I hadn’t expected it to be as bad as this, that we would actually be tussling on the edge. I couldn’t push her away; she might fall in. I hugged the jug to my chest. “Please, Annelise!” I begged her. “I know this place better than you. Just turn on the light so we can get it over with.”
“Why do you know this place better than I do? What haven’t you told me?” she demanded, struggling to get the jug away from me. “You’re hiding something. What is it?”
I wrenched the jug away from her and crawled toward the water, refusing to answer her. If she wouldn’t turn on the light, I’d feel my way. I’d touched the water already; it wouldn’t matter if I got a little more on me now. I reached the edge. I stretched out the ladle and felt it enter the water.
“Tell me what you’re hiding,” Annelise said, panting, kneeling beside me, barely hiding her rage at me. She was gripping the jug again now, still trying to get it away from me, the unlit flashlight in her other hand. But I was stronger than she was. I emptied the ladle into the jug, dipped out more water, and dumped water into the jug again, then again.
“Let go of the jug, Annelise,” I said, my voice choking in my throat. “Grandma might not give you your journal if she found out you made it so hard for me to get this stuff.”
“You tell her that, and you won’t believe what I’ll tell her about you!” she threatened, her voice rising harshly.
I went cold all over. What terrified me wasn’t her threat but the inside of her mind. It was more foul than the swamp, like a swarm of flies in a wild food frenzy around rotten meat again, dizzying me. She was furious that she wasn’t getting her own way and that I might be hiding something from her. But what she really couldn’t stand was that I obviously just didn’t like her anymore. That was what almost drove her completely out of control, her hand shaking on the jug.
But I had finished. The jug was sloshing over. Maybe it was going to be OK. “You can lay off, Annelise; I’ve got enough now,” I said, starting to turn away from the water. And I couldn’t resist adding, “And because I’m a nice guy, I won’t tell Grandma how hard you made it.”
And then she did go out of control. She made a savage snarling sound, jumped to her feet, and kicked out at me so violently that she lost her balance and fell backward into the swamp.
eleven
I was still in a state of shock when we reached Grandma’s house.
It was bad enough that the water had touched Annelise at all. But the grass had been so slick in the darkness, giving neither of us any firm footing, that she kept sliding back in. Annelise had been exposed to the water for several minutes at least—maybe even longer than Grandma.
At her hysterical insistence I was numbly carrying the foul poncho she had been wearing, as well as the heavy water jug. But it was only a partial relief when I was finally able to shove the poncho behind the shrubbery; the stench still clung to Annelise’s wet hair and clothes.
As upset as she was, Annelise was still thinking. “Don’t bring the jug inside!” she hissed, and I set it down just off the stoop.
The side door opened as we stepped up to it, and Grandma silently ushered us into the dimly lit kitchen, a cigarette hanging from her mouth. No one said a word until the door was locked behind us.
“My God!” Grandma rasped, clasping her hands in dismay. “That smell! Annelise. Don’t tell me. Oh, you poor child! You—you fell in?”
Annelise had regained her usual facade of sweetness. She nodded slowly. “I—I don’t understand,” she said, no rancor in her voice, only wounded virtue. “I kept trying to do my part. But Jared wouldn’t let me help. He kept pulling the jug away from me. That’s … why I fell in.”
Grandma dropped the cigarette into an overflowing ashtray and turned to me, confusion on her face. “But why, Jared? Why?”
An instant later she was reaching for a large roll of heavy-duty aluminum foil, obviously placed there on the kitchen table for our return. She knelt and spread a couple of sheets on the floor for Annelise to drip on. Foil would not absorb the stuff the way newspaper would; she could save the drippings. She had expected Annelise to fall in! She had planned on it all along. She was prepared.
And suddenly all the acting going on around me was just too much. How could the truth do any damage now? You know why, Grandma, I silently answered her, concentrating the message into a pencil-thin laser beam focused directly into her brain. I was getting the water myself to try to keep her from falling in. The last thing in the world I wanted was for her to be like us. But you arranged for her to be there, right on the edge. You wanted it to happen this way. I shook my head. You can go on denying it forever. It won’t change what I know.
