by Gayle Wilson
Blythe had known for days, although she had never openly acknowledged it. Sarah had chosen Maddie, either because of her age or the child’s proximity within her grandmother’s home.
“What do you believe you can do for my daughter?”
Again the dark eyes touched on Delores’s before they returned to hers. “Facilitate that communication.”
“Communication with…a dead child.”
“If that’s what’s happening here.”
“Do you think it is?”
Blythe wasn’t sure why she should care about this woman’s opinion. Something about her air of confidence, though, made her want it.
“I think it’s possible. The truth is, Ms. Wyndham, this isn’t the first time I’ve been involved in something like this.”
“Involved as what? Are you…a psychic? A medium? What?”
“I’m someone who, like your daughter, has been aware since childhood that there’s more in this world than most people see and know. I only came today because I hoped to make this easier for Maddie.”
“Easier?”
“By letting her know she isn’t alone. That she isn’t the only one who has this…ability.”
Blythe almost asked what ability, but she’d played this out long enough. She had known all she’d needed to know since Tewanda Hardy had said “facilitated that communication.”
“What did Maddie tell you?”
“We haven’t had much time to talk. I was running late this morning. I had to take my baby by my mother-in-law’s before I could get over here. And he was fussy. Maybe a touch of colic. Most likely because he knew I needed to be somewhere,” she said with a smile. “I think they can sense when you’re in a hurry.”
It sounded so normal that for a moment Blythe’s uneasiness about what had been going on when she’d arrived was soothed. This woman was a mother. Surely she wouldn’t do anything that would hurt another child.
“Would you like me to finish?” Tewanda asked, her voice carefully neutral.
If Blythe refused, she had no doubt this self-possessed young woman, who had left a crying baby to come here today, would turn and leave. And no doubt she could shame Delores into agreeing not to pull anything like this ever again.
That was what a normal person should do. What any caring mother would do. Protect her daughter against whatever mumbo jumbo had been going on around her grandmother’s kitchen table.
“Where’s Ruth?” For the first time she realized that her grandmother, who was supposed to be in charge of keeping Maddie safe, wasn’t even here.
“They rushed Miz Delray’s son to the emergency room this morning,” Delores said. “The one that lives in Montgomery. They think he may have had a heart attack. Miz Ruth went over there to stay with Miz Delray until they hear.”
The Delrays had lived in the next house up the road as long as the Mitchells had lived in this one. Lettie Delray, née Russell, and Ruth had played together as children.
Her grandmother had probably decided that as long as Delores and the deputy were looking after Maddie, Blythe could have no objections to her consoling a friend in her time of need. And Blythe was well aware that her grandmother’s presence would have been no guarantee Tewanda Hardy wouldn’t have been allowed to talk to Maddie.
“I can’t stay much longer,” Tewanda warned. “I’ll need to get my little boy home for his nap. My husband’s mama got rid of her crib a long time ago.”
It was clearly an ultimatum. She had come as a favor to Delores. If her services were no longer wanted, then she had personal business to attend to.
“You got nothing to lose, Miz Blythe.” Delores’s voice was subdued because she recognized she’d stepped over the line. “You ought to go on and let her see what she can find out.”
“By asking Maddie questions? Is that all there is to this?”
“If that’s all you want me to do,” Tewanda said. “Most of what happens, though, your girl doesn’t have any memory of.”
“Because she doesn’t want to? Or because…because whoever she’s talking to doesn’t want her to remember?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes…Most of the time, actually, children outgrow this pretty quickly. They lose the openness that allows communication. They…close in. Psychically, I mean. Like adults, they no longer see and hear what they did when they were babies. That may be why most of the contact comes to her through dreams. Maybe that’s when Maddie’s most relaxed. When she’s most—” She stopped, her dark eyes suddenly filled with compassion.
“Vulnerable,” Blythe finished bitterly.
“It’s not what you’re thinking, Ms. Wyndham. Really, it’s not. She’s too innocent to be open to something evil. It’s adults that have to guard against that. With her—with someone her age—it’s only the ones like Sarah. The lost ones. The unreleased.”
“Because of how she died?” Aware suddenly that Maddie was listening to every word, Blythe put her hand again on the top of that fair, silken head, her fingers trailing down the soft strands of hair.
“Maybe. Or because she has…unfinished business.” Tewanda’s eyes acknowledged that it might be inappropriate to speculate in front of Maddie about what that business might be.
“How do you make her remember?”
“I try to get her to relax. I reassure her. Allow her to open her mind.”
“How?”
Tewanda took a breath, releasing it slowly. “Some people call it a trance. Or hypnosis. I don’t call it either. I’ll just try to ease the natural restraints that tell her not to see what she sees or hear what she hears.”
“And if she does that—” Blythe shook her head, unwilling to submit Maddie to something she didn’t completely understand.
“I know you’re afraid,” Tewanda said. “And I understand why. But she’s already seeing and hearing things she can’t put into any kind of context. And from what Delores has told me about the dreams…Frankly, I don’t know how this could get much worse. And…I believe I can make it better.”
