The landscape had been transformed by a thin layer of snow. Cottony gray clouds draped over the mountainside—more snow to come? He shifted. Tessa hadn’t stirred or given any sign of waking.
Bair came down the stairs. “Has she …”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll brew some tea.” He headed to the kitchen with which he’d seemingly grown familiar.
Genie came down, assessed for herself that Tessa had not awakened, and joined Bair in the kitchen. Smith got up from the couch, went upstairs to wash up and change clothes. Back downstairs, he took the offered mug and sipped. Bair had brewed the tea the British way, with the leaves loose in the boiling water. The agony of the leaves, that method was called, and produced a more robust effect—as human suffering brought out the deepest essence of an individual?
He rejoined Tessa. Was it arrogance to think he understood her situation better in the time he’d spent with her than the doctor who’d treated her for years? Or did he see with a fresh eye that something was off, even if he couldn’t tell what?
He leaned closer, noting a mottling on her skin where the sleeve of her coat had slid up. She looked bruised, even though she hadn’t fallen or hurt herself. All the while she’d screamed, her limbs had gone rigid, but she hadn’t beaten her arms on the ground or him.
Genie joined him. “How’d she do that?”
“I don’t know.” He lifted the lower edge of her coat and shirt. Her side and back were bruised, as though she had absorbed her father’s beating. Impossible. It must be a physical reaction to her extreme strain.
Genie frowned. “What happened out there last night?”
“Nothing that would have caused this.”
Genie leaned close. “Tessa, can you hear me?”
Without opening her eyes, Tessa started softly keening.
Genie turned away. “I’m calling Dr. Brenner. We need to bring her in.”
Smith didn’t argue. Dr. Brenner might be necessary, but his own conviction had not lifted. He had promised he’d battle the monster to the death, and they were not clear of the labyrinth yet.
Daddy! The nightmare had never been so awful. She couldn’t find him, and the labyrinth itself had turned against her. The walls were closing in, the path getting narrower, darker. It followed no pattern she’d ever seen. If this path led to the center—what would she find there?
The hedge tore at her and she beat it back with her arms and fists. Daddy? Daddy, where are you? The hedge grew too close, engulfing the path. She had to press sideways to keep moving. When she looked back, the walls had closed in behind her. If she stopped, the labyrinth would swallow her. Daddy, please. Where are you?
She pushed against the hedge with all her strength, but it wasn’t enough. It had almost grown together. Please. Please!
She felt someone at her back, a strong arm pushing back the hedge, pressing her on. She tried to look but couldn’t turn her head. She had to reach the center. Or be smothered in the hedge and die.
Smith buckled Tessa into the seat beside him in the Jeep Wagoneer. He cradled her head in the crook of his neck while Genie followed the directions Bair read off to the Cedar Grove care facility. Dr. Brenner had said he would meet them there, and though they had wakened him, he was waiting when they arrived. “Bring her through here,” he directed Bair, who carried her limp in his arms.
They passed through the office bearing his name on the door to a smaller room with wall cabinets, a burgundy leather couch in the center, and a matching chair on casters. “Lay her down there.”
Bair eased her onto the couch. Dr. Brenner pulled back an eyelid and shined a penlight into her eye. He examined the bruising on her arms and stomach and straightened. “How did she get these?”
Smith shook his head. “They appeared with no explanation.”
The doctor pressed her mottled forearm, then lifted his finger. “There is an explanation, probably psychogenic bruising, or extreme distress bursting capillaries.” He straightened. “There’s no need for you all to wait. I’ll be admitting her.”
“No,” Smith said. Bair and Genie had started back out, but he wasn’t leaving. “I’ve brought her to you, but I’m not going anywhere.”
“This is no time to argue.”
“I promised her.” He sensed the animosity the doctor masked, but he was not letting Tessa out of his sight. Their standoff lasted only moments before Tessa resumed keening.
“Close the door behind you.” Dr. Brenner ordered Bair and Genie as he rolled the chair near the couch and sat down. “Tessa. Can you hear me?”
The soft wailing continued. Smith stood behind her, unwilling to surrender his post.
“I know you can hear my voice,” Dr. Brenner said in a smooth, even tone. “Wherever you’ve gone, I will bring you back. I’m going to count. …”
Smith clenched his jaw and prayed. Dr. Brenner might think so, but he was not God. There was only one source of absolute power. Help her, Lord. Find her, wherever she is. Be her strength, her protection, her champion.
With a cry she burst through the smothering foliage into the center. The hedge formed a solid circular wall around a dim space. Daddy? She was alone, without even the one who had given that final thrust. She took a step toward something shining. A thin bronze cross holding the crucified Christ.
Another step. Tears streamed. She had thought she would find him, thought her daddy waited there if she could only reach him. “Daddy!” The scream tore out of her throat.
Peace, child.
It was not her daddy’s voice. She wasn’t sure it was a voice. But she knew it. Deep inside, deeper than she’d ever gone on any path, with any meditative intention, and still the response she found was, “Daddy?”
