Darkling

by R. B. Chesterton

  The rest of the night slipped away from me as I maneuvered through tormented dreams of Mark’s headlights picking up the image of a dark-haired girl darting out of the saw-grass into his path. He swung the wheel to miss her and went into the ditch, expecting a soft landing in swamp and mud. Instead the cement culvert caught the front of the car with brutal force. And then there were flames.

  Though I knew I was dreaming, I couldn’t stop it. I also accepted that my dreams replicated the events that had taken Mark’s life. Annie’s doppelganger had caused the wreck. Deliberately. My dreams were a window on that dark world that Annie brought into Belle Fleur when she arrived.

  When I woke, I was completely disoriented. It took several moments for me to realize I was at Cora’s. I heard her in the kitchen, and I caught the scent of something good cooking. My stomach growled with hunger, and I got up.

  “Mimi, how about some chicken and dumplings?” Cora asked. A bib apron covered her dress and she held a large spoon in her hand as she stood at the stove. “They’re piping hot.”

  I nodded and slipped into a chair at the table. I wanted to believe Mark’s death was a dream, but I knew better. I checked the time—three P.M. Darkness would fall in another two hours. I ate the chicken and dumplings Cora put in front of me because I knew she’d never let me leave the house if I didn’t.

  “I’m feeling better,” I lied. “I want to go back to Belle Fleur and shower and change clothes.”

  Cora lifted my face with a gentle hand under my chin. “I love you, Mimi. More than you know.”

  But not enough to get Annie out of my life. Cora didn’t see in Annie the things I knew were there, the things she kept hidden. “I know.”

  “Run along then. Tell Bob I’ll be down in a bit. I’m going to bring the rest of the chicken and dumplings for supper tonight.”

  “They would be wonderful.” I kissed her cheek and hurried to the car.

  Instead of turning left to Belle Fleur at the end of her drive, I went right. When I came upon the skid marks on the highway and the patch of charred grass, I got out and looked around. The story of Mark’s last moments scored the asphalt. Something had darted out of the high grass, and he’d slammed on brakes hard enough to leave rubber in two long, black streaks. He’d cut the wheel, thinking he’d land in the soft shoulder, but he hadn’t counted on the culvert.

  It took some careful examination, but I found the strange, sharp claw marks I’d known would be there, about twenty yards before the skid marks began. She’d timed it perfectly. I knelt down and traced the marks with a small stick. A skeptic might say they’d been made by the wrecker dragging the car out of the weeds, or any number of other causes. But I knew the truth. I’d seen the dark-haired girl on this very road.

  For a long time I sat in the station wagon beside the ditch where Mark had died. Trying to help me had cost him his life. When the light disappeared from the sky and the wind grew colder, I turned the car toward Belle Fleur.

  50

  When I got back to the Hendersons, Cora was there, and she was plenty worried. As was Bob. Even Berta had come out of her room and was making cornbread in the kitchen. She gave me a hug and kissed the top of my head. “I’m so sorry, Mimi,” she said. “We’re here for you.”

  “Where did you go, Mimi?” Bob asked.

  “I took a drive. To think.” I lifted my hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I just wanted to be alone.”

  “Next time, just call us. I don’t mind you using the car, but you have to let me know. I was worried.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Annie was pleased. She stood behind Bob and smiled at me. I’d earned Bob’s displeasure, and that made her gloat. I wanted to demand the details of where she’d been at the time of the accident, but to do so would label me as irrational. Now, of all times, I couldn’t afford to look unstable.

  I took the children up to my room on the second floor to work on a history assignment while Berta and Cora finished preparing the meal. Had I been in a different frame of mind, I would have taken pleasure in seeing Berta back in command of her kitchen. As it was, I didn’t want the scrutiny of the adults on me—not any of them. I could deceive the children about my emotional state, and there was safety in pretending that our studies held importance, that I was clinging to the normalcy of routine instead of nose-diving into emotional turmoil. They already suspected I was irrational. I could not give them another single incident to question.

