Eye of the Beholder

by Shari Shattuck

Greer smiled with him, but she did not laugh. She was getting a feeling herself, and it was mostly one of surprise that she had never considered the possibility before. What Joshua was describing was not what she saw or experienced, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t something similar. The gift had always come to women in the family, yet she had no daughters. Of course, her mother hadn’t had it. Greer had always thought that maybe if Joshua got married and had a girl . . .

  “Tell me about the second time,” she prodded gently.

  “The second time was when Joy was in her room.” Joshua’s face reddened a little, but he braved on. “I can see a little bit into her window from my room, and she was talking on a phone, I think. Anyway, I saw a . . . like a symbol above her head. An eye, or more like just a drawing of an eye. And then another figure, only this time on the other side, and I thought it was a girl. It . . . she was pointing at the eye and then holding out her arms toward me.”

  He fell silent and waited for his mom’s reaction. He knew she often made uncanny predictions and seemed just to know things, but that was different. Wasn’t it? She didn’t see people waving their arms at her in thin air.

  His mother’s hand reached out and took one of his. “Joshua.” He looked up at her, and she was searching his face so intensely that he would have been afraid if there hadn’t been so much love in her eyes. “What did you feel when you saw these things? I mean, I know that you were scared to see something you couldn’t control. I don’t mean that. I mean, what did the figures and the eye . . . what did they seem to be telling you?”

  Joshua’s eyes filled quickly with tears that he tried to blink back while he waited for his throat to unclench. He had thought about this again and again, and he didn’t know what to do about it. It frightened him more than anything.

  “They were telling me to help her. That something bad is happening to her and I am the only one who can stop it.” Joshua’s hands clenched into fists with the effort of refusing to succumb to a girlish emotion. “But I don’t know what they want me to do,” he finished desperately.

  Unlike her son, Greer let her tears come freely. “Joshua,” she whispered, “you have the gift. It’s different from mine, I think. Mine is always future; yours seems like it might also be present. I don’t know. I don’t know what each of those things you saw means, but I know that you will figure them out as time goes on. When you stop fighting it and fearing it, then you’ll be able to interpret what you see. Joshua, you can help people.”

  Joshua was on his feet. “I don’t know how to help anyone!” he shouted in frustration. “I don’t want that responsibility! I just want to be normal; I don’t want to be a freak!” The moment it was out of his mouth he regretted it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”

  Though she felt the hit, Greer was smiling wisely. “It’s all right, Joshua. I understand why you say that. People are afraid of anything they don’t understand or don’t have proof of. It is unusual, and so it’s something that some people will define as freakish, but sit down,” she told him firmly.

  He composed himself back on the edge of the bed and she went on. “Let me tell you something. I saw danger all around Joy before I ever met her—the first day, in the tea leaves. But my gift is only one of prediction and possibility. I see nothing but the person, and maybe some indicator, like darkness around them or colors that over the years have come to represent things to me. Sometimes I see a whole event or scene, with those indications in it. But I only see people who exist, who are alive now. This sounds like you have . . . well, other entities who are informing and guiding you.”

  Joshua was not finding this comforting. “Great, so you’re saying that I see dead people?”

  “I didn’t say they were dead. Maybe they are spirits from the other side.” He shook his head and rocked uncomfortably, so she hurried on. “You wouldn’t be the first; that is a possibility. Or maybe they are just manifestations of need or representative of what the person, in this case Joy, is creating. It will be up to you to figure that out.”

  “What if I don’t want to figure it out? What if I don’t want to see this stuff?” Joshua’s voice sounded tortured.

  Greer sighed. She knew the pain of that all too well—and the consequences. “Let me ask you one thing.” She spoke soothingly. “If you thought that Joy was in danger—say you knew that there was a fire in her house and you could get her out—would you do it?”

  Joshua tried to take a deep breath, found he couldn’t, and swallowed hard instead. “Yes.”

  His mother said nothing. She raised her eyebrows just slightly and watched him.

