Children of Eternity Omnibus

by P. T. Dilloway

  He hears footsteps on the deck. “I don’t want to go,” he hears Molly say.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie, but we have to go back,” Mommy says. “The others are waiting for us.”

  “Can’t we stay a little longer?” Aunt Veronica asks.

  “No, honey. We have to go before it gets too cold. We don’t want to be stuck here all winter.”

  “When are we coming back?” Molly asks.

  “We’ll be back in springtime, when all the pretty flowers are in bloom. Now you two go on and take your seats. And put your lifejackets on. Don’t give me that look, young lady.”

  From his position beneath the tarp, Joey can see Mommy’s feet as she walks along the deck to untie the boat. Two smaller pairs of feet—one in pink sneakers and the other in saddle shoes—approach the tarp. The saddle shoes stop. “Did you hear that?” Molly asks.

  “Hear what?” Aunt Veronica says.

  “I think something’s under there.” The saddle shoes take a step back. “Do you think it’s a monster?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Aunt Veronica says. “It’s probably a rat or something.”

  “A rat?” Molly screams and then her shoes disappear. The pink sneakers come closer. A chubby face peers beneath the tarp. Joey puts a finger to his lips, but Aunt Veronica only smiles and pulls the tarp away.

  “It’s not a rat or a monster. It’s only Joe,” she says.

  Joey stands up and takes a few deep breaths to clear his head. Mommy rushes forward to scoop him up. “Joe, what are you doing here?” she asks.

  “I wanted to go with you,” he says.

  “We’ve discussed this already. You can’t come with me. You have to stay here.”

  “But—”

  “Look at the little baby cry,” Aunt Veronica says.

  “That’s enough,” Mommy scolds. She presses her smooth, tan cheek against Joey’s face. “Now you know you can’t go with me.”

  “But you’re taking them!” he says, pointing to Veronica.

  “They have to go.”

  “Why?” Molly asks. She’s cowering in a corner of the boat, as if still afraid a rat might appear. “Why can’t we stay here and he goes with you?”

  “That’s enough, young lady,” Mommy says. “You know the rules. You can’t stay here. This isn’t your home.”

  “Why can’t it be?” Molly says.

  “Because you don’t belong here. Now put your lifejacket on and wait for me here.” Mommy carries Joe off the boat and over to a stack of rope, where she sets him down. “Joe, we’ve talked about this. It’s too dangerous for you to come with me.”

  “Then why can they go? They’re littler than me.”

  “They’re used to it,” she says. She sits down next to him and puts an arm around his shoulder. “If anything happened to you, I couldn’t live with myself. Don’t you see I only want to protect you?”

  “I don’t need protecting. I can take care of myself,” he says, wiping his nose with his sleeve.

  “I know you think so, but there are dangers there you can’t understand. If you saw—” she breaks off with a shudder.

  “I’m not scared,” he says. “Stop treating me like a baby.”

  She smiles and kisses him on the forehead, dark brown hair caressing his face. He brushes it away to kiss her on the cheek. “I don’t want you to leave me,” he says.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”

  “Not until spring. That’s what you told them.”

  “It’s not so long. Three months. Maybe sooner.”

  “I don’t want to wait three months.”

  “Please, Joe, I need you to stay here and look after your father. He needs you.”

  “I don’t care about him. I only care about you.”

  “I know you don’t mean that,” she says. She stands up and for a moment bites down on her lip. “Your father is a good man. He loves you very much, even if he doesn’t always show it.”

  “I know,” Joey says. “But I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You aren’t going to lose me,” Mommy says. “I’ll be back before you know it.” Tears come to her midnight blue eyes at last, but she smiles through them. She offers her hand to Joey. “Come and say goodbye to the girls.”

  He follows her back along the dock to the boat, where the girls are running from one end to the other. Aunt Veronica chases after Molly with something in her hand. “Girls, what are you doing?” Mommy shouts.

  “She started it,” Molly says. “She tried to put a fish down my dress.”

  “Can’t you two behave for even a few minutes?” Mommy says. The girls look down at the deck and then Aunt Veronica tosses a fish over the side of the boat. “Now say goodbye to Joseph.”

