by John Saul
Keith turned away and went to the window. Looking out into the brightness of the spring morning, everything that had happened seemed unreal. And yet the image of Laura was too deeply burned in his memory to deny.
Had Cassie truly been responsible for that? He didn’t want to believe it. And yet—
“I don’t know,” he said at last, his voice barely audible. “Until I can help her, I guess. Or at least until I can understand.”
Cassie faced Eric across the small table in the center of the cabin, her eyes empty, her mind reeling, her body shivering with an unnatural chill.
It wasn’t warm and comforting here this morning; would never be comforting again.
She knew what had happened now, knew it from the first moment they had come into the cabin and Sumi leaped into her arms, purring softly.
The images had come quickly, and she’d watched the pictures in her mind with growing horror, watched Eric’s mother knot the sheet around her neck, watched her step off the edge of the bed.
Watched as the cat left his telltale marks on her cheeks then slipped back out the window.
She even heard Eric’s voice, crooning to Sumi as the cat slipped back into bed with him.
“Did you do it, Sumi? Did you do what I wanted you to do?”
It hadn’t been her—hadn’t been her at all. From the first moment—the first time they’d been here together—it had been Eric.
It all made sense now.
The day Sumi had attacked Mr. Simms—Eric had been holding Sumi that day.
And after Kiska had been shot, Eric had known where to find him.
It wasn’t just to her that Miranda had given her gift. It was to Eric too.
“It was you,” Cassie whispered. “Right from the beginning, it was you.”
Eric nodded, a cold smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His eyes, glittering an icy blue in the morning light that filtered through the scraggly trees outside, were fixed on her with an odd detachment, almost as if he didn’t see her.
All the sympathy she’d seen there—all the understanding—were gone.
“But they were our friends,” she whispered bleakly. “Miranda never wanted us to—”
“Miranda’s dead!” Eric grated, his eyes narrowing to slits. “It doesn’t matter what she wanted anymore! She’s dead!”
As he spoke the words, Sumi squirmed in Cassie’s lap, and another image came into her mind.
Once more she saw Miranda—the quicksand closing around her—a shadowy figure looming over her. But this time she could recognize the face. Eric’s face.
“You killed her,” she breathed. “You killed them all.” Her eyes, glistening with the pain she felt, reached out to Eric, trying to touch him. “Your own mother, Eric. You even killed your own mother.…”
Eric’s smile twisted into a knife slash of scorn. “Sumi killed my mother, and Sumi killed Lisa. And everyone knows that he does everything you want him to do.”
Cassie felt numb. He was right—she knew he was right—and already, deep in her heart, she was beginning to understand that there was nothing she could do about it.
“Why?” she asked. “Why did you do it, Eric?”
“They deserved it,” Eric rasped. “They hurt me, and so I killed them.”
Cassie shook her head as if to dispel the nightmare closing around her. “No. Miranda was your friend—she never hurt you. She loved you.”
“Until you came,” Eric spat. “She was mine, but you took her away from me.” His eyes were now glimmering with the rage and hatred inside him: “She was just like all the rest of them. She didn’t love me—she didn’t want me. So I killed her. Just like I’m going to kill my father!”
Cassie gasped. “No! Eric, you can’t!”
Eric’s eyes glowed with fury. “Why not? No one’s going to blame me. No one’s even going to know I did it. They’re going to blame you, Cassie. They’re going to blame you for all of it.”
“No!” Cassie shouted. “I won’t let you! I’ll tell them the truth! I’ll tell all of them!”
“Tell them what?” Eric demanded. “You’re crazy, remember? No one’s going to believe you. You’re like Miranda! You’re nuts! The little kids all think you’re a witch!” An ugly cackle of brittle laughter welled up in his throat. “Didn’t Miranda tell you what it was like, having them point at you, and whisper about you, and run away from you? That’s what they’re going to do to you, too, Cassie. And you won’t do anything about it. You’ll just let them hurt you.” His voice dropped to a bitter whisper. “But not me. I’m done letting people hurt me. I’ll kill them all, and they’ll all think it was you.” His cold smile came back. “And there’s nothing you can do about it, Cassie. You’re like Kiska and Sumi. You’ll do whatever I want you to do. You always have, and you always will.”
