by John Saul
“It could be a sprain,” he said slowly.
Carson’s brows rose noncommittally. He carefully rolled Sally’s sleeve down again. “How bad does it hurt?” he asked.
Sally scowled at him. “Well, I’m not going to die,” she said. “But I can’t do anything with it.”
Carson smiled at her and squeezed her good hand. “I’ll tell you what. Dr. Pendleton and I are going to talk to your parents for a while, and we brought a surprise for you.”
Sally suddenly looked eager. “You did? What?”
“Not what—who. It seems Dr. Pendleton brought his assistant with him, and she happens to be just your age.” He moved to the bedroom door and called to Michelle. A moment later, Michelle came hesitantly into the room. She stopped just inside the door, and looked shyly at Sally. Her father introduced the two girls, then the adults left them alone together to get acquainted.
“Hi,” Michelle said, a little uncertainly.
“Hi,” Sally replied. There was a silence, then: “You can sit on the bed if you want to.”
Michelle moved away from the door, but before she got to the bed, she suddenly stopped, her eyes fixed on the window.
“What’s wrong?” Sally asked.
Michelle shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought I saw something.”
“Outside?”
“Uh-huh.”
Sally tried to turn in bed, but the pain stopped her. “What was it?”
“I don’t know.” Then she shrugged. “It was like a shadow.”
“Oh, that’s the elm tree. It scares me all the time.” Sally patted the bed, and Michelle settled herself gingerly at its foot. But her eyes remained fixed on the window.
“You must look like your mother,” Sally said.
“Huh?” Michelle, surprised at the observation, finally tore her gaze from the window, and met Sally’s eyes.
“I said you must look like your mother. You sure don’t look like your father.”
“I don’t look like Mom, either,” Michelle replied. “I’m adopted.”
Sally’s mouth opened. “You are?” There was a note of awe in her voice that almost made Michelle giggle.
“Well, it’s no big deal.”
“I think it is,” Sally said. “I think it’s neat.”
“Why?”
“Well, I mean, you could be anybody, couldn’t you? Who do you think your real parents were?”
It was a conversation Michelle had been though before with her friends in Boston, and she had never been able to understand their interest in the subject. As far as she was concerned, her parents were the Pendletons, and that was that. But rather than try to explain it all to Sally, she changed the subject.
“What’s wrong with your arm?”
Sally, easily diverted from the subject of Michelle’s ancestors, rolled her eyes up in an expression of disgust. “I tripped, and twisted it or something, and now everybody’s making a big deal out of it.”
“But doesn’t it hurt?” Michelle asked.
“A little bit,” Sally conceded, unwilling to let her pain show. “Are you really your father’s assistant?”
Michelle shook her head. “Dr. Carson asked him to bring me along.” She smiled. “I’m glad he did.”
“So am I,” Sally agreed. “Uncle Joe’s neat that way.”
“He’s your uncle?”
“Not really. But all the kids call him Uncle Joe. He delivered almost all of us.” There was a pause, then Sally looked at Michelle shyly. “Could I come out to your house sometime?”
“Sure. Haven’t you ever been in it?”
Sally shook her head. “Uncle Joe never had anybody over there. He was really weird about that house—always saying he was going to tear it down but never doing it. And then, after what happened last spring, everyone was sure he’d tear it down. But I guess you know all about that, don’t you?”
“Know about what?” Michelle asked.
Sally’s eyes widened. “You mean nobody told you? About Alan Hanley?”
Alan Hanley. That was the name of the boy in the hospital in Boston. “What about him?”
“Uncle Joe hired him to do something to the roof—fix some slates or something, I guess. And he fell off. They took him to Boston, but he died anyway.”
“I know,” Michelle said slowly. Then: “It was our house he fell off of?”
Sally nodded.
“Nobody told me that.”
“Nobody ever tells kids anything,” Sally remarked. “But we always find out anyway.” She shrugged the matter aside, eager to get back to the subject of the Pendletons’ house. “What’s it like inside?”
