“Aaron,” Jessie said, still holding the boy’s hand, “I wish you’d tell me more about you. Where you live. Your parents . . . or whoever looks after you.”
Is it Emil? Do you live with Emil? That was what Jessie was so desperate to know, but too afraid to ask directly.
Aaron seemed to have fallen mute. He just kept staring at the ground.
“Please show me where you live, Aaron,” Jessie said.
He looked up at her. “All right,” he replied.
They stood. Aaron walked down the steps and turned to Jessie, reaching out his hand and taking hers again. She allowed him to lead her across the grass, over the brook, and into the woods. They spoke no words. The day was bright and the sun flooded the woods through the bare trees. There was no reason for fear. None at all.
But then, just as Aunt Paulette had described, the sounds of bird song ceased.
It was completely, utterly quiet as they passed through the woods, the only sound the crunching of the leaves under their feet.
They seemed to walk for a very long time. Jessie no longer recognized the woods she had known and played in ever since she was a little girl. They seemed to stretch on forever. But she wasn’t frightened. That surprised her. She wasn’t the least bit frightened, not as long as she kept holding the hand of the little boy in front of her, who led her deeper and deeper into this place.
He looked back at her once, his face seeming to glow with light. His dark eyes sparkled. He smiled. Jessie smiled back.
She had the weirdest sensation of being outside her body, looking down on herself and Aaron. She kept seeing images of a boy and a woman moving through the woods from someplace high above, as if Jessie were perched at the top of the tree.
Eventually sparks of recognition returned to her mind. They were near the gorge. Locals called it Suicide Leap—a steep drop of some fifty feet down a rocky embankment. Mom had always warned Jessie on their walks through the woods that she should steer clear of the gorge. It came up on you almost without warning. The trees grew right to the edge, and then the land just gave way. Losing one’s footing at the top could mean a terrible tumble all the way down to the bottom. The drop was too steep to be able to walk down, and there was very little to break a fall.
For the first time the vaguest tremble of fear penetrated through Jessie’s cocoon of good feeling. The gorge . . . is he taking to me to the gorge?
Is that what Emil told him to do?
But Aaron turned and headed in another direction. Up ahead, she spotted an old shack. She thought she remembered the shack from when she was a child—but she’d thought that it had been torn down, years ago. The shack was barely still standing, no more than seven feet by eight feet, with a broken door and no windows. The wood was rotted in several places. Aaron stopped in front of the shack and let Jessie’s hand drop.
The birds began to chirp once again in the trees.
“Is this where you live, Aaron?” Jessie asked.
The little boy nodded.
She stooped down, putting her arm around his waist. “You live here? Where are your parents?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I miss them.”
She placed her hands on either side of his face and looked closely at him. “No boy can live here. How do you eat? How do bathe?”
Aaron had started to cry.
“You’re all alone, aren’t you?” Jessie asked.
He nodded.
“Your parents . . . abandoned you. . . .”
The boy began to cry harder, falling into an embrace with Jessie. His little arms held tight around her neck.
“What mother . . . could ever abandon . . . her son?”
Jessie’s heart broke.
And suddenly she knew the truth.
Somehow—in some strange, mystical, unexplainable way—Aaron was her son. She was his mother. She knew it. She felt it. Somehow he had come back to her. Her son. The son she had forsaken. The son she had wished away. The son she had let die.
“I’m so sorry, Aaron,” Jessie said, her voice shattering. “So very, very sorry.”
His little body shook with tears as she held him tight.
“You’re not alone anymore, baby,” Jessie whispered in his ear, as she stroked his hair and felt her own tears falling down her cheeks. “Mommy’s here.”
NINETY
Paulette stepped on the gas. They had to get home right away.
“Why are you driving so fast, Aunt Paulette?” Abby asked, her seat belt holding her tight in the passenger seat.
“Just because I don’t want your mother to worry about us, sweetie,” she told the little girl.
