Darkling

by R. B. Chesterton

  At the edge of the tree line, I was surprised to find strands of barbed wire. Bob had never mentioned pastureland. And certainly not cows. But unless my eyes deceived me, a herd of Brahmas grazed on the last of the summer grass. For a long time I stood at the fence and watched the cattle. They hadn’t sensed the evil creature that was so close. Domestication had dulled their sense of survival. Five white egrets soared above the cattle’s heads, finally landing only inches away. As the cattle pulled at the grass, disturbing the roots, the egrets feasted on the wriggling insects.

  A small bird fluttered above the cattle. Dark and swift, it zipped across the scene before settling onto the back of one of the cows. I recognized the glossy black body and brown head of the male cowbird. A female, brownish and dull, joined her mate on the cow’s back.

  They were interesting birds. They laid their eggs in the nest of another bird, usually a warbler. The mother warbler hatched out the egg, along with her brood, and then fed and nurtured the strangeling chick. But the cowbird was bigger, stronger, and ultimately it pushed the warbler chicks out of the nest to their death.

  A bush on the other side of the field began to quake violently. Though the storm hovered over us, there was no wind. The clouds waited for the moment when they would split and spill millions of gallons. There was no natural reason for the shrub to move so violently.

  The creature stepped out into the open. Again the swirl of features as Margo transmogrified into Donald. Nausea washed over me. I knew now what the creature was. I could name it, if I chose. A nester. A child who wanted to climb into the nest of the Henderson family. The evil child before me was the spawn of Annie’s doppelganger. This was Annie’s master plan. Her vile creation. Once the children were gone, the way would be open for her. And she meant to get there, no matter the means.

  A blinding headache smacked my forehead and arced to either temple.

  The creature giggled, that soft, sweet sound of innocence. It did not speak, but I heard it. Now you know me, it said. Now you’ve named my nature.

  I had to stop it. Battling the headache, I ran toward it. It moved fast now, sprinting down the path and finally disappearing at the edge of a bayou. I was sick from the pain in my head and disoriented, but I realized I’d tracked in a huge circle. I was behind the old hotel on the edge of Bayou Abondant that ran beside the Paradise and eventually emptied into the Sound.

  The bay of a hound came so close, my heart jumped. As I spun around, my head swam with dizziness. Nausea overwhelmed me and I dropped to my knees, retching up breakfast.

  Two dogs burst from a huckleberry bush. The last thing I remembered was their hot breath on my face and neck before I lost consciousness.

  35

  Dr. Adams filled a syringe. “You know better than this, Mimi.” He prepared the antibiotic injection and came to my bedside. “Cora is downstairs worried sick. The Hendersons are blaming themselves, but this falls on you. Your feet are infected. If you don’t take care of them, you may lose them.”

  I swallowed and nodded. Dr. Adams had never been stern with me. I couldn’t see my feet because of the huge bandages, but I could assume they were not good.

  “I’m going to give you several shots, including tetanus. Then oral antibiotics. Also something for pain. Take your medicine and soak those feet. Stay off them. Are we clear?”

  My head moved up and down.

  He motioned for me to roll over and pull up my nightgown. I felt the jab of the needle in my hip.

  “Thank you for coming to the house.” Dr. Adams was one of the few doctors who still made house calls, but it was normally limited to the elderly and shut-ins—people who had trouble getting into town to the doctor’s office or the hospital. The only reason he came to Belle Fleur was Berta. She and Bob had developed a friendship with the doctor and his wife.

  He sat on the edge of my bed. “What were you doing off in the woods like that?”

  My throat ached with a bottleneck of words. I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell someone. I had no proof, but in my heart I knew the nester meant harm to the Henderson family. Someone had to stop it, and I wasn’t strong enough. I’d known Dr. Adams most of my life, but still I couldn’t trust him. He was a man of science, of order and fact. What I’d seen was impossible. “I was looking for Margo.”

