saw Nathaniel last night."

  Ryan turned to stare at him. "Nathaniel? The ghost?" His tone clearly betrayed his disbelief.

  "I think so." Again Michael hesitated. Then: "If I tell you what happened, will you promise not to tell anyone? Anyone at all?"

  Ryan regarded him with scorn. "What do you think I am? Besides, who'll I tell?"

  "You can't tell anyone."

  Ryan shrugged. "Okay. But what's the big deal? There's no such things as ghosts, so you couldn't have seen Nathaniel anyway."

  "I didn't say I saw him," Michael argued. "I said I thought I saw him."

  Were?" Ryan demanded.

  "In—he was in a building."

  "What building?"

  "A—a barn," Michael hedged.

  Ryan's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Whose barn?" he asked.

  "None of your business," Michael said, but when Ryan turned away with an elaborate show of disdain, Michael retreated. "I don't know whose barn it was," he compromised. "But that's where I saw Nathaniel. At least I think I did."

  Ryan's curiosity made him face Michael again. "Well, did you, or didn't you?"

  "I don't know," Michael said, still not willing to commit himself to telling Ryan everything that had happened. "It was really weird. He—he wanted me to take him outside."

  Suddenly something moved in the woodpile, and Ryan tensed, his eyes locked on a dark gap between two logs. Michael fell silent, and a few seconds later, the movement was repeated. Then, slowly, the pointed scaly nose of a small lizard appeared, its tongue darting out every few seconds.

  "Don't move," Ryan warned. "If you move, it'll run away." There was a long silence as both boys concentrated on the lizard, while the wary reptile, as if sensing the danger, stayed where it was. "What do you mean, he wanted you to take him outside?" Ryan finally asked. "If he wanted to go outside, why didn't he just go?"

  "How should I know? He said he couldn't. But then he—well, he just disappeared. I was talking to him, or sort of talking to him—"

  "What do you mean, 'sort of'?" Ryan asked, turning his attention away from the lizard and focusing it fully on his cousin. "Did you talk to him or not?"

  Michael wondered how to explain it. "He… he sort of talked to me without saying anything. It was like he was inside my head or something."

  "That's crazy," Ryan declared. "People can't talk that way."

  "I know," Michael agreed. "That's what I've been thinking about. Last night I was sure I saw him and talked to him, but now I'm not so sure. Do you think—" He broke off, suddenly sure he knew what Ryan would say if he finished the question.

  "Think what?" Ryan pressed.

  "Do you think I could have seen a ghost?" he asked, his eyes carefully on the woodpile and away from Ryan.

  "There's no such thing as ghosts," Ryan repeated, but with a little less assurance than he'd had earlier.

  "I know," Michael agreed. "And last night, I was sure he was real. But this morning, I'm not sure. It's weird."

  "You're weird," Ryan replied. Suddenly he froze. "Wait a minute. Here comes one. Hold still."

  Out of one of the gaps in the woodpile, a lizard appeared, moving slowly, almost as if it were under water. As Michael watched in fascination, its legs began to move, one by one. The tongue, flashing out every few seconds, seemed to be sensing the environment. Once, the lizard froze for a moment, and Michael was sure it was about to scurry back into the dark shelter from which it had come. But instead it started moving in a series of short darts, coming finally to rest on the top of a log, basking in the full sun. Its head was pointed away from the two boys. Michael felt Ryan stir.

  "I'm gonna try for him," Ryan whispered. "Hold real still."

  Moving as slowly as the lizard had, Ryan began bringing his hand forward, keeping it low down, out of the creature's line of sight. Each time the lizard tensed, Ryan froze, waiting until the lizard relaxed once more before resuming his furtive movements toward it. Finally, when he was only a few inches from the lizard, he made his move.

  "Gotcha!" he crowed, cupping his hand over the wriggling animal. A second later, he grinned at Michael. "Wanta hold him?"

  "Sure." Michael held out his hand, and Ryan carefully transferred the lizard from his fist to Michael's. For a few seconds it wriggled furiously against Michael's confining fingers, then lay still. Michael looked up at Ryan. "It stopped wiggling. Is it dead?"

  "Naw. Open your hand real carefully, and take it in your fingers. Grab it right behind the front legs. If you grab it by the tail, it'll just take off, and grow another tail."

  While Ryan supervised, Michael slid a finger into his still-closed fist, feeling around until he was sure he had the lizard trapped between his palm and the finger. Then he opened his fist, and picked up the little creature with two fingers. Its scaly back was the color of wood bark, and there were tiny claws at the end of each of its toes. But when he turned it over, its belly flashed an iridescent blue in the sunlight.

  "Wanta hypnotize it?" Ryan asked.

  Michael looked dubiously at his cousin. "How?"

  "Just hold it upside down and rub its belly a couple of times."

  Michael hesitated, then did as Ryan had told him. As he watched, the lizard's torso seemed to arch, and its eyes closed.

  "Now put him down."

  Carefully, Michael laid the lizard on a log, then stroked its belly a few more times. Finally he drew his finger away. The lizard stayed where he'd left it, its eyes closed, only a faint movement in its throat indicating that it was still alive.

  "How long'll it stay that way?" Ryan shrugged. "A few minutes. You can keep it that way forever, if you rub its belly again every time it starts to wake up. Except if you leave it in the sun too long, it'll get too hot and die." The two boys watched the lizard for a few minutes. Then, without warning, its eyes blinked open. It flipped itself over and disappeared back into the safety of the woodpile.

  "Ryan?" Michael asked a few minutes later as the two of them once more began stacking the wood neatly against the back wall of the garage. "Do you think I really could have seen a ghost last night?"

  Ryan looked at him disgustedly. "No."

  "Then what did I see?"

  "
I don't think you saw anything," Ryan said. "And I don't want to talk about it anymore."

  "But I did see something!"

  "Bull!" Ryan exploded. "You didn't see anything, and you didn't go into any old barn, and you're just making all this up. All you did was fall off your bike, and now you're trying to make it sound like it wasn't your fault, 'cause you saw a ghost. Well, I don't believe you, and none of the other guys will, either. So if you don't shut up, I'm gonna tell my dad you went into old man Findley's barn. Then you'll really be in trouble."

  Michael's eyes blazed with sudden anger. "You said you wouldn't tell anyone! You promised. Besides, I never said it was old man Findley's barn."

  "So what?" Ryan sneered. "How was I supposed to know you were going to start trying to con me with a bunch of bull? And I can say anything I want to anyone I want to, so you just better watch out."

  Michael fell silent. His head was throbbing with pain, and deep within his mind he thought he could hear a voice whispering to him, urging him to strike out at Ryan. Then, vaguely, he remembered the other day, when he'd suddenly told Ryan to drop dead, and for a moment—just for a second, really—he'd actually thought it was going to happen. He struggled to control himself, afraid of what might happen now if he gave in to that voice inside him, and at the same time knowing that if he kept talking about what he had seen the night before, Ryan would only accuse him of being crazy. But as he went on helping his cousin stack the wood, he kept thinking about the night before. And the more he thought about it, the more everything he'd seen and heard in the darkness began to seem like a dream.

  And yet, he had seen lights in the field, and he had gone into Findley's barn.

  He had seen a car, and he had seen someone in the light of the lanterns.

  But had he seen Nathaniel?

  And how could he have seen what was happening in the field? It had been so dark, and he'd been looking through a crack in the wall of a barn.

  And that voice, the voice he thought was Nathaniel's.