  A cold hand had gripped Joshua’s heart. He felt as though someone had snatched away his future. One minute his teenage life had been filled with options, and now every door had closed except one. He stood up quickly again. “I don’t want this. I’m not the right one. What can I do?”

  Greer nodded. “I absolutely understand how you feel, and I’m sorry.” Her eyes went distant for a moment, and she said much more softly, “I remember.” Then she seemed to shake off the mistiness and looked at her son again. “But I don’t think it will go away. It’s a gift you’ve been given for a reason.”

  Joshua shook his head. “I don’t want it,” he told her. “I don’t want this ‘gift.’ I’m giving it back. I just want to be normal.” He leaned down and kissed his mom on the top of the head and then walked out of the room. In a few minutes she heard music, loud and distracting, coming from behind his closed door.

  Restless, Greer made her way downstairs, her feelings for her son tumbling up and down like a child rolling down a hill, high excitement and sympathy going around and around until she was dizzy from the spinning.

  She pulled a bottle of good red wine out of the rack on the counter and opened it with a corkscrew to let it breathe, placing a glass next to it. Then she busied herself making a salad to accompany the beef stew that was simmering on the stove, all the while sifting through her thoughts.

  If Joshua did have a gift and he was seeing indications of a way to help Joy, then that was encouraging. It seemed to signify that she could be helped. But what was the eye? What did that mean? To keep an eye on her? She’d made Joy the bracelet to try to offer her some small degree of protection by weaving in watchfulness and a spell to ward off bad energy, but it would do next to nothing against real evil. It was imbued with positive thought and protective prayer strengthened by energies from the flow of nature that Greer had learned to draw on and concentrate into an object. Those were powerful forces, but if Joy was courting something stronger without knowing it, they would be like a paper shield.

  She heard the crunch of wheels on gravel and looked out the window. Dario was getting out of his hybrid SUV and starting toward the door. Good. She could use his support.

  He stuck his head in the door and said, “Boo. I thought I’d drop by and see how the move-in was coming along.”

  “Hi! There’s a bottle of wine open for you, and I need your advice,” Greer told him, glancing at the bottle with her eyes to direct him.

  “Can’t you even act surprised?” Dario muttered.

  Greer laughed. “I hope you’re hungry too, because I cooked beef stew.”

  He poured some wine and sipped at it while Greer set the table and told him in a quiet voice about what had happened to Joshua. Dario took it all in as though he had expected as much. When she’d finished he sighed and said, “So maybe he’ll get his own TV show.”

  Greer frowned. “I’m worried about him adjusting. It’s very scary at first.” She reflected on her recent readings for both Joy and Leah, how they filled her with fear and apprehension, and revised her statement. “Hell, not just at first.”

  “I’ll talk to him. But what are you doing tomorrow night?”

  Greer looked up, surprised. “On a Monday night? What do you think I’m doing? I’ll be here.” She regarded him warily. “Why?”

  “Well, everybody has told me that the steakhouse, Al Wright’s, is rea
lly excellent, and I thought maybe you and I could go have dinner there. Maybe celebrate our success by returning the favor of supporting the local businesses. Plus, it’d be nice to check out your new neighborhood.”

  Feigning shock, Greer said, “Are you serious? You’d be willing to leave Pasadena or Hollywood for a social evening?”

  “Oh, I’m not saying I’ll drink the water,” Dario quipped. “But I did happen to see that it was rated as one of the best out-of-the-way steakhouses in Los Angeles magazine.”

  “Aha! It passed the hip requirement!”

  “By the skin of its buckteeth. Come on; it’ll be fun.”

  “Well, I’ll ask Joshua if he wants to go.”

  “If I want to go where?” Joshua had come down the stairs into the kitchen, and he crossed to give Dario a hug.

  “I think,” Dario interrupted before Greer could ask him, “that your seventeen-year-old son would be just fine at home alone for an evening. In fact”—he looked at Joshua—“if I’m not mistaken, he might really like to have some time alone.”