  “You’re lucky those dogs found you, Mimi. You could have lain out there for a long time.” He got up and prepared another injection. This one he put into the vein of my arm. Warmth spread over me and my limbs grew heavy. The effect was so instant that I was caught unprepared. “Tell Bob … Bayou Abondant … Margo. Look there.” I had to make him see how important this was. The nester had drawn me there for a purpose. I didn’t know what, but there was motive behind everything the creature did.

  Moving to sit on the side of the bed again, the doctor brushed my hair off my forehead. “Berta has told me you’ve been upset, Mimi. The night of Erin’s party you seriously damaged your feet, for no apparent reason. Bob and Berta are worried about you. They think you’ve taken Margo’s disappearance to heart, and I think finding Margo’s shoe has caused … unbalanced thoughts.” As I’d feared, my stability was in question.

  I fought to shake my head. My lips were huge, thick, and wouldn’t form the word “no.” A tear leaked out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t have the strength to even lift my head.

  “The shot will relax you. Now I urge you to take care of yourself. Heal those feet. Sometimes an infection can cause … problems. It’s the fever, and you are burning up. In a day or so, that will be gone and things will be clear again.”

  My fingers found his suit jacket and curled around the edge. I had to make him believe me.

  “Bob has gone back to the search with the dogs. Everyone is hurrying before the storm hits. So you concentrate on healing and feeling better.”

  He stood, snapped his bag shut, and walked to the door.

  The drug held me in a grip close to paralysis. My eyelids eased shut and no willpower could open them. The last thing I heard was a crack of lightning followed by a rumble of thunder and the lashing fury of a hard rain.

  36

  By the time I woke up the next day, it was nearly noon. The rain had halted the search for Margo and Andrew, but the men were back at dawn. They’d been in the woods for six hours, Annie said, when she brought me coffee and a Danish.

  “How are your feet?” she asked, and I thought I caught the hint of a smile.

  “I’m fine.” I pushed up in the bed and was rewarded with a white-hot jolt of pain. Even the weight of the cool sheets angered my wounds.

  “Berta said she’d be up here in a little while.” Annie went to the door.

  “Did they find any trace of Margo?”

  “Not yesterday. The dogs found something near the old hotel, they think, but the rain came down hard and confused things.”

  “Why aren’t you out with the searchers today?”

  She turned back to look at me. “Berta asked me to stay here and watch the children since you were injured.”

  Annie in charge of the children was the most dangerous situation of all. “The private investigator is looking into your past, Annie. With any luck, Jimmy Finch will find your real family and you can go home.”

  Her smile was amused. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  “You haven’t lost your memory at all, have you?”

  “You say the darndest things, Mimi. Why would you even think such?” Smug didn’t begin to describe her attitude.

  “Call it intuition. Tell me about the other girl, the one that waits outside. What is she to you?”

  She came closer, and now she wasn’t smiling at all. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Keep it up, though, and you’ll end up in Searcy mental institution. I heard the doctor talking to Bob and Berta. He said you were self-destructive. If you persist in talking crazy and making ridiculous accusations, you’re going to find yourself in more hot water than Cora can get you out of.”
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  She left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

  Although I was worried about my feet, I managed to get out of bed and make it over to the chair beside the window. From that vantage point, I could see the path to the Paradise Inn. When the searchers returned, that was likely the route they’d use. I itched to be downstairs with Berta and the children during this awful time.

  The day was filled with golden light and a cool breeze. I loved the fall. Crisp days, cold nights when a fire flickered orange and welcoming. A store of oak was in a shed in the backyard, dry and seasoned, ready for a good fire in one of the numerous fireplaces. My room even had one.

  The painkillers Dr. Adams left made me woozy. My thoughts drifted like leaves on a slow river. No matter how hard I tried to avoid it, I returned to the cowbird and what I knew to be true about the dark-haired girl and her progeny, the little blond children who could morph into replicas of the Hendersons.

  From downstairs I heard Jim Croce singing about Leroy Brown. Annie played the radio while she worked in the kitchen. It made me want to strum the guitar I’d neglected for the past several weeks. Since I was laid up, I had nothing better to do. I reached for the case and brought out the beautiful instrument.