Reaching out, she touched the cross and sank to her knees. “I didn’t help him. I didn’t make them stop. I didn’t tell what I knew. I was afraid.”
I know.
The sense of that knowing was deeper than any human knowledge. It went inside and knew all of her, every path she’d walked, every stumble, every fall, everything that had happened. It knew her yearning, knew her fear. He knew her need and touched it.
The joy that filled her had no edges. It would not cut and leave her bleeding. He would never abandon her.
Tessa’s shriek had pierced more than his ears, but Smith remained still and silent. One wrong move and Dr. Brenner might eject him. Three different approaches had failed to bring her to consciousness. Once again the doctor checked her eyes. They were not rolled back, but whether she saw the light he shined there it was impossible to tell.
“Tessa. This is Dr. Brenner, and I’m—”
She opened her eyes. Smith fought a smile at the fact that she hadn’t waited for his command, count, or instruction. She’d come back on her own, and he wanted to shout with triumph.
“Hello, Tessa.” Dr. Brenner’s smooth tone hardly expressed the relief he must feel. “Don’t get up.”
“How …” Her hoarse voice scraped through her throat.
“Smith brought you here.”
She looked up and Smith reassured her with a smile. She lowered her gaze to the doctor, whose benign manner suddenly seemed forced.
“I understand you’ve been doing some work without me. That was dangerous, though perhaps … fruitful.”
“I remembered something.”
“And I’d like you to tell me about it.”
She blinked, then nodded.
“With your permission, I’m going to use a voice recorder.”
“Why?”
“So that I can refer to it as we continue to process the trauma.”
Smith searched Tessa’s face for discomfort, but it didn’t seem to concern her. She trusted him, even after he’d sold her out to the sheriff. Given her limitations, that said so much.
Dr. Brenner fiddled with the handheld recorder he pulled from a drawer, then expelled an impatient breath. “It’s not charged. Just a moment.” He went to the outer office with the door clos
ing behind him.
“Smith.” Tessa moistened her lips with her tongue. “Can I have a drink of water?”
He located the cooler but, in circling the couch, bumped the open drawer. It tipped onto the floor. Tessa sat up while he knelt to gather the scattered contents.
“Stop.”
He looked up at her surprisingly strident tone. “What?”
“That picture. Give it to me.”
He handed over the snapshot she indicated.
“That’s … that’s Dr. Brenner.” She pointed to the first of two men in front of a small aircraft. Her finger trembled. “And that’s my dad.” Her knuckles whitened. “He never said he knew my dad. All this time …”
The door opened. Occupied with the recorder, Dr. Brenner entered, then glimpsed her sitting up and frowned. “I didn’t want you to get up.”
“You knew my dad.” She sprang to her feet. “You were part of it.”
He saw the photo in her grip. “No, Tessa.”
She shook. “Were you there with a bat? Did you murder him?”
He drew himself up. “I was not there. I was not part of it.”
“You knew him! This is your picture with him.”
“Please sit.”
“How dare you keep that from me? You … you liar!”
“I never lied to you.” Dr. Brenner’s clipped words showed Tessa had scored a hit, and for once Smith didn’t think she’d exaggerated. If he’d kept something this monumental from her, there had to be a reason.
She hissed through clenched teeth. “I told you everything you wanted to know—my dreams, my fears. I ached for my dad, and you never said anything!”
“If you will sit down …”
Smith caught her before she launched herself at the doctor. “Careful, Tess.”
Dr. Brenner’s glance flicked to him, then back. “I had nothing to do with his death, unless you count warning him.”
“Warning him? About what? No, don’t bother. Why should I believe anything you say?”
“I understand you’re upset.” Dr. Brenner took the photo from her fingers. “This isn’t how I would have wanted you to find out.”
“How exactly would you want it, since telling the truth was obviously out?”
“That isn’t accurate. Telling you the truth before you had reached this point was out.”
“Why?” Tears filled her eyes.
“Because I needed you to remember, to break the silence you’d imposed that night.”
Still holding her waist, Smith caught her slackened weight. “You knew what I’d seen?”
He shook his head. “I knew you’d seen something. You were mute and catatonic. Your mother—”
She shook her head emphatically. “My mom was not part of this.”
“Sit down, Tessa. Do you want the truth?”
Smith was prepared to take her out the moment she said no. When she nodded, he guided her over to the couch, sat beside her, and kept a firm arm around her shoulders. Though Dr. Brenner had regained some control of the situation, Smith would not give it over completely.
“Your mother and I agreed your mental health could not be sacrificed.”
“To what?”
“To learning what you’d seen.” His face grew stern. “I’ve waited a long time for the information you’ve kept inside.”
“Why didn’t—”
“I urged you more than once to trust me with it, but each time you refused to acknowledge the memory.”
Smith expected her to argue, but Tessa slackened. She pressed her hands to her face. “It’s my fault.”
“That’s not a productive direction.”
“Mom died without knowing. She thought he’d left us because I was too scared to say what really happened.”
