Grandma put her hand to her throat, pretending to be shocked. “My own darling granddaughter?”
I wanted to scream. “But you said she had to be stopped! And if you believe she has to be stopped, then why did you make her go to the swamp in the first place?”
“Because I knew it was the only way to stop her.”
For a moment I just stared at her in blank disbelief. Then I pounded my fists on the table; the spiderweb swayed. “What are you talking about? That’s crazy! It doesn’t make any sense at all!”
She watched me, unsmiling, offering no sympathy, no explanation. “If you can’t figure it out for yourself, you’ll never really understand. And if you don’t really understand, you won’t be an asset, you’ll be a hindrance. And no, I can’t zap people, as you so crudely put it—though it would certainly be a useful device to have at my disposal.”
She sighed wistfully, then shook her head and became businesslike again. “No zapping. But Annelise does have a weakness we might be able to use, to get her to dig her own grave. Tell me where she is vulnerable, Jared. You tell me that, I let you in. You don’t tell me, then I leave you out. You’ll be on your own.” She looked at her watch, letting the threat hang in the air like the smoke that filled the room.
“You—you don’t really mean that, Grandma,” I said, knowing that she did. I thought of the uncrackable vault and the wrecking ball. And then I forced myself to concentrate hard on Annelise and the terrible things in her journal and in her mind.
And that, of course, was where the answer was.
thirteen
I paused briefly outside Grandma’s kitchen door as the sun splashed the first daubs of pale paint across the dark water. I had seen a sunrise here once before, last year, imagining myself following the magic golden path over the waves. I ached now, remembering how simple and benign the world had once been.
I sneaked unnoticed into the cottage. Not even bothering to take off my clothes, I collapsed onto the bed and fell instantly asleep, exhaustion weightier than all my anxiety.
Everyone has experienced the relief of waking from a nightmare and gradually, joyously realizing that it was only a dream. Waking today was the reverse.
It was around noon when I began to emerge from painless oblivion into nagging tension, then vague dread, and finally the specifics of panic. Sunlight streamed through the window. The world only darkened and sprouted murderous claws and fangs as my awareness of the situation clarified.
What terrible things was Annelise going to do? And who would be her first victim?
I sat up and rubbed my eyes and looked around the room, trying to shake the nightmare feeling. And it increased, all the ordinary familiar objects turning malignant. “Color me ugly, color me cruel, color me out to get you,” whispered the bright plastic alarm clock, the overflowing bookcase, the white curtain flapping gently in the breeze. Everything was tainted, everything a threat. I groaned and burrowed under the sheet and squeezed my eyes shut. But the monster was real, and there was no avoiding her.
And through whatever was going to happen I would have to maintain a convincing inner (as well as outer) countenance of placid ignorance and normality. I didn’t see how I could possibly do it. But if I didn’t do it, if I slipped for only a fraction of a second and Annelise caught me, there would never be any safety again. Even before she was a reader, Annelise had already had the ability to inflict terrible damage on anyone who interfered with her image or got in the way of what she wanted. She had gone so far as to cause someone’s death in a boating accident. And now that she had this special power, what she’d be able—and eager—to do was beyond imagining.
Mom and Dad were gone. I had no appetite, but I put together my peanut butter, salami, and cheese sandwich and forced it all down, hoping that going through the motions, even unobserved, would give me practice in keeping up my act.
Then I had another idea. I went back upstairs and wrote in my journal a description of the last two days’ events, leaving out falling in the swamp, leaving out my own ESP, writing it as though I knew only what I wanted Annelise to believe I knew. I did this not only in case Annelise might physically read the journal, though that was certainly a possibility, but mainly to have the actual words down there in the notebook and in my mind. The more current the journal was, the more convincing a shield it would make. Simply writing the entry down implanted it photographically in my brain; enhancing your memory seemed to be another effect of the swamp water. I also glanced at Anna Karenina on the bedside table. I could use that as more wallpaper over the ice.