  My left hand formed the chord patterns as I picked with my right. “Tecumseh Valley” was a Townes Van Zandt song I loved. I heard footsteps outside my door. Donald loved for me to play for him. I picked up “Pancho and Lefty,” another Van Zandt song that was his favorite.

  A light scratching at my door made me smile as I continued with the saga. Donald was messing with me. Any moment he would pop into the room.

  When I glanced out the window, my fingers faltered on the strings. Berta and Annie stood in the side yard with the children. Both children. They stared down the path, and in the distance I saw Mark coming toward them.

  The scratching sounded at my door again.

  I put the guitar aside. The house was so quiet I heard the creak of a shutter outside my window.

  “Mimi,” the singsong voice called to me from outside my door.

  Gripping the sill, I wanted to call to Berta, but I couldn’t. The way Mark was moving, I knew it was bad. He marched toward Berta, his back rigid, hands hanging at his side.

  “Mi-mi, we want to play with you. They know about Margo. She’s no fun now.” The giggle filtered under the door, followed by more scratching.

  I lurched across the room and tore the door open. The hallway was empty. The only sign that anyone had been at my door were the strange claw marks just below the doorknob.

  From outside the window, a bloodcurdling cry came from Berta.

  Margo had indeed been found, and the news was not good.

  37

  Using the crutches Dr. Adams had insisted on, I made it to the front porch as Bob scooped Berta into his arms and carried her into the house. She clung to him, sobbing. Mark stood alone in the yard, his mud-smeared face a testament to his exhaustion and sorrow.

  Bob brushed past me, eyes glazed. I automatically opened the door for him.

  “I’m sorry,” Mark said, still standing in the yard.

  I motioned him to the porch. “What did you find?”

  “We believe it’s Andrew Cargill’s car.”

  “You believe?” I couldn’t put it together.

  “It’s submerged. In the bayou beside the old Paradise. The tides have been working on it and it’s buried in silt. The sheriff’s got a call out to some local divers.”

  “Bayou Abondant?” I could barely utter the words.

  “That’s right. After we found you yesterday, we decided to try on the other side of the bayou. When we were crossing the water, the dogs caught a scent.”

  “But it might not be his car, and it might be empty.…” I stopped because his face told another story.

  “There are two bodies in the car. One of the search-and-rescue guys dove down to check. He couldn’t hold his breath long enough to identify either person, but the girl has long blond hair. It’s a black Mustang.”

  Maybe I’d known all along, but the news didn’t shock me. “When I found the shoe I think I knew. But how did the shoe get into the woods?”

  “We don’t have all the answers yet. Hell, we don’t have any. But my guess, and this is just between us, Mimi, is that Margo met Andrew in the woods. Someone else was there, too. Maybe the drug dealers, maybe a buyer. I don’t know. But something went very wrong. They probably cut off Andrew’s hand to make him talk about something, and after that, they had to kill them both. Then they drove them to the Paradise and ran the car into the bayou.”

  I motioned for him to take a seat on the steps. My feet were throbbing, and I had to take the weight off them.

  “If you hadn’t passed out in the woods, we would never have thought to cross the bayou.”

  I didn’t say it, but I wondered if it would have been better if the bodies had remained submerged. At least Berta would have her hope. In a sense, I’d taken that from her. Or the nester had. The bastard creature had lured me into the woods, led me to the shoe, knowing I would tell, knowing somehow that the bodies would be found. But why? What did it matter to the creature?

  “Mimi?” Mark’s hand grasped my arm. “Are you going to faint?”

  I pulled myself together. “Take me to the hotel.”

  “That’s not a good idea. They’re going to use divers to bring the bodies out and then a wrecker to pull up the car.”

  “I have to go.”

