by Celia Jerome
“What do you mean?”
He couldn’t look me in the eye but took another swig of his soda. “People are beginning to worry that it’s you, your drawings, that are calling this stuff to Paumanok Harbor. Like that troll we never saw except the damage the thing caused and now the horses and the nightmares. We all heard Agent Grant call you a Visualizer.”
“But I never called anything to me! Nothing from my earlier books ever showed up. Not the sea dragon or the replicants or the feral child. And I never thought about having a young horse captured and kept from its family.”
“Then how come you dreamed about it?”
“I wish I knew. And I swear I’ve been wondering about that a lot myself. The best I can come up with is that I’m more sensitive to the appearance of the, uh, aberrations. Maybe I feel them in my subconscious, so I think they’re part of the creative process, so I incorporate them in my books. I refuse to believe that I write them into existence. That is just not possible.”
“I sure as hell hope not, but cops hate coincidences, you know.”
I needed a sip of something after all, my mouth was suddenly so dry. Not root beer, though, unless it had vanilla ice cream floating on top. I tried to shift any blame. “Grant says there are places of great psi power in the world: Tibet, Chichén Itzá, Jerusalem, a bunch more. And Paumanok Harbor. That’s why the others come here when the walls are breached. For the ambient atmosphere. My pictures are incidental.”
I didn’t mention that Fafhrd the troll first appeared on the streets of Manhattan. On my block. On the day I wrote about him. “I might be the Visualizer who sees the beings; I’m not their creator.”
He stared at the remnants of his sandwich. “Seems you can communicate with them, even if in your dreams.”
“I don’t know how. It’s something about the drawings, I realize, but I wasn’t drawing when I had the nightmare about the colt. All I can come up with is to put my feelings into the posters, to tell everyone else to try to reach the horses with their thoughts.”
He didn’t look convinced. Or full. I pulled two chocolate kisses out of my pocket and put them on the desk. A peace offering. “I don’t even speak their language.”
He unpeeled the candy and sucked on it for a while before saying: “We’d need Agent Grant for that, I guess.”
And I guessed Uncle Henry—and the rest of the town—was blaming me for the special agent’s absence. “He’s trying to find us a horse whisperer, someone who can reach into a horse’s mind without words. My mother said she’ll ask her friends about someone like that, too.”
“We need more help, sooner. A couple more nights of no sleep and bad dreams and this place will be the O.K. Corral. Or Saturday Night Smackdown. I don’t have the manpower to control the whole town, can’t even trust my own men not to go postal on me. And I hate to call in the county sheriff’s office or the state troopers. No one wants a bunch of reporters coming to town either, sniffing out a hot story.”
“Lord, no.” Paumanok Harbor was a well-guarded secret. I hadn’t known about its powers or inherited aptitudes until this year, even though I’d spent a lot of summers in the place. I used to figure the locals were just oddball quacks and charlatans, teasing kids with parlor tricks. Now I knew better. If anyone outside learned about it, the Harbor would be overrun with gawkers and paparazzi from the tabloids, or scientists wanting to study us like lab rats, or fanatics trying to wipe us out as spawn of the devil.
“I’ll try harder, Uncle Henry. Susan and I will go out to hang the posters if you show me on a map where the mares have been spotted. Then tonight”—I shuddered at the thought—“I’ll try to dream about the colt again, see if I can figure out where he’s being kept.”
“You need help.”
“Maybe you could lend us Big Eddie for the afternoon. If you know of anyone else who wants to hang posters or go thinking happy thoughts in the woods I’ll leave some posters here.”
“I was thinking of Doc Lassiter.”
That hurt. “You think I’m crazy, too? Everyone keeps telling me I need a shrink. Now you say people in town believe I’m nuts enough to bring this disaster into the neighborhood.” I got up from my seat so fast I almost knocked the rickety wooden chair right over. “I am not crazy!”
“Don’t go getting your knickers in a knot, missy. Everyone agrees you’re the best thing we’ve got going. They all know you’ll try your damnedest to save the colt and the town.”
