“If you don’t come in this minute you won’t get a treat!”
From the unhealthy tangle of dank vegetation came a sigh and a rustle. Jeff’s reluctant face peered around the corner.
“I mean it Jeff. I’m not kidding!” He wasn’t buying the stern, no-nonsense act. Elise added a touch of wheedling. “Come on, baby. You can have one of Mutt’s snacks too.”
Jeff considered, but held out for more.
“Your treat. One of Mutt’s. And I’ll play tug with you as long as you want.”
With a regretful glance over his shoulder, Jeff shuffled past Elise, every inch of him demanding full satisfaction of promises rendered.
Tug, Jeff’s favorite game, seldom lasted long. He had a short attention span outside dozing, joyriding, and eating. Tonight he kept Elise at it for fifteen minutes, till he drenched his pull toy with slobber and Elise felt the muscles in her forearm knot. But a promise was a promise and the game continued long after Jeff played simply for the principle of the thing. Finally he released the sopping length of braid and gazed up at the ceiling as though trying to remember an urgent appointment. Ah. He’d promised to go to bed. After the reproachful frown at Elise for delaying him, he stumped up the stairs.
The playful exertion should have helped Elise relax, but her skin prickled. She double checked locks, assured herself the alarm was set, and turned on every light in the kitchen. Either she had developed a sixth sense, and she profoundly hoped not, or a change in weather was coming. The clock showed almost nine. This day would never, ever end. Even though Jeff no doubt already slept on her pillow, she didn’t think she could face bed yet. Pulling the rocker over to the counter, Elise puzzled through the TV remote—the buttons configured differently than the one in her room—and found a twenty-four hour weather station. The local forecast, a cheerful, disembodied voice told her, held a slight chance of a thunderstorm. Her crawling flesh announced otherwise.
The rocker, for all its vintage charm, proved only moderately comfortable. Elise shouldn’t have fallen asleep, but she did. When she jerked awake to the disembodied weather reporter’s voice proclaiming the arrival of drizzly rain, her neck cricked and she exclaimed in pain. Jeff whimpered next to her dangling arm and when she moved to pat him, realized it was asleep.
“Good grief. I’ve fallen to pieces.” Several groans later she made it to her feet, following the anxious dog to the kitchen door. “Baby, please don’t tell me you need to go out. The security alarm is set.” She couldn’t help noticing the whine that crept into her voice. Jeff had a bladder commensurate with his size and often lasted half a day without the need for a potty break. But he insisted. He’d last been out just before nine. She eased her kinked neck to look at the clock. Four am. No wonder she hurt.
Without hope she asked, “Can’t you wait till daylight?”
He flipped his tail and stared pointedly at the door.
“All right. But you’re going out the front, by the control panel.” She would only need turn off the alarm, let Jeff out and in and then reset the alarm, all without tramping back and forth through the house.
The alarm shut off, the front light on, Elise opened the door and released the anxious dog. Trees moved in the wind that lifted the hair on Jeff’s back and slithered along her skin. Tall, ancient and unyielding, the old oaks and maples would rather lose creaking limbs to pressing air than bend and let the breeze pass over. They complained loudly now, leaves whispering in sympathetic sighs.
In the middle of the curving paved drive, still in the circle of yard light, a lovely green patch of grass should have appealed to the most discriminating restroom connoisseur. Of which Jeff was not one. Tail parallel to the ground, he pointed his nose around the side of the garage, toward its dark, damp passageway, and followed. He must have dreamt all night of a hunting conquest and now aspired to make the dream come true.
“Jeff! Get back here! Right now! I mean it!” She stopped. He wouldn’t listen. Seldom a dog of action, when Jeff’s mind set, his hearing atrophied. Very well. As soon as he came to his senses and realized he possessed no tracking skills, he would slog his way back to the door and track down the treat drawer.
For the first quarter hour Elise waited at the door she remained calm and resolute. Two minutes later the scenarios started. Jeff had had a heart attack. A dog napper prowled the grounds. The rabbit was four feet tall and rabid. She called his name, urgently and loudly. Not even a bird answered. She took a few steps toward the dark opening and stopped. No rustle of a large body, or a small one. Nothing would entice her to plunge into that gloom. She’d seen enough horror movies.
