Darkling

by R. B. Chesterton

  “Did Bob agree to this?” Berta asked as she washed herself.

  “He doesn’t have to know.” I went to her closet and pulled out Capri pants, flats, and a red jersey top. I put them on the counter in the bathroom. “Hurry. We have a lot to do.”

  She nodded.

  I left her there and went to check on Donald. I had no idea what forces we were battling. What was Annie’s connection to the dark-haired girl both Donald and I had seen haunting the perimeter of Belle Fleur? The girl had appeared when Annie arrived, like her woodland doppelganger. Annie’s evil twin. Whoever she might prove to be, I had no doubt we’d entered into a war. Someone, or something, had taken Margo.

  21

  Jimmy Finch carried too much weight around his middle, and his polyester pants had seen better days, but he struck me as someone who could handle himself in a physical confrontation. I nodded to Berta. I’d made a list of three local P.I.s, and Finch had the best reputation.

  “What’s your fee, Mr. Finch?” she asked.

  “Fifty a day, retainer of three hundred. You cover any out-of-pocket expenses.”

  We sat in his office, which was a small house surrounded by oleander bushes and ligustrums, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, near the Jackson County Courthouse. In my research, I’d discovered that Finch had cracked two missing girl cases and had recovered another from the Moonies, though that case had ended unhappily in the girl’s suicide once she was returned home.

  I didn’t believe Margo was mixed up with the Korean cult leader, whose top aide had been the former deputy director of the Korean CIA. But I’d applied myself to digging up facts about the Moonies, and what I’d found was disturbing. Sometimes it was best to go through channels outside the law.

  “Will you take the case?” Berta asked Finch. She looked so pale and troubled that I wondered if Finch considered her mentally deficient.

  “I will. I’ll start out talking to the deputies. It’s strange to me they dismissed the severed hand. I mean it’s not every day a hand turns up in these parts at the same time a girl and a boy go missing. You’re sure your husband isn’t going to get upset about hiring me?”

  Finch was concerned for his fee. “Bob will be glad we thought of it,” I assured him, though I wasn’t sure enough to have asked Bob first. I’d opted for begging forgiveness later—if at all. Some things were better left untold.

  “I’ll report at the end of the week,” Finch said, tucking the check Berta handed him into his coat pocket.

  “Thank you.” We stood and I took Berta’s elbow. She was still unsteady, but taking action had done a world of good for her. Perhaps the P.I. was a waste of money, but it had given Berta new life.

  I took her to the car, then hesitated. “I forgot my purse,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I hurried to the office and entered. “Check into this girl,” I said and gave him a photograph I’d taken of Annie. “She’s living with the Hendersons. Claims to have amnesia.”

  He studied the photograph and then me. “‘Claims’? You don’t believe her?”

  I shrugged. “Her name is Annie. She was found wandering the streets of Mobile with no memory of who she is or where she came from. My grandmother works for Pensions and fostered her with the Hendersons. Not too long before Margo went missing.”

  “The cops looked into this yet?”

  “I don’t know.” Mark had made some effort, but I wasn’t sure how rigorous. Annie’s past was difficult to track. “This information on Annie. No one should see it but me.”

  “Strange that a family with three children would take in a total stranger. A sixteen-year-old stranger.”

  I didn’t like what he implied. “The Hendersons have a lot of love to give. My grandmother pushed Annie on them.”

  “And she’s still there. You think this might be what prompted the daughter to hit the road?”

  Finch was quick to catch on. “Margo didn’t like Annie. I don’t think the dislike was strong enough for Margo to leave her family and the cushy life she had. Not leave voluntarily.” He understood me. “When you report, I want a copy.”

  “I thought you were the tutor.” He sat on the edge of his desk, his flat green gaze assessing my true role.

  “I’m a bit more than a tutor. This family is important to me.” I hesitated, resisting the urge to tell him about my nighttime fears. “Margo’s disappearance is the most obvious evidence something’s wrong, but … things aren’t right at Belle Fleur.”

  “Care to expand on that topic?”

