See No Evil

by B. A. Shapiro

  Lauren turned down the heat and they huddled together around the fire, darkness filling the corners of the room, warmth and light dancing before them. Drew giggled happily as they cooked their hot dogs over the open flames.

  “Can’t you just see it?” Lauren asked him. “It’s three hundred years ago, and we’re early settlers to this wild, new land. We’re in our small farmhouse, in the kitchen, and inside our deep, deep fireplace is a kettle and a pot and a set of toasting forks hanging from a lugpole.”

  “Sure, Mom,” Drew said. “I’m a settler.” Then he burst into renewed giggles.

  But Lauren did see it. She saw the expansive chimney and the lugpole resting on projecting stone ledges within it. She saw a cheery blue and white valance made of calico hanging from the edge of the mantelshelf. And when she turned to smile at Drew, for a single short second she thought he looked just like Dorcas Osborne.

  The next morning Lauren began to return the phone calls that had come in over the past week. There were three from Deborah, two from Dan, and one from Gabe. Gabe said he didn’t need a return call; he just wanted to wish Drew a speedy recovery and let her know he’d found the backup substantiation and had been completely exonerated by the NEH. “They even sent a written apology,” he said, adding, “I also wanted to tell you that I’m here. No questions asked, whenever you’re ready.”

  She didn’t call Gabe, but she did try to reach Dan and Deborah. Dan wasn’t home, but Helene, who sounded almost cheerful, promised he would get back to her as soon as he could—probably Monday.

  Deborah picked up the phone at RavenWing. As soon as she recognized Lauren’s voice, she asked how Drew was.

  “How did you know Drew was sick?” Lauren demanded.

  “After getting your machine all week, I called your department at the university—I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t mean to pry, but after the poppets and the Bellarmine Jackie got …” Deborah’s voice trailed off before she added, “Please forgive me if I’ve overstepped.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Lauren said, not at all sure that was the case. Why had Deborah mentioned the Bellarmine urn? “Drew’s fine,” she said coolly. “It was just a bizarre case of repeat chicken pox.”

  “I’m sorry I left so many messages. But aside from being worried, I wanted to let you know about the Immortalis.”

  “The Immortalis,” Lauren repeated slowly. After Drew’s strange illness, she had decided she wasn’t going to any witch rituals. But now, with Drew recovered and Herman’s murder a week in the past, thoughts of Nat and her precarious finances filled her mind. She decided to at least listen to what Deborah had to say.

  “It’s the eighth. This coming Tuesday,” Deborah said quickly, as if sensing Lauren’s reluctance. “Just around the corner. I thought we’d send a cab for you—we’re not going to drive any cars up there to avoid a repeat of last time. It’s late, though. Will eleven be all right?”

  Lauren started to say no, then stopped herself. She’d cancel at the last minute, with some irrefutable excuse about Drew. That way maybe Deborah would still let her read the chronicle. “Sure,” she told Deborah. “Fine.”

  “There’s one other thing—although you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.…” Deborah hesitated. “Has anything else happened since last we spoke? Another dream or anything else strange?”

  “Haven’t had a dream in weeks,” Lauren lied. “And nothing else odd that I can think of has happened.” No way was she going to tell Deborah about her dreams or fugues, and she definitely wasn’t talking about Herman’s mutilation—if indeed Deborah didn’t know about it already. Lauren was trusting no one from now on.

  “I just thought you’d like to know that Bram has been searching the Internet for other covens, even solitaries, who use Bellarmine urns, and he’s—”

  “Why was Bram doing that?” Lauren demanded, wondering once again if Deborah knew more than she was letting on.

  “Because I asked him to,” Deborah said, and Lauren heard exasperation in her voice. “But the important point is that, as far as Bram could determine, there are no witches anywhere in the world using Bellarmines.”

  On Thursday morning Lauren walked Drew and Scott to school. She stayed to talk with a couple of other mothers while the boys played on the tire swing. When the bell rang, she went with Drew to his classroom. Drew was annoyed by her overprotectiveness and communicated his dissatisfaction by ignoring her. Ordinarily, Lauren wouldn’t have tolerated his rudeness, threatening to withhold television until he returned her “good-bye.” But now she didn’t care. His safety was far more important than his manners.

  When Drew saw her at his classroom door at dismissal time, he glared at her. “Scott and I can walk home by ourselves,” he said, stamping his foot. “I’m not sick anymore—and I’m not a baby.”

  “I know,” she said calmly. “I was just in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d take you two for an ice cream cone.”

  Neither boy commented on that fact that Lauren was almost always “in the neighborhood” at three-fifteen in the afternoon—or that it was rather cold for ice cream. They knew a good deal when they heard one.

  As Lauren walked them to school the next day, Drew asked if she was going to do this all the time. “Walking’s my new exercise regimen,” she told him. “I’ve decided to walk to your school and then do a loop down to Garden Street every morning.” She smiled brightly. “That way I’ll keep in shape through the winter.”

  “Get a NordicTrak,” he grumbled, turning from her.

  After seeing him to his classroom, Lauren did walk down to Garden Street, clocking a good three miles before she went home to fact check the early chapters of the manuscript. She was deep into verifying details on ergot poisoning when the telephone rang. It was Mr. Procter, Drew’s principal.

  “You’d better come down here right away, Mrs. Freeman,” he said, his usually high voice almost shrill. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I’m afraid we’ve got a problem—it appears some woman has kidnapped Drew.”

  Twenty-Four

  LAUREN RAN THE FIVE BLOCKS TO THATCHER SCHOOL. Coatless, the cold December wind slicing through her thin shirt, she raced across streets and skidded around corners. Her mind was filled with a kaleidoscope of images: Drew, scowling at her from the door of his classroom that morning; Drew riding on Todd’s shoulders at Disney World, his eyes huge with wonder as Mickey Mouse shook his hand; Drew, frightened and crying and wanting his mother, being held somewhere damp and dark and scary, by someone who might—

  The blast of a horn and the screech of brakes broke into Lauren’s panic. She glanced briefly at a teenage boy in a rusted Toyota who raised his fist at her, but she kept running. Running toward the school. Running to hear that it had all been a bizarre mistake, that Drew was actually at the library or the gym or had gotten sick in the bathroom. “We’re so sorry to have worried you, Mrs. Freeman,” she could hear Mr. Procter saying. “Can you ever forgive us?” She would nod and smile and assure them it was okay. And it would be okay. Because Drew would be safe.

  Please make him safe, she chanted to the beat of her feet pounding on the pavement. Please make him safe. But when she rounded the corner across from the school, she came to a screeching halt. Grabbing a telephone pole for support, she stared in numb disbelief. Two police cruisers were pulled up at the front door and another was angled on the small patch of grass between the driveway and the street. All three looked as if they had been hastily parked and just as hastily abandoned. Radios crackled and blue lights strobed. A uniformed policeman leaned out the open door of one of the cruisers, a microphone in hand.

  Her vision went black around the edges, and for a moment Lauren thought she was going to be sick. Todd, she thought, pulling herself from the darkness. She had to call Todd.

  She sprinted across the street and up the front stairs of the school. The policeman with the microphone gave her a quizzical glance as she flew by, but he didn’t try to stop her.

&
nbsp; Another cop did. Before she could reach the top stair, a wide-shouldered policewoman stepped from the shadows and stood directly in Lauren’s path. “This is a crime scene,” she said. “We can’t let anyone through.”

  Lauren stopped, but she found she couldn’t speak. She was too winded and terrified. She just stood on the stairs, her hands pressed to the stitch in her side. Crime scene. The words burned like acid into her brain and she felt her eyes bug out of her head as she stared at the woman, mutely beseeching her to understand. Crime scene.

  “You’re the mother,” the policewoman guessed, placing a hand on Lauren’s shoulder. When Lauren nodded, she motioned through the glass. The door was opened from inside by a policeman wearing gloves. “The mother,” she mouthed to the man as she led