by Rick Hautala
Elizabeth cringed at the hard, judgmental edge in his voice. That only made her anger flare all the more.
“I don’t think I’m wallowing in it,” she said, glancing nervously over her shoulder to see if their conversation was disturbing anyone else in the bar. Lowering her voice, she leaned closer to Graydon. “When you consider what I’ve been through over the last year and a half, I think I’ve done pretty damned well, all in all.” She sipped her wine again, even though it did little to soothe her throat. “I’ve been through a lot of shit. I’ve experienced the death of a child — my only child, something no parent should ever have to deal with. And yeah — all right, I was out there in the Twilight Zone for a while there. But I did hang tough. I kind of went off the deep end, but I came back. And sure, I may have ... may have wanted to die, but I didn’t! I didn’t kill myself! I didn’t give up!”
Graydon’s half-smile didn’t flinch as he cocked his eyebrows and nodded his agreement. “True ... true,” he muttered; then, after a slight pause, he added, “but you can’t tell me it isn’t crippling you emotionally.”
Elizabeth took hold of her glass of wine, not entirely sure if she intended to take another sip or toss the contents into Graydon’s face. She knew damned well she was being manipulated, and she wanted to rise to the occasion, to fight back at him if only to show just how Goddamned tough everything had made her.
“And for the record, I don’t care what you say,” she said, her voice lowering with contempt, “I’m not entirely sure I do need counseling. Whether you think I’ve ‘made it’ or not — I’m not sure it even matters what you think. What’s important is what I think, and I think I’m doing pretty fucking good. I’m going to make it because I’m a survivor.”
Leaning an elbow on the table, Graydon began massaging his forehead above his left eye. In the dim light of the bar, with noisy conversations going on all around them, Elizabeth thought he looked, not diminished and certainly not insecure, but — definitely — out of place ... as though he needed to be in his office, on his own turf, in order to maintain complete control of the situation.
“Elizabeth ... Elizabeth,” Graydon said, shaking his head sadly. It surprised her when he reached across the table and grasped her hand tightly. His grip was warm, and the palm of his hand was clammy, slick with sweat. “Don’t you understand that I can help you? More than you realize!” The tips of his fingernails were digging into her skin, and for a flickering instant, she imagined, not human fingernails, but claws — wolf’s claws carving red furrows in her flesh. Unable to speak, and wanting to pull her hand away from him but not daring to, Elizabeth simply nodded, her face rigid with fear.
“I can prove to you just how much you need me,” Graydon said in a low, menacing tone. “Not just anybody, but me! Just as much as I need you!”
“No ... no, I ... “ Elizabeth stammered, shaking her head jerkily from side to side.
So this was it all along, she thought. He’s making a play. Everything until now has been nothing more than maneuvering to get me into the sack!
“I can prove how much you need me by asking you one simple question,” Graydon said, as his grip on her hand tightened even more, restricting the circulation in her hand so that pins and needles tingled through her fingers. “By asking one simple question and by answering one, I can convince you like that!” He snapped his fingers in front of her face like a hypnotist breaking the trance.
“Go ahead,” Elizabeth said. Her voice was twisted and seemed to be coming from deep inside her chest.
Is that all I am to him, she wondered — a puppet?
“Okay,” Graydon said, his eyes darkening as he frowned and, still holding onto her hand, leaned closer to her over the table. The pressure made Elizabeth’s pulse slam in her ears. “Tell me this — have you spoken with your daughter?”
Elizabeth couldn’t have been more stunned if a thousand volts of electricity had jolted her body. Her shoulders jerked backward, and every muscle in her body seemed to contract simultaneously. Cold, numbing fingers squeezed her brain as her mind filled with the deafening roar of ...
White noise!
In the darkened recesses of her brain, she heard a high-pitched voice whisper —
“I saw you there ... “
“Here I ... Here I ... “
“Help! ... Mommy! ... Help!”
“Well ... have you?” Graydon asked. His eyes flashed with terrifying intensity.