“You tell them that I am perfectly sane. As sane as old Ellen Grissom who talks to her husband, who’s been dead since I can remember.”
He held up one hand, with the last chocolate kiss in it. My peace offering, back. “Hold on, Willy. No one’s saying you’re insane, just that Doc can help if we can get him to come back. When he studied at Royce, they said he was the best empath anyone ever saw. He specialized in trauma because he’s a miracle worker with distressed folks. They sent him to 9-11 and to New Orleans after the hurricane. Not for the victims, but for the rescuers, so they didn’t lose hope.”
“You mean he could keep the townsfolk from killing each other while we find the colt? Who knows? Maybe he can calm the mares, too. It’s worth a try.”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you. Go see him.”
I had his number, somewhere. “He lives here?”
“He used to, except when he was sent out on emergencies. But he moved to Shelter Island after his wife died. His grief was tearing everyone apart, everyone who was sensitive to such things anyway. The tourists and outsiders never noticed a thing. One loner hung himself that winter. We didn’t find him for weeks. That’s when Doc left, to save the rest of us.”
“You think it’s wise to bring him in?”
“That was over fifteen years ago. Time cures a lot of hurts.”
I was hoping to forget about Grant in time, so I understood. “I’ll call and see what he has to say.”
“Don’t just call on the phone. You go see him in person. Then you’ll understand why everyone wants you to work with him.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll call tomorrow.”
“Call him today. We can’t take too many more nightmares. Oh, and that pair of sunglasses you can’t find? They’re in the refrigerator. Throw out the milk you left on the counter.”
But I wasn’t crazy.
I didn’t know how I was going to get through the night myself. Going to sleep trying to have a nightmare didn’t sound like anything a sane person would try. Maybe Doctor Lassiter could give me a hint.
First we had to hang the second batch of posters. The chief lent us a staple gun, a map, and Big Eddie. I wasn’t sure how much use Big Eddie’d be; with him so close to my cousin, all he’d smell was her perfume.
Ranger loped along with his head down. He could have been looking for truffles for all the good he did. Little Red nipped at his heels until I tucked the Pom into the papoose thing I’d made from an old shawl.
We hung posters everywhere off the main streets, along deer tracks and marked trails and even a few bridle paths Big Eddie said were recently ridden. I didn’t need him or his nose for that, not after stepping in a pile of manure. None of us had any idea if the wayward horses pooped. Or ate. Or even smelled like our horses. Disappearing night creatures from another world did not follow the usual rules of nature.
They wouldn’t be out in the daytime, we knew, but they might be somewhere they could hear us or pick up our thoughts. We kicked around every theory, and ended up singing every song or reciting every poem we could remember that had a horse in it.
“. . . And called it macaroni.”
“Ride a cocked horse to Danbury Cross . . .”
“Home, home on the range.”
The Stones’ “Wild Horses.” “A Horse With No Name.”
We couldn’t remember all the words to the one where the girl and a horse named Wildfire die on a mountain, but we agreed that was a bad message to pass along.
U2’s “Who’s Gonna Ride you
r Wild Horses.”
We made up the words when we couldn’t remember them, or ad-libbed better choruses. Big Eddie knew most of the lyrics to “Beer for my Horses” and “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy,” which had us all laughing, which might have done more to ease the mares’ minds than my posters or whatever supportive, affirmative thoughts we tried to project onto them. I did my best to block out my own terror of falling into the abyss of a frightened colt’s fears, filling my head instead with my hopes of finding him, of returning him to his mother and aunts.
The back trails seemed peaceful, with birdsong and wildflowers in bloom. How could we not be optimistic about finding the colt?
We finished down by Rick’s boatyard and got servings of fried clams in cardboard buckets from the snack bar there, along with French fries and milk shakes, which were enough to give anyone nightmares later.
Then Susan had to go to work, and Big Eddie went on duty in town.
I went home and played with the big dogs, left a message on Doctor Lassiter’s machine asking for an appointment, then called my parents.
