Eye of the Beholder

by Shari Shattuck

  “So, feeling silly, I bought these monster chains for those big wheels, and Geoffrey thought I was paranoid, but he promised to keep them in the truck. Sure enough, that September he was up in the Sierras on a fire road, forty miles from pavement and three times that from any town, when he got trapped in a surprise snowstorm, slid off the road into a ditch, and only those chains kept him from freezing to death. He’d gone out without even a heavy coat, much less snow-shoes or provisions. It would have been days before anyone would have found him, or even noticed that he was gone.”

  Sterling’s eyes were laced through with fascinated interest. He finished his cigarette and put it out on the bottom of his shoe. “But did you ever think it might be a coincidence?”

  “It was not a coincidence. Yes, it was a strong possibility that Geoff might get caught in a storm sooner or later, but it was very specific that he would need the chains when he already had four-wheel drive.” Dario took the butt from Sterling and put it into the trash can with his own.

  “So, you think she’s psychic?”

  “No. I know she is.”

  Sterling made a scuffing sound on the sidewalk as he twisted the ball of one foot slowly back and forth. “I don’t mean to sound skeptical or rude, but that doesn’t really prove it.”

  “No,” agreed Dario. “And I might have thought it was a lucky guess too, except for one other thing: She told me the date that Geoffrey would die, months earlier than we expected to lose him.”

  Clearing his throat unnecessarily, Sterling said, “I know the odds are long, but she could have guessed that too. I mean, he was ill for a long time, wasn’t he?”

  Dario looked away, into the past, and treasured even those painful times when they had suffered the illness together—in very different ways—and had found surprisingly often that there were gifts hidden even in the hardest moments: strengths, almost unbearable love, laughter even. The moments shone like flickering lantern lights left far behind on a highway. That’s why we have memories, he thought, so that when we look back, we don’t see only darkness. “Yes, that’s true,” he answered at last. “He was very ill for a long time. But Greer told me definitively which day, in advance, something she would normally never do.”

  “Then why did she? It seems like a terrible thing to tell someone.”

  “Because I was supposed to go away on that day.” He stopped and cleared his throat before he continued. “I would not have been with him when he died, and I would never have forgiven myself for that. It was her gift to me—to us, really.”

  Sterling stared out into the gloomy, mottled night and tried to make out the vague shapes obscured by darkness and mist, feeling remarkably awake.

  When he finally remembered himself and turned to Dario, he found that there was no longer anyone there.

  Chapter 43

  For several hours there had been nothing but the darkness of the closet and the faint, muffled sounds of wind, interrupted only by the occasional barking of a dog.

  Then the sound of his truck returning sent frayed warnings through Joy’s blunted nervous system.

  The footsteps came into the house, and she heard him moving around in the kitchen. And then hope leaped into her heart as she heard more than one voice; the higher pitch of a woman’s voice was mixed with his. Before she could call out, though, she felt and heard his solo footfalls as they came straight to the closet. The key turned; the door opened, mercifully, onto a darkened room.

  He leaned down and grasped her firmly under one arm in a tight, clenching grip. “Don’t make a sound,” he whispered into her ear. “If you utter one word, I’ll kill her. Do you hear me? And after I kill her, you’ll be next.” The lack of malice or emotion in his voice made the threat all the more real.

  He jerked her arm, pulling her up against him, and she nodded her understanding. The cramping in her legs and back was so intense that she had to bite her lower lip hard to keep from crying out as he pulled her with him to the bedroom. “Now, you get in there, and you stay in there, and if I hear one peep out of you, you’ll be responsible for two deaths.”

  He shoved her onto the bed and went out, closing the door. Joy massaged her legs and moved them tentatively until some of the blood returned. As soon as she could bear her own weight she moved to the window and pulled the curtain aside. Bars. She put her face up against the glass and was trying to see how the metal was connected when something on the other side of the window lunged at her, slavering and growling.

  She fell backward onto the floor, petrified with fear, and a small cry escaped her, but the animal was throwing itself at the window and making so much noise that she was sure the sound she’d made wouldn’t be heard from the living room. She climbed up onto the bed, as far away from the window as possible, and curled into a miserable ball. After a few more failed attempts to get through the bars, the dog disappeared into the night.

  With the animal’s barking gone, she could hear voices in the living room. She crept on all fours to the floor and pressed her ear to the wood, but it only distorted the sounds further. Did she dare open the door a crack? Noticing that there was about an inch of space between the bottom of the door and the floor, she lay down flat on the carpet and tilted her head as best she could to listen. Who was here? Was it someone who might help her? If she could find a way to let them know she was here without him knowing, then she might be saved.

  She squeezed her eyes closed and concentrated on listening.

  “You want a drink?” he was asking.

  “Sure, I’ll get it.” There was rustling and quiet for a minute, and then they talked. She sounded nervous, but it seemed clear that they knew each other, that she had been here before, maybe frequently. Finally the conversation took a more serious tack.

  She said, “You know, I really like you, but I don’t think I’ll be able to see you anymore.”

  He laughed. “What a shame. And here we were just making up.”

