by John Saul
Almost unaware of what he was doing, he placed his fingers on Michelle’s wrist.
Her pulse beat steadily.
Then, as he bent over her, her eyes fluttered, and opened. She looked up at him, her immense brown eyes frightened and filled with tears.
“Daddy? Daddy? Am I all right?”
“You’re fine, baby, just fine. You’re going to be all right.” But even as he spoke the words, he knew they were a lie.
Without pausing to think, Cal picked Michelle up in his arms. She moaned softly, then closed her eyes.
Cal started up the trail, his daughter cradled against his chest.
She’ll be all right, he told himself. She’s going to be just fine.
But as he climbed the trail, the memories came back to him, the memories of Alan Hanley.
Alan Hanley had fallen, and had been put in his care. And he had failed Alan—the boy had died.
He couldn’t fail Michelle. Not his own daughter. But even as he carried her to the house, he knew it was too late.
He had already failed her.
BOOK TWO
MANIFESTATIONS
CHAPTER 10
The darkness was almost like a living thing, curling around her, grasping her, strangling her.
She reached out, tried to struggle with it, but it was like trying to struggle with water: no matter how she tried, the darkness slipped through, flooded back over her, made it difficult to breathe.
She was alone, drowning in the darkness.
And then, as if a tiny glimmer of light had appeared in the blackness, she knew she was not alone.
Something else was there, reaching out to her, trying to find her in the darkness, trying to help her.
She could feel it brush against her, just a faint tickling sensation, at the edge of her consciousness.
And a voice.
A soft voice, calling to her as if from a great distance.
She wanted to answer that voice, to cry out to it, but her own voice failed her; her words died in her throat.
She concentrated on feeling the presence, tried to draw it close, tried to reach out and pull it to her.
Then the voice again, clearer now, though still far away.
“Help me … please help me …”
But it was she who needed help, she who was sinking into the black void. How could she help? How could she do anything?
The voice faded away; the darkness began to brighten.
Michelle opened her eyes.
She lay very still, uncertain where she was. Above her there was a ceiling.
She examined it carefully, looking for the familiar patterns she had identified in the cracked paint.
Yes, there was the giraffe. Well, not really a giraffe, but if you used your imagination, it could almost be a giraffe. To the left, just a little bit, should be the bird, one wing stretched in flight, the other bent strangely, as if it was broken.
She moved her eyes, just slightly. She was in her own bed, in her room. But it didn’t make sense. It was at the cove. She remembered. She was having a picnic at the cove with Sally and Jeff, and Susan. Susan Peterson. There were some others, but it was Susan she remembered as the morning came flooding back to her. Susan had been teasing her, saying horrible things to her, telling her that her parents didn’t love her anymore.
She had decided to go home. She was on the trail, and she could hear Susan’s voice echoing in her mind.
And then—and then? Nothing.
Except that now she was home, and she was in bed.
And there had been a dream.
There had been a voice in the dream, calling to her.
“Mom?” Her own voice seemed to echo oddly in the room, and for a second she wished she hadn’t called out. But the door opened, and her mother was there. Everything was going to be all right.
“Michelle?” June hurried to the bed, bent over Michelle, kissed her gently. “Michelle, are you awake?”
Her eyes wide and puzzled, Michelle stared up at her mother, seeing the fear that lay like a haunting mask over June’s face.
“What happened? Why am I in bed?”
Michelle started to sit up, but a stab of pain shot through her left side, and she gasped. At the same time, June put her hands on Michelle’s shoulders and gently pushed her back down.
“Don’t try to move,” she said. “Just lie very still, and I’ll get Daddy.”
“But what happened?” Michelle pleaded. “What happened to me?”
“You tripped on the trail and fell,” June told her. “Now just lie still, and let me call Daddy. Then we’ll tell you all about it.”
June left the bed and went to the door. “Cal?” she called. “Cal, she’s awake!” Without waiting for him to respond, she came back into the room to hover once more over Michelle’s bed.