Come on in again, Jared. Grandma welcomed me, with no inkling of surprise.
I hadn’t been able to hide my powers from her after all. She already knew I was a reader! She pounced into my brain as I tumbled into hers, expecting the cottage in the woods, the cozy firelit room.…
The air throbbed with ratcheting and clacketing, hammering at the eardrums. Grandma and I were sitting on horsehair couches on a jittery cast-iron platform, suspended above an endless expanse of busy old-fashioned knitting machinery. Large spiders ran along catwalks below us, never stopping to rest, their jointed arms darting in and out among whirling bobbins and plunging needles.
Huh? Where are we?
What’s the surprise? You’ve been here before, Jared. Grandma had the open photograph album in her lap. She looked down at it, then back to me. She smiled. Remember this?
“What is the matter with you two?” I could barely hear Annelise complaining under the sound of the machines, but I could still sense her irritation at being suddenly ignored for a few seconds instead of fussed over and comforted.
Yeah, but … your brain wasn’t anything like this before.
You’ve got a lot to learn, Jared. I see you have a rudimentary idea of shields. But you haven’t even begun to understand what you can really do with them.
It was beginning to sink in. You mean … that cottage I saw before was fake? It was just a trap? The cottage had been uncharacteristically neat and tidy, I now realized. Was this relentlessly productive factory closer to what Grandma’s mind was really like?
Grandma only smiled and closed the album and set it aside.
“Why isn’t anybody saying anything?” Annelise whined.
OK, OK, I’ll try to figure that part out later, I told her, wiping sweat from my forehead. But right now what I want to know is … why did you make Annelise go to the swamp with me? Why did you want her to fall in?
That’s for me to know and you to find out, dear, Grandma shot back at me. I felt her self-satisfaction like a heavy woolen jacket on a sweltering summer day.
I moved suddenly to look deeper, lunging for the answer to my question—and found myself hanging from the edge of the balcony, my feet inches above the eager, hungry machinery. The factory, or shield, or whatever it was, was impenetrable. I hoisted myself up, grunting, and flopped onto the couch, exhausted. But you know what she’s really like, I gasped. I felt it in you, you actually said it in words this afternoon—utterly amoral, chilling, a sociopath. And then you went and gave her this power. You created a monster! Er … sorry for the cliché. It just popped out.
Apology accepted. The cliché is apt.
Then why?
I have the right to some secrets, even from you, my dear.
“Grandma, why are you just ignoring me?” Annelise whimpered.
Grandma and I turned toward her and jumped in. Not being a reader yet, Annelise’s mind was dim, like a half-lit telephone booth with a crackling speakerphone. But we could tell she was simmering with indignation at not being the center of attention for a few seconds. And she was more curious than ever, aware that something very peculiar was going on between Grandma and me that she was left out of.
She was as yet unaware of any change in herself. I thought back, remembering that I hadn’t noticed anything until at least an hour a
fter contact with the water. I had been too upset to think of looking at my watch when Annelise fell in, but I estimated that she still had more than half an hour before the first sensations would begin. It would be some time after that before she would realize what the sensations meant.
And if Grandma and I both set up barriers, Annelise might not be aware of any sensations at all until she woke up tomorrow.
Right on, Jared, coming up with the appropriate strategy on your own.
The thought was beamed at me even while Grandma was saying aloud, “I don’t intend to be rude, darling, but do you have any idea what you smell like? You can hardly blame us for cringing and trying not to breathe a whole lot. Really, you ought to be grateful I even let you in the house. To the shower with you, this moment. Jared, make a path of foil for her.”