Elise darted back into the house, wishing she didn’t sense something reaching for her ankles. She pulled the front door shut and swerved into the solarium to open the door leading to the patio. Jeff enjoyed lying on the cool slabs of flagstone and surveying his kingdom. Not tonight. From the kitchen door she’d have a better view of the area behind the garage.
Thanks to a slight dip at the northwest corner of the house, the kitchen was elevated ten feet above the ground. Sometime in the past twenty years a deck had been constructed and a hole cut into the back of the kitchen, large enough for a patio door that had never, in Elise’s dealings with it, slid open or closed easily. She braced herself and pulled, her cricked neck unhappy about it. The door stuck at a grudging thirteen inches. Elise flipped on every yard light and sidled though the opening onto the deck. She’d be able to see the expanse of lawn, the flower and herb gardens, and even, dimly, the pool. This was where, the previous week, she’d sat with her first cup of morning coffee and wondered who had thrown a pile of rags in the water. The pile of rags was Timothy and she hadn’t been out here since.
In the short moment since she’d left the front of the house the wind had gained intensity and moisture. Elise swiped already damp hair from her eyes. She bent over the rail toward the stretch of lawn behind the garage. She leaned further and still couldn’t see the garage itself, large but not as deep as the mansion. A square of yellow from the garage light shown on neatly mowed grass, but illumined no dog on a nocturnal adventure.
“Jeff!” The wind rushed her, snatched the word and tossed it into oblivion. She finished scanning the yard and enormous patio, but no bulky shape moved. Turning her entire body, ever so slowly because her neck still hurt, her eyes finally reached the pool.
The world stopped. Something floated in the water.
Elise fumbled with the latch on the gate leading to the stairs and the dancing sprinkle became a draft-tossed drizzle. She gripped the handrail and crept to the bottom of the slippery steps. The flagstones on the patio almost undid her. Chosen more for beauty than safety, they turned into greased polygons when wet. Every Amberson child had memories of barefooted slidings and falls on those pavers laid all the way to the edge of the pool. Elise’s own bare feet flew from under her and she went down hard. A strong instinct for self-preservation and the odd turn in her neck muscles from the crick kept her head from slamming into unforgiving stone. Scrambling to her feet, dimly aware of shooting pain in her right elbow, she shuffled as fast as she dared to the pool, and whatever heartbreak floated there.
As she came closer she made out four limbs extending, motionless, from a substantial midsection. She opened her mouth to scream for help. The movement touched something in her pained neck. Her shoulder jerked up to her ear in agony. Somewhere behind her the wind once again gathered itself, mutating into a solid force of malevolent energy. The blow hit on the hunched shoulder and catapulted her into the water. For an oddly exhilarating moment she felt herself fly through the air before she landed on the body in the pool and everything went black.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I am defenceless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke
“The Hound of Heaven,” Lines 114-115
She wasn’t in hell. How did she know that? Hell was not wet. Pleased with this logical reasoning, she made a small, self-congratulatory movement. Two things
happened almost at once. Her neck and shoulder screamed in protest, and when her mouth gasped open, it filled with water. Elise kicked in panic. Her bare foot scraped concrete and she knew where she was. In the pool, on the shallow end, and every inch of her hurt. Something gripped her hair. She tried to lift arms and swat it away but the left shoulder would not cooperate. Pain took her breath, but, frantic to be free of whatever held her so relentlessly she ignored the hurting and willed her arm to move. It refused. Her right elbow ached too, but at least it responded to mental commands. Reaching up, she touched twig and bark and leaves, and intertwined with it all, her hair.
The hair wouldn’t come loose. Maybe if she broke the small branch, the main culprit, from its mother limb, she could escape. It worked. Shoving the mess away, she grimaced as it tore several hairs from her scalp. While she struggled to find footing on the pool floor, a few feeble exploratory rays of the yet-unseen sun peered over the horizon. Morose pinkish-gray light traced someone staring at her from the edge of the pool.