  “Our town was founded by the French on Bayou Coq I’nde. The name Coden, as we call it today, is an English translation. There are many interesting facts about this place you call home.” Oh, there were things I could tell them.

  “It isn’t really our home,” Erin said. “Mother wants to go back to Cambria, and so do I.” Donald, who was normally the bastion of defense for Coden, said nothing.

  “Times haven’t been happy here lately, but we have to make the best of it. All of us.” My voice trembled and I turned away from them and looked out the window. Although it wasn’t late, darkness covered the yard. “Open your history books to page 103.”

  When they settled at the table, I started the lesson. History had always been one of my favorite subjects, especially state history. Facts were indisputable, safe.

  “As you’ve learned, Coden, like most of the coastal region, was settled by American Indians, tribes that fell under the Creek or Choctaw nation.” From there I moved the focus to Dauphin Island, one of several barrier islands that separated the Mississippi Sound from the Gulf of Mexico. I had fond memories of picnics on the sandy beach as the water raced forward and retreated in frothy, white-capped waves, and I felt my rational thought returning. There were times when I honestly believed I might be insane. Maybe this was all me—the dark-haired girl, the nester, the house, Sigourney, maybe every bit of it was fabricated in my head and I was somehow sharing my delusions with the children.

  As I put the children to reading about the history of Dauphin Island, I walked to the window and looked out at the bare winter lawn. There were plenty of places for the duo to be hiding, waiting. I wasn’t crazy. Donald had seen the Margo creature on the path home. Mark had seen something when he wrecked his car. Even if I wanted it to be a fabrication of my sick brain, it wasn’t.

  “Mimi, are you okay?” Donald asked.

  To my surprise, I was crying.

  He put his hand in mine. “I’m sorry about Deputy Mark, Mimi. I liked him. A lot.”

  I fought back the desire to give in to my grief, to really wail. “I liked him, too.”

  “Was he your boyfriend?” Erin asked. Her voice was gentler, kinder, as if she’d finally acknowledged that I, too, had lost something I loved.

  “I knew Mark when I was in high school. I’ve known him for a long time.”

  “But was he your boyfriend?” she persisted.

  “Yes, I suppose he was.” I combed my hair with my fingers. In the winter, when the humidity was low, my curls were softer and less violent. “Now let’s focus on our lesson. I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “How long did you live with Cora before you moved here?” Erin asked.

  I hesitated. “It feels like always.”

  “But she’s your grandmother, not your mother.”

  “That’s true.” There was something in Erin’s tone that made me wary. “After my parents died, I went to live with Cora.”

  “How old were you?” Erin closed her history book. “This is much more interesting than French settlements more than two hundred years ago on a barrier island made of sand.”

  “But my personal history is of no consequence. We study history to learn from our past mistakes.” My hand fell lightly on Donald’s thin shoulder. “Dauphin Island was originally called Massacre Island because the skeletons of sixty people were found when the first explorers went there.”

  “Who killed them?” Donald asked.

  “I don’t know. It was never discovered.”

  There was a tap on th
e door and Bob entered. “Cora has supper ready downstairs.”

  Grief didn’t tamp down Donald’s appetite. He was a healthy boy. He closed his book and stood to leave. “Are you coming?” he asked me.

  “I am.”

  “I want a word with Mimi,” Bob said. He waited until the children left the room and then closed the door. “I’m very sorry, Mimi. I know you and Mark were developing a relationship. He seemed like a fine young man.”

  Grief held me in suspension. I concentrated on breathing in and out. At last I could speak. “Mark was a good person. I just don’t understand how this could happen to someone who only wanted to help people.”

  “Why don’t you spend some time with Cora? I’m concerned about you. Berta is worried. You’re not acting like yourself.”

  “Is Berta even aware how I’m acting?” Anger made my tone sharp. “If I don’t mind the children, who will? Annie? I wouldn’t count on that.”