  Greer looked at Joshua questioningly.

  Joshua’s face had the roseate hue of a revealing blush, and he was wearing a sly smile. “Nothing personal,” he muttered.

  “You two have been scheming,” Greer accused with a hand on her hip, but she was amused and pleased. It was such a lifesaver to have Dario’s masculine input while raising a boy to a man.

  “Done,” Dario exclaimed. “I’ll meet you there tomorrow at seven o’clock. Supposedly there’s one of those great, dark oak bars with red upholstered booths, and they make martinis the old-fashioned way.”

  “What’s the old-fashioned way?” Joshua asked.

  “With gin and a bottle of vermouth waved over the top. These days people have confused martinis with a noxious mixture containing apple flavoring or the color pink, both of which are just wrong.” Dario saluted his odd extended family and took a sip of his wine, feeling deep affection for both of them. In his eyes was the glitter of a man who was up to something.

  Chapter 22

  Leah was woken from an uneasy sleep by the sound of glass breaking. She sat up in bed and listened, but all she could hear was the wind blowing hard through the branches of the large pine trees surrounding her house. They creaked and complained at being pushed beyond their upright limitations.

  After a few moments she decided it must have been a dream, or maybe the glass cover of the porch light had been knocked loose by the wind again and had smashed on the tiles below. Knowing she wouldn’t sleep until she made sure, she slipped out of bed and into a plush robe, stepping into her slippers. The thick carpet beneath her feet made almost no sound as she went down the hallway, checking doors and windows as she went. Everything seemed fine. She switched on a small table lamp in the dark living room. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she looked around. All the windows were intact; no errant branch had disturbed them. She went into the kitchen and almost stepped onto the broken wineglass on the floor. The heavy base of the crystal glass must have toppled it from where she had set it upside down to dry, and it lay in small fragments on the slate.

  She released a relieved breath, but the wind had given her an eerie angst that was hard to shake off.

  She put some water in the kettle and cleaned the glass off the floor as she waited for it to boil; then she took her mug of tea into the living room, settling herself into the corner of the sofa near the small pool of light from the lamp.

  Her brain was busily churning out questions. What was Vince up to? And more important, what should—or could—she do about it?

  Going to the police seemed out of the question. The source of her information was shaky at best. It wasn’t exactly legal to open someone else’s private safety-deposit box. The fact also remained that she feared Vince; she knew what he was capable of. The thought of testifying against him was as inviting as kissing a venomous snake. She’d been bitten before, and the puncture wounds still bled their poison into her, rendering her incapable of facing the Rattler without incapacitating fear. Thinking of the violence he’d shown during their brief marriage chilled her, and she reached out for the lap blanket on the back of the sofa, as much for comfort as for warmth.

  A branch scraped against the dark window, and Leah started. Tomorrow when she got home from work she would trim that tree back, even if it were still pouring rain. The sound was too spooky.

  An anonymous call might be the best thing. Anyone could have tipped the police off, she reasoned. As much as part of her would have liked for him to know she was the one who nailed him, it made her shudder to imagine his reaction. Of course, she could wait and watch, hope that he gave himself away, but then she might miss the chance. No, the best thing would be to call the police tomorrow, maybe from a pay phone, and give a tip without leaving her name. She wondered nervously if that was something you could do in real life or just on television.

  The thought that Vince might find out that it was her made her almost catatonic with fear. Her face burned with the disgrace and indignity of the things he had done to her, and worse—much worse—the fact that she had never lifted a finger to make him pay. Well, this would make him suffer. The thought pleased her, but a wad of dread still ricocheted around her torso and couldn’t get out.

  Leah wanted the warm, purring presence of her cat; where was she? “Kate?” she called out. “Here, Katie.” She made a kissing sound with her lips while thinking that her cat could sleep through absolutely anything except the sound of the can opener.

  She listened, but she heard nothing but the rickety skeletal branches popping and creaking outside. Rain drummed against the roof.