In fact, it was Paulette who was worried about Jessie. They’d finished their ice cream cones and were looking in shop windows when suddenly the vision had come to Paulette. Jessie was in danger. She saw her with a dark figure—the tall, dark man had finally arrive! They had to get to her right away!
So she’d grabbed Abby’s hand and rushed her back to the car, all the while frantically trying to get Jessie on her cell phone. Her calls repeatedly went to voice mail. So Paulette screeched out of the municipal parking lot and raced across town back toward Hickory Dell, praying she’d get there in time.
But what would she find? What would she be able to do against the dark man—if in fact, the dark man really was the ghost of Emil Deetz?
She turned off Ridge Road onto Hickory Dell, driving past the Pierce house, shuddering at the memory of the carnage that had taken place inside. Bryan Pierce’s decomposed face still haunted her. Had the tall, dark man killed all of them? Paulette couldn’t figure out why the ghost of Emil Deetz was doing all this. What did Emil have against the Pierces? Against Inga? Against Detective Wolfowitz and Mrs. Whitman? The only answer was that his spirit was trying to randomly terrorize Jessie.
And now Paulette feared he had had come for Jessie herself.
She turned into the driveway and stopped the car. Hurrying around to the passenger side, she opened the door and unbuckled Abby from her seat belt.
“There’s Mommy!” the little girl sang out, pointing across the yard.
Indeed, there was Jessie. She was alive, thank God.
She was coming out of the woods.
And she was walking with Aaron, holding his hand.
“Abby, stay here for a minute, in the car, okay?” Paulette said. “I want to talk to your mother for a minute.”
“Okay, Aunt Paulette.”
She closed the car door gently and made her way across the grass.
“Jessie!” she called.
Jessie didn’t reply. She just kept walking toward the house with Aaron.
Paulette hurried over to her. “Jessie!”
Finally her niece turned to look at her. Jessie’s eyes seemed somewhat dazed, and they were red from crying. She seemed to look through Paulette rather than actually see her.
“Jessie, are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right,” she said, in a voice that seemed far away to Paulette.
Aaron stared up at the older woman.
“Jessie,” Paulette said, “I’ve had a vision. . . . Please believe me. I think . . . I think you . . . all of us . . . are in danger.”
“That’s foolish, Aunt Paulette.”
“No, not foolish. It’s—”
Paulette moved her eyes from Jessie back to Aaron.
She gasped.
The boy’s face seemed different. There was a look about him, as if he was full of hatred and malice, as if he was ready to spring at Paulette like a wild dog and tear out her throat with his teeth.
Jessie had seen the exchange. “Why are you afraid of Aaron?” she asked Paulette. “There’s no reason to be afraid of him.”
The boy’s face was back to normal. Sweet, innocent. He offered Paulette a smile.
“Aaron’s going to be living with us from now on,” Jessie said, as she and the boy began moving again toward the house.
“Jessie, no . . .”
“Oh, yes,” Jessie said, not looking back as she walked. “You see, Aunt Paulette, he’s one of us. Aaron is my son.”
NINETY-ONE
“Your aunt is very worried about you,” John told he ras they sat on the couch that night, a soft rain tapping behind them on the windows.
Jessie smiled. “I know she is. But she shouldn’t be.”
“She came by my house and asked me to come speak with you.” John sighed as he took Jessie’s hands in his. “Are you really certain that letting that boy stay here in the house is a good idea?”
“He belongs here, John.” Jessie looked over at the stairs that led up to the rooms where both Aaron and Abby were now sound asleep. “This is his home.”
John made a face that showed a lack of understanding. “Paulette said you’re convinced that somehow . . .” His voice trailed off for a moment. “That somehow he’s your son.”
Jessie held his gaze. “I know it must sound crazy.”
John gave her a small smile as if to say he wasn’t disputing that fact.
“Maybe it is crazy,” Jessie admitted. “But it’s what I believe.”