Michelle did her best to describe the house to Sally, who listened in fascination. When Michelle was finished, Sally lay back against her pillow, and sighed.
“It sounds like it’s just the way I always thought it would be. I think it’s the most romantic house I’ve ever seen.”
“I know,” Michelle agreed. “I like to pretend it’s just my house, and I live there all alone, and—and.…” Her voice trailed off, and she blushed in embarrassment.
“And what?” Sally urged her. “Do you have … love affairs?”
Michelle nodded guiltily. “Isn’t that terrible? To imagine things like that?”
“I don’t know. I do the same thing.”
“You do? What’s the boy like, when you pretend?”
“Jeff Benson,” Sally said immediately. “He lives right next door to you.”
“I know,” Michelle said. “I met him the day we moved out here, down on the beach. He’s really cute, isn’t he?” A thought suddenly occurred to her: “Is he your boyfriend?”
Sally shook her head. “I like him, but I guess he’s Susan Peterson’s boyfriend. At least that’s what she says.”
“Who’s Susan Peterson?”
“One of the kids at school. She’s really kind of stuck-up. Thinks she’s special.” Sally paused. Then: “Hey, I have a neat idea.” Her voice dropped into a whisper, and Michelle leaned closer so she could hear what Sally was saying. The two of them began giggling as each of them added details to Sally’s plan. When Bertha Carstairs came into the room a half hour later, they exchanged a conspiratorial glance.
“You two behaving yourselves?” Bertha asked.
“We’re just talking, Mom,” Sally answered with exaggerated innocence. “Would it be all right if I go over to Michelle’s tomorrow?”
Bertha looked at her daughter doubtfully. “Well, that depends on how your arm is. Doctor thinks you might have sprained it—”
“Oh, it’ll be fine by morning,” Sally cut in. “It doesn’t hurt much at all. Really it doesn’t.” There was a pleading tone to her voice that Bertha Carstairs chose to ignore.
“That’s not what you said when you made me call the doctor away from his dinner,” she said severely.
“Well, it’s gotten better,” Sally announced.
“Let’s see how it is in the morning.” She turned to Michelle. “Your dad says it’s time to go home.”
Michelle got up from the bed, said good-bye to Sally, and went to the kitchen to find her father.
“Have a nice visit?”
Michelle nodded. “If she’s better, Sally’s coming out to our house tomorrow.”
“Great,” Cal replied. Then he turned to Carson. “See you in the morning?” The old doctor nodded, and a moment later Cal and Michelle left the Carstairses. But as he opened the car door, Cal had an odd feeling, and glanced back toward the Carstairses’ front door. There, like a dark shadow against the lights inside, stood the tall figure of Josiah Carson. Though he couldn’t see the old man’s eyes in the darkness, Cal knew they were fixed on him. He could feel them, boring into him, examining him. Feeling a sudden chill, he quickly got into the car, and slammed the door.
He started the engine, then impulsively reached over and patted Michelle on the leg. “Don’t be too disappointed if Sally doesn’t make it tomorrow, princess,” he said gently.
&nbs
p; “Why?” Michelle asked, her face filled with concern. “Is something really wrong with her?”
“I don’t know,” Cal replied. “Neither of us could find anything particularly wrong.”
“Maybe she sprained it like you said,” Michelle offered.
“That would hurt either the elbow or the shoulder, depending on which she sprained. But the pain seems to be between the joints, not in them.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Wait until morning,” Cal said. “If she isn’t much better, and I don’t think she will be, we’ll take some X rays. I suppose there could be a hairline fracture.” He gunned the engine and pulled away. Michelle turned to look back at the house.
Something caught her eye—a movement, or a shadow, very close to the house. She had a feeling—the same feeling that she had had earlier in Sally’s room. A feeling of someone being there. Nothing she could see, or hear, but something she could sense. And it wasn’t, she was sure, an elm tree.
“Daddy! Stop the car!”
Reflexively, Cal’s foot moved to the brake. The car came to a quick halt. “What’s wrong?”