  “No. You don’t.” Mark was firm. “If it’s Margo, she’s been in the water for two months. You don’t know what that looks like, but I do. You shouldn’t put that in your mind. The fish and the crabs.…” He shook his head. “No. As you tell me all the time, your place is here with the children. This is one time I concur. Those kids are going to need you, and so are Mr. and Mrs. Henderson. In fact, the sheriff sent a cruiser to get Mrs. Eubanks and bring her here.”

  “What about the Cargills? Andrew’s parents.…”

  “A deputy is on the way to tell them too.”

  “Is there any chance it isn’t Margo and Andrew?”

  He looked toward the Sound rather than at me. “I’d be lying if I said yes. I think it’s them, Mimi. Best prepare yourself.” He stood. “Now I have to get back to the bayou. The sheriff will return with the divers any minute.”

  “Will you catch the person who did this?”

  He took a long breath. “I’ll do my best, Mimi. I promise. I really thought those kids had run off and that they’d come home after a while or at least call their parents. I never thought it would come to this. Not even with the hand.”

  “Thank you, Mark.” I hobbled across the porch and into the house.

  The house ticked with silence, the old heart-of-pine boards seeming to flex and pop with the cold November day. Donald and Erin were in their rooms. Annie had disappeared. I needed some time alone, so I didn’t search for her.

  I put on a pot of coffee and hobbled up to my room. Dr. Adams had left a few tablets of fentanyl to help with the pain of my feet. I shook two out of the bottle and brought them back to the kitchen. As the coffee brewed, I crushed them up and put them in a cup, which I then laced with a dollop of brandy and lots of sugar. Berta could get mad at me later, but she shouldn’t be waiting for the law to drag up the body of her daughter. Bob would thank me for doing this.

  I prepared Bob’s coffee and put aside my crutches to carry the tray to their bedroom. Standing outside the door, I heard Berta’s sobs and Bob’s voice, calm and reasonable, comforting her. Berta had lost a child, but she had the best husband on the planet. I tapped, and when the door opened, I gave Bob the tray. “That’s Berta’s.” I met his gaze. “Make her drink it if you can.”

  The door closed and I hobbled back to the kitchen just as Cora came in the front door. Her hair was wild and her face pale. “My Lord, Mimi, this is just awful.”

  I waved her into a chair at the kitchen table, poured us both some coffee, and sat.<
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  “Where are the children?” she asked.

  “Upstairs.” From the quiet of the house, it was obvious they weren’t. I sprang to my feet and ran upstairs to check. Their bedrooms were empty. They were gone. When I looked out the window, I realized what had happened. Behind my back, Annie had taken them.

  I was calmer when I returned to the kitchen. Cora would find my concerns unfounded, and I couldn’t level accusations at Annie without proof. “Erin and Donald must be with Annie. The station wagon is gone. I guess she took them to town.”

  Cora sighed. “That’s good.” She drank the coffee as if it would sustain her.

  “Bob is with Berta in the bedroom. She’s determined to go to the hotel, to be there when they bring up.…”

  “That’s not a good idea.” Cora ran a hand through her wild hair. I’d never seen her so frazzled. “Do they know what happened?”

  “Mark thinks they were murdered. Some run-in involving drugs.” I shrugged, unable to breach the wall that separated me from my emotions. It was self-preservation, but I felt as if my head were stuffed with wet cotton.

  “Drugs? That’s.…” Cora was at a loss. “This is going to break Berta.”

  “You have to get Annie out of here.” I blurted the words against all of my good intentions. It wasn’t the way I wanted to talk to Cora about Annie, but I had to make her understand. Annie was at the bottom of Margo’s death, and she was free to take Donald or Erin wherever she chose.

  “What are you talking about?” She got up and poured herself another cup of coffee. The cup clattered against the saucer as she held it.

  “She has to go, Cora. She’s up to no good. She’s going to break this family apart.”

  Cora sank into a chair. “Annie’s just a child, Mimi. Your jealousy—”

  “She isn’t a child. She a very experienced young woman. The night of the scavenger hunt, didn’t you notice that she was coming on to Bob? At the grill, at the bonfire. Back here at the house. She seduced—”