by John Saul
The last vestiges of sleep fell away from Karen. She sat up, wincing as a sharp pain shot through her back. Too old for sofa beds, she thought as she swung her legs off the thin mattress. “What do you mean, you can’t find her? Where did you look?”
“In the living room,” Molly replied. “Then I went down to the barn, but she isn’t there, either.”
“Did you ask Russell?” Karen asked. She’d awakened briefly when he’d gotten up an hour ago, then fallen instantly back to sleep, intending only to close her eyes for a few minutes.
“He’s already gone,” Molly told her. “He went on the tractor with Kevin.”
“All right,” Karen sighed. Pulling on her robe, she picked up the clothes she’d left on Russell’s big leather easy chair and headed for the downstairs bathroom. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she told Molly. “Wait for me in the kitchen.” Then, as she saw her daughter’s furtive glance toward the ceiling: “Don’t you even think about going upstairs, understand?”
“Aw, Mom,” Molly groaned, but Karen silenced her with a look.
Dressing quickly, Karen started toward the kitchen, pausing at the foot of the stairs to call up to Julie. And yet, if Julie were asleep in her room at the end of the corridor, would she even hear a voice calling from all the way downstairs?
Maybe she should go up and take a look.
But what about the bees? If they were still up there …
Recalling what had happened to Greta yesterday, Karen shuddered, and knew that for now she simply couldn’t bring herself to go up to the second floor. Besides, she rationalized, Julie had probably gotten up early and was outside somewhere. Moving through the dining room and the kitchen, she went out on the back porch and rang the triangle to summon the rest of the family.
But ten minutes later, when everyone had assembled in the kitchen, Julie was still missing.
No one had seen her that morning.
It was Kevin who finally went upstairs to check Julie’s room. When he came back, he looked puzzled. “She’s not up there,” he reported. “And neither are the bees.”
Karen blinked. “The bees are gone?”
“Practically all of them,” Kevin said. “You can’t hear anything at all in the wall, and there are only a few flying around the window.”
Molly, once more sitting at the table, a bowl of cereal in front of her, looked up at her stepfather. “Why would they go away all by themselves, if no one made them?”
Russell pondered Molly’s question, but in the end shook his head helplessly. “I don’t have any idea at all,” he admitted. “As far as I know, they won’t go anywhere unless a queen is with them, and queens don’t usually just take off. They tend to stay put.”
“Then where’d they go?” Molly demanded.
“Can’t we just be happy they’re gone?” Karen broke in. “What I need to know is where did Julie go?”
“You’re sure she isn’t upstairs?” Russell asked Kevin, who shook his head. “Then she must be outside somewhere,” he declared.
But another idea was forming in Karen’s head.
Jeff Larkin.
Jeff, who had a car, and who hadn’t seemed any happier than Julie about the idea of going over to San Luis Obispo for more tests this morning. What if the two of them had just decided to do something else instead?
Picking up the phone, she dialed the number that someone—probably Kevin—had written on the wall next to Jeff’s name. Her fingers drummed impatiently on the Formica countertop as the instrument at the other end rang half a dozen times before Marge Larkin’s voice finally came on the line.
“Hello?”
“It’s Karen Owen, Marge.”
“Karen! Hi,” Marge began, but a split second later, as the worry in Karen’s voice sank in, Marge’s voice turned guarded. “Has … something happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Karen said, attempting to keep her escalating fear under control. “I—Well, I was wondering if you’ve seen Julie this morning.”
“Julie?” Marge echoed. “I’ve hardly even seen myself yet! What time is it?”
“Six forty-five,” Karen replied. “Julie doesn’t seem to be around, and I wondered if she might have gone over there.”
“If she’s here, she’s invisible,” Marge replied.
Karen hesitated, then went on. “Marge, is Jeff there?”