  “That’s your job—to find out what happened. There’s a stranger hanging around the house. A girl. I’ve seen her and so has Donald, but no one else has. It’s just a glimpse, but she’s connected to Annie.”

  “Can you get a photo of her?”

  “I can try.”

  “That would be helpful. What do you think happened to the daughter?” He watched me carefully.

  “I hope she ran off with Andrew Cargill. If she didn’t, I expect she’s dead. Like I said, things aren’t right at Belle Fleur.”

  “No, I can see they aren’t.” He kept his gaze on me until I picked up my purse and left.

  For the first time in weeks, Berta assumed her role in the kitchen. While I washed the turnips and put them on to cook, Berta sliced the squash and onions and put the pork roast in the oven. Annie chopped pecans for the German chocolate cake icing, a treat of chocolate, pecans, and coconut. Berta had once limited the sweets in the house, but Annie was an exceptional baker. Now we had dessert almost every night.

  Erin was riding Cogar, and Donald was outside, refitting his tackle box. He’d saved his allowance and bought three exotic looking lures. He called them Yellow Sallies, and he was positive he could catch the trout that lurked in the spring-fed lake behind Belle Fleur. We’d all seen the trout swirl in the water, his scales catching and reflecting the light. Donald had named him Old Pike and was determined to hook him.

  For one shimmering afternoon, the house regained a semblance of the old rhythm, the old feeling of love. Berta was back, and the last of summer had graced us with golden sunshine and crisp air.

  As Berta pushed the roast into the oven, she put a hand on Annie’s thin shoulder. “How are your studies coming? I’ve kept you so busy with my worries that I’m afraid you’re falling behind.”

  I kept my back turned. Annie had resisted my attempts to pull her into class work. She said she knew enough, and I didn’t have the authority to force her. She’d somehow convinced Bob that she could take a high school equivalency exam and move on to college when the time came.

  “I’m scheduled to take the GED in a few weeks,” she said. “I can pass easily.”

  “Are you sure that’s smart?” Berta wiped her hands on an apron. A flush touched her cheeks, and she looked better than she had in weeks.

  “I won’t attend that stupid high school, and I won’t burden Mimi with trying to teach me. I’ll do fine on the GED. I read a lot.” That was true. She had her nose stuck in a book all the time. She was endlessly checking out library books, especially biographies about Antonio Gaudi and Le Corbusier, and studies of art nouveau.

  “If you’re in my care, I want to provide you with an education so you can go to college or get a job. It’s part of my responsibility.”

  Annie nodded. “If I don’t do well on the test, I’ll … revise my plan.”

  Berta didn’t agree, but she dropped the subject. Instead we talked about the fall and the relief that another hurricane season was passing without a bad storm in our region. Hurricanes had struck to the east and west but we’d been spared any major winds—those over a hundred miles an hour.

  “I’ll get Donald and Erin,” I said. The food was nearly done and Bob would be driving up. I wanted dinner on the table and smiling faces to greet the man of the house. He should remember his family with smiles, not tears. It was wrong that we had to campaign to win him back from Annie’s clutches, but win him we would.

  I left out
the back door and walked toward the woods. The spring-fed lake we called Crystal Mirror was about a half mile from the house. The stables were between the two, and when I drew close, I stopped and rested one foot on the rail of the jumping ring and watched Erin and the big gray horse fly over the five-foot hurdles as if they were nothing.

  Erin rode with total concentration. I wasn’t certain she saw me until she finished the course and trotted up to the fence. “Good job,” I said.

  She patted her horse’s neck. “He’s a star. I’m going to the big show in Gulfport. Daddy said I could. Annie helped me convince him that I deserved a chance to try. He’s hiring a trainer for me so I’ll be ready.”

  I nodded, wondering if Berta knew. She was afraid for Erin to compete on the high jumps, and the Gulfport show was semi-professional. Erin was talented enough—and Cogar was bred for it. Still, it was a dangerous sport.

  “Dinner’s almost ready. Hose Cogar off and head to the house.” I smiled. “Your mother’s back in the kitchen. It’s wonderful.”