“But you can’t promise.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from living with this all my life, it’s not to promise anything. My feeling is…” She paused, smiling again at Maddie. “I’d like to try.”
With Blythe’s permission, they’d cut off the overhead light and pulled the curtains over the windows, shutting out what little sunlight the overcast sky had allowed into the room. Although not totally dark, the kitchen was pleasantly dim.
After shuffling through paper diapers, a spit-up cloth and a tiny blue sweater, Tewanda had taken a dark gray candle out of her voluminous purse, which apparently did double duty as a diaper bag. As soon as she’d touched a match to the wick of the squat, misshapen wax, its scent had begun to permeate the room. Not quite medicinal, it was like nothing Blythe had ever smelled before, but like the dimness, she found it neither unpleasant nor frightening.
Tewanda was once more holding Maddie’s hands across the table. Delores and Blythe sat in the chairs on either side of them, completing the circle. It was clear, however, that they were only spectators. The young woman with the cornrowed hair was in charge, her assurance compelling. And reassuring.
Her voice had achieved an almost singsong quality as she talked to Maddie. Its low, yet vibrant timbre, as well as her words, was intended to soothe whatever fears the little girl—and her mother—might feel.
“There’s nothing here that can hurt you. Nothing that should frighten you. Nothing but another baby, just asking for your help to find her way. Another little girl just like you. A little girl who played with dolls. Who had tea parties with her babies. A little girl who loved her mama and her daddy, just like you love yours.”
There was a slight hesitation in that now-familiar rhythm, and then Tewanda began again, her voice as mesmerizing, although her narrative had taken a different tack.
“She saw you over at her grandmamma’s house, and she wanted to play. She was so lonesome being there all that time with
nobody to talk to. So she talked to you. Didn’t she, Maddie? She talked to you.”
Maddie nodded, her eyes half-closed, as if she were drifting off to sleep.
“What’d she tell you, Maddie? What’d that poor, lonely little girl tell you?”
For a dozen heartbeats there was no response. Blythe hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until Maddie took one, deep enough to be visible, and began to speak.
“She used to sleep in my room. A long time ago.”
“At her grandmamma’s house.”
“He couldn’t find her when she was there.” The cadence of Maddie’s words mimicked those of the woman questioning her.
He. He couldn’t find her…
Blythe remembered what Cade had said about the tapping on the window. That it had been a sign that Sarah should come out to him. Apparently, he didn’t come for her when she was at her grandmother’s.
“She loved to go to her grandmamma’s,” Maddie finished, her voice imbued with a longing Blythe recognized as a reflection of that other child’s feelings rather than her own.
“And she came here, too, didn’t she? She came to see you when you moved over here to live with your grandmamma.”
“She was so lonely. She liked having somebody to talk to.”
At the depth of the pain revealed in that simple and childlike sentiment, tears burned Blythe’s eyes. She blinked to control them, knowing they would distract from what was finally being revealed.
“Did she talk to you, Maddie? What did she talk about?”
“Her mama. And Rachel. Rachel was her sister. They slept in the same bed, but Rachel slept so hard she never heard him when he came.”
“But Sarah did, didn’t she? She heard him every time.”
Maddie turned her head down and slightly to the side, as if she wanted to flinch away from those questions.
“She didn’t want him to come, did she?” Tewanda prodded softly.
“No.”
“Did she tell him not to?”
Maddie nodded. “But he told her—” The words ended with a gasp. This time the shrinking was unmistakable.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Tewanda reassured quickly. “Not if it scares you.”
“He scares me.”
“He scared Sarah, Maddie. He isn’t here now.”
“He was. He was in the backyard. She told me.”
“What did she tell you?”
Blythe knew the answer to this one. Her stomach twisted remembering the terror of that night.
“She told me to hide.”
Tewanda’s eyes lifted to meet Blythe’s. Despite the dimness in the kitchen, she could read the question in them. There was no decision to be made, however, other than the one she had made when they’d started this.
She nodded, giving permission to continue. If there was a way to put an end to this madness, she had to find it. And so far, Maddie seemed unharmed by this gentle questioning.
“Did she tell you who he is?”
The small blond head moved side to side, and the tightness that had built in Blythe’s chest as she waited collapsed.
“Do you know what he looks like?”
“Big. He’s so big.”
There was something in Maddie’s voice that hadn’t been there before. Something Blythe didn’t like.
“Tall?”
Maddie nodded.
“Fat or thin?”
“Just…big.”
It was the same route Cade had taken, with the same results. Any man would seem big to a four-year-old. Maybe even to a thin little girl of nine. There had to be something else—
“What color eyes did he have?”
Maddie shuddered, a sudden revulsion reflected in her face. Her eyes had opened, but as they were in the clutch of the nightmares, they were unseeing.
“Maddie?” The same sense Blythe had that something was wrong was in Tewanda’s question.
Blythe began to push up from her chair. The sharp negative motion of Tewanda’s head stopped her. Palms flat on the table, Blythe hesitated, her gaze going back to Maddie’s face.