Elizabeth’s mouth gaped open, and her eyes felt as though they were bulging right out of her face as she stared at him. His lips moved, and she heard his words; but they seemed oddly disjointed, as though she were watching a movie whose soundtrack was a few seconds off.
“I ... I tried,” she stammered. Each word, each thought was a burning coal in the center of her brain. “I ... really tried.”
“How?” Graydon asked, as his grip painfully wrung her wrist. “How did you try?”
Wave after wave of confusion swept up over her, threatening to carry her away. The entire bar — the whole world — telescoped down into a tightly focused beam that was directed squarely at her. Her throat felt powder dry, and no matter how much she licked her lips, she knew she wouldn’t be able to form words that wouldn’t blow away to dust before she could say them.
“I have to know how you tried to talk to her,” Graydon said. His dark eyes were wide and staring, twin pulsating pools of darkness that looked ...
Like wolfs eyes! Elizabeth thought with panic, as her nightmare images rose more clearly in her mind. And if he smiles now, will his mouth and teeth start gushing blood ...
My blood?
Her free hand shook uncontrollably as she reached for her glass of wine and raised it to her lips. The sound of her swallowing was as loud as horses’ hoofbeats in her ears. The liquid ran down her throat in a single, hot surge that threatened to gag her.
“I was ... given the name of someone,” she said, her voice no more than a gasp. “Someone who said he could communicate with the spirit world.”
“Who?” Graydon demanded. “Tell me his name.”
Against her will, feeling as if Graydon had hypnotized her and put her completely under his control, Elizabeth heard herself say, “His name’s Eldon Cody. He lives up in Standish — a place called Black Hill Farm.”
Graydon nodded, but Elizabeth didn’t know if it was because he recognized the name or for some other reason.
“And what happened when you went to see this ... this Mr. Cody?” Graydon asked.
Completely helpless, lost in the intensity of his gaze and the steady pressure of his grip on her hand, Elizabeth said, “We did something he said was ... I think he called it E.V.P.”
Graydon nodded his understanding. “Electronic voice phenomenon.”
Elizabeth looked at him sharply, wondering how in the hell Graydon had known something like that.
“He used a blank tape and set his radio to what he called white noise,” she continued. “I asked some questions aloud to Caroline, and she — or someone in the spirit world — was supposed to answer.”
“And did she?” Graydon asked with sudden ferocity. “Did you hear any voices when you played the tape back?”
Biting her lower lip, Elizabeth nodded, but, suddenly mistrustful of Graydon, she said, “We heard something, but ... “
“I saw you there! Here I ... Here I ... “
“ ... But it was nothing we could make out very clearly.”
“Help! ... Mommy! ... “
“You’re sure of that?” Graydon asked, as he continued to apply pressure to Elizabeth’s hand. His eyes swelled, seeming to pulsate with energy as he gazed at her.
Trembling, Elizabeth was unable to look away from his steady stare. Her voice sounded raw when she blurted out, “It sounded like Caroline!” Tears sprang from her eyes, but still she couldn’t break the hold of his gaze. “I don’t know for sure. I mean, I was just about scared out of my mind, but I could have sworn I heard Caroline say, ‘I
saw you there!’”
“And do you still have this tape?” Graydon asked.
“No,” Elizabeth said, sighing deeply and shaking her head. “While we were rewinding it, it got tangled in the machine and ruined.”
“Pity,” Graydon said. He released her hand, shifted his gaze from her, and leaned back in the booth. “I would have been very interested to hear that tape.”
Sobbing, Elizabeth mumbled, “I don’t think I could listen to it again — ever!”
“And now that it’s been a while,” Graydon said, his voice rumbling deeply, “and you’ve had time to think things over — what do you think about it all?”
“I ... I don’t know ... what you mean,” Elizabeth stammered. Her eyes drifted over to her wine glass, and she picked it up and raised it to her mouth. This time, when she swallowed, the wine was soothing and cooling, as it should be. She emptied the glass in two quick gulps.