  “She is!” Erin whooped with joy.

  “I’m after Donald. I’ll join you in a bit.” I pushed off the fence and ambled on toward the lake.

  I was almost there when I heard Donald cry out. I couldn’t tell if it was fear or pain, but something had upset him.

  “Donald! Donald!” I ran toward him.

  “Mimi!” He called to me. “Help!”

  Branches slapped my face and tore the exposed flesh of my arms and legs. I ran without regard for anything. “I’m coming!”

  When I burst into the clearing around the lake, I saw him. He was sitting on the grass, hunched over, rocking back and forth.

  “Donald!” I couldn’t see his face. “Donald!” I grasped his shoulders and pulled him upright. His hands were over his face and blood streamed from between his fingers. “Donald!” I pulled his hands away.

  A fishing lure hung from his cheek. The barb had gone through, and the hooked end was inside his mouth. He gagged and spit blood all over the ground.

  “Help me.” He cried, only making the situation worse.

  “We have to get home.” Wire cutters would snip the barb and I could remove the lure.

  “It hurts,” he said, crying harder. He was only a small boy. Most of the time he was tough, and it was easy to forget he was just a kid.

  “Hey, it’s okay. We can fix this. It isn’t terrible. I promise.” I told him how we’d cut the barb and then pull it out without hurting him. As I talked, I pulled him to his feet and started walking.

  “Remember the time Margo slammed the car door on her hand? It turned out okay. She didn’t even scar. You’re going to be just fine.” I shielded his injured cheek so that underbrush didn’t slap at his face.

  Donald sniffled and walked beside me. We were close to the stables when I saw someone standing ahead of us on the path. For a moment I could have sworn it was Margo. She was tall and slender and blond. Her hair glistened like spun honey in the sunlight that filtered through the canopy of trees. There was a glow about her, a sort of haze. Donald, walking with his head down, didn’t see her.

  I didn’t want to alert him, but joy touched me. Margo! She’d come home! I wanted to hug her and then spank her within an inch of her life. She’d worried us all to the point of illness, but at last she was home. I was about to yell her name and point her out to Donald, when something felt wrong. Her features were obscured by the strange aura. I couldn’t trust my own eyes.

  She stood still, waiting, as we moved ever closer and I got a better view. I glimpsed the angle of her jaw when she turned her profile, the straight nose. I thought of an angel, until I realized the face was amorphous. Androgynous. Not Margo. Not any living person. More like a fetus. Slowly the features sharpened into Margo’s beautiful face.

  Donald stopped stark still. “What …?”

  I froze, too.

  “Hey!” He started forward, but I held him back.

  “Stay close to me.” I had no idea what was in the path staring at us, but I knew it was dangerous. It wasn’t Margo, though it had taken on her face. The creature giggled.

  Donald’s fingers dug into my arm. “Mimi, what—”

  To shield him, I used my body to block his view. “Don’t look!” When I turned back to the path, it was empty.

  “It was Margo,” Donald tried to get away from me and run to the spot where the creature had stood, but I held him back. The Yellow Sally jutted from his blood-streaked cheek.

  “No, Donald. No!” I folded my arms around him and held him tightly. “It wasn’t Margo. It wasn’t.”

  “We have to get Dad and Mom. They’ll find her. She’s here, in the woods.” He fought like a wild thing against my restraining arms.

  “Donald!” I knelt so that we were face to face and shook him lightly until he stopped struggling. He was panting, but I lifted his chin so that he looked me eye to eye. “That wasn’t Margo, and you can’t tell anyone.”

  “We have to tell Dad! He’ll get help to find her.”

  I shook him harder. “No! That wasn’t Margo. I swear it.”

  “Who was it?”

  I was frightening him, but I had to do it. For his own safety, I had to do it. The creature in the path was evil. It was somehow connected to Annie and her evil twin. Whatever it was, it had taken on Margo’s appearance to upset the family, to undo the progress Berta had made. One whisper of a creature roaming the woods with Margo’s face, and Berta would be in a mental ward. I would likely be right behind her. Such inhuman evil was enough to unravel the strongest mind.

