by John Saul
Kathy Burton screamed, and with the last of her reserves of strength she pulled herself to her feet and moved toward the spot where Elizabeth struggled with Jimmy Tyler.
“Don’t,” she croaked. “Please, Elizabeth, don’t.”
Elizabeth wheeled, and Kathy wished she hadn’t tried to interfere. She began backing away, the light in Elizabeth’s eyes driving her backward until she reached the wall of the cavern. Her terror grew as she saw Elizabeth pick up a rock from the floor of the cavern. She felt the strength suddenly ebbing from her body when Elizabeth raised the stone over her head, and she began collapsing to the cavern floor as Elizabeth brought the rock downward.
For Kathy Burton, the horror was over.
An hour later Rose Conger found her older daughter emerging from the shower.
“I was just going to tell you that if you wanted a shower before dinner, you should get started. I see I’m too late.”
Elizabeth nodded and smiled at her mother. Rose smiled back, and silently thanked God for sending her Elizabeth. Without Elizabeth, she didn’t know how she would manage.
“Will you bring Sarah down with you?” she said.
“Sure,” Elizabeth replied. “As soon as I get dressed.”
* * *
In the cave, Jimmy Tyler lay where Elizabeth had left him, too weak and too confused even to try to find his clothes. He lay shivering, naked in the darkness.
22
Rose lay stiffly in bed later that night, listening to the rain pound on the roof, her thoughts as turbulent as the weather outside. She could hear nothing from Jack’s inert form beside her, but she sensed that he wasn’t asleep.
“There’s something about that portrait, isn’t there?” she said finally. Jack snapped on the lamp by his side of the bed and raised himself up on one elbow.
“Do you feel it too?” he asked.
“No,” Rose said flatly. “I don’t. But all evening long you sat and stared at it. What is it about it? It’s as if you’re trying to see something in it.”
Jack lay back down again and stared at the ceiling.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “It just seems like—like the portrait should look more like Sarah than like Elizabeth.”
“Sarah? Why Sarah?”
“Nothing I can put my finger on. Just a feeling. I keep thinking about what Dr. Belter told us. About the little girl who was supposed to have been killed. I keep getting the feeling that the picture must be of that girl.”
“What does that have to do with Sarah?” Rose’s voice was sharper now, as if she was guarding herself against what was to come.
“I remembered today. I remembered it all. Rose, that day a year ago. I almost killed Sarah.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t,” Jack said miserably. “I wanted something else.”
“Something else?”
“I wanted to rape her,” Jack said quietly. He waited for a response from Rose, and when there was none he went on. “I don’t have the vaguest idea of what it was all about, but today, when I was bringing Sarah back in from the rain, I looked up and saw Elizabeth watching me. And then, suddenly, I remembered it all. I remembered being in the woods, and watching Sarah crawl under a bush. And suddenly I wanted her. Sexually. Don’t ask me to explain why—I don’t know. It was the most awful thing I’ve ever felt in my life. I felt like I was someone else, but I was still myself. It was like I was being made to do something, or want to do something, that I didn’t want to do. And then an awful feeling came over me that … that Sarah was seducing me.”
Rose sat up. “Seducing you?” she demanded. “Seducing you? My God, Jack, she was only ten years old!”
“I didn’t say she was seducing me. I said I felt like she was. And so I started beating her. I really wanted to kill her. Oh, Jesus, Rose, it was awful.” The pain of memory swept over him once more, and he began crying softly. Rose, failing to understand what had happened to him, her own feelings in turmoil, searched for something to say.
“What’s all this got to do with the portrait downstairs?” she asked finally.
“I’m not sure,” Jack muttered. “When I look at that portrait I get the strange feeling that what happened to Sarah a year ago, happened to that girl a long time ago.”
“And that, I suppose, takes you off the hook, doesn’t it?” Rose said icily. “Suddenly, instead of being the aggressor you’re the victim? My God, Jack.”
Jack cringed at her words, but Rose plunged on.