Sumi stirred restlessly in Cassie’s lap, then his whole body stiffened.
Images began to flicker in Cassie’s mind.
Images of herself, her face bleeding as Sumi’s claws dug deep into her flesh.
Eric.
He was reaching out to the cat with his mind, telling him what to do.
She tried to fight it, tried to calm the cat, but it did no good. He was stronger than she was—too strong.
And then she knew what she had to do.
Her hands closed around Sumi’s neck and she began to squeeze her fingers tight.
The cat started to struggle, lashing out with his feet, his claws bared as he tried to twist free of her grip.
She reached out with her mind, tried to soothe the furious animal, tried to overpower the hatred flowing out of Eric’s mind and into the body of the cat.
Sumi’s mouth opened and he spat at her, his fangs dripping with saliva.
Cassie could feel herself losing the struggle with Eric now, feel his mind overpowering hers. She squeezed harder, her hands pressing tighter on the cat’s larynx. Once more he tried to twist away, but then, slowly, his struggling eased. A minute later Sumi lay still in her lap.
Cassie closed her eyes for a moment, fighting against the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. Then, very gently, she placed the cat in the center of the table and forced herself to look into Eric’s cold eyes.
“He’s dead,” she said. “He’s dead, and he’ll never hurt anyone again.”
But Eric only smiled once more. “I still have Kiska.” He rose to his feet, went to the door, then raised his arm and pointed to the sky.
Instantly the pale white form of the hawk rose off the cabin’s roof and spiraled upward into the sky. As it started out toward the sea, Eric turned back to Cassie.
“He’s going,” he said. “He’s going to kill my father.”
Cassie felt the blood drain from her face, and tried to reach out to the bird.
But once again Eric’s power overwhelmed her own, and the great hawk flew on.
There was nothing more she could do. Eric was stronger than she.
She felt her mind slipping, felt a strange gray fog begin to close around her.
Sounds seemed to retreat into the distance, and her eyes began to play tricks on her.
She tried to look at Eric, but he seemed to be a long way away from her now, and as she watched, his image faded away entirely.
She was alone now, and would always be alone.
But it didn’t matter; not really. She’d always been alone, except for those few short hours with Miranda.
Now she would live alone, wanting nothing, needing nothing, sitting by herself in the soft gray fog.
In the fog, where nothing—and no one—could ever hurt her again.
Gentle swells rolled under the bow of the Big Ed, causing a barely perceptible pitch in the forty-foot trawler. The sky had cleared, and a bright sun warmed the cabin. Ed lounged in the pilot’s seat, using his left foot to keep the boat on course while he watched the shore of the cape move by at a steady seven knots. Another hour and he’d be back in False Harbor.
The flat sea and
steady throbbing of the diesel engine under the floorboards lulled him, and his mind began to drift. The fog of the hangover was beginning to pass now, and he’d taken a couple of aspirin against the stabbing pain of his headache.
So Laura was gone.
It was something he’d never thought about, really, never planned for. Even when she’d threatened to leave him, he’d never taken her seriously. If she was going to do that, she’d have done it long ago. But she never had, and over the years Ed had come to a dim certainty that she never would. Thai was the thing about Laura: she didn’t have the guts to fight back, and she didn’t have the guts to leave. In fact, the way he treated her had been her fault, really. After all, if she let him beat up on her, why shouldn’t he?
But now she was gone.
Dead.
Of all the stupid things she could have done—
He checked himself. No point getting mad at her now. And besides, what the hell did it really matter, anyway? Whatever had happened, had happened. He shouldn’t even think about it, not yet. When he got home and found out all the details, then he’d think about it.