  “It isn’t who, it’s what. There’s something out here in the woods. Something wrong. It’s trying to trick us, and we cannot tell anyone. If you want your mother to get better, you have to keep this to yourself.”

  “But it was—”

  Before he finished the sentence, I dragged him to the path. “Do you think Margo would make a footprint like this?” I pointed at the narrow lane. “You know about the animals in the woods. Is this human or animal?”

  The ground had been savagely rent by claws.

  Donald’s hands fell to his side. “We should tell Daddy.”

  I stroked his hair. “We can’t, Donald. Not now. Not yet. Your mother has been really sick, and she’s getting better now. We have to be very careful not to upset her. Promise me you won’t say a word about this.”

  “It looked like Margo. What was it?”

  I searched the surrounding woods, wondering if the creature was watching us. It certainly enjoyed toying with me. Frightening me. “I don’t know what it was, but I promise you, I’ll find out.”

  22

  The dinner Berta had worked so hard to prepare was left on the table, untouched, as she rushed Donald to the doctor’s office. She didn’t trust me to snip the barb, and she was smart to insist on a tetanus shot and medical expertise.

  Erin rode with her.

  Annie and I were left alone, waiting for Bob to come home. He’d called, saying he was delayed.

  “Come up to my room,” Annie suggested. “You don’t look well, Mimi. Did something happen?”

  I was still reeling from Donald’s injury and the creature we’d seen in the woods. I was nauseous with a blazing headache, but I followed Annie up the carpeted stairs to her room. I hadn’t been invited to the third floor since Margo had disappeared. I’d heard Annie above me, moving furniture, hammering. She’d been the only person in the house with energy to do anything, and I was curious to see what she’d been up to. I also hoped to glean details of her past. The link between Margo’s disappearance and Annie’s appearance held firm in my head, even if no one else could see it.

  We took coffee upstairs. Berta made at least three pots a day, and I’d fallen into the habit of a cup after dinner. Though we hadn’t eaten, I needed the jolt of caffeine.

  When she pushed open the door to her room, I stopped. Yards of different fabrics hung from the ceiling, creating a dreamy swirl of colors and textures around the ro
om.

  “Do you like it?” She entered and twirled, dancing through the floating material. “I’ve been reading about Isadora Duncan and the freedom of modern dance. The arts were alive then. Dance, painting, architecture, it was all so alive.” She wove in and out, her body fluid and graceful. “I’m not sure I did it right, but I found the fabric really cheap. It makes me feel like I’m safe in layers and layers. My cocoon. I’m like a chrysalis. One day I’ll emerge, complete and beautiful like a butterfly.” Her gaze cut toward me. “Like you.”

  “It’s nice.” I sat on the edge of her bed. The room disconcerted me. The hanging cloth could conceal almost anything. “Was this what your room was like at home?”

  She gave me a blank stare. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Annie, are you sure you don’t have any memories of your past?” It was too blunt a question. Rushing into this discussion would serve no purpose, but I couldn’t help myself. Her amnesia wasn’t real and I was weary of the pretense of it. “Why don’t you just tell the truth? You can’t remember some of the things you say you remember and then none of the pertinent details. Berta isn’t going to send you away no matter what your past was.”

  She walked to the windows on the front of the house. They opened onto a small balcony. Margo had lusted for that balcony. Now she was gone and Annie lived in the room. “I do have some memories, but they scare me.”

  I put my coffee cup on the bedside table. This was either progress or a tease. Annie was never straightforward, but if she gave me anything, even the smallest detail, Jimmy Finch could follow it up. “Scary how?”

  “I think someone hurt me. When I try to think about the past, my brain just shuts down. It’s like being underwater in a storm, great surges of fear and panic.”

  “You don’t see anything you remember? No images. Like a street. Trees, houses. Flowers.” I tried to come up with pleasant things.

  She shook her head. “I keep having this dream about fire, though. It’s terrifying. Orange blazes are all around me. I hear screaming, but I think it’s me. I don’t know which way to find the door.”