  “Goodbye,” the girls say together.

  “Goodbye,” he says.

  “You two go sit down now and no more mischief.” Before going to her seat, Veronica grins at Joey and winks. Something in her eyes gives him a chill. He wants to warn Mommy, but she’s already hugging him and saying, “I’ll be back real soon.”

  “Don’t go, please,” he says. His entire body shakes with sobs. She isn’t coming back, he thinks. Aunt Veronica is going to hurt her. He tries to say something, but she doesn’t hear. She pushes the boat away from the dock. He can only stand there and watch her grow smaller as she gets farther away. Aunt Veronica turns to him and waves. The sound of her laughter brings him to his knees.

  A hand tore Joey from the bed. He opened his eyes to find himself looking into those of Aunt Veronica. Her eyes have the same menacing look as in his dream. “Time’s up,” she said. “Now, what about the algae?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  She turned him to face the corner. Molly huddled there, wearing Samantha’s pink dress from the party. Aunt Veronica tossed him on the bed to seize Molly by her curly hair. He saw when she got to her feet that Molly had shrunk into a toddler. “You see what you’ve done to her?” She pinched Molly’s tear-stained cheeks. “She’s a baby now because of you.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Joey said.

  “That’s exactly the point.” Aunt Veronica let little Molly slip to the ground and then hefted Joey again. “We’ve tried her way, now we’re going to do things my way. You’re going to tell me what I want to know or I’m going to kill her and you and everyone else on this fucking island. Do you get it?”

  He nodded. “Good. Now, no more pussyfooting around.” Before he could say anything, she banged his head into the wall. As his world turned dark, he thought of Mommy. Somewhere, he knew she was in danger.

  Chapter 29: Lady in Gray

  The neon sign beckoned to her like a lighthouse of old. Samantha trudged along the docks with the neon sign always in sight, drawing her in. Failed. The word echoed over and over again in her mind. Her parents. Aunt Beth. Andre. Her brutally aborted child. Fitzgerald. Judy. Dr. Herschowitz. Mrs. West. Mrs. Pryde. The family on the highway in Tucumcari. The list of deaths she’d failed to prevent seemed endless. I am nothing, she thought again.

  She opened the door to the Grey Oyster Pub. Inside, an overweight bartender cleaned a glass and smoked a cigarette. An old man rested his head on the bar, snoring with a beer in hand. “What’ll you have?” the bartender said.

  “A bottle of whiskey,” she said, slapping a bill onto the counter. “Good stuff, too. This is a celebration.”

  “Yeah, what are we celebrating?”

  Samantha gulped down a glass. “The end of my sobriety.”

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “Just shut up and go back to cleaning your glass.”

  “Listen, lady, if you’re going to be a problem then I’ll have to bring the cops over here and things will get ugly.”

  She reached into her pocket and tossed her badge onto the counter. “I am a cop, shithead. Get lost.”

  The bartender grumbled as he retreated into a corner. Samantha poured herself another glass. She savored the burn of the alcoh
ol, the lightness it created in her head. All her cares and concerns floated away like black balloons rising into the night. She hadn’t enjoyed this pleasure in how long? She couldn’t remember.

  Either because she hadn’t drank anything in so long or because she hadn’t eaten in two days, she felt the dizzy rush of inebriation after only three drinks. She tilted back on the stool to the point she lost her balance and collapsed to the floor. She lay there giggling a moment before climbing back onto the stool.

  This woke the old drunk up. “Hey there,” he said. “Don’t remember seeing you round these parts before. You new in town?” He smiled at her with a mouth missing all but six teeth. This caused her to giggle again.

  “You want to show me a good time, sailor?” she asked.

  “I can’t like I used to, but I still got some moves.”

  He reached down to his gnarled belt as if to show her right then and there. The bartender grabbed him by the shirtfront before he could get the belt off. “Damn it, Floyd, what’d I tell you about that?”

  “She asked me,” Floyd said.

  “Lousy old drunk. If you didn’t keep this place afloat I’d kick your sorry ass out.”