“Jeff! Oh, Jeff!”
Limping, shivering, with small twigs still twisted through her hair, she dragged her battered self from the water. Jeff, never a fan of swimming, met her at the edge to crowd against her. She turned to look at the pool, its water lightened to dove gray by a sun still hesitating below the horizon. It wasn’t Jeff floating lifelessly on the surface. A tired old branch from one of the tired old trees had blown into pool, adrift until it latched onto Elise’s streaming hair.
Jeff insisted they both return to the house with due haste but Elise couldn’t follow. She eased onto a patio chair and didn’t move, even as footsteps beat along the flagstones behind her. They slowed and stopped.
“Mrs. Amberson? Is that you?”
The branch in the pool moved gently in the wind. She swore she could see a few long strands of hair it had saved for remembrance.
A face, soon followed by a body, appeared in front of her. Alex? Albert? He worked for the landscaping service that kept the grounds and gardens in showplace condition. She’d forgotten they came early for tasks not requiring motorized equipment.
“Are you all right?”
“I’ve been better.”
“Uh-huh. Can I help?”
“Oh, sure. I need to get back to the house and let Jeff in. Doggone it. I stubbed my big toe too! Look at that!”
Dutifully Alex or Albert looked at the bloody toe with its partially dismembered nail, then traveled up her bruises visible below the hem of her soaked pink pants, the ruins of her pretty flounced blouse, her scuffed elbow and oddly angled shoulder. He met her eyes and she laughed ruefully, patting the sticks in her hair. “I must be a sight. Heaven knows how long it will take to get these out.”
On the long walk to the house and up the steps to the kitchen door, Elise kept reminding herself that the landscaping company had a gem in the man who guided her by a careful hand above her maimed elbow. He got her through the recalcitrant door with barely a struggle, helped her to the rocker and gave a now thoroughly disgruntled Jeff breakfast and water.
“Can I call anyone for you?”
“Oh, my, no. I’m fine. You’ve been great. If you don’t mind handing me my purse you can get back to all the great things you do outside. It looks wonderful. Just wonderful.”
“Thank you. And Mrs. Amberson, I’m sorry about your husband. He was a—a—very environmentally friendly man.” And with that eulogy, he gave Elise her handbag, patted Jeff, and left the way he’d come in.
Elise scrabbled in her purse and sighed with relief when she pulled out her phone. The battery hadn’t died. She really needed to charge it. Scrolling through recently called numbers, she found Russ’s.
He answered on the second ring. “Elise?”
“Hey, Russ. Did I wake you?”
“What time is it?”
“The sun isn’t quite up yet. Probably between five thirty and six. I can’t focus on the clock. That is so weird. The numbers keep moving. Russ? Never mind. I think I’ll take a quick nap.”
She dropped the phone on the rocker. She’d never sleep in it again. It could be reclassified as an instrument of torture. Her bedroom was too far away and she certainly didn’t intend to sleep on the sofa in Timothy’s study or in one of the formal rooms. Some instinct made her certain that anything cushiony would make her shoulder throb all the more. She deemed herself immensely practical as she lowered cautiously onto the floor next to Jeff, laid her head on his stomach, and fell asleep.
“Elise! Elise! Come on! Wake up!”
She snuggled deeper into the pillow. The hairy pillow with a heartbeat. It began bucking under her.
“If you don’t wake up I’m calling an ambulance!”
No use trying to get back to sleep now. The pillow had dumped her head unceremoniously onto the floor.
“Ow.” She opened crusted eyelids. Russ leaned over her, phone in one hand, her wrist in the other. “What are you doing?”
“Checking your pulse. And trying to decide whether to call 911. What are you doing?”
She debated sitting up but thought better of it. “I’m lying on a cold kitchen floor.”