  Bob came toward me. His hands settled on my upper arms and he squeezed gently. “Your emotions are raw, Mimi. I’m trying to help you. Berta is stronger. She can manage the children for a few days. You owe yourself space to heal.”

  I shook him off. The words I bit back were mean and ugly. I wanted to tell him to keep his pants zipped around Annie, but I didn’t dare. “Let me do my job. I have an obligation to the children.”

  He eased me to the bed, where he sat beside me. “You’re not much more than a kid yourself, Mimi. You aren’t resting. I hear you moving around the house at night, checking the doors and windows. You’re always on the alert. I see you looking outside, frightened. What happened to Margo.…” He took a moment to compose himself. “I don’t think anyone singled her out. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t think anyone is out to hurt me or my family. Mark’s death was a tragic accident.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong!” I tried to stand up, but he caught me and held me beside him on the bed.

  “Mimi, calm down.” He pulled me into his chest and held me tightly. I couldn’t stop the sobs then. I pressed my face into his chest and let him hold me. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said again and again. But it wasn’t, and it never would be.

  Someone at the doorway cleared her throat. Bob stiffened slightly and let me go, but I still clung to him. I hadn’t realized how much I needed him to hold me. I’d never had a father, never had that masculine sense of safety and protection.

  “Mimi.” Berta’s voice cut me like a blade.

  I shifted back from Bob and glanced at the doorway. She steadied herself on the doorjamb with one hand. “Dinner is ready,” she said. She turned away, and I couldn’t help but notice how painfully thin she’d become. She’d lost her curves and the soft lushness that had always been the major aspect of her beauty. Her face, gaunt now with puffy circles, made her blue eyes faded and tired. But those eyes had registered shock and hurt at what she’d witnessed. I knew how it must look to her. Bob in my bedroom and me clinging to him. She’d never understand that her husband was merely comforting me. I wasn’t the threat to her. It was Annie. But it was me she’d witnessed in his arms, not Annie. I’d screwed myself this time.

  “Come down and eat, Mimi.” Bob walked to the doorway. He didn’t look at me.

  “In a minute.”

  He didn’t argue. He just went away, his footsteps fading as he descended the stairs.

  51

  The dynamics of the household were changed—and charged. To Cora’s disappointment, and Berta’s puzzlement, I refused to attend Mark’s funeral. I couldn’t. I was trapped in that place where I was neither friend nor lover, the in-between. I’d spent most of my life in that spot.

  If I attended Mark’s service, it would appear that I was claiming more of Mark than I owned, so I left his final rites to the people who truly knew him, to those whose connection was true and pure. Had he lived one more night, I would have been rooted in his life, committed in a way that gave me license to sit among his family and friends. But that hadn’t happened.

  Though I did my best to win back Berta’s high regard of me, she treated me with a reserve that broke my heart. She was kind and considerate of my loss, but she was also cool. The spark we’d shared when I’d first gone to work at Belle Fleur had been tamped down. Possibly exterminated. My only option was to bide my time and hope we could get past the wrong impression she’d gotten of me the day after Mark died.

  Berta returned to her duties as wife and mother, but she didn’t sing in the kitchen or play the radio and dance as she dug in her garden. She worked in silence. When Bob came home from work exhausted, she found a smile for him, and she tried harder with Donald and Erin. Inch by inch she reestablished the bond that had taken such a severe beating when she retreated into her grief.

  And Annie was always there, her right-hand man, her assistant, her confidante.

  Sometimes, early in the morning when they were cleaning the kitchen after breakfast, I would hear Annie whispering with Berta. They’d grown closer, while I was excluded. I didn’t blame Berta. Annie was behind this. She’d wormed her way into Berta’s good graces and painted me as a desperate person who would grasp another woman’s husband. And I’d played right into her hands.

  The worst part was that I couldn’t even defend myself from her charges because none were spoken aloud. I made it a point to steer clear of Bob. If I was alone in a room and he entered, I left. My weakness in seeking his comfort had brought this on, and I could never be that vulnerable again. Bob wasn’t my father and he wasn’t my husband. I could lay no claim to his consoling.