Michelle was still staring back at the Carstairses’. Cal’s gaze followed his daughter’s. In the darkness he could see nothing.
“What’s wrong?” he said again.
“I’m not sure,” Michelle said. “I thought I saw something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” Michelle said hesitantly. “I thought there was somebody there—”
“Where?”
“At the window. At Sally’s window. At least I think it was Sally’s window.”
Cal pulled the car over and shut off the engine. “Stay here. I’ll go take a look.” He got out of the car, shut the door, and started to walk the few steps back to the Carstairses’, then returned to the car.
“Princess? Lock the doors, will you. And stay in the car.”
Michelle looked at him with disgust. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Daddy. This is Paradise Point, not Boston.”
“But you thought you saw something.”
“Oh, all right,” Michelle said reluctantly. She reached across and locked the driver’s door, then her own.
Cal tapped on the glass, pointing toward the back door.
Making a face at him, Michelle stretched over the seat and pressed the buttons locking the other two doors of the car.
Only then did Cal go to investigate the Carstairses’ yard.
A few seconds later he was back, and Michelle dutifully unlocked the door for him.
“What was it?”
“Nothing. It must have been a shadow.”
He restarted the car and began driving home. Michelle sat quietly beside him. Finally, he asked her if anything was wrong.
“Not really,” Michelle said. “I was just thinking about Sally—I really want her to come over tomorrow.”
“Well, as I said, don’t count on it, princess.” Once again, Cal affectionately patted his daughter. “You like it out here, don’t you?” he asked.
“I love it,” Michelle said softly.
She snuggled close to her father, the strange shadow she had seen outside Sally’s window quickly forgotten.
And I like it out here, too, Cal told himself silently. I like it just fine. The housecall had gone all right. He hadn’t done much, but at least he hadn’t done anything wrong. And that, he reflected, was a step in the right direction.
The next morning, Sally Carstairs appeared at the Pendletons’ front door. She explained that the pain in her arm had completely disappeared overnight, but Cal looked the arm over anyway and questioned Sally carefully.
“It doesn’t hurt at all?”
“It’s fine, Dr. Pendleton,” Sally insisted. “Really it is.”
“Okay,” Cal sighed, reluctantly giving in to her. “Run along and have a good time.” As Sally left the front parlor, Cal scratched his head, then went to the phone.
“Josiah? Have you talked to Bertha Carstairs this morning?”
“No, I was just going to call her.”
“Don’t bother,” Cal said. “Sally’s here, and she’s fine. The pain’s completely cleared up.”
“Well, that’s fine,” Josiah Carson replied.
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Cal said. “If it was a bruise, a sprain, or a fracture, it would still hurt. It just doesn’t make sense.”
There was a long silence at the other end. For a moment Cal wasn’t sure Josiah Carson was still there. Then the old doctor spoke.
“Sometimes things don’t make sense, Cal,” he said quietly. “That’s just something you’re going to have to accept. Sometimes things just don’t make sense.”
CHAPTER 4
Michelle’s eyes devoured every detail of the Paradise Point school as she waited for Sally Carstairs to arrive. It was nothing like Harrison had been—nothing at all. There was no trace of Harrison’s dingy paint, no graffiti in the halls, and the trash containers, neatly spaced along the length of the corridor, were not chained to the walls. Instead, Michelle found herself in a brightly lit corridor, painted an immaculate white with green trim, filled with happily chattering children—children who seemed eager for a new school year to begin. She searched the crowd for Sally’s familiar face, spotted her, and waved. Sally waved back, then beckoned to Michelle.
“Down here,” Sally called. “We’re in Miss Hatcher’s room!”
Michelle felt curious eyes watching her as she moved toward Sally, but when she met the glances of one or two or her new schoolmates, she saw only friendliness in their faces—none of the suspicious hostility that had hung like a dark cloud over the old school in Boston. By the time she reached Sally, Michelle was sure everything was going to be fine.
“Now, you remember what to do?” Sally asked. Michelle nodded. “Okay. Let’s go in. Jeff’s already here, but I haven’t seen Susan—she’s always late.” She started inside the classroom, but Michelle stopped her.