Dad was still worried about alligators and caves. And lightning. Yeah, like I hadn’t been afraid of electric storms my whole life, and more so now after a lightning bolt landed three feet away from me when we rescued the kidnapped boy, Nicky.
Mom thought she had a horse expert for me. Before I got his name and number, she hung up. Something about call waiting from a greyhound adoption agency.
I thought about calling Grant, but he’d be busy. And it was the middle of the night in England. Who knew what time zone he’d be in next? He wasn’t going to be much help, wherever he was, so I decided it was better not to bother. More mature, more self-reliant. More scary.
My girlfriends in the city couldn’t possibly understand what was going on here. How could I explain what I didn’t understand? So I didn’t call them either.
There was nothing worth watching on TV, so I could try to work, or try to catch up on sleep.
I flipped through the notes I’d made, but got no further than the handicapped kid looking for a magical flying horse.
I asked myself if I should try to stay awake and avoid the nightmare, or try to sleep, directing my dreams as much as possible? All the crap I’d eaten today was no help, the caffeine fighting with the grease and the sugar. Red was snoring. The big dogs downstairs click-clacking across the kitchen tiles. Crickets and frogs chirping outside my window. I’d never get to sleep any—
I woke up in a panic when the sun hit my eyes. I hadn’t dreamed at all, not that I could remember. Did that mean the colt wasn’t so scared now that he knew we were searching for him? Or his mama had found him?
Or did it mean he was dead?
CHAPTER 10
THE MARES HAD NOT GONE, nor had the nightmares, although Uncle Henry said there was less violence last night. The single bar fight with cue sticks might have happened anyway, since the Smith brothers were always going at it. There was also one nuisance call, from my grandmother. Not that Eve Garland could ever be a nuisance, of course.
I called her, knowing she was always up early. Every day except this morning.
Crankier than ever, she snapped at me when I asked if she’d seen the mares.
“Seen them? Heard them, dreamed them. They were right here, in my tomato plot, trampling whole rows of plants.”
“That was the dream?”
“That was my summer crop!”
“But your fields are all fenced in.” With high wires against the deer, and electrified against anyone who thought they could help themselves to Grandma’s heirloom tomatoes.
“What does a fence matter to a creature who can appear out of the blue, then disappear only to show up miles away?”
“But you saw them, and they made noise?” I was envious, and eager to know more about the troublesome beasts. “Did they leave droppings? Eat the plants?”
“Get rid of them, damn it. And go fetch Doc Lassiter. He’s expecting you. He’ll need a place to stay, but between your sloppy housekeeping, the slobbery dogs, and your sex-crazed cousin, the poor man wouldn’t have a moment’s peace over there. I’ve made up a guest room for him. It’s only right since I’ve known him forever. His wife and I were good friends.”
Susan hadn’t come home last night. I doubted she and Big Eddie were still singing horse songs out in the woods, but maybe that’s why the mares were so close to our house, why only Grandma seemed affected. Not that I’d noticed much difference in her sour attitude.
Damn, they were so close, and I’d never known it. Despite everything, I wanted to catch a glimpse of the once-in-a-millennium myths. Maybe some of Grant’s adventurous spirit had actually rubbed off on me. Or maybe I’d finally had a good night’s sleep. Today, I was jealous of my grandmother and her squashed tomatoes. I got the headaches, not the high.
And now I was the chauffeur for a doddering old friend of my grandmother’s, the guest Bud’s wife Claire had told her to expect. If everyone knew he was coming, why didn’t they just say so, instead of making me call him? This place could drive anyone nuts.
I had a great deal to accomplish today, but I stopped regretting the wasted time as soon as I left Paumanok Harbor. Just over the railroad bridge toward Amagansett, I felt the shadows in my mind start to melt away. Little Red relaxed enough next to me to curl up and go to sleep, once I assured him we were not on the way to the vet.
During the long drive, I let my new book spin around in my head until I knew where it was going at last. Then I considered the colt.