“And what about today? Were you a victim again today? Did some strange force come over you again today? Were you not yourself again today?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw it today, Jack. I saw it all And I was ashamed that Carl and Barbara Stevens saw it too.”
Jack sat up and stared at his wife. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“I’m talking about you out there in the field with Sarah. I’m not sure which was worse, watching her charging across the field, screaming, or watching you rescue her. You were vicious, Jack. It wasn’t like you were helping her. It looked like you were attacking her! It was like it was all happening all over again.”
Jack sat up, his eyes blazing. “Are you out of your mind? Today was nothing like a year ago. Nothing at all. For one thing, I was stone sober today.”
Rose frowned. “Maybe you don’t have to be drunk,” she said. “Maybe something more serious is wrong with you.”
Something snapped inside Jack, and he grabbed Rose by the shoulders and pinned her down to the bed.
“We’ll see who I can rape,” he snarled, and as Rose lay back limply, as if he weren’t worth fighting against, his rage grew. He grabbed at her nightdress and tore it from her body. Still she lay there, taunting him with her passiveness. He hurled himself on her and tried desperately to mount her.
And he couldn’t.
Now she began squirming under him, and for a moment he wasn’t sure whether she was trying to free herself or help him.
“You can’t do it, can you?” her mocking voice came from beneath him, slightly muffled by his chest “Only little girls? Well, I’m not a little girl, Jack. I’m a woman, a real woman. Now get off me.” She pushed up against him, and once more he tried to thrust himself inside her. Again he failed.
Then the struggle began in earnest, and Rose suddenly became frightened by what might happen to her. She redoubled her efforts, and finally succeeded in freeing herself. She scrambled from the bed and turned to face him. His eyes blazing, his anger still growing, he stared at her, and Rose was frightened. She felt she knew what Sarah must have experienced in the woods that day so long ago. She reached out to pick up an ashtray from the table by the bed.
“Don’t come near me,” she screamed. “I swear, Jack, if you so much as lay a finger on me, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Jack thundered. “You’ll kill me? Do you really think I care?” He was standing now, and the bed separated them. Both of them were shouting, neither hearing the other. And then, when they both paused for a breath, they heard it Someone was tapping at their door. They stared at each other, stricken. The children.
But it was Mrs. Goodrich’s voice out in the hall. “Are you all right?” she was saying. “Land sakes, you’re waking up the whole house.”
There was a silence; then Rose spoke. “It’s all right, Mrs. Goodrich,” she called softly. “I’m sorry we disturbed you. We were just—just talking about something.”
“Some people like to sleep at night,” Mrs. Goodrich said. They heard her retreating back toward the staircase, her footsteps heavy as she plodded down.
“I suppose the children heard it all, too,” Rose complained.
“Don’t try to blame it on me,” Jack said. “You might try listening to me once in a while, instead of accusing me.”
“You’re never responsible, are you?” Rose said, making an effort to keep her voice down. “You’ll never take the resp
onsibility for anything, will you?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “I will. But not for everything, Rose. Not for everything.” He began dressing.
“Where are you going?” Rose demanded.
“You don’t need to know,” Jack said. Then he smiled cruelly. “I’ll take the responsibility for where I’m going. And I’ll take the responsibility for what I’m going to do.”
He left her standing next to the bed in her torn nightgown, and she hadn’t moved when she heard his car roar off down the driveway two minutes later. Only when the noise of the car had faded did she sink back down to the bed. Shakily she reached for a cigarette and lit it. The smoke, sucked deeply into her lungs, seemed to calm her.
She finished her cigarette and lay down on the bed, turning off the light. She lay still for a long time, keeping her breathing even and forcing her tense muscles to relax. She tried to sort out her thoughts, and when that failed decided to drift with them and see where they led.
Thirty minutes later, she was still trying to relax her muscles, and her mind was as chaotic as it had been when she lay down. She decided to get something to eat.
She padded into the kitchen and turned the light on. She listened for a minute and heard the rhythmic snoring of Mrs. Goodrich in the next room. She crept to the refrigerator and opened it.