  Over time, we would work through this—if I could only get rid of Annie. That was easier said than done. For the moment, I was stuck with her, until I could prove what she was up to. My hopes were pinned on Jimmy Finch.

  Because I could do nothing else, I concentrated on teaching. I found real joy in having Erin back in my schoolroom. As Thanksgiving approached, the family began to move along more smoothly. There were still plenty of bumps and upsets, especially if Margo’s name came up unexpectedly, or a reference to a past holiday was made. But each day it got a little better.

  Donald and I made pinecone turkeys for decorations, and we planned two recipes that might have been served by Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving—corn pudding and one of my favorites, pumpkin pie. While Berta and Cora cooked the main dishes, I helped the children with our “Indian offering.” To my surprise, Annie joined us in the kitchen and went into a lengthy—and gory—retelling of the Salem witch trials, which really had nothing to do with Thanksgiving. Still, Donald and Erin were enthralled.

  As I rolled out pie crust, the children begged Annie for each gruesome detail of those awful trials and the foolish children who’d caused the execution of nearly two dozen people.

  The day before, I’d made a call to Jimmy Finch, only to discover he was in Natchez, Mississippi. His secretary, who clearly disliked me, refused to tell me what case he was working on. He would be back on Friday after Thanksgiving.

  Thursday morning, I threw myself into the final preparation for the meal. Erin and I set the table. Cora arrived on a blast of crisp fall air with an apple pie and green bean casserole. Donald filled the tea glasses, and Annie helped Berta bring out the golden turkey. When we sat down, Bob said grace. His voice broke, and Berta stifled a sob, but they regained their composure and the meal went flawlessly.

  Berta had served a light white wine, and she filled our glasses. Even Annie got half a glass. The food was delicious as always, and I had a sense that perhaps we were over the worst of the grief. For Margo and for Mark. The grief, but not the guilt. Had Mark not been involved in helping me, he would still be alive.

  In a lull in the conversation, Erin spoke. “Mother, the Grand Prix Horse Show is in Gulfport next week. I want to go.”

  I wiped my mouth with the linen napkin and waited, my gaze on my nearly empty plate. This confrontation had been in the wings for a long time, but Erin’s decision to broach it at
a holiday dinner wasn’t wise. Bob’s face registered his dismay.

  “I don’t think so, Erin. It’s too dangerous. It’s bad enough you take those jumps here, but in the confusion of a show, Cogar could spook, or another horse could misbehave … you could be hurt.” Berta put her napkin beside her plate. “Maybe next year.”

  “Cogar is ready this year. And so am I.” Erin’s voice held firmness.

  “No.” Berta put her hands on the table. “I can’t. I can’t do it. I won’t let you put me through that kind of worry.”

  “Berta,” Bob said softly, “she deserves a chance. She’s been working at this all fall. She’s been riding with Mason Jones, and he thinks she’s ready.”

  “Mason Jones? When did she start taking—” She pushed back from the table. “It would seem there are lots of things happening in this family I don’t know about.”

  “Berta!” Bob stood up, too. “Erin is a talented equestrian. She deserves a shot at her dream.”

  “And I deserve a family. A safe family.” She left the dining room. In a moment, Annie stood and went after her. Erin excused herself and left the house, no doubt to go to the barn. Donald, Bob, Cora, and I remained, each of us unwilling or unable to say a thing. Finally Bob left the table without a word.

  “That went well,” Donald said, then sighed. “Mom is scared. She doesn’t want Erin to get hurt.”

  “I know. This is difficult for her. She’s afraid of the horse, and of the jumping. Each time Cogar goes over one of those huge jumps, she thinks of Erin falling under his feet.”

  “I’ll clear the dishes,” Cora said. “You two find something fun to do.”

  Donald pushed back from the table. “No one ate our pumpkin pie.”

  “I’m sure they will later this evening. Let’s take a walk.” I grabbed his arm in the old way, before tragedy visited us, more like we were friends than teacher and student.