“What’s Miss Hatcher like?”
Sally glanced at her, then grinned at the sudden uncertainty in Michelle’s face.
“She’s neat. She tries to pretend to be an old-maid schoolteacher, but she has a boyfriend and everything. And she lets us sit wherever we want. Come on.”
Sally led Michelle into the classroom as they had planned. They moved directly up to the front row where Jeff Benson had seated himself in the center of the room. Making a great show of innocence, Sally took the seat on Jeff’s left, and Michelle took the one on his right. Jeff greeted both of them, then began talking with Sally while Michelle tried to look surreptitiously at her new teacher.
Corinne Hatcher seemed to be the image of a smalltown schoolteacher. She wore her light brown hair in a tight chignon, and on a chain around her neck, a pair of glasses dangled. Though Michelle did not yet know it, no one had ever seen her wear the glasses—they simply hung there. But Michelle did notice that there was something behind the spinsterish appearance of Miss Hatcher. Her face was pretty, and her eyes had a warmth to them that softened her severe appearance. Michelle was sure she knew why Miss Hatcher was a great favorite with her students.
At her desk, Corinne Hatcher was aware of Michelle’s curious gaze, but made no move to acknowledge it. Better to let the new girl size things up for herself. Instead, she fixed her eyes on Sally Carstairs and tried to figure out what Sally was up to. Obviously, Sally and the new girl, whose name she knew, but not much else, were already friends. But why weren’t they sitting together?
It wasn’t until Susan Peterson came in that Corinne realized what the game was: Susan started toward the front of the room, her eyes on Jeff Benson. Michelle and Sally exchanged a glance, Sally nodded, and the two of them began giggling. As she heard the giggling, Susan stopped, realizing that the seats on both sides of Jeff were already taken, and that it wasn’t a coincidence. Susan glared at Sally, glanced contemptuously at the stranger in the room, then took the seat directly behind Jeff.
And M
ichelle, seeing Susan’s quick anger, immediately began to regret having fallen in with Sally’s plan. It had seemed funny at the time, to keep Susan away from the boy she wanted to sit next to, but now Michelle realized that she had made a mistake. And Susan didn’t look like the kind of girl who would forget about it, either. Michelle began to wonder what she could do to make things right.
As the bell rang, Corinne rose and faced the class.
“We have a new student with us this year,” she said. “Michelle, would you stand up?” She smiled encouragingly at Michelle, who blushed a deep red, hesitated for a moment, then haltingly stood up next to her seat. “Michelle is from Boston, and I imagine this school must look very strange to her.”
“It’s nice,” Michelle said. “It isn’t like the schools in Boston at all.”
“You mean they aren’t nice?” Sally teased.
Michelle’s blush deepened. “That’s not what I meant—” she began. “Miss Hatcher,” she appealed, “I didn’t mean to say I didn’t like the school in Boston …”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Corinne said quickly. “Why don’t you sit down, and we’ll let everyone introduce himself to you.”
Gratefully, Michelle sank back into her seat, and leaned over to glare at Sally, who was grinning back at her mischievously. Her sense of humor overcoming her embarrassment, Michelle began to giggle, but quickly stopped when she heard the voice behind her.
“I said, my name is Susan Peterson,” the voice repeated loudly. Michelle turned, and met Susan’s glare, then felt herself turning red again. She quickly faced the front of the classroom, sure that she had accidentally made an enemy, and wishing again she hadn’t let herself get caught up in Sally’s scheme.
But I didn’t mean any harm, she told herself. She tried to concentrate on what Miss Hatcher was saying, but for the first hour all she was conscious of was the memory of Susan Peterson’s eyes, wrathful, staring at her. When the first recess bell finally rang, Michelle hesitated, then approached the teacher’s desk.
“Miss Hatcher?” she said hesitantly. Corinne looked up at her, and smiled.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, concerned by Michelle’s troubled expression.
“I was wondering—could I change my seat?”