He couldn’t be dead without the mares knowing. There was no logic to my certainty, but it felt right. They’d be more emotional, projecting more horror, not less. A few trampled tomatoes weren’t revenge or a cry for assistance. I wondered if they were coming toward my house after they’d seen the posters and knew I was trying to help.
Not that I’d be much help today, on taxi duty. I’d be more effective fielding phone calls about the reward. Or I could be scouring the countryside for hidden barns. There were no caves in the whole East End; I’d checked. Or I could walk Big Eddie through Grandma’s farm and see if he could pick up a scent if the mares left one.
Instead, Little Red and I were stuck behind a beatup pickup filled with rakes and shovels and lawn mowers, on a two-lane road, in a no-passing zone. The whole drive should take about an hour and a half, one way, if there was no traffic and the ferry wasn’t full. Landscapers and pool guys and garbage haulers added fifteen minutes at least.
Shelter Island was so close you could almost touch it on a clear day. And so far away you had to drive through three towns, a couple of dicey roundabouts where no one knew who had the right of way, and then take a ferry. It was a real island, with no bridges, only ten- to twenty-car ferries that ran on their own schedule. You drove and drove on a long stretch outside of Sag Harbor, then you found yourself on a line on a hill, watching one ferry leave and another come across the water to take its place. If too many big trucks were on the line ahead of you, you might have to wait for a couple of boats to dock and unload their cars and foot passengers.
Walt Whitman called Long Island by its Indian name, great fish-shaped Paumanok. The fish’s split tail was made by the Island’s north and south forks that divided in Riverhead. Poor Walt wouldn’t recognize either one of them, though. Shelter Island sat right between the forked tail, separating Peconic Bay from Gardiner’s Bay. If you drove across Shelter Island, you could take another small ferry to Greenport, at the end of the North Fork. From there, you could drive to Orient Point and catch a much bigger ferry that went to New London and the Indian casinos in Connecticut. You could gamble your life savings away without having to drive forty-some miles west from Paumanok Harbor to Riverhead, then thirty-some miles back out east on narrower North Fork roads through Mattituck, Southold, and Cutchogue. At least Route 25 took you through gorgeous farm country, vineyards, horse paddocks and potato fields, where nearly every house had a lush garden or a farm stand.
>
The long ride to the ferry made me wish for a convertible. It was one of those summer days that explained why so many tourists flocked to the Hamptons, away from the stifling cities. The weather was warm but not hot, with a lovely breeze of refreshingly clean air. T-shirt weather, with a hoodie in case.
I didn’t have to wait long for a ferry today, maybe because it was early morning. The boat ride took less than fifteen minutes of sheer postcard heaven, with sailboats, egrets, blue waves in ripples. The saltwater scent and the slight rocking reminded you that you were on the water, a different world.
The ferry unloads onto Route 114, which sounds wide and important, but is wiggly and barely wide enough for a Hummer. I drove past old houses with gingerbread trim, huge mansions overlooking the bay, past the entrances to private beaches and private roads, then past a vast public nature preserve that had umpteen ticks per square inch. Deer carried the ticks; the ticks carried diseases. The whole region was inundated with both, contributing to vociferous arguments over hunting, spraying, deer contraceptives. So far, the deer and the ticks were winning.
I shoved Red over so I could find the directions to the doctor’s house. No GPS in Mom’s car. Right at the third Private Road sign, left at the second dirt driveway. The driveway seemed to go on for more miles than Shelter Island had, before I reached a gate with a speaker microphone on a cement post. I pushed the button.
“Yes?”
“This is Willow Tate, come to see Dr. Lassiter. Eve Garland said he was expecting me.”
“Of course, and how wonderful to meet Eve’s granddaughter at last. Thank you for coming so far, Miss Tate. Please drive through.”
The gates swung open onto fields of wild daisies, black-eyed Susans, and sunflowers. My grandma would approve.
The doctor’s voice was deep, not all quavery like an old man’s, and his welcome seemed genuine. “Maybe this won’t be as bad as I thought,” I told Little Red, who was trying to hop up to see out the window, not easy for a short dog with three legs.