by John Saul
“I’d rather have a gin and tonic. Does she allow that sort of thing in the house?”
“Mother’s a tyrant, not a prude.” They stepped into the kitchen, where Christie sat at the table, leafing through a catalog. “Christie, look who’s here.” As Diana pulled a bottle of gin out of a cupboard, Christie looked up and grinned at Bill.
“Hi! Guess what happened to us today?” While Diana mixed Bill’s drink the little girl excitedly told Bill about the snake.
Diana listened to the tale pour forth from Christie and realized that, from Christie’s point of view, she had saved her life. And yet, try as she would, she could remember nothing except that she had been suddenly, helplessly angry. Then—nothing. A blank. And yet something had happened, something that had given her the courage to pick up a rock and throw it at the snake, something she would never have done under normal circumstances. Since she had been a child the sight of a snake had paralyzed her with terror. But today something had happened. Something she had neither been aware of nor could control.
As she set Bill’s drink in front of him, Diana was suddenly wary. What if he realized that she had no memory of what Christie was talking about? Would he think she was crazy? If he did, he, too, would try to take Christie away from her. But he seemed to be paying no attention to her. Instead he was listening intently as Christie began telling him about her horse.
“Horse?” Bill replied, feigning disapproval. “What horse? Kids your age don’t have horses.”
“I do,” the little girl announced. “Want to see him?”
Bill glanced questioningly at Diana.
“It’s Hayburner,” Diana explained, relieved to have the subject of the snake left behind. “Seems it was love at first sight, and since you can’t live on a ranch without a horse, he is now Christie’s. As you can see, she’s currently shopping for cowboy clothes.”
Bill sipped at his drink. “Why don’t you just take her to Penrose’s?”
“I’m going to, but not till tomorrow. And tomorrow, apparently, is a long way off.” She smiled. “So far, I think she’s spent about three hundred dollars.”
Christie looked up from the catalog again, her face suddenly worried. “I’m only looking,” she said.
“And looking doesn’t cost a thing,” Bill told her. He turned his attention back to Diana. “How’s it going?”
Diana glanced quickly at Christie, then went to the sink and fixed herself a drink. “As well as can be expected, I suppose.” Her voice dropped a little, and she tipped her head in Christie’s direction. “Why don’t we go into the parlor?” she suggested.
They were silent until they’d seated themselves in the tiny front room, then Bill spoke.
“Your mother was in town this morning,” he said finally.
“I know,” Diana replied, her voice pensive. “I saw her go.”
“Do you know why she went in?”
Diana nodded. “She told me. She still doesn’t want Christie here.” She paused, then changed the subject. “Why don’t you stay for dinner?”
“Here? With your mother?”
“It’ll be all right,” Diana said, and Bill thought he heard a trace of desperation in her voice. When she went on, he was sure of it. “I’ll make it all right, Bill.”
The four of them sat stiffly at the dining room table, and for a while Bill thought that maybe Diana was going to be able to deliver on her promise.
But as Edna Amber sat at the head of the table, dressed for dinner in a severe black dress that was years out of fashion, a pearl choker around her neck, and her hair piled regally on top of her head, her cold silence threw a pall over the meal. It should have been all right, Bill reflected. A stranger would have seen nothing amiss in the scene: a middle-aged couple, their young daughter, and a grandmother gathered together for a meal. But it was a charade, and Bill wondered for a fleeting moment if Diana had planned it as a charade. Then, as he saw her misery in the situation, he realized she couldn’t have. She had simply made a mistake and hadn’t the techniques to rectify it.
Several times she tried. First she attempted to include Christie in the conversation.
“Why don’t you tell Miss Edna about the snake?” she suggested. Christie looked eagerly toward Edna, but Edna only glared at Diana.
“Talk of snakes at the dinner table?” she asked. “Really, Diana, I thought I raised you to have a certain amount of taste.”
A few moments later, as the silence had threatened to become embarrassing, Diana asked Bill if anything interesting had been going on in town. From the head of the table, Edna’s imperious voice instantly came to life.
“There has been nothing of interest in Amberton in sixty years,” she said. “And I hardly think things have changed since I was there this morning.”
As Diana’s face reddened the silence gathered once more. Christie, feeling the tension at the table, only nibbled at her food and soon pushed her plate away.
“May I be excused?” she asked, her voice barely audible and her eyes large.
“Of course, dear,” Diana told her. She watched sadly as the child scurried from the room, and wished she had been able to save the evening. Determined to try once more, she turned to Bill and smiled brightly. But before she could speak Edna rose from the table. Bill scrambled to his feet, but Edna ignored him, speaking only to her daughter.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish with this, Diana, but I trust that even you can see that you’re making a fool of yourself. Please come to my room before you go to bed tonight.”
Without so much as a word to Bill Henry, she, too, left the room.
When they were alone together, Diana gazed bleakly at Bill.
“I’m sorry. I-I hoped oh, I don’t know what I hoped.” She was on the verge of tears.