“How do you feel, darling?”
“I—I don’t know,” Michelle stammered. “I feel sort of—” She hesitated, searching for the right word. “Numb, I guess. How did I get here?”
“Your father brought you,” June told her. “Jeff Benson came up and got him, then—”
Cal appeared in the doorway, and as Michelle’s eyes met her father’s, she knew something had changed. It was the way he looked at her, as if she had done something—something bad. But all she had done was have an accident. Could he be mad at her about that? “Daddy?” As she whispered the word, it seemed to echo in the room, and she saw her father step back slightly. But then he came toward her, took her wrist in his hand, counted her pulse, and tried to smile.
“How bad does it hurt?” he asked softly.
“If I lie still, it’s only sort of an ache,” Michelle replied. She wanted to reach up to him, put her arms around him, and be held by him. But she knew she couldn’t.
“Try not to move,” he instructed her. “Just lie perfectly still, and I’ll give you something for the pain.”
“What happened?” Michelle asked again. “How far did I fall?”
“Everything’s going to be fine, honey,” Cal told her, avoiding her questions.
Very gently, he eased the covers back and began examining Michelle carefully, his fingers moving slowly over her body, pausing every few inches, prodding, pressing. As he moved close to her left hip, Michelle suddenly cried out in pain. Instantly, Cal withdrew his hands.
“Get my bag, will you, darling?” He kept his eyes on Michelle as he spoke, and tried not let his voice betray the fears that were building inside him. June slipped from the room, and as he waited for her to return, Cal talked quietly to Michelle, trying to calm her fears, and his own as well.
“You gave us quite a scare. Do you remember what happened? Any of it?”
“I was coming home,” Michelle began. “I was coming up the trail, sort of running, I guess, and—and I must have slipped.”
His blue eyes clouded with worry, Cal watched Michelle intently. “But why were you coming home? Was the picnic over?”
“N-no …” Michelle faltered. “I—I just didn’t want to stay any longer. Some of the kids were teasing me.”
“Teasing you? Teasing you about what?”
About you, she wanted to cry out. About you and Mom not loving me anymore. But instead of speaking her thoughts, Michelle only shook her head uncertainly. “I don’t remember,” she whispered. “I don’t remember at all.” She closed her eyes and tried to force the sound of Susan Peterson’s mocking voice out of her mind. But it stayed there, crashing around in her brain, nearly as painful as the dull ache that permeated her body.
She opened her eyes as June came back into the room, and watched as her father took a vial out of his bag, filled a hypodermic needle from it, then swabbed her arm with alcohol.
“This won’t hurt,” he promised. He forced a grin. “At least, not next to what you’ve already been through.” He administered the injection, then straightened up. “Now, I want you to go to sleep. The shot will make the pain go away, but I want you to lie still, and try to sl
eep.”
“But I’ve already been sleeping,” Michelle protested.
“You’ve been unconscious,” Cal corrected her, a smile softening the worry lines that seemed etched into his face. “One hour unconscious doesn’t count as a nap. So take a nap.” Winking at her, he turned and started out of the room.
“Daddy?” Michelle’s voice, sharp in the sudden quiet of the room, stopped him. He turned back to her, his face questioning. Michelle gazed at him, pain clouding her eyes. “Daddy,” she said, her voice now little more than a whisper, “Do you love me very much?”
Cal stood silent for a moment, then went back to his daughter. He leaned over her, and kissed her gently on the cheek. “Of course I do, sweetheart. Why wouldn’t I?”
Michelle smiled at him gratefully. “No reason,” she said. “I just wondered.”
As Cal left the room, June came over and very carefully sat down on the edge of the bed. She took Michelle’s hand in her own. “We both love you very much,” she said. “Did something make you think we didn’t?”
Michelle shook her head, but her eyes, moist with tears now, remained fixed on June’s face, as though asking for something. June bent forward and kissed Michelle, her lips lingering on her daughter’s cheek.