“How is that possible, Jessie? You told me you had a miscarriage.”
“I did. A miscarriage I caused by wanting it, wishing for it. You have no idea how much guilt and grief I carried around with me because of that. And I believe I have brought Aaron back the same way—subconsciously wanting it and wishing for it.”
“That’s impossible, Jessie.”
“Is it?” She settled back into the couch, allowing her shoulder to press into his. “Aren’t you the author of a book called The Killing Room?”
“Yes. Have you read it?”
“I’ve read enough about it to know the plot. A woman believes very hard that her husband, killed in war, is actually not dead. She manifests him back to life through her grief.” Here she made it a point to look up at John. “And through the power of life and death and hope and love.”
“Jessie,” John said. “That was fiction.”
She smiled. “The little boy upstairs isn’t fiction. He’s very real. I fed him a big dinner tonight, and then I gave him a bath. He had real dirt between his toes. And he peed like any real little boy after drinking three glasses of milk with his Oreo cookies.”
“All the more reason to think he might be some kid being used by Emil to get at you,” John said, sitting forward suddenly on the couch and turning to look at her hard. He squeezed her hands. “I don’t trust that kid.”
“He’s my son, John.”
“You’re not thinking clearly, Jessie. Something . . . something’s come over you.”
“My maternal instinct has come over me,” she said. “I recognize my own child.”
“Listen to me, Jessie. I believe Emil has come back. It’s the only explanation.”
She gently extricated her hands from his and stood up from the couch, walking across the room to place another log on the fireplace. The night was so cold and damp.
“The man from the FBI, Patrick Castile, was here to talk to me,” she said. “Do you know him?”
John hesitated. “Yes. He came by to see me as well.”
“He told me that the FBI has long suspected that Emil wasn’t killed in that shoot-out in Mexico.”
“That’s right, Jessie. That’s why you need to be careful.”
“Did you know this all along, John? That Emil might not be dead?” She kept her back to him as she nudged the logs with the poker.
“I . . . I had some reasons to think so.”
“Really? And you never told me.”
“I had no reason to think you were in any danger, Jessie. At least not then. Now I’m worried about it.”
She turned to look at him. “I’m not running in terror from Emil anymore.”
“I’m not asking you to run, just to be smart and to take precautions. Letting that child live with you . . .”
Jessie smiled. “Oh, John. How could a five-year-old boy hurt me? Don’t tell me you’re subscribing to Aunt Paulette’s crazy theory that he’s really Emil, returned as a ghost in the guise of a child?”
“No, of course not. Ghosts don’t pee.”
“Precisely.” She returned to the couch and sat down beside John once again.
He slipped his arm around her, pulling her close. “But, Jessie,” he said. “The FBI is right. . . .” His voice was clearly troubled. “Look, I have to tell you what I know because things are happening . . . and I’m worried about you.”
“So you do know more than you’ve told me,” she said.
“When I started writing the book,” John said, “I went to Mexico looking for Emil. I wanted to find him, to hear the story in his own words. Through the members of his gang that I’d tracked down—and after paying them some money—I determined Emil’s whereabouts. I flew to Mexico and located him.”
“You—you met Emil?”
“Just once.”
Jessie pulled away from him on the couch.
“Please listen to me, Jessie.”
“I’m listening,” she said coldly. “Go on.”
“Emil told me that he’d give me his story if I paid him. I was in the process of trying to raise the cash when the Mexican police raided the house he was staying in, killing everyone inside. But I knew Emil wasn’t one of them.”
“How did you know that?”
“Because he left a note for me the next day at my hotel, saying he’d still tell me his story if I paid him the money. But by that time the FBI and CIA had arrived and were swarming all over the place. A couple of them interviewed me and made it clear that I was interfering with their investigation. So I got the hell out of there.”
“So you knew all along that Emil was alive. . . .”