  “I . . . I think you need help.” Her voice was shaking, and she cleared her throat too often.

  Joy couldn’t see him, but she could imagine the slow smile spreading over the face she’d once thought ruggedly attractive but that now repulsed her. “Do you?”

  “Yes. Listen. I care about you. I want you to get better.”

  Glass clinked on glass, and Joy guessed that he was pouring another drink. “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do,” she insisted, but even Joy could hear that she was lying, trying to appease him.

  “No, you don’t. You only came here tonight because you were afraid to refuse me. If I hadn’t come around to your back door, you would have pretended not to be home. You know what will make me feel better? If you take those clothes off.”

  “No, I’m not staying. I know it starts off being a game, but you go too far; something’s not right.” There was an edge of hysterical panic in the woman’s voice. “I have to go.”

  “Nope. You’re staying.”

  “Let go. Come on, you’re scaring me!”

  There was the sound of a brief struggle and then a smack that Joy felt resound through her own head. “No, please,” came the muffled pleading.

  “That’s right, beg me,” he said in a taunting voice. “Beg me, and maybe you’ll get what you’re asking for.”

  The next sounds were the tearing of clothing, something fragile, whimpers and cries. And then a distinct repetitive sound that came over steady weeping interrupted by gasps of pain: the sound of leather striking flesh.

  Joy retreated to the far corner, as far from both the window and the door as she could manage, and covered her ears, trying to block out the torturous sounds. She rocked and hummed, just a degree above inaudible, to try to block out the present and the future.

  For a time there was nothing, and then the door to the bedroom opened.

  “Where are you?” he sang out, as though he were playing hide-and-seek with a child.

  She covered her head with her arms and rolled up tightly like a caterp
illar sensing danger, keeping her eyes squeezed shut. Please go away, she prayed.

  But when he spoke again he was standing right over her. “Tell you what, why don’t you sleep in the bed tonight? That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

  Slowly, like a fern, Joy unfurled just enough to look up at him. “Where is she?” she whispered fearfully.

  “She left. But she’ll be back. I’m sorry that I didn’t pay much attention to you tonight, but something came up.” He laughed at his joke, then said, “And now, seeing as how we didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night, I think it’s time for beddy-bye.”

  He took her to the bathroom again, instructing her to take a shower because she stank. Instead she washed her underarms quickly with a soapy washcloth and put her shirt back on. When she came out, he took her to the bedroom and tied her wrists together, and then fastened the other end of the rope firmly to the headboard. She lay on her left side, as still and hard as if she were carved of stone, and waited as he undressed, brushed his teeth, and climbed into the bed next to her.

  Her skin tingled with a nasty crawling as, pulling her shirt up enough to expose her waist and part of her rib cage, he lowered his mouth and nipped at her. She jerked away.

  Laughing, he reached across her and turned out the light. “Good night, don’t let the bedbugs bite.” Then he turned away from her, and within minutes she felt the bed shake with his snores.

  For a long time Joy lay staring into the darkness, wondering how long she would have to endure this before he killed her.

  Chapter 44

  In Joshua’s dream, everyone was troubled. He was in a gray city of buildings so high that there was no sky. There were crowds of people, and all of them hurried with a frenzied desperation toward—or maybe it was away from—a frightening destination. Everyone was late. Everyone was harried. Everyone was afraid.

  He was searching for someone who could help him, but he couldn’t remember who it was. He walked on, trying to make out the faces of the passing strangers, but they sped by in blurry haste.

  Joshua suddenly found himself in a barren field, looking back at the towering high-rises from far away. It was night, and there was nothing but an eerie silver glow from the lights of the buildings illuminating the clouds they pierced, disappearing like tall figures in a glowing shroud. Turning away from the distant civilization, he saw in front of him a single tree: a huge oak, twisted and scarred by fire. He walked toward it, and as he did he sensed a girl standing beneath it, her face hidden by the shadows of the branches. He came closer and heard a sound—the jingling of keys, almost musical, yet discordant.

  He sensed that the girl was looking at him. She stepped forward out of the gloom and he saw her face in black and white, robbed of color by moonlight. He had seen her before, he knew it, but he couldn’t remember where or what he was supposed to ask her. Frustrated, he held out his hands in a gesture of bafflement.

  The girl smiled gently and shook her head. She turned and pointed up at the oak tree and then to the keys in her hand. Last she pointed to something that he hadn’t noticed before: a motorcycle standing just under the tree.

  “I don’t understand,” Joshua whispered to her. “What am I doing here?”

  The girl pointed again—once to the tree, the bike beneath it, and then to the keys—and then she was gone, and Joshua found himself terrified and alone. He began to circle around the tree, first walking and then running out across the broken land, searching for her, searching for someone, anyone. His foot snagged on a root and he lurched forward, throwing his hands out to catch himself.

  The movement jerked Joshua of his sleep, and he sat up in bed, sweat sticking his T-shirt to his chest. Looking out the window, he could see the pine tree that Joy had climbed down in the vague moonlight. It was still, unmoved by wind or weight.