“I mean, quite simply, do you believe you did, in fact, hear your daughter’s voice on that tape?”
Elizabeth could do nothing· except sit there and stare at him, wondering exactly what this man was up to. Certainly the last few minutes went way beyond the normal bounds of therapy. And such a seemingly intense interest in the occult was way beyond the bounds of normal science. So what was his point? What was he getting at?
“I had asked you once before, during our last session, if you thought, in a general sense, that it was possible to communicate with the dead, “ Graydon said. The matter-of fact tone of his voice completely belied what he was saying. “So now I’ll stop beating around the bush and ask you directly: Would you like to talk with your dead daughter?”
Elizabeth’s vision pulsated as she sat in stunned silence for several seconds. Then, slowly, her pulse slamming like a pile driver in her head, she nodded and said, “If it’s at all possible — yes ... I’d like to very much.”
Graydon smiled solemnly. “And would you believe me if I told you I could arrange for you to do just that? Talk with Caroline?”
Stammering, Elizabeth replied, “I ... I have no idea.” She ran the flat of her hand over her face and did the best she could to control the tremors that shook her.
“Well, I don’t usually like to be this blunt,” Graydon said, “but not to put too fine a point to it, I can do just that. I can arrange for you not only to speak to your daughter, but to see her as well.”
He reached down beside him and picked up a book he had hidden on the seat next to his leg. It was a rather large volume with a pebbly black-leather cover that looked almost like a Bible. Until now, Elizabeth hadn’t noticed it there, but as he handed the book to her, he said, “Before we go any further, I have a proposition to make to you. Before you close your mind to any of this, perhaps because of your disappointment with the experiments you conducted with Mr. Cody or anyone else, I’d like you to read part of this book.”
Still feeling stunned and drained, Elizabeth turned the book around in her hand so she could read the title stamped in gold on the spine. Practicing the Black Arts. She wasn’t at all surprised by what she saw; it fit in perfectly, not just with their conversation, but with everything else that had happened to her in the past few weeks. Elizabeth knew her mind had reached and then gone well beyond the saturation point, to where she was numbed to just about everything ...
Unless he can really — somehow — do what he says he can ... Let me see and talk to Caroline!
“The book was originally published in 1884. This is a facsimile of the first edition. As I recall, rather ironically, I pointed out a paperback edition of this exact book to you the night we met in the bookstore. Do you remember?”
Elizabeth numbly shook her head as she stared at the book in her hands.
“No matter,” Graydon said. “I’d particularly like you to take a look at Chapter Twelve, the chapter on necromancy. Now I realize this whole thing might be completely foreign to you, but I must admit, I felt right from the first time I met you that you were ... well, I don’t want to sound too mysterious about it, but I had a very strong gut feeling that you would be open to avenues such as these.”
“I ... I just don’t know,” Elizabeth stammered as she fumbled to slip the book into her purse. She realized the book was much too large to fit, so she held it in her lap. Her fingertips continually rubbed the textured leather cover as though seeking some kind of reassurance there.
“Read that chapter, and then we can get together again to discuss it, “ Graydon said. The dark intensity in his eyes shifted like passing storm clouds. He watched her a moment, then leaned back and smiled with satisfaction, knowing that Elizabeth would do exactly what he had asked.
Elizabeth made a move to get up to leave, but before she did, he froze her with a glance. Slowly, she eased herself back down into the seat.
“Before you go, there’s one more thing,” Graydon said, lowering his gaze.
“What’s that — ?” Elizabeth said, barely able to stop her voice from shaking.
“I told you I would answer one simple question for you,” Graydon said.
“What question was that?” Elizabeth asked. “I mean, God! — after all of this ... this talk —” She exhaled noisily and shook her head as though dazed as she stared at the book she was holding.