  “Oh come on, he didn’t hurt anything,” Samantha said. “Get my man a drink, will you?” The bartender glared at her and then placed another beer in front of Floyd.

  “You’re a real nice lady,” the drunk said.

  “I’m a real shit is more like it,” Samantha said. With a trembling hand she poured herself another glass of whiskey. “Either of you ever met Mrs. Pryde? Judah’s wife?”

  “What about her?” the bartender asked.

  “I killed her tonight.” She laughed as the bartender’s face paled. “I mean I didn’t kill her directly, but I may as well. I may as well gone up and shot her in the head for all the good I did her.”

  “What happened?” the bartender asked, daring to lean close.

  “I fell asleep, that’s what happened. I fell asleep in the woods and let her into the house. Let her walk right in and set up an ambush. I should have got her out of the house. I should have got her and the kid out of the house.” She gestured to the mirror behind the bar, at her wrinkled skin, bloodshot eyes, and gray hairs. “I’m a fucking wreck. Hey, what time you got?”

  “One fifteen.”

  “That means it’s my birthday.” She raised her glass in a mock toast. “Forty fucking years old. Can you believe it?”

  “Happy birthday,” Floyd said, raising his beer in salute.

  “Forty.” She looked into the mirror again and shook her head. “Time was when I never would have fell asleep after two days, even if I didn’t eat or drink anything. They used to call me Wonder Woman, can you believe that? This one time I tracked some slimeball all the way from New York to Bangkok. Five days I went without sleep, hardly any food or water. Brought that fucker back alive and then the next day I was back at it. Now I can’t even stay awake for two days. I’m a disgrace. It’s no wonder Tanner put me on a desk. Nowadays I’m more like Blunder Woman, you know?” She guffawed at her own joke and then lifted the whiskey bottle to her lips.

  “Maybe you’re being too hard on yourself,” the bartender said. “You tried, right?”

  “Oh sure, give me an A for effort. Put a fucking gold star on my forehead because I tried real hard. Five people are dead now because of me. That boy has to grow up without a mother now because I fell asleep! You think I’m being too hard on myself? How hard do you think it’s going to be for him?” She reached across the counter to grab the bartender by the shirtfront. “You think that shit is going to make that little boy feel better when they put his mother in the ground?”

  “I was trying to make you feel better is all.”

  “There isn’t anything that can make me better,” she said. She let him go and began to cry. She rested her head on the counter, seeing in her mind Mrs. Pryde lying on the floor. She transposed Andre into the kitchen alongside her, their eyes glaring at her, accusing her. “Why didn’t you save us?” they asked. “I couldn’t do it,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t save you.”

  A hand touched her back. She batted it away, thinking it was the bartender. Then she heard a woman’s voice say, “Excuse me, Officer, could you help me?”

  Samantha looked up and through her tears saw a pale woman with curly red hair poking out of a white bonnet. She wore a gray dress with a white apron that made her look like an extra from a Thanksgiving play. “What the hell do you want?”

  The woman’s cheeks turned a violent red and she put a hand to her throat. “I’m terribly sorry, dear. It’s just that I’m in trouble and I don’t know who turn to and when I saw your badge on the counter I thought maybe you could help me. I’m sorry to trouble you.”

  With halting steps the woman started back towards the door. Before she opened it, Samantha said, “Wait.”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Well, it’s very complicated. You see there’s a group of children in grave danger. I realize now I should have come forward sooner, but—”

  The woman’s shrill voice, bordering on hysteria, gave Samantha a headache. She ran a hand over her face and said, “These children, can they wait until tomorrow?”

  “I suppose so, Officer, if we must.”

  “Good. I need to lie down.” Samantha finished the rest of the whiskey and then vaulted off the stool, doing a drunken shuffle before regaining her feet. She slapped a twenty on the counter. “That’s for your trouble. And this is for you Floyd, you lovable bastard.” Samantha bent down to kiss Floyd, the sour taste of old beer and decomposing teeth making her gag.

  “You’re a real nice lady,” Floyd said again. He moved to take off his belt again, but she stopped him.

  “Not on the first date, big boy,” she said with a wink. Then she collected her badge from the counter and took the woman in gray’s arm. “My car’s back that way. Can you drive?”