  From the hallway came a faint light. Joshua got out of bed and went to the doorway. The light was coming from downstairs, which meant his mother was probably in the kitchen. The illuminated clock on his dresser read 4:23.

  Quietly he descended to find her looking toward him; of course she had sensed him coming.

  “Can’t sleep?” she asked softly.

  “No . . . well, I was, but I had a nightmare.” But even as he said the words, he wondered if it was true, for it suddenly came to him where he had seen the girl before. He stopped two feet from the table as the realization hit him.

  “What is it?” Greer asked.

  “I remember. I was dreaming about a girl; she was showing me three things: an oak tree, a motorcycle, and some keys.” Joshua rubbed his eyes and sat down at the table. “There was more to the dream, people who were lost, and it was really, uh, disturbing, but then she was there, in an open place, and I kept wishing I could remember who she was or where I knew her from, and now I do.” He stopped, gathering courage from the confident curiosity in his mother’s eyes. “At the hospital, over Zoe Caldwell’s bed, she was there. I recognized her, but I don’t know her. I mean, I’ve never seen her before in, uh, life. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I think I do. Sometimes when I see someone’s future, I see an image of the person. I saw Joy in the tea leaves that day. It’s not always so much distinct physical features—more often a sense of who and how they are.”

  Joshua shook his head. “No, this isn’t like that,” he said emphatically. “If I were an artist, I could draw you this girl perfectly. She has a nice face, kind of round, like someone who smiles all the time, and medium-length brown hair, and a few freckles, just light, across here.” He raised his two fingers and drew a line from one cheek, across the bridge of his nose, to the other. “If I ever met her, I would know her,” he said definitively.

  Greer’s breath had caught in her chest. She forced herself to keep her face calm, but she said, “Wait a minute.” She rose and left the room, heading to the downstairs den. Joshua heard her rummaging through an unpacked box and then his mother returned, holding a high school yearbook. She sat next to him and slowly lowered the book onto the table to show him a page. With one finger she pointed to a photo.

  Joshua leaned in to look, and then jolted back in his seat. His mother put her arm around his shoulders. “That’s Sarah,” she whispered. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

  Joshua was breathing shallowly, but he nodded.

  “I asked her to help us.” Greer brushed away a tear and then, drawing in a ragged breath, she said, “And she came.”

  Rising from the table, Joshua put some water on for tea with a hand that seemed not to be his own. He got a cup, the box of chamomile, and a spoon. Then, with his back still to his mother because he couldn’t bear to see her tears, he started to intone in a soft voice what he had seen at the hospital.

  “She was over Zoe Caldwell’s bed, just waiting. She nodded at me, and I got the feeling that everything was all right, that she was there so that”—his voice threatened to crack, and he paused to draw a soothing breath before continuing on—“so that Zoe wouldn’t be alone. Then she reached out one hand toward her so that a line of light connected them, and then she . . . uh, Sarah . . . pulled her hand back and laid it on her chest, and she looked at me again. What do you think that meant?”

  “I don’t know; what do you think?”

  “That she was taking Zoe with her.” Joshua gulped back a sob. “That she would be with her when it was time.”

  He heard his mother crying softly. After a moment she said, “That would be like her, to be there to help others through. She was always there for me.” In the last words Joshua could hear and feel the pain that Greer felt she had not done the same for her best friend.

  The kettle whistled. Joshua took it off and poured steaming water into the cup, covering the tears that came unbidden from his eyes. “But what was she showing me in the dream? Or maybe I just dreamed her and it doesn’t mean anything?”

  Greer waited until Joshua composed himself and came and sat back down. “It means something. But you are the only one who can in
terpret it. Maybe those objects aren’t literal. Maybe they mean something special to you?”

  Joshua sipped the hot tea, grateful for the scalding on his tongue that distracted him from his emotion. He considered it, but other than keys opening doors and a special fondness for oak trees, he couldn’t think of any other meaning.

  After a few moments he asked his mom, “Why are you up?”

  She regarded him and bit her protruding lower lip. “It’s getting close,” she whispered. “And there’s something else that you don’t know about. The woman you met at the coffee shop, the one who came from the bank—Leah. She’s in danger too, and I can’t figure out what it is exactly, and I don’t think she’ll believe me if I try to warn her. I have to try to find a way to protect her, but I don’t know how.” Greer put her elbows on the table and sank her fingers into her thick auburn hair. “She needs a different kind of strength than mine.”

  Joshua watched her anxiety for a moment, and then, when she raised her luminous green eyes to him, he cracked a smile. “Maybe this was a bad move. Maybe we should move back into the inner city, where it’s safer.”

  Greer laughed in spite of herself, and then it died away.

  She looked seriously at her son and said, “Joshua, listen to me. If something bad does happen to Joy, there won’t have been anything you could have done to prevent it.”

  He smiled sadly at his mother. “Is that how you feel about Sarah?”

  A hush fell over the two of them like a blanket of cold, silent snow.

  Chapter 45

  Thursday

  The first light bled through the window with the ghostly hue of tarnished metal. Joshua was sitting in the den, trying to read a book, trying to distract his mind enough to shut it down and, though he feared what it might bring, return to sleep.