“Here’s what’s going to happen. I’ll check for anything broken. Do not slap me if you think I’m getting fresh. I minored in athletic training for a while. I’m only three credits shy of being an expert.” Gingerly at first, then with more authority, he felt along feet, legs, hips, and ribs, never once looking her in the eyes. A blush started at the base of his neck and worked its way up to his hairline. She jerked slightly when he touched her elbow but as his hands reached her shoulder she couldn’t stifle a cry.
“I thought so. Dislocated. That does it. I’m calling for help.” He paused, dialed and spoke something she couldn’t hear into the phone.
“That wasn’t 911. Too many numbers.”
“You’re right. I called a buddy of mine. He’s a deacon at our church. You sat next to him at the prayer meeting.”
Elise tried without success to recall who sat next to her. All she remembered was wondering what would get her first, the relentless hound of heaven or the grappling hand of God.
“He’s a trained emergency medical technician. You’ve had enough emergency vehicles here in the past week, I’m guessing. Don’t want to get kicked out of the neighborhood.” He tried, bless him, to sound light-hearted. “He can check you over, and if he gives the go-ahead I’ll take you to the ER instead of calling an ambulance. You look awful.” A gentle finger touched a twig in her hair. “I’m not sure I even want to know why you are wearing this.”
“Oh, please, please get it out. Now it makes sense, why I couldn’t reach my arm up to get untangled.” He began working the hair loose. “Wait. First could you grab a pillow from the love seat in the solarium? The room you were in the first night. Out the hall and down two doors.” She called after his retreating back. “Make sure you get a crunchy one.”
He stopped, shrugged, and left, Jeff at his heels. A moment later he returned, rubbing a brightly colored small pillow between his hands. “This was the crunchiest. That is what you said, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s made of earth-sustainable buckwheat husks, but supposedly it’s good for sore necks. Help me get my head up please?”
He put firm arms under her, lifting her entire torso, then slipped in the pillow. After lowering her, he excused himself and returned with a garish afghan.
“You look cold. Your clothes are still wet and you don’t need to go into shock. And don’t tell me this is a five hundred dollar happy-planet blanket from the highest Andes Mountains.”
Elise let him tuck the thick-knit afghan around her, careful not to touch her where she hurt. Considering she was lying on the kitchen floor she felt surprisingly safe and warm. “Timothy’s grandmother made it. She made one for each child. I sort of wish I’d known her. Any woman who can put pea-green, bruise blue, spreadable-cheese yellow and bubblegum pink in the same blanket would be worth knowing.” She nestled her head i
nto the crinkling pillow and winced only the slightest.
“Elise, Corey should be here in a few minutes. I have to ask you. Were you sleepwalking, do you think?”
“Nooooo. But some of what happened seems like a dream. Mind if I tell you? Maybe it will organize my memory.”
“Tell away. I’ll get the flora out of your hair while you talk.”
She started with Jeff, now curled on his rug in the corner, and his determination to explore the north side of the property where no one ever went. She ended with Jeff staring at her as she woke up in the water. Russ had grown increasingly agitated, and several times she’d winced when he’d tackled the tangles with too much vigor. The last bits of tree were just out when the doorbell sounded.
“Could you let him in, please, Russ? I can give you the security code. Wait a minute. How did you get in?” But he’d already left and she could hear his shoes on the parquet flooring of the hall, joined by a set of double clicks indicating Jeff’s addition to the welcoming party.
The low voices came closer and Elise thought furiously. How had Russ gotten in? The answer made her want to wallop her already banging head. She’d never reset the alarm or even locked the front door. While she’d been playing polliwog in the pool the entire neighborhood could have scaled the fence to party the night away.
Russ and a young man came into the kitchen, Russ gloomier than the sky outside, the young man grinning. She recognized him. He’d gotten the chair for her last night at the prayer meeting. She’d put him somewhere in his late teens, but he was probably almost ten years older than her previous estimate. He knelt down and, with only slight variations, repeated Russ’s examination.
“Do you want to get off the floor?” he asked, rising and beaming at her.
“Yes, please.”
“Great. Because you’re going on that massive island.” He ignored her squawk and motioned the other man over. “Russ and I are going to get that shoulder back into socket. We’ve both done this hundreds of times.”
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