She thought she heard the click of a door opening as she poked among the leftovers neatly packaged on the shelves of the refrigerator, but it wasn’t until she felt a draft on her legs that she turned around. The back door stood open.
A stab of fear ran through her, and she instinctively moved toward the drawer where the knives were kept. Then she saw who had opened the back door.
Sarah, her flannel nightgown soaking wet and covered with mud, her dark hair glistening with the rain, stood by the knife drawer, as if trying to decide whether to open it or not.
“Sarah?” Rose breathed, her heart pounding and a terrible fear rising in her. “Sarah,” she said again.
She approached the child and knelt down. She reached out to touch Sarah, very gently, for fear that her daughter was sleepwalking and not wanting to wake her if she was. But at the touch Sarah turned around and stared at her mother. She blinked a couple of times, and Rose was sure she was awake.
“Sarah,” she said quietly. “What is it? What were you doing outside?”
Sarah peered blankly at her mother, and Rose didn’t know whether she had been heard or not. Then a large tear formed in one of Sarah’s eyes and slowly ran down her face, streaking the mud in its path. It collected on her chin, than, when it was too heavy to hang on any longer, fell to the floor. Rose gathered the girl into her arms. Sarah did not resist.
“Come on,” Rose said. “I’ll take you upstairs and put you to bed.”
She picked the little girl up and closed both the back door of the house and the refrigerator door. Snapping off the kitchen light and crooning to the child who shivered in her arms, she made her way upstairs to the bathroom. She set Sarah down and began running a tub of hot water. Then she went to get towels.
When she returned, Sarah still sat where Rose had left her, unmoving, as though she were thinking about something. But her eyes, the huge, beautiful brown eyes, still seemed vacant, staring at the tub of water. Rose undressed her and placed her in the tub.
When she finished bathing Sarah, Rose put her to bed. She tucked the child in carefully, then sat with her till she was sure Sarah was asleep. Finally she left Sarah’s room, leaving the light on, and went downstairs. She knew she would not sleep if she went back to bed; knew she would not sleep until her husband came home. She wished he were home now, or at least had told her where he was going. She sat in the study and waited. Above her the little girl who looked so much like Elizabeth smiled down at her. The picture comforted Rose, and made her waiting easier.
Jack drove fast through the storm, the pounding of his heart echoed by the beating of the windshield wipers as they fought vainly to keep the glass clear in front of his eyes. He didn’t need to see, really; he was so familiar with the Point Road that he felt he could have driven it blindfolded, navigating by the bumps and chuckholes.
He drove automatically, his mind racing, his thoughts chaotic. Then he saw the lights of Port Arbello glowing dimly ahead in the rain, and he knew where he was going.
He pulled the car into Sylvia Bannister’s driveway, and left it there for anybody who wished to see. The house was dark, but he didn’t consider going elsewhere. Instead, he walked up to the front door and knocked loudly. When there was no response, he knocked again, louder. Finally he saw a light flash on and heard feet coming toward the door.
“Who is it?” Sylvia’s sleepy voice called.
“It’s me. Jack.”
He listened as she unfastened the chain and threw the bolt. Then the door opened, and she squinted out at him.
“Excuse me,” she said, and flipped the switch for the porch light. “I didn’t mean to leave you in the dark.”
“It’s all right,” Jack said, grinning crookedly. Seeing her made him feel better. “I seem to be in the dark a lot these days anyway.”
She pulled the door open and let him step inside before she closed it again, and fixed the chain and dead-bolt. “I suppose it’s silly,” she said. “But they make me feel safer.” Then she looked at him closely, and concern came into her face. “Are you all right?” she said. “Let me get you a drink. You look like you need one.”
“I do,” Jack said. “I suppose I shouldn’t but I could really use one.”
“She’s got you convinced, hasn’t she?” Sylvia said as she led him to the kitchen.
“Convinced?”
“That you’re an alcoholic,” Sylvia said, pouring them each a drink.