  “Katie!” she called again. Her voice in the void made the empty house seem vacant, uninhabited. She thought about whether she’d seen the cat after she’d come home. Yes, she’d fed her, but she hadn’t seen her since then. Could she have gotten outside? She called out again, and this time she heard an answering meow from out back somewhere. It sounded distant and pitiable.

  Oh, no, poor Kate—she was outside. She’d probably been sheltering somewhere, feeling miserable. Leah got up quickly and went toward the back porch. She unlatched the door and opened it. “Katie!” she called, looking out into the blackness. She could make out nothing except the vague shapes of the shrubs and the trees. But she heard no answering call.

  With her right hand, Leah fumbled for the light switch, found it, and pressed it on. The yellow porch light flooded the darkness, falling on the speckled sheets of rain beyond the covered veranda like a flickering motion picture screen.

  It fell on the figure of a man three feet in front of her. She gasped and tried to back into the house, but he moved forward and blocked the door with his foot before her numbed system could react and close the door.

  “Time for a little chat,” Vince said as he came in, rain dripping from his leather jacket onto her carpet.

  “You can’t be here,” Leah said lamely. “What are you doing here?”

  “Relax.” Vince clamped a strong hand painfully onto her upper arm and pulled her to the sofa. “Sit down. We’re just going to have a little heart-to-heart.” He smiled, and Leah felt as though she’d been drenched in icy water.

  She sat, more to get free of his grip than anything else, and looked up at him, trying to arrange her features into something resembling contempt, but knowing that she was failing by a long shot.

  “So”—Vince was looking around—“I like what you’ve done with the place,” he said. “Very . . . female, busy and cluttered. But then, I always did like everything just so.”

  “What do you want?” Leah asked.

  “Not feeling very conversational?” Vince was still standing right over her. “Well, no, I suppose it’s late, so let’s get to the point.” He fingered a ring of keys hooked onto his belt as he spoke.

  “It has come to my attention that you may have noticed certain things that do not exist, and I can’t have anyone saying untrue and libelous things abou
t me. In fact, if anyone were to wrongly accuse me of anything, I would be very upset.” Vince looked down and placed the heel of his large wet boot over Leah’s toes in their soft slipper, effectively pinning her foot painfully to the floor. As he continued speaking he applied more and more weight. “Now, you have a little bit of experience with me when I’m not happy. I like to be happy.” He ground his heel down hard, and Leah cried out in pain. Reaching out with both hands to his leg, she tried pointlessly to push him off, but his thigh felt like a solid fence post and he didn’t budge. “And I’d like to stay happy. So, let’s agree.” He took one of her straining arms by the wrist and pushed back the sleeve of the robe. Leah was whimpering from the unrelenting force on her foot, and now, placing his fingers skillfully on a point about halfway between her hand and her elbow, Vince squeezed hard, and unbearable pain shot up her arm.

  “No, God, please stop,” Leah begged. But he didn’t.

  “Let’s agree,” he continued, ignoring her exclamations, “that if you ever say anything, I will first take you down with me, and second get out on bail and end your miserable, worthless, little bitch life.”

  He ground his heel down harder, pressed his thumb into the pain point with crushing accuracy, and then released both. Leah recoiled into the cushions of the sofa, pulling her foot up and holding it, tears streaming down her face, hatred and fear burning in her heart. Pain radiated from both injuries like heat from the glowing red metal of hand-forged steel.

  “Do you understand?” Vince asked, as though he were speaking to a naughty three-year-old.

  Without looking up, Leah nodded and then cringed as Vince lowered his face suddenly to her level.

  “Good. I’m so glad we had this little chat.” He walked to the door, which had remained open, and added, “By the way, your cat is taped up inside a box. It’s probably getting soggy. I thought about bringing my pit bull, Rex, over and letting him do a little cat hunting. It’s kind of isolated at my new place, and Rex has eaten most of the local wildlife, so he’s probably hungry.”