A flickering movement on the bow caught his eye, and he swung his head idly around to look through the salt-fogged windshield as a snow-white bird hovered in the air for a moment, then settled onto the railing around the foredeck. Ed’s lips curled into a cynical smile. “Nothin’ today,” he said out loud, though he knew that even if the gull could hear him over the roar of the engine, his words would mean nothing to it. “No nets, no fish, not even any bait. You wasted your time.”
He half expected the bird to take off then, leaping into the air with a mad fluttering of its wings before it caught the breeze, but it didn’t. Instead it stayed where it was, one of its reddish eyes staring at him.
Staring at him almost as if it was accusing him of something.
But that was dumb. He hadn’t done anything, and even if he had, what the fuck could a stupid bird know about it?
But as the bird continued to sit on the bow rail, its eyes fixed on him, Ed began to feel nervous.
Why didn’t it go away?
Finally, frowning, he opened the window and flung a scrap of the doughnut—which had been too dry for him to force down his throat this morning—at the bird.
The piece of pastry struck the bird on the right wing then fell to the deck.
The bird made no move to go after it—didn’t even look at it. Instead its gaze as it stared through the windshield at Ed seemed to intensify.
Ed’s frown deepened.
He flipped on the autopilot and adjusted its course, then picked up a wrench and went out on deck. He started forward, the wrench held loosely in his right hand.
He froze as he realized that the bird wasn’t a gull at all.
It was the ghostly white hawk that had perched on Miranda Sikes’s rooftop for all the years that he could remember.
But it was dead. Gene Templeton had shot it.
And yet there it was, perched calmly on the rail of his boat.
The hawk watched him, cocking its head slightly. Ed tightened his grip on the wrench. He slowed his pace, moving more carefully now, wanting to be sure he was close enough to the bird to hit it with the first swing.
Before he came within range of the hawk, it leaped into the air, its wings beating furiously. But instead of flying away from the boat to hover mockingly just out of reach, it came straight toward Ed.
Its beak opened and a shrill screech burst from its throat, stabbing at Ed’s aching head as if someone had jammed an ice pick into his ear. As Ed swung the wrench wildly, the bird’s claws slashed at his face, tearing open his right cheek. Screaming in pain and fury, Ed hurled the wrench at the bird, but with a quick flick of its wings it rose out of the wrench’s trajectory and the heavy metal tool fell harmlessly into the sea.
The bird hovered then, and a strange cackling sound, almost like laughter, rattled in its throat.
Suddenly, beneath Ed’s feet, the boat pitched violently.
Ed almost lost his balance, then grabbed for the railing to steady himself.
The hawk dove, slashing at him again, and he felt a hot jab of pain in his left cheek, then tasted blood on his lips. Shielding himself with his left arm and hanging on to the railing with his right hand, he started back toward the cabin. The bird attacked once more, its talons ripping across the back of his neck as he ducked inside and slammed the door shut behind him. By the time he got back to the pilot’s seat, the bird was once more perched on the bow pulpit, eyeing him malevolently.
Though the sky was still clear, the wind had picked up, and around him the swells were building, their crests topped by frothing whitecaps. But there seemed to be no specific direction from which the sudden squall was coming, and now the boat began to roll in a sickening counterpoint to its pitching. A faint queasiness began to twist at Ed’s guts.
As the boat swung wildly off course, Ed grabbed the wheel with both hands and kicked the autopilot off. Now, as the rudder seemed to fight him and he had to struggle to bring the boat around, he forgot the pain from the lacerations on his body. Spray was coming over the bow, and he let go of the wheel with his right hand to reach out and flick the windshield wiper on.
Almost as if it sensed his momentary distraction, the boat slewed around, broaching on a swell, and slid sickeningly into the trough. Twisting the wheel violently, Ed forced the boat around to climb the face of the next swell.
The hawk, its wings folded serenely, still clung to the bow railing, riding the pitching and rolling of the waves as if it were floating on the surface of the water.
Then, as Ed watched, it launched itself into the air once more and hurtled toward the windshield.
He ducked reflexively away from the hawk’s threatening claws, despite the fact that the heavy windshield was protecting him from the creature’s fury. But as the bird bounced off the heavy glass then settled once more on the bow, Ed’s heart was pounding.