And then, in swimsuit and flip-flops, a big red-and-white-striped beach towel draped over my shoulders, I walked to the beach, hoping Annelise wouldn’t be there.
She was down by the water, playing with Amy again. But Annelise was not bored by Amy today; she watched the small child with an unusually intent, alert expression, often whispering to her. A good place to begin, a simpler mind to explore first, practicing, testing what she could do, before moving on to more complex prey.
Such as blackmailing Grandma about the ATM and the Winstons. And also Lindie. I hadn’t looked deeply enough at what Lindie had done to find out exactly how to expose her, since it had never occurred to me to do it. Annelise wouldn’t hesitate. I knew from her journal how eager she was to lash out at Lindie.
Concentrating on Anna Karenina, I greeted Mom and Dad and Aunt Maggie and Uncle Eric, making a conscious effort not to read them. Annelise would soon be dipping into my mind. If she detected anyone else’s thoughts in there, she’d know I was a reader. Then she’d hide her thoughts from me, and Grandma and I would have no way of surprising her.
I sat down on my towel, looking toward the ocean. Eric was waist-deep in the water, plodding toward the shore, his eyes fixed on Annelise. He’d be a good one for her to feed on next. His blind adoration of her would be more delectable than fried clams and not the least bit fattening.
Lindie was still swimming. How was I going to keep Lindie and her secret away from Annelise without making Annelise suspicious?
And at that moment the world grew even more menacing. The sun was the unblinking eye of a colossal cyclops, the ocean a gigantic amoebalike organism of digestion. Because it hit me with full force what hiding my power from Annelise really meant: It meant I couldn’t read Annelise either.
Last night I had thought that if I kept my powers hidden from Annelise, she wouldn’t shield herself from me. Then I could sneak into her mind, find out what she was planning to do, and alert Grandma in time to stop her. I had believed that was our secret weapon.
But now I knew it wouldn’t work. Because Annelise, like Grandma, had been in the swamp longer than I had. If I peeked into Annelise’s mind, she’d know it—just as Grandma had known when I’d thought I was secretly probing her mind. And as soon as Annelise knew I was a reader, she’d shield her mind from me and use her power against me in any destructive way she could. So I couldn’t read Annelise, I couldn’t read anybody else, I could only hide my powers completely. Grandma and I had no secret weapon after all.
We also had no real plan, only a sort of vague idea based on Annelise’s one weakness. Exactly what we did would have to depend on what Annelise’s first move was. And now that I knew I couldn’t read her, we’d have no advance warning.
So why hadn’t Grandma pointed that out to me last night? Why was she still hiding things from me? How much could I really trust her?
Annelise was standing up, facing the water, talking and laughing with Eric now, who was facing away from the sea. And Lindie was heading toward them, finishing her swim. I had to keep Lindie away from Annelise.
I pushed myself up from the towel and moved toward the water, forcing myself to walk slowly, to appear casual, when what I really wanted was to run, yelling and waving my hands. I reminded myself that it would be awhile before Annelise had the power and the skill to penetrate Lindie’s shell. But I still didn’t want her to know that the shell even existed. Lindie was on
e of her special targets. As soon as she knew there was something hidden and useful there, she would pursue it relentlessly.
I drew nearer to Annelise and Eric as Lindie approached the shore. I concentrated on my journal; I thickened the ice beneath it. Neither of us could figure out why Grandma wanted that stuff or how she ever found our journals.…
Annelise smiled at me—enough to give Eric a jealous twinge. “You look like you just got up, Jared,” she said. “You must have been up really late last night.”
“Yeah, I, uh, didn’t get to sleep until pretty late,” I said, thinking of Kitty and Levin, Anna and Vronsky—and forcing myself not to wonder what Annelise was seeing in my mind.
“Oh, come off it, Jared,” Annelise pleasantly teased me. “I can always tell when you’re hiding something. If you went to some great party without telling us, we’ll really be mad. Won’t we, Eric?”
“Maybe he was just reading,” Eric shyly defended me.