“You chose that explanation, not your mother. You needed to believe he was out there somewhere.”
Tessa groaned. “What do you want me to do?”
Dr. Brenner rolled his chair closer. “Tell me what you know.”
CHAPTER
36
Grief hit like a hammer beating her down with each throb of her heart. How could she say what she’d seen, what she had kept secret, pretending it hadn’t happened? Dr. Brenner set the machine to record. “Before you tell me what you remembered last night, I want you to recall the first time you saw a labyrinth.”
Confused, she looked into the face she had trusted with so many issues. “I’ve told you that already.”
“There might be more now.”
Now that she knew they were connected. The memory didn’t start in the workshop; it started with that flight, the one she had carried inside her, that had driven her over and over again to make paths that would enlighten her. How stupid not to realize the connection.
She swallowed the painful wreck in her throat, closed her eyes, and expected to feel the rumble of the plane seat. Instead she was in her dad’s Jeep. “I’m excited Dad’s taking me in his plane. He has to make a delivery, but he wants the company of someone small and talkative.” Had she remembered that part before? Mostly she’d recalled flying, seeing the labyrinth.
“What does he have to deliver?”
“I don’t know. Someone at the airport gives him a box.” Definitely new.
“How big a box?”
“Not very. Wider than a shoe box, but about that high.”
“Are there words on the box like a commercial package?”
She frowned for a moment, then shook her head. “Just brown, I think. Maybe it’s wrapped in brown paper.”
“Go on.”
“We’re flying over the mountains, then down into a valley. I see roads and fields and horses like dots.” She opened her eyes. “They might have been cows, but I wanted them to be horses.”
He smiled, the little triangle of beard beneath his lower lip jutting sharply. “Do you want to lie down?”
She leaned into Smith. “No.” She closed her eyes and drew a slow breath. “I see the labyrinth. Daddy tells me what it is, and it’s … magical. I can’t stop thinking about the curling path.”
Smith’s fingers rested gently on her shoulder. He must have been really worried to have brought her there to Dr. Brenner.
“Go on.”
“We bounce down on the dirt road. Daddy says, ‘Hold on, kitten.’ ” She felt the rumble of the gravel as they touched and bounced up, then touched again.
“Are you near the labyrinth?”
“I think so.”
“Does he use it as a landmark?”
“I don’t know.” Tessa frowned. “I don’t think it’s there anymore. I’ve located all the documented labyrinths in the country.”
“Stay with the memory, Tessa.”
She swallowed. “Dad gave someone the box, and then we flew back home.”
“Describe the person he gave it to.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
She glared. “I was five years old. I don’t remember anyone but my dad.”
Dr. Brenner’s jaw twitched. “I want you to lie down.”
She started to protest, but he said, “Please.”
She looked at Smith, who reluctantly got off the couch but took up his guardianship behind her.
Dr. Brenner directed his gaze to Smith. “This might go better without distraction.” His suggestion carried an uncharacteristic edge.
“I want him here.”
Smith folded his arms and remained.
Dr. Brenner acquiesced. “Close your eyes. I’m going to relax you.”
His declaration alone created a physical response, an autonomic softening of every muscle. She closed her eyes.
He spoke slowly. “Relax your forehead. Relax your face. Let your jaw hang slack.”
Could she stop it?
“Relax your throat.”
Her airway cleared.
“Relax your shoulders—the left, and the right.”
The tendons and muscles softened.
“Relax
your arms.”
She couldn’t lift them if she tried.
“Relax your diaphragm. Let your abdomen go slack. Your hips and pelvis are melting into the couch.”
She was no longer aware of Smith’s presence.
“Let your legs go limp. Relax your feet. Relax each toe.”
She lay a moment absorbing the silence, then realized she wasn’t alone in it. The warmth, the light she had encountered enclosed her once again. He was there. Not the dad she had lost, but the Father she’d found. Help me.
“Relax your face.”
She let it go slack again.
“The plane has landed. Your father gives someone the box.”
Daddy said to stay in the airplane, but she wants to ask about the labyrinth. She jumps down from the stair onto the pale gravel and skips over to her daddy, her white sandals kicking up the dust.
Daddy puts his hand on her head and pulls her to his leg. The man says something. She looks up.
With a cry, she flew up from the couch. “It’s him. The man in my nightmare. The man I saw, that I remembered.”
She had looked into his face. And that was why she’d believed it when he said he would find her. If he had found her daddy all the way up in the mountains, where would she ever hide?
“Tell me what he looks like.”
She described him.
“Do you know him?”
She shook her head.
“Say it out loud.”
“I don’t … know.”
“Would you know him if you saw him?”
“Yes.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“I’d know him.”
Dr. Brenner hesitated, then said, “Tell me what you saw last night.”
So many years he had walked her through exercises to relax and reveal. It all came together now. She drew a breath and described her dad’s brutal death. Smith’s hand formed a protective cuff around the curve of her neck, but she didn’t need protection. She was exposing the monster at last.
The Edge of Recall Page 29