“It’s all right.” Bill moved to the end of the table and took her hand in his own. “What did you expect? She stayed right in character. She always does.”
Diana sighed heavily, dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, then regained her control.
“I know. I guess I thought maybe if you were here, she’d at least not say anything too horrible to Christie. Well, that part of it worked. But I’m not sure this wasn’t even worse.”
“Well, look at it like this. No matter what happens now, things can’t get any worse.”
Diana gazed into his eyes.
“Can’t they?” she asked. “I wish I could believe that.”
She began clearing the table, and Bill Henry wandered into the library, where Christie was sitting in a large wing chair, a book open in her lap.
“Hi,” Bill said. “Okay if I come in?”
Christie glanced up from her book, and there was something in her eyes as she looked at him that struck Bill as odd. Christie seemed frightened, as if she were afraid she was doing something wrong. “Are you all right?”
Christie nodded and closed the book. “I—sometimes I’m not supposed to look at the books,” she stammered.
“Sometimes?” Bill repeated. “What does that mean?”
Christie wriggled in the chair. “Nothing,” she whispered, not sure how to explain to the doctor that she never knew when she was going to find herself in trouble.
Bill lit his pipe and settled into an easy chair. “It must mean something,” he commented. He gazed critically at Christie. “Do you like living here?”
Christie hesitated, then nodded.
“But it’s different from the way it was at home, right?”
Again Christie nodded. “Sometimes it’s scary,” she said.
“Scary? How?”
Christie’s eyes moved over the room once more, and it struck Bill that she was trying to see if anyone might be listening. Finally she started to speak.
“Sometimes I think everything’s fine, but then other times—” She broke off, her eyes fixed on the door. When Bill followed her gaze, he saw Diana, smiling uncertainly.
“Are you two having a private chat, or
may I join in?”
“Nothing private,” Bill responded.
Diana came into the room and glanced at the clock. “I think it’s time you were in bed,” she said to Christie. The little girl hesitated, then got up to leave the room, pausing to peck Diana on the cheek. Then she was gone.
Diana moved to the wing chair Christie had recently occupied, and sat down. “What were you talking about?” she asked.
“We weren’t, really. We’d just started. She said that sometimes it’s scary, living here.”
Diana’s expression turned grim, and she hesitated before she spoke. “It’s Mother,” she said finally. “She’s not used to Christie yet, and sometimes she scares her. That’s all.”
“But everything’s all right between you and Christie?” Bill pressed.
“Of course it is,” Diana replied. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“No reason,” Bill said quickly. “I was just wondering.”
“Everything’s fine,” Diana assured him. Then she stood up, glancing once more at the clock. “It’s late, isn’t it?”
Taking the hint, Bill Henry got to his feet, and a few minutes later, feeling disturbed by the whole evening, he was on his way back to town.
And in the house, Diana Amber was even more disturbed.
8
Christie lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the night. She wished she were downstairs. There were lots of rooms on the second floor—why couldn’t she have one of them? Why did she have to stay up here?
A wave of loneliness swept over Christie. She got out of bed and went to the window. The night was clear, and she could see the mountains glowing in the moonlight. Below her, in the chicken coop, the hens were clucking softly in their sleep, the sound clearly audible in the still night air.
She turned away from the window and looked around the nursery. She hated it. It smelled sour, and always there were noises in the walls—scufflings and scratchings that she was sure were rats. She dreamed about them sometimes, seeing their yellow eyes glowing in the darkness, brown teeth dripping saliva. Just thinking about them made her snatch up one of the stuffed animals and scurry back to bed. The toy was no comfort to her; it was musty and felt dead, and what she wanted was something alive.
The chicks.
Maybe she could sneak one of the chicks up to her room.
She put on her bathrobe and a pair of sneakers. She paused at the door, trying to remember if Diana had locked it that night. Finally she reached out and touched it.
It was locked.
She went back to the window and slowly raised it, then slipped out onto the ledge. Slowly she crept down the slope of the roof until she was over the kitchen. She eased her body over the edge until at last her legs touched the ridge of the kitchen roof. Moving downward once again, she paused at the edge of the eave and looked down. Should she risk the jump? What if the doors were locked? How would she get back in?
She thought about it for a few seconds, then made up her mind. If the doors were locked, she’d find another way. If she could get out of the house, surely she could get back in. Holding her breath, she jumped from the roof. A moment later she was scurrying across the yard.
As she approached the chicken coop the hens stirred, then, sensing no danger, tucked their heads back under their wings and went back to sleep.
Christie listened carefully. The faint sound of the peeping chicks reached her. She tried to locate the sound. Even in the dim light, she could see that one of the hens seemed to be fluffed up more than the others. Christie slipped a hand under the bird and found a chick. It wriggled frantically but calmed down as Christie gently stroked its head. When it was quiet, she stood up and started back to the house.