“I’ll be all right, Mommy,” Michelle said suddenly. “Really, I will!”
“Of course you will, darling.” June stood up and tucked the covers over Michelle. “Is there anything I can get you?”
Michelle shook her head, then, a thought occurring to her, changed her mind. “My doll,” she said. “Could you get Mandy for me? She’s on the window seat.”
June picked up the doll, brought it to the bed, and placed it on the pillow next to Michelle. Though her face twisted in pain at the effort, Michelle turned Mandy around, tucked her under the covers, then lay back, the porcelain figure nestled like a baby against her shoulder. She closed her eyes.
June stood watching Michelle for a moment, then, thinking that her daughter had already fallen asleep, she tiptoed out of the room, easing the door dosed behind her.
Cal sat at the kitchen table, staring out the window, his unseeing eyes fixed on the horizon.
It was all going to happen again.
Only this time, the victim of his incompetence was not going to be a stranger, someone he barely knew. This time it was going to be his own daughter.
And this time, there were going to be no easy excuses, no salving of his conscience by telling himself that anybody could have made such a mistake.
Without realizing quite what he was doing, Cal got up and poured himself a tumbler of whiskey.
June came into the kitchen just as he had taken his first swallow of the liquor. For a moment she wasn’t sure he was aware of her presence. Then he spoke.
“It’s my fault.”
June knew instantly that he was thinking of Alan Hanley, and connecting his death to Michelle’s accident.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “What happened to Michelle was an accident, and though I know you don’t believe it, Alan Hanley’s death was an accident, too. You didn’t kill him, Cal, and you didn’t push Michelle off the bluff.”
It was as if he didn’t hear her. “I shouldn’t have brought her up.” His voice was dull, lifeless. “I should have left her on the beach until I could get a stretcher.”
She stared at him. “What are you talking about? Cal, what are you saying? She’s not that badly hurt!” She waited for an answer. When none was forthcoming, she began to feel the fear that had subsided as Michelle came out of her unconsciousness surge through her once more, clutching at her stomach, choking her. “Is she?” she demanded, her voice rising sharply.
“I don’t know.” Cal’s empty eyes met hers, then shifted to the bottle. He refilled the tumbler, then stared at it, as if realizing for the first time what he was drinking. “She shouldn’t be hurting as much as she is. She should be bruised, and she should be aching, but she shouldn’t have those sharp pains when she moves.”
“Is something broken?”
“Not as far as I can tell.”
“Then what’s causing the pain?”
Cal’s hand crashed down on the table. “I don’t know, damn it! I just don’t know!”
June reeled at his outburst, then, seeing that he was on the edge of some Kind of breakdown, forced herself to stay calm.
“What do you think?” she asked when she felt she could trust her voice.
His eyes took on a wildness that June had never seen before, and his hand began to quiver. “I don’t know. I don’t even want to guess. But there could be all kinds of damage, and it’ll all be my fault.”
“You can’t know that,” June objected. “You don’t even know that anything serious is wrong.”
It was as if he didn’t hear her. “I shouldn’t have moved her. I should have waited.”
He was about to pour some more whiskey into his glass when there was a rapping at the back door, and Sally Carstairs stuck her head in.
“May I come in?”
“Sally!” June said. She’d thought the children had left long ago. She glanced at Cal. He appeared to have calmed down slightly—enough, anyway, that she was able to shift her concentration to Sally. “Are you all out there? Come in.”
“There’s only me,” Sally said half-apologetically as she let herself into the kitchen. “Everybody else went home.” She stopped uncertainly, then: “Is Michelle all right?”
“She will be,” June said with an assurance she didn’t feel. She offered Sally a glass of lemonade, and invited her to sit down. “Sally,” she began as she poured the lemonade, “what happened down on the beach? Why was Michelle coming home early?”
Sally fidgeted at the table, decided there was no reason not to tell what had happened.