“After what you just hit me with, I’ve got a couple of hundred questions. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
Graydon smiled, but the smile was far from warm and friendly. A coiling, dark dread encircled her heart; Graydon’s smile was much too much like the cold, hard grin of the wolf he had become in her nightmare.
“You wanted me to tell you how I knew the name Button would be significant to you, remember?”
Elizabeth nodded stiffly. “Right —” she rasped.
“The answer is quite simple,” Graydon said with a shrug. “Caroline told me.”
3.
“I’ve been calling all evening,” Frank said. “Your folks must be getting sick and tired of me calling, but-uh, I thought we had a date.”
Elizabeth sighed deeply and cradled the phone against her shoulder. It was almost eleven o’clock. She had just walked into the house and hadn’t even had a chance to say hello to her parents, when the phone rang. She sat down heavily in the kitchen chair, feeling totally drained. As she listened to Frank’s voice, barely hearing his words, her fingers brushed lightly along the edge of the book Graydon had given to her. She didn’t at all like the uneasiness she felt just reading the title.
She had only now arrived home because, after meeting Graydon, she hadn’t been able to face going straight home. With so much hitting her all at once and so much to think about, she had left the Ground Round, gotten onto the Maine Turnpike, and taken a long, aimless drive north. After making it to Waterville, she had stopped, tried to eat something at a Burger King, and then started back to Portland along Route 202, through Lewiston and Gray.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, “I had to meet with ... with my therapist, and —”
“You mean Dr. Graydon?”
“Yeah,” Elizabeth said, not liking the emphasis he put on the word doctor. “After that, I was pretty wiped. I had a lot to think about and just wanted to be alone for a while. I forgot that you were coming over.”
In truth, she had remembered her date with Frank and had thought about it but, just like when skipping her appointment with Graydon, she had decided to hell with it and simply not bothered to call.
“You forgot! You have no idea how good it is for my ego to hear you say that,” Frank replied. He laughed softly into the phone, trying to inject a note of humor, but she could tell how deeply he was hurt.
Elizabeth’s eyes felt red-rimmed and raw as she balanced Graydon’s book on her leg and casually flipped through the pages as she talked with Frank. Listening to him reminded her of things she now felt were so far gone from her life that she would never experience them again; he made her remember how normal and safe everyday life used to feel, and how nice it was whe
n people could meet and fall in love ... or, even if they didn’t fall in love, they could do things together just to have fun, like going to the movies or out for a few drinks, just to be together.
But that’s not how real life is! She thought bitterly.
There was an aching chill in her heart, both for herself and for Frank. She knew how honest and sincere he was in his interest in her, but the kind of life he was looking for was already too far out of reach. In real life, people die, sometimes brutally and horribly, sometimes for no apparent reason. People end up hating the person they once loved; they end up verbally, sometimes physically abusing each other and getting divorced. And in the end, as much as they try or pretend, people don’t-they can’t understand what’s happening to them until, finally, life becomes nothing more than a bitter, agonizing experience. She could almost understand how, once you’ve lived long enough, you could actually look forward to dying, if only to stop the pain of living.
Until — finally — you can’t wait for it to be over, Elizabeth thought bitterly.
Even as the words formed in her mind, she remembered the mindnumbing fear she had experienced when, less than a year ago, she had tried to end it all by cutting her own wrists. Until now, she had never seen any humor in what had happened, but she almost laughed aloud when she remembered that Doug — not the “friend” she had told Graydon — had been the one to find her spread-legged on the kitchen floor, bleeding from the slices in her wrists. Doug had called the ambulance and had gone with her to the hospital. She had changed the truth because she had never been able to accept that he could have — but didn’t — turn her own words around on her from the night Caroline died ...
“If it hadn’t been/or me, you’d be dead now!”
And she could just as easily have said to him exactly what he had said to her after that night ...
“Don’t you understand? She meant everything to me! I might just as well die!”
“Elizabeth ... ?” Frank’s voice said, breaking into her thoughts like a wrecking ball slamming into an abandoned building. “Did you hear what I said?”