“I suppose I am.” Jack accepted the glass she handed him.
“No,” Sylvia said definitely. “You’re not. Martin Forager is an alcoholic. You’re not. At least not yet. But I suppose if you wanted to you could become one. Do you?”
“I’m not sure sometimes. But yes, sometimes I do want to become one. Sometimes I’d like to stay drunk all the time. I would, except I suffer from terrible hangovers. They don’t show, but God, do they hurt.”
“Well, I suppose as long as you’re suffering you’re safe. At least, that’s what my mother taught me. Do you want to sit here, or shall I build a fire?”
“This’ll be fine,” Jack said, settling into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “It makes it different from home. Mrs. Goodrich does not tolerate any Conger sitting in the kitchen. I think she thinks it’s beneath our dignity. Not that we have any dignity left, after tonight.” He told Sylvia what had happened at home.
“It must have been awful,” she said when he had finished.
He swirled his drink and smiled wryly. “Well, it wasn’t pleasant. So I took off, and here I am.”
“I meant the remembering. It must have been terrible.”
Jack nodded. “It was. In a way, I wish I hadn’t remembered. Not knowing what I’d done was bad enough. I think knowing what I was trying to do is even worse.”
“Nonsense,” Sylvia said. “You seem to be forgetting something. You didn’t rape her, and you didn’t kill her.”
“But I wanted to,” Jack said miserably.
“Wanting to do something and doing it are two entirely different things. If I had to feel badly about all the things I’ve wanted to do, I’d be a mess. And this town wouldn’t be in very good shape, either. I can think of at least three people right off the bat that I’ve wanted to kill. I mean really kill. Complete with fantasies of doing it, and getting away with it. So stop feeling bad.” She glanced at his drink, then held her own glass up. “And fix us both another. I’m not your secretary now, you know. I’m a woman, and I want to be waited on.”
“You can kick me out if you want to go back to sleep,” Jack said. “But I hope you don’t.”
“Kick you out? Not much chance of that. You might fire me in the morning, when
you’re my boss again. Besides, I happen to like you.”
“Do you, Sylvia?” Jack said seriously. “Do you really? I guess I haven’t been feeling particularly likable lately.”
“And it hasn’t occurred to you that that might have something to do with the way Rose has been treating you? It’s hard to feel good about yourself when someone you love is making you feel bad about yourself.”
“I’m not sure I love her,” Jack said slowly.
Sylvia glanced at him, and the corners of her mouth flickered upward. “I suppose I could read a lot into that, if I wanted to, but I won’t. You love her, Jack, even if you don’t believe you do. You’re used to her, and a lot of love is nothing more than habit.”
“I thought love had something to do with passion,” Jack said, trying to keep his voice light.
“Passion? I’m not sure passion has anything to do with it at all. Look at me, for instance. I’ve loved you for a long time.” She smiled at his expression of surprise. “You didn’t know? Well, why should you? It wasn’t the kind of love that demands attention. It was the kind of love that’s comforting. I knew it was there, and it helped me. If you didn’t know it was there, or nobody knew it was there, it didn’t matter. It was my love, and I liked it. And it had nothing to do with passion.”
“And what about the other afternoon?”
“That was passion,” Sylvia said softly. “And I liked it. But it scares me.”
“Scares you?”
“Yes. I keep wondering—after the passion dies, will I still have my love? Or will that fade too? I don’t want it to, Jack. I want to be able to go on loving you.”
Their eyes met, and Jack reached out to touch her hand.
“And I want you to go on loving me, Sylvia. I want you to very much.”
Together they walked to Sylvia’s bedroom and closed the door. Their drinks sat forgotten on the kitchen table, and the ice in the glasses slowly melted.
Rose heard the car grinding up the driveway and glanced at the clock. He’d been gone almost three hours. She wondered if he’d notice the light under the study door when he came in, or whether he was too drunk. She heard the front door open, and her husband’s footsteps in the hall. They stopped, then started again, and she heard him coming toward the study. He’d seen the light.