“The FBI wasn’t sure if the note was a forgery, written by another gang member. But yes . . . I had serious suspicions he was alive.”
“And you never told me.”
“I didn’t want to worry you. And the FBI was in touch with me periodically, asking me if I had heard from Emil. They told me to say nothing. And they assured me that they were keeping watch on a person who might be him, and that he had not returned to the United States.”
“But now they believe he has. . . .”
John nodded. “And that’s why I want you to take all precautions, Jessie. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you everything before.”
She looked at him. “Are there any more secrets I should know, John?”
For half a second, Jessie thought she detected a flicker of unease in John’s eyes, and a flash of hesitation. But then he said firmly, “No. No more secrets.”
Jessie sighed, standing up once more despite John’s attempt to embrace her. Did she believe him that there were no more secrets? She wasn’t sure.
He’s a very bad man, Aaron had said.
Why did John want to separate her from her son—the son she had only just found again after so long?
A very bad man.
“A very bad man,” she heard again, only now it was John speaking. “Emil is very bad, very dangerous.”
Jessie leveled her eyes at him. “Do you think I don’t know that?”
“Of course you do, Jessie. It’s just that the idea of him here, in Sayer’s Brook, makes me very uneasy. I remember the cruelty in his eyes when I spoke with him in Mexico. I saw then a man who had no conscience, a sociopath who lived only for himself, and whose motives were greed and revenge.”
“Did he say anything about me?”
“Only that you had seen him commit the murder. We didn’t speak long. He wasn’t going to tell me anything before he got his money.”
Jessie shuddered.
“I’m so sorry about this, Jessie. Please. Let me put you and Abby up at a hotel.”
“No.”
“Or come stay with me. . . .”
“Emil can’t harm me anymore, John,” she told him. “I won’t let him.”
“How can you fight off a monster like that
?”
Jessie smiled. “Call me crazy, and you probably will, but I feel that the boy upstairs—my son—is here to protect me. That’s why he came back. Aaron won’t let his father hurt me again.”
“You’re right. I do think that sounds crazy.”
“A couple of days ago, I would have agreed that it sounds crazy. I can’t explain how I feel, John. But I believe Aaron has come back to protect Abby and me from Emil.”
“Fine. But take some other precautions. . . .”
“We have a high-powered, maximum-security system in place.”
“I don’t think that will keep Emil out if he wants in.”
“Look, John, I’m not afraid of Emil anymore. For too long I’ve lived in fear of him. But now, you can rest assured that I am indeed strong enough to stand up to anything Emil does.” She smiled, looking toward the stairs. “You’ll see. Emil will be sorry for everything he ever did to me.”
NINETY-TWO
Aaron walked softly through the woods, wearing the clean, sweet-smelling, blue flannel pajamas that Jessie had dressed him in. The only sounds, as usual, were the leaves underfoot. The rain was drenching his hair and the mud was once again soiling his feet.
He reached the shack.
The boy entered, sitting on a broken old chair against one wall. Within seconds, the man entered. Aaron watched him. The man was carrying a sack. He threw the sack behind a pile of old wooden boxes, then stretched out on the floor.
“Sleep,” the man said in a weary voice. “I need sleep. . . .”
It wasn’t long before the man was snoring on the floor.
Aaron sat there, watching him.
NINETY-THREE
“I can’t help you, Aunt Paulette,” Monica said. “She won’t speak to me.”
“She can’t allow that boy to sleep in her house! I don’t trust him! He’s a devil-child! I think he’s Emil come back to life!”
Monica poured herself another glass of wine. It was her third in the last half hour. At this rate, she’d have the whole bottle empty soon, and she was absolutely fine with that. The wine made the nights easier to get through.
“You sound like a crazy old woman,” she told her aunt, her words slurring slightly. “I’ve never believed in all your hocus pocus about visions and ghosts. Devil-child! Emil come back to life! Don’t make me laugh!”
Slice Page 31