“Or was it that girl over on Indian Neck?” Annelise went on as Lindie reached us. I could have punched her for that. Of course, Annelise knew where I had been last night—or thought she did. She was enjoying putting me on the spot, knowing my problem with lying. Did she also know enough to start trying to create a rift between Lindie and me?
I didn’t even have to look into Lindie’s mind to know she was aware that Annelise was playing some kind of game. It was the way she watched Annelise without expression. Her astuteness about Annelise only made me feel closer to her. I also noticed the glow of her skin after her swim. And was it only my imagination, or did her bathing suit actually seem a little too big for her now?
“Uh, Lindie. There’s something I wanted to ask you, about Tolstoy.” I beckoned her away from the others. That was what Annelise would expect me to do as a way of worming out of the uncomfortable situation she had put me in.
“Yeah?” Lindie said, toweling off, striding along beside me, as eager to get away from Annelise and her games as I was. But she wasn’t smiling at me as she had yesterday. Was she wondering if I really did know a girl on Indian Neck? I was still too close to Annelise to read Lindie and find out.
“Levin is really Tolstoy, right?” I said as we moved farther away from Annelise and Eric.
“Everybody knows that,” Lindie said, shrugging.
“Was Kitty supposed to be Tolstoy’s wife, then?”
“I never really thought about that,” Lindie said. “I kind of doubt it, though. I mean—”
“Amy!” Annelise shrieked.
I was so startled in the instant it took us to spin around that I briefly dropped my shield and was suddenly blasted by Annelise’s mind. She was crowing with elation at her first successful gambit. She had distracted me, Eric, and Lindie on purpose, so that we would not be thinking about Amy. She had also checked on everyone else, making sure they all assumed that someone else was keeping an eye on Amy and were not watching her themselves.
And then Annelise had allowed Amy to run straight into the water. And keep on going.
She had been watching her, fully aware of what Amy was doing. She had done nothing to stop her. She had waited until this moment to act. And at this moment Amy was nowhere to be seen. She had gone under.
Fast as Lindie was, it was Annelise, knowing Amy’s exact location, who got to her first. It was Annelise who pulled Amy out, Annelise who carried her limp body to shore, Annelise who knelt over her and skillfully began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
We all were standing around them, Aunt Grace clinging hysterically to Uncle Ted. Nobody said a word. I had put my shield back, but I knew that underneath their worries about Amy, everyone was thinking: Who was supposed to be watching her?
Annelise breathed into Amy’s mouth; she turned her head and spit out a little water; she breathed into her mouth again. I knew from her journal that she had learned mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in school. She was coolly businesslike about the whole thing, as anyone trying to save a life should be.
“Please, please,” Aunt Grace sobbed.
Amy stirred. She coughed. Her eyes fluttered open. She seemed confused for only a moment. Very quickly she grinned and opened her arms to Annelise.
Annelise hugged her back warmly; she pressed her cheek against Amy’s for a long moment, whispering to her. Then she modestly stepped away and allowed Aunt Grace to swoop Amy into her arms.
“Are you OK, sweetheart? You feel OK?”
“I went swimming!” Amy cried gleefully.
“You’re really OK?”
“Sure. What’s the matter? Why are you crying, Mommy?”
“Amy, you must never, never go near the water by yourself again!” Aunt Grace said sternly, shaking her just a little. “Do you know that you almost died? If it weren’t for Annelise …”
The release of everyone’s tension was palpable in the silence that followed. Then suddenly they were hugging Annelise, heaping her with praise. She loved it. She kept shaking her head, acting embarrassed, saying it was nothing. And then she turned to Eric.
“Eric,” Annelise said, sounding frightened, “I told you to keep an eye on her.”
“You—you did?” Eric was utterly confused.