He reached for the radio.
Tony Vittorio recognized Ed Cavanaugh’s voice behind the interference on the radio, and reached out to press the transmission switch on the radio that sat on the duty officer’s desk. “This is the False Harbor Police Department, Ed. Do you read me?”
A blast of static emerged from the radio, then once again Tony heard Ed’s voice. “Something crazy’s going on! I’m caught in a squall, and—and there’s a bird attacking me!”
Vittorio glanced out the window at the bright morning sun. A maple tree, just beginning to leaf out, showed no signs of anything more than a light breeze. He pushed the switch again, his brows knitting into a frown. “Say again, Ed?”
The message was repeated, but through the static Tony could hear a note of panic coming into Cavanaugh’s voice. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m starting to ship water!”
Vittorio picked up a pencil. “Give me your position, Ed.”
On board the Big Ed, Cavanaugh glanced up at the LORAN suspended above the helm and read off the longitude and latitude as quickly as he could. Outside, the bird was on the windshield again, its flapping wings spreading out over the glass until he could see nothing at all of the sea ahead. To either side the waves continued to grow—enormous gray mountains bearing down on him from every direction. The boat was pitching and rolling wildly now, and the compass was spinning on its axis, giving him no clue at all as to the direction in which he was headed. A huge wave towered over him for a moment, then broke, water cascading over the trawler with a force that made the hull groan in protest. All the windows were covered for a moment, and then the water fell away, washing over the gunnels and draining off the decks.
But the hawk, apparently unaffected by the deluge, still clung to the windshield. As Ed watched with horrified eyes, it slammed its beak against the glass and a crack appeared, moving outward from the point of impact toward the window’s teak framing.
“I need help,” Ed managed. “I need help, and I need it quick.” Then the trawler slewed
around, and as the rudder twisted in the heaving waters, the wheel was torn from Ed’s grip. He dropped the microphone, grasping the wheel with both hands once more, then shoved forward on the throttle with his elbow.
The diesel roared louder, and Ed felt the trawler surge forward through the sea.
“I don’t get it,” Tony Vittorio told the off-duty officer he’d called in to relieve him while he went out to look for Ed Cavanaugh. “Sound’s like Ed’s drunk, but it also sounded like he’s scared. I’m going out to take a look.” Twenty minutes later he was on his way down the channel in the runabout the marina owner kept on hand for use in emergencies. As he carefully negotiated the narrows near the Cranberry Point light, he tried to explain the situation to Bill Dawson, who had been checking out the runabout when Vittorio had appeared on the dock.
“Sounds nuts to me,” Dawson grumbled as he surveyed the nearly flat sea and the cloudless blue sky above. “You ask me, he was drunk again.”
“Maybe so,” Vittorio replied. “But I’d hate to find out later he wasn’t. You got binoculars on this thing?”
“In the forepeak,” Dawson said. He disappeared for a moment, then emerged from the tiny double bunk beneath the bow. As Tony brought the boat around to a westerly heading, Dawson scanned the horizon with the glasses. “Something up ahead,” he said after a few seconds had slipped by. “About two points off the port bow.”
Vittorio adjusted his heading slightly and shoved the throttle to full open. The engine’s pitch rose slightly, and the runabout hurtled forward, cutting the water at thirty knots. A rooster tail of foaming spray rose up in their wake. The tiny dot on the horizon quickly began taking shape, and within five minutes was clearly identifiable as a fishing trawler.
A fishing trawler that was violently pitching and rolling in what was otherwise a calm sea.
* * *
Cavanaugh was steering blind. Somehow the hawk had managed to spread itself across the full width of the windshield, and its beak, bloodied now, was still battering at the glass, which was covered with a spiderweb of cracks. Bits of shattered glass were falling from it, and one of them had lodged itself in the corner of Ed’s eye. Each time he rubbed at it, the glass dug itself in deeper, until the eye began to bleed and swelled shut.