  “I don’t have much experience—”

  “That’s fine.” She reached into her pocket to give the keys to the woman. “What’s your deal, anyway? You one of them Amish or something?”

  “Well, no. It’s hard to explain. You see—”

  “Skip it. Just get me to the Seafarer Bed and Breakfast. I hear it’s a nice place. In the morning you can tell me all about whatever it is you want to tell me about.”

  “Very well then. I don’t mean to pry, but you seem to be upset about something.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing really. I’ve only killed five people in the last two days through incompetence.” She laughed and added, “Are you sure you still want my help?”

  “I don’t see where I have much choice,” she said. They reached the car and Samantha collapsed into the passenger’s seat. The redheaded woman got in slowly, as if afraid the car might devour her. She looked at the controls for a minute until figuring out how to put the key into the ignition. “Can you tell me how to get to this bed and breakfast?”

  Samantha pointed to a road winding over the docks. “It’s up there somewhere. Keep going til you find it or we run out of gas.” She leaned her head against the side of the window, her haggard reflection filling the rearview mirror. “I’m so old.”

  “You’re only as old as you feel, dear.” The woman put the car into drive and tapped the accelerator. The car lurched forward. The woman did this again and again until Samantha’s stomach began to churn. “I’m sorry, dear. It’s been so long since I had to drive one of these. The last time was in 1947 I think or it might have been 1967. It’s so hard to remember.”

  Samantha thought she must have heard something wrong. This woman sitting next to her couldn’t be more than thirty; she wouldn’t have been born in 1947 or ’67. “Just get us there,” she said. She closed her eyes, seeing Joey’s face looking up at her, tears in his eyes as he learned his mother was dead. I’m sorry, she thought. I wish there was some way to make it up to you. Saving these children in ‘gr
ave danger’ might be the start of her long penance.

  The woman shook her awake some time later. “We’re here, dear,” the woman said. She pointed to a sprawling white house.

  “Great. You didn’t hit anyone on the way here, did you?”

  “Oh no, I’d never do that.”

  “Wonderful. Listen, Miss—”

  “Brigham. Molly Brigham.”

  “Miss Brigham, you wait here and I’ll see about getting us a room for the night.” She wove her way to the front steps of the house, her body feeling like a rag doll’s. She stumbled into the front door and then reached out for a brass knocker in the shape of a bear’s head. She banged it against the door for at least five minutes until the knocker was torn away from her hand. An old woman in a dark-blue-and-white-striped nightgown that complemented the house’s color scheme stood in the doorway. “I’m sorry, my dear, but it’s too late to accept boarders,” the old woman said. “You’ll have to come back in the morning.” She frowned at Samantha. “Have you been drinking?”

  “A little. Look, Miss Pestona at the antiques shop told me this was a nice place. I won’t cause you any trouble, I promise.” She reached into her wallet to take out what cash remained. “Here, take this.”

  The old woman glowered at the money for a moment and then took it from Samantha’s hand. “Very well. Follow me.”

  Samantha followed her inside to a spacious parlor with white walls and floors and dark blue furniture to match the old woman’s wardrobe. She stopped to motion around the room. “This is the common area, where our guests are welcome to unwind. You will notice there is no television in this room or anywhere else. My husband and I believe a vacation should not be spent in front of the idiot box. If you must have one, there are motels along the interstate where you can find one.”

  Samantha tried to interject, but the old woman kept talking as she swept through the parlor and into an empty room with a vast marble floor. “This is the ballroom. During the summer we hold dances every weekend. As you may have guessed, the room is not in operation at the moment. A great many popular artists have played in this room, including Glenn Miller and his orchestra some sixty years ago, before his tragic death. I suppose you’re far too young to know who that is, but he was very popular before you were born. Now this is the dining room. Breakfast is served at seven o’clock until nine o’clock sharp. Lunch commences at noon until two o’clock and dinner from five o’clock to seven. No exceptions. There is also tea at three o’clock, hosted by myself. Rosalie, our cook, makes the most wonderful crumpets in all of Maine—she came to us directly from England—”