“He’s not here, Maddie,” Tewanda said, her voice free of the panic Blythe felt. “There’s nothing here to be afraid of.”
There was no response in the child’s eyes. It was evident something else was going on inside the mind that functioned behind that blank stare.
“Maddie,” Blythe said, only to be warned off by the same quick motion of Tewanda’s head.
“It’s not real, Maddie. What you’re seeing is something that happened a long time ago. Something that happened to Sarah and not to you. It’s over and done a long time ago. Nothing—and nobody—can hurt you here.”
Maddie’s breathing was coming in gasps and broken inhalations, like an exhausted runner. Or like a baby who has cried so hard there are no more tears left. It was only when her head began to jerk back and forth with each snubbing breath that Blythe gave in to her instincts.
Ignoring Tewanda’s attempt to restrain her, she rose from her chair and stepped to the side to kneel and put her arms around her daughter. Maddie’s body, cold and stiff, was still racked by the occasional shudder.
“It’s okay, baby. Mama’s here. Mama’s got you. It’s only a dream. This isn’t real. You’re at Miz Ruth’s. I’m here. And Delores is here. And nothing bad is happening. I won’t ever let anything bad happen to you.”
Slowly, so slowly that it seemed to take an eternity, the rigidity began to seep out of the muscles of the child Blythe held against to her chest, trying to warm her frigid body. The jerking stopped, as did the ratcheting sounds of her breathing.
Blythe hadn’t known she was crying, too, until she realized her nose was running. She sniffed, turning her head to wipe her face on her shoulder.
“It’s all right, Mama,” Maddie said. “Don’t cry. Everything’s all right.”
“I know. I know it is.”
She turned her head, looking across the table at the young woman who had come to help. “She can’t do this.”
“I don’t think that decision is up to you, Ms. Wyndham. Or to her.”
The reality of that was another blow. And there had already been too many of those.
“She isn’t strong enough,” she whispered in despair, pressing her lips against her daughter’s hair.
For a long moment, Tewanda said nothing. Then she picked up the candle she’d placed in the middle of the table and brought the flame close to her lips. She blew it out with one long breath before her eyes lifted to meet Blythe’s.
“You pray she will be. I will, too. I’ll pray for both of you.”
“What about—” Blythe realized that she didn’t even know what to ask.
“She doesn’t know who he is, but…she’s seen him. It was through Sarah’s eyes, you understand, so…” She shook her head. “I don’t know if she’d even be able to recognize him now. It’s been so long.”
Twenty-five years. A quarter of a century since he had haunted the nightmares of another little girl.
She was so lonely. She just liked having someone to talk to.
Poor Sarah.
And poor Maddie, who hadn’t asked for this. And who didn’t even understand what was happening. All she really understood was that her mother had just promised that nothing bad would ever happen to her.
Although that was a promise her mother was no longer sure she’d be able to keep….
23
“I t’s Cade, dear. He says he told you he’d come by to check on things after the funeral.”
In all that had happened after she’d gotten home, Blythe had forgotten Cade’s promise. Obviously, he hadn’t. And right now, the thought of having someone she could talk to honestly, in spite of his professed disbelief, was appealing.
“Thanks, Grandmamma. Can you look after Maddie?”
She had been sitting with the little girl on the worn sofa in the den, an array of books Blythe had loved as a child spread out
around them. Although she herself had not yet recovered from the session at the kitchen table, her daughter seemed to have forgotten it almost as soon as they’d left the room.
“I expect I still remember how to read. What do you want to hear next, baby girl?” Ruth settled into the place on the couch Blythe had just vacated.
“We haven’t read any of those.” Maddie pointed to the stack to her right.
“I used to read these to your mama when she was just about your size.”
“Read this one first.”
“The Little Engine That Could. I don’t need the book for this one, Maddie-love. I can say these words by heart, I’ve read ’em so many times.”
Her grandmother’s voice faded behind her as Blythe hurried down the front hall. Cade was standing in the wide double doorway to the parlor. He wore a black overcoat over his navy blazer, which gave her an idea.
“Could we talk outside?”
“Get your coat,” Cade agreed without discussion.
When she had retrieved her jacket from the hall closet, he took it from her, holding it out for her to slip her arms into. As she began to do up the buttons, she felt his hands fasten lightly over her upper arms. For a moment, she stiffened, and then, without any conscious decision to do so, she leaned back, resting against his solid strength.
He lowered his head, his lips finding her ear. “It’s gonna be okay. Whatever’s going on, we’ll handle it.”
The warmth of his breath against her neck produced a sweet heat deep within her body. The “together” at the end of that promise might have been unspoken, but she heard it in her heart.
She nodded, a strand of her hair catching in the late-afternoon stubble on his cheek. Although it took a conscious effort of will, she stepped forward, breaking the contact between them.
Once out on the porch, she drew a deep breath, pulling the cold air into her lungs. Not only did it serve to mitigate the sexual pull of Cade’s touch, after the heat and closeness of the house, it also helped clear her head.
“You upset about the funeral?” Cade had propped one hip against the banister, a position from which he could see her face.
“Something that happened after I got home.”