“Some of the Kids were teasing her. Susan Peterson, mostly.”
“Teasing her?” June kept her voice level, curious but not condemning. “What about?”
“About her being adopted. Susan said that—that—” She fell silent with embarrassment.
That what? That we wouldn’t love her anymore, now that we have Jennifer?”
Sally’s eyes widened in surprise. “How did you know?”
June sat down at the table, her eyes meeting Sally’s. “It’s the first thing everyone thinks of,” she said quietly. “But it’s not true. Now we have two daughters, and we love both of them.”
Sally’s eyes fell to her glass, and she seemed intent on its contents. “I know,” she whispered. “I never said anything to her at all, Mrs. Pendleton. Really, I didn’t.”
June could feel herself slipping. She wanted to cry, wanted to lay her head on the table, and weep. But she couldn’t let herself. Not now. Not yet She stood up, struggling to maintain her self-control, and made herself smile at Sally.
“Maybe you should come back tomorrow,” she said. “I’m sure by tomorrow, Michelle will want to see you.”
Sally Carstairs finished her lemonade, and left.
June sank back onto her chair and stared at the bottle, wishing she dared have a drink, wishing there was some way she could make Cal see that whatever had happened to Michelle wasn’t his fault. She watched him refill his glass, started to say something to him. But as she was about to speak, she suddenly had the feeling that she was being watched. She turned quickly.
Josiah Carson was standing in the kitchen door. How long had he been there? June didn’t know. He nodded at her, then he stepped into the room and placed his hand on Cal’s shoulder.
“Want to tell me what happened?” he asked.
Cal stirred slightly, as though Carson’s touch had brought him back to some kind of reality.
“I hurt her,” he said, his voice almost childish. “I tried to help her, but I hurt her.”
June stood up, deliberately shoving the table against Cal. The sudden movement distracted him from what he was saying. June spoke quickly.
“She’s in pain, Dr. Carson,” she said,
keeping her voice neutral. “Cal says she hurts more than she should.”
“She fell off a cliff,” Josiah said bluntly. “Of course she hurts.” His eyes moved from June to Cal. “Trying to drown her pain in alcohol, Cal?”
Cal ignored the question. “I may have injured her myself, Josiah,” he said.
“Perhaps so. Or perhaps not. Suppose I go up and have a look at her. And just what is it you think you did to her?”
“I brought her home. I didn’t wait for a stretcher.”
Carson nodded curtly and turned away, but just as his face disappeared from her line of sight, June thought she saw something.
She thought she saw him smile.
Michelle lay awake in bed, listening to the voices below. She had heard Sally a while ago, and now she could hear Dr. Carson.
She was glad Sally hadn’t come up, and she hoped Dr. Carson wouldn’t either. She didn’t want to see anybody, not right now.
Maybe not ever.
Then the door to her room opened, and Dr. Carson stepped in. He closed the door and came close to the bed, leaned over her.
“Want to tell me what happened?” he asked. Michelle looked up at him, and shrugged.
“I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember anything?”
“Not much. Just—” She hesitated, but Dr. Carson was smiling at her, not forcing himself to, as her father had, but really smiling. “I don’t know what happened. I was running up the trail, and then all of a sudden it was foggy. I couldn’t see, and—and I tripped, I guess.”
“So it was the fog, was it?” There had been fog the day Alan Hanley fell, too. He could remember it clearly. It had come on suddenly, the way it did sometimes with sudden changes in temperature.
Michelle nodded.
“Your father thinks he hurt you. Do you think so?”
Michelle shook her head. “Why would he?”
“I don’t know,” Carson said softly. His eves moved to the doll on the pillow next to Michelle. “Does she have a name?”
“Amanda—Mandy.”
Josiah paused, then smiled, more to himself than to Michelle. “Well, I’ll tell you what. You lie here, and let Amanda take care of you. All right?” He patted Michelle’s hand, then stood up. A second later he was gone, and Michelle was alone once more.