“I’m sorry, Grandma. Of course I’m grateful. But that wasn’t what I meant. Uh …” Annelise’s shy hesitancy would have convinced anyone but Grandma and me. “I just meant … aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Forgetting something?” Grandma said, sounding genuinely puzzled. Of course, she knew exactly what Annelise was referring to; she was just enjoying the sweet, sadistic kick of playing with her this way. “Room deodorizer, is that what you mean? I’ll get to that as soon as you’re out of the kitchen. Or maybe it’s baby oil you want. There’s vats of it in the bathroom, dear, I assure you.”
It was all Annelise could do not to stamp her foot, but she merely shot me a glance and then smiled at Grandma. “We have what you wanted us to get, Grandma. Right, Jared?”
“Right,” I agreed with her.
“So … didn’t you promise to give us something in return?” Annelise hit me with another look.
“We have the jug, Grandma. It’s full,” I said, knowing Annelise was expecting me to back her up. And of course I wanted my journal, too.
“Oh, I see, you’re still concerned about your little notebooks,” Grandma said, as though they were completely irrelevant. She reached out her hand, wiggling her fingers. “Jared will give me the jug now, and I’ll give the notebooks to him while you’re in the shower, Annelise. You certainly wouldn’t want to touch yours with that gunk all over your hands.”
“Thanks for your concern, Grandma. But I won’t mind if it gets a little dirty.” Annelise, who didn’t realize I already knew the contents of much of her journal, had no intention of letting me get my hands on it even for an instant. She was furious at Grandma and also frightened. But she didn’t want to argue with Grandma or demand the notebooks first herself. She turned to me for help. She wanted me to come across as the tough one.
“We’d like to have the notebooks first, Grandma,” I said. Don’t tell me you’re going to try to hold out on us.
Of course not. I just love making her squirm.
Well, I suggest you stop playing around and let us have the notebooks now. The sooner she gets cleaned up and goes to sleep, the less likely she’ll be to notice anything until tomorrow. And the more time we have before she knows what she can do, the more time we’ll have to plan some kind of defense. OK?
“What if I want the water first?” Grandma said aloud.
“Don’t bother trying,” I told her. “You don’t give us the notebooks, we dump out the stuff, and you’ll never get it.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Grandma said.
“It’ll just take me a second to kick the jug over.” I turned and reached for the door.
“No! Wait. Stop!” Grandma cried.
I turned back and said quietly, “Please get the notebooks.”
Grandma saluted me. “Yes, sir. Right away, sir,” she briskly replied, and marched from the room.
“Jeez, I didn’t know you had it in you,” Annelise whispered. She was surprised by my unexpected assertiveness with Grandma. She would have expected it of Bruce, but not pathetic Jared.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” I said, and that was true at the moment.
But it wouldn’t be for long.
twelve
While Annelise showered, Grandma gave me some pointers on elementary-level shield construction. I didn’t have the skill yet to manufacture entire environments, like Grandma’s cottage and factory. All I could manage for now was something similar to wallpapering an old room, pasting up a bland cosmetic surface to hide what was underneath.
Annelise was in the bathroom for twenty-five minutes, but she still seemed to be noticing nothing when she finally emerged. I left with Annelise, both of us clutching our notebooks. The outer surface of my shield was the contents of my journal. Underneath that I could maintain nothing more complicated than a solid wall of ice, and even the ice was rather loosely and unevenly in place, the journal peeling off and slipping around the edges. Annelise kept asking me why Grandma wanted the swamp water. I’m not sure how convincingly ignorant I came across. But luckily she was just too tired to devote much energy to grilling me about it. As soon as Annelise was safely inside her cottage, I sneaked back to Grandma’s. The two of us stayed up until dawn.
I wasted a lot of time continuing to ask Grandma why she had given Annelise the power. I took every opportunity I could find to try to slip inside and find out the answer myself. Her factory shield remained impermeable and deafening. All she would allow me to see of her motivation was I had no choice.
I tried to reason directly with her. I’m not hiding anything from you. You already know I don’t exactly approve of the other things you did—robbing the bank, blackmailing the Winstons to sell their house—but at least I can understand why. But Annelise! It’s worse than senseless; it’s worse than suicidal. It’s like giving Hitler the atomic bomb.
You don’t find the situation invigorating, entertaining?
Yeah, entertaining like being locked up with a serial killer.
If you don’t calm down, you’re going to turn out to be a drawback rather than an asset.
I changed my tack. Why do you want the swamp water?
She put down her knitting and lit another cigarette, sharing nothing with me but the nicotine rush, which was deeply pleasurable to her but made me feel sick. I darted away from it.
“Good,” she said out loud, and blew out smoke. “Now maybe you’ll stop pestering me and try to help.”
“OK. So what kind of strategy do you have in mind?” I asked her. “We don’t have much time. She’s not dumb. It’ll only take her a couple of hours to figure out what she can do.”
She tapped her cigarette in the ashtray, staring down at it, her mouth tensing as though she were trying not to smile. “Surprise me, Jared. You tell me.”
I sighed in frustration. “But you must have had something in mind, or else you never would have done this to her. Why won’t you tell me anything?”
“I want you to figure it out for yourself. I need proof of your usefulness to me. If I don’t get it, I’ll operate on my own.”
I was beginning to understand why her children felt the way they did about her. Superficially she came across as wryly wacky and eccentric, even refreshing in an acid sort of way. But underneath she was as stubborn as a bank vault, as inexorable as a wrecking ball when it came to having her own way. She was powerful; I wanted her on my side. But she wasn’t making it easy.
“OK,” I said. “Let’s say we manage to keep our shields in place. She’ll still figure a lot of things out pretty fast, once she begins to realize she’s reading. She knows you fell in the swamp, then you knew where our journals were hidden and you wanted more swamp water. She’ll put two and two together. Shield or not, she’ll know you’re a reader. She’ll know it before the day is over. There’s no way to prevent it.”
Watching me through her glasses, Grandma nodded.
“And then she’ll know what you did: the ATM, the repairs to the house, breaking into the Winstons’ and blackmailing them. You know from her journal how she uses information about people. It’ll be her weapon, her way of making you powerless to stop her, and also her way of get
ting anything else she wants from you.”
Grandma’s face hardened, though I wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know already. “Go on,” she murmured, lighting another cigarette.
“But … I don’t think there’s any evidence pointing at me, if I can keep up my shield. Annelise doesn’t know I fell in the swamp. I was as surprised as she was about the journal; you used it to blackmail me, too. She won’t automatically know I’m a reader—especially if you make it clear to her that I’m as ordinary and ignorant as everybody else. You’ll go along with that, right?”
“Maybe. If you can prove to me why I should.”
The reason why seemed obvious. But Grandma wasn’t going to give me a crumb until I had earned it to her satisfaction by spelling everything out. “OK,” I said, clenching my fists on the table, stifling my impatience. “If she doesn’t know I’m a reader, that’ll be our secret weapon against her. She won’t shield herself from me.”
“Not too bad, Jared. You’re finally beginning to get somewhere,” Grandma admitted, staring meditatively at the burning end of her cigarette. “But Annelise is already a prodigy at manipulation. She’ll learn how to attack us fast. There are so many opportunities right here in the family. Whoever either of us cares about, that’s who she’ll take as a hostage.…”
I tried not to think of Lindie; it was something I would need a lot of practice at. I didn’t know whether Grandma knew Lindie’s secret or not, but I didn’t want her to find out about it from me. Grandma was an angel of mercy compared with Annelise, but she was plenty unscrupulous herself. I still didn’t know how much I could trust her.
“I’m not saying we don’t have to try to keep your power a secret from her. That will help. But it’s not enough.” Grandma shook her head. “The only real safety is prevention. Stopping her for good before she really gets started.”
“You know more about this power than I do, Grandma. Can you use it to zap her? Disable her somehow, so she can’t do any harm?”
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