Annelise’s strategy was ingenious. Eric was so besotted, and saw Annelise as so virtuous, that it would never occur to him that she might blame him for something that was really her fault. It was much easier for him to believe that she really had asked him to keep his eye on Amy and that he had forgotten. In Annelise’s presence he usually did forget everything but her.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” he desperately apologized, actually wringing his hands in guilt and despair. And that was all it took to establish that what had happened to Amy really had been Eric’s fault.
“Thank heaven you were so alert, Annelise,” gushed Aunt Grace, cradling Amy again, not looking at Eric. She was probably too furious to allow herself to speak to him.
Most of the others were still heaping praise on Annelise, and I knew that Annelise was hungrily lapping it up. The exceptions were Aunt Maggie, who was glaring at Eric, and Lindie and I, who were saying nothing. If things had been different, I could have defended Eric. I could have told them that Annelise had said nothing about Amy to him. But I couldn’t say that. It would have attracted Annelise’s suspicion. There was nothing I could do to help him.
I could only watch Annelise, her expression radiating deep concern for Amy, while at the same time I struggled to think about my journal, backed up by a ten-mile-thick barrier of ice. Even now, with more practice, I couldn’t come up with anything more elaborate than that; like lying, complex shield construction seemed to be a talent I just didn’t have. Was the ice enough to prevent Annelise from knowing I was a reader? In only a few hours of awareness she had already won the first round.
And then she stumbled slightly; her mouth dropped open. Something had clearly socked her with unexpected force.
In the next moment Grandma, who had just appeared beside me, spoke. “What was the matter with you, Annelise?” she said quietly.
Everyone turned toward Grandma. “Uh … matter?” Annelise said, barely managing to utter even that much. She must have known what Grandma was about to say.
“Was it some kind of fit, a trance or something?” Grandma asked her. “I saw it in my telescope. You were staring directly at Amy, watching her run out into the water, and doing nothing to stop her.”
The family turned back to Annelise now, shock on their faces. Surprised as she was, she quickly pulled herself together, putting on a puzzled expression. “I guess you don’t understand, Grandma,” she said earnestly. “I asked Eric to keep an eye on her. He promised he would.”
“Do you really believe that, Annelise?” Grandma asked her, sounding worried. “You know I’ve been reading lips with my telescope for decades. Whatever you may imagine, you said nothing to Eric about watching Amy. Did she, Eric?”
Everyone had plenty of proof that Grandma could read lips; she never tired of bragging about it, givi
ng specific examples. And Eric was not enough of a fool, despite the way he felt about Annelise, to go on accepting the terrible blame when he now had solid evidence of what Annelise had done to him—not to mention to Amy. “Uh … no,” he said miserably, looking down at the sand, unable to face Annelise.
“Not only that, Annelise, dear,” Grandma said. “I haven’t forgotten what you were telling me the other day about lifesaving class. How it was so boring to practice it on that stupid Resussa-Annie doll instead of on a real person.”
“Annelise told me about Resussa-Annie, too!” chirped Amy.
The rest of our family didn’t speak. But their expressions, as they avoided looking at Annelise, were not pleasant at all.
Annelise’s eyes flashed at Grandma. The war was on. And we had won the first battle after all.
fourteen
“Come, Annelise. We need to have a chat,” Grandma said gently. “Maybe I can help. You look tired and stressed out, like you didn’t get enough sleep last night. Maybe that’s why you were so forgetful just now.”
Annelise couldn’t even allow herself to glare at Grandma. I could imagine how frustrated she must feel. There was nothing she could say—either to defend herself or to discredit Grandma—that would not make her look even worse.
“Come, dear,” Grandma urged her.
And, meek on the surface, Annelise went.
Even though I couldn’t let myself read Annelise, I was pretty sure she dreaded being alone with Grandma, not yet prepared for this confrontation with another reader. But to Annelise, anything would be preferable to the mystified, hostile feelings she must be getting from the family. They were beginning to think she might not be perfect! To Annelise, that would be like walking on burning coals, something intolerably painful that she had no choice but to escape from.
The others said nothing more about the incident. They would reserve their real feelings—as always—for the privacy of their cottages.
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