The kitchen door was unlocked, and Christie slipped inside, being careful not to let the screen door slam behind her. In the pantry she found an old shoe box full of spices. She emptied the box and gently put the chick inside. Keeping her tread as light as possible, she crept up the back stairs to the third floor and let herself back into the nursery.
But there was no way to relock the door. Well, maybe Diana would think she’d forgotten to lock it.
Safely back in the nursery, Christie sat in the rocking chair and opened the box. The chick was huddled down in one corner. It looked frightened to her. She reached down and touched it. The chick ducked its head and scuttled to the opposite corner of the box.
“It’s all right, baby,” Christie whispered to it. “I won’t hurt you. I’m your friend.”
She captured the chick in her hand and held it until it was once again calm. Then, putting the chick back into the box, and setting the box on the floor next to the cot, she took off her robe and curled up under the covers.
Somehow just knowing the chick was there made her feel better. Soon she drifted off to sleep.
Edna Amber waited until almost three before she left her room. She had been awake all night, but that was all right. As she got older she needed less sleep, and tonight there had been a reason to stay awake.
She had heard scuffling noises in the night and had gotten up from her bed to investigate them. She had watched as Christie lowered herself to the kitchen roof, then jumped to the ground.
She was puzzled when Christie went out to the hen house, and it wasn’t until she saw the child returning to the house with something cupped in her hand that Edna realized what she was doing.
Bringing in a chick to keep her company.
It was when the wind began to blow that Edna began to formulate the idea.
Now, pulling on her robe, she climbed the stairs to the third floor and quietly let herself into the nursery. Christie was sound asleep, but on the floor beside the cot was the box.
Edna picked the box up, opened it, and smiled at the sleeping chick.
Then she wrung its neck.
She dropped the chick back into the box, replaced it on the floor, then, pausing as she straightened up, brushed Christie’s cheek with her lips.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Really, I am.” Christie stirred in her sleep, but didn’t wake up.
As the moon set and the glow of the night faded to blackness, Edna Amber returned to her bed.
Diana woke at seven and lay in bed, listening to the stillness of the morning. She had slept badly, worrying about Bill Henry’s reaction the night before. She knew that sometime during the night the wind had come down from the mountains, bringing with it the nightmares that had plagued her sleep. It had been that way since she was a little girl, and she had always looked forward to the beginning of summer when the winds would be over for another year and she could sleep peacefully.
Only twice had they come in summer, and Diana remembered those years very well.
The last time had been the year her mother had sent her to the hospital. It had been an awful year for Diana, and the summer winds had been too much for her. Everyone in Amberton had become edgy that summer, but Diana had fallen into depression. She had fought constantly with her mother that summer, but did not know why, really. Over the years, she had discovered that fighting with Edna was nearly useless.
She never won.
But that summer, she had tried. She remembered one day in particular.
The wind had been blowing that day, and the car had refused to start.
“What did you do to it?” Edna had asked.
“Nothing, Mother. It’s just old.”
“Don’t be silly, child. You must have done something.”
“I didn’t, Mother. Cars just aren’t built to be driven for twenty years.”
“If you take care of them, they’ll last.” Her mother’s voice had taken on the querulous tone that Diana had learned to dread. “But you don’t take care of anything, do you? You never have.”
“Mother, that’s not true!”
“Are you calling me a liar, Diana?” Edna had rasped.
“No—”
But it was already too late. Edna’s hand had flashed out and struck her cheek, as it h
ad since she was a little girl, and Diana had fallen silent, knowing that to say anything more was to risk further punishment. Instead she had crumpled in the face of her mother’s fury, until, after an hour, Edna had relented and gathered Diana into her arms.
It was that night, during dinner, that Diana had suddenly begun clawing at her face, and Edna eventually had had to call for an ambulance.
At the hospital, they called it agitated depression, and tried to explain to Diana that it stemmed from her relationship with her mother. If she were ever to get over it, she would have to learn to stand up to the old woman.
After a few days she had come home, and for a while she had tried. But as time wore on she had come to realize that peace in the house was better than the constant fights that occurred whenever she disagreed with her mother.
There hadn’t really been anything she thought worth fighting for, until recently.
Until Christie.
Now, for the first time in her memory, she was standing up to her mother, and Edna was giving in.
And this morning, the wind had stopped. Diana was getting out of bed when the scream ripped through the morning quiet.
It came from upstairs.
She grabbed her robe and ran out of her room. A few feet away, her mother was standing at the door of her own room, staring at the ceiling.
“What’s that child screaming about?” she demanded as Diana dashed by. Diana ignored her.
She took the stairs two at a time, then burst into the nursery.
Kneeling on the floor, her face ashen and tears running down her cheeks, was Christie.
In the shoe box, the chick lay dead, its tiny eyes popping from their sockets.
Diana gently took the box from Christie and stared at the dead bird. “Christie, what happened?” she breathed.
Christie tried to speak, but couldn’t. Instead she began sobbing and threw herself facedown on the bed.
“Stop crying,” Diana ordered. Her sympathy for the child’s misery was turning into annoyance. “Just tell me what happened.”