There was a moment of hollow silence at the other end of the line, then Marge spoke again. “You really know how to set up a mother’s day, don’t you, Karen? Hang on.” There was another silence, longer this time, and then Marge Larkin was back. “He’s here, all right. In bed, but no longer sound asleep.” She hesitated a moment, then, as if she could read Karen’s mind: “Karen? Maybe Julie’s just hiding out somewhere. I mean, Jeff’s not looking much different than he did last night, and if Julie wasn’t, either, maybe she just got scared of going to the doctor.”
“Maybe,” Karen said doubtfully, but willing to grasp at any straw right now.
“Well, try not to worry too much,” Marge told her. “She could have just gone for a walk. And there’s plenty of time before they should be leaving to go over to Obispo.”
As Karen hung up the phone, she wasn’t quite sure what to think. And yet, if Julie was still sick, maybe she was around somewhere. Maybe she’d become disoriented, or … or what?
She didn’t know.
But at least if she was sick, she might not have run away! She turned to face the rest of the family. “I think we better start looking for her,” she said. “Marge says Jeff’s not any better than he was last night, which means Julie could be anywhere around here, and maybe so sick she couldn’t even call to us if she needs help.”
Breakfast forgotten, the family set out in search of Julie, Russell heading north, then planning to circle around toward the east forty and the area around the beehives.
Karen, taking Molly with her, would check the barn one more time, then go down toward the stand of oaks by the creek and start working her way upstream, searching the thickets as she went.
“What about me?” Kevin asked as the rest of them set out.
“Stay here,” Russell told him. “Someone should be here in case she comes back.” He nodded toward the triangle. “If she shows up, ring it. We’ll all hear you.”
Then they were gone.
Jeff Larkin felt terrible.
His whole body itched, but it was like no itch he’d ever felt before. No amount of scratching seemed to relieve it, for somehow it actually seemed to come from beneath his skin, as if millions of tiny ants were creeping about deep inside him, irritating every cell of his body.
He hadn’t actually been asleep when his mother had come in, but he’d decided to pretend that he was, so she wouldn’t start right off asking him a bunch of questions he wasn’t ready to answer. When he finally heard her talking in the kitchen again, he got out of bed and went into the bathroom, where he stared at himself in the mirror.
His face was just as pale as it had been yesterday, and his eyes looked kind of funny, although he couldn’t quite see how they looked different than they had before.
And he was hungry this morning, which was really strange, since he never wanted anything except coffee before lunch, except maybe a doughnut if one was handy.
He got into the shower and turned the water on cold, which eased the itching, at least a little bit. He dried himself off, then went back to the room he shared with Ben—who was nowhere to be seen—and dressed, pulling on a pair of old gym shorts and a tank top. After running a brush through his still-damp mop of blond hair, he went out to the kitchen, where his mother was just setting a stack of pancakes in front of Ben.
“Can I have some of those?”
Marge’s brows rose in surprise. “You? Since when do you eat breakfast?”
“Since this morning, I guess,” Jeff said, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the chipped enamel pot on the stove. He dropped down onto the chair opposite Ben, self-consciously avoiding h
is mother’s critical gaze.
“You don’t look any better than last night,” Marge pronounced. “So I guess I’ll have to pay for Ben to go to day care today.”
“I’m fine,” Jeff insisted. “I’ll take care of him.”
“You’re going over to San Luis Obispo,” Marge reminded him. Then: “If they find Julie, anyway.”
Jeff looked up. “Julie?” he said. “What do you mean, if they find her?”
Marge shrugged, then began spooning batter onto the hot griddle. As the pancakes cooked, she told Jeff about the call from Karen. “She wasn’t here, was she?” she asked, her eyes narrowing in sudden suspicion. Had Jeff smuggled the girl into his room last night?
Jeff groaned. “No, she wasn’t here. Why would she be here this early?”
Marge didn’t even bother to respond to the question, but glanced at the clock as she transferred the pancakes to a plate and set them down in front of Jeff. “I’ve gotta go,” she announced. “And remember, if Julie shows up in the next hour or so, you two both go see Dr. Filmore. If she says you go to San Luis Obispo, you go. And you don’t stir from here for any other reason. Understand?”
“Will you just leave me alone?” Jeff flared, jerking away from her touch. “What is the big deal? I’m eating breakfast, and I feel fine. Just go to work, okay?”
“Don’t you speak to me that way, young man,” Marge snapped.
“Well, don’t act like I’m dying, then, okay?” Jeff shot back.
“I’m just worried about you—” Marge began, but Jeff didn’t let her finish.
“Who asked you to worry about me?” he yelled. “Will you just get out of here and leave me alone?”
As Ben burst into tears and fled out the back door, Marge glared furiously at her older son. “Now look what you’ve done,” she said. “What is it with you? Sometimes you act just like your father!”
“And maybe he was the smart one!” Jeff shouted. “Maybe he just got tired of you nagging at him all the time!”
His words stinging more than a slap would have, Marge felt her eyes fill with tears. Snatching her purse up from the counter, she hurried out the back door.
A moment later Jeff heard the engine of her car roar and the wheels spin as she jammed it into gear. Wishing he could take back the last words he’d uttered, he stood up from the table, knocking the chair over in his hurry, and went to the back door.
Too late.
His mother’s car was already disappearing down the driveway, lost in a cloud of dust.
“Shit,” Jeff said softly to himself. Going back to the table, he righted the chair, settled onto it once again, and began shoving the pancakes into his mouth. When the back door opened a moment or two later, he barely even heard it, but he did hear the words Vic Costas was speaking.
“I’ll take the keys to the station wagon,” the farmer said in a voice whose quietness bespoke his authority.
Jeff looked up at him in surprise.
“I heard you talking to your mother,” Costas told him. “Your mother’s a good woman, and she works hard to take care of you. That’s the thanks you give her? Talking to her that way?” He shook his head. “Not on my farm. And boys like you don’t use my car, either.” He held his hand out.
Jeff hesitated, and for just a moment wondered what would happen if he refused. But as big as he was, Vic Costas was two inches taller, with wide shoulders and the muscles of a man who had been working the land all his life. As the farmer’s eyes, so dark they looked black, fixed on him, Jeff reached into his pocket, pulled out the keys to the rusting Mercury, and handed them over.
“You apologize to your mother,” Costas told him. “And you think about how you treat her.” Without another word, he turned and left the house.
Left alone again, Jeff finished the stack of pancakes, then made another. Drenching them with Karo syrup, he wolfed them down, then poured a bowl of cereal, and ate that, too.
Before he was finally finished, he’d scrambled half a dozen eggs and drunk half the can of pineapple juice his mother had opened for Ben that morning.
And now something else was happening to him.
He was starting to feel restless.
He began pacing through the house, then went out into the yard.
It seemed hot—way too hot even for the end of June.
He moved over into the shade of one of the olive trees Mr. Costas had planted years ago when he’d decided to experiment with producing domestic olive oil, and dropped down to the ground, leaning his back against the tree’s trunk.
A hornet settled on his leg.
Jeff stared at it, instantly remembering the horse he’d watched die in the Owens’ corral yesterday.
A cold shiver of fear made his spine tingle, and he moved his right hand slowly toward the hornet, preparing to brush it away in a motion so quick the insect would have no time to plunge its stinger through his skin.
His hand hovered in midair, but when he tried to flick the hornet away, his arm refused to respond to the order of his brain.
His hand remained where it was.
A second hornet settled on his leg, and then a third.
Jeff felt a lump of fear growing in his throat, and once more tried to flick the insects away, but once again found himself unable to make his hand obey.
The hornets began to move on his skin.
To move in a pattern that captured his attention.
The focus of his eyes began to narrow, until it felt as though he were looking through a long tube, and all he could see was the hornets.
They kept moving on his skin, repeating the same pattern over and over.
Then an image came into his mind.
Julie!
He saw a vision of Julie perfectly clearly.
Julie was smiling at him, and beckoning to him.
It was almost like a dream, except that Jeff knew he was wide-awake.
As the hornets rose from his leg and flew off, quickly disappearing into the distance, Jeff Larkin stood and began walking.
Moving quickly with long, steady strides, he set off across the field, heading northeast toward the Owen farm.
To the hills beyond the farm.
The hills, and Julie.
Kevin stepped out onto the porch, waving and yelling at Jeff Larkin, but the other boy didn’t seem either to see or hear him. But that was nuts! Jeff wasn’t more than fifty yards from the house, walking along the dirt road he and Julie had used when they’d come home the other night. “Jeff?” He yelled again. “Hey, Jeff!”
When Jeff still failed to respond, Kevin finally left the porch, jogging across the yard, yelling his name yet again. But only when Kevin was within a few feet of him did Jeff finally turn to face his friend.
Kevin stopped short.
Jeff’s face had that same pallor that Julie’s had the other day, and though he seemed to be looking right at Kevin, Kevin had the eerie feeling that Jeff didn’t quite see him.
“What the hell’s going on, man?” Kevin demanded. “I’ve been yelling at you for ages.”
Jeff’s brows came together in a puzzled frown and he shook his head. “I guess I wasn’t listening.” Suddenly his eyes seemed to focus on Kevin, and he grinned. “Or maybe I’m getting deaf.”
“Well, you want to tell me what’s going on?” Kevin demanded. “Where are you going?”
“To Julie,” Jeff replied.
Kevin blinked. To Julie? What the hell was he talking about? “You mean you know where she is?” he asked.
Jeff nodded.
Kevin glanced around, but no one else was anywhere to be seen. “Well, where is she?” he asked.
Jeff hesitated, then tipped his head toward the hills to the west. “Up there.” He fell silent for a second, then: “Want to come with me?”
Kevin hesitated. His father had been clear that he should stay home, in case Julie came back. But if she wasn’t coming back, if she was up in the hills …
But how could Jeff know where she
was?
Unless they’d planned it. “Are you supposed to meet her up there?” he asked. “I mean, did she call you or something?”
Jeff shook his head. “I just know that’s where she is, that’s all. I’ll show you.”
Still Kevin hesitated. Jeff looked strange, but he looked more sick than spaced out.
“Why don’t you come back to the house, and I’ll find my dad,” Kevin suggested, but even before he finished the sentence, Jeff shook his head.
“I can’t. Julie wants me.”
What was he talking about? Julie wanted him? He glanced around again, hoping he might catch a glimpse of his father, or maybe Karen.
But from what he could see, he and Jeff might as well have been alone on the farm, and now Jeff was walking away, starting up a trail toward the hills behind the farm.
Still, Kevin hesitated. But what if Jeff really did know where Julie was? What if Julie was sick or something and needed help?
The way Jeff looked, Kevin wasn’t sure he’d even be able to make it up into the hills, much less help Julie.
Making up his mind, Kevin cast one last look back at the farm, then followed Jeff, breaking into a trot to catch up with him.
The land rose steadily, and the trail kept branching, but at each fork Jeff seemed to know exactly which way to turn. Though the grade grew steeper, Jeff’s stride never broke, and twice Kevin, who knew he was in better shape than Jeff, had to stop to catch his breath, then run to catch up with his friend.
Almost half an hour had passed when Jeff abruptly stopped.
Kevin nearly ran into him before he realized Jeff was no longer moving, and when he looked around, he saw no sign of Julie.
They were on the flank of a boulder-strewn hillside that looked no different from any of the other hills they’d hiked across. Below them was a small valley, covering no more than a few acres, which a stream ran through.
The same stream that came out at the farm? Kevin wasn’t sure. Indeed, he’d been so intent on simply following Jeff that he really hadn’t paid much attention to where they were going.
He scanned the valley but still saw no sign of his stepsister. “So where’s Julie?” he asked.
Jeff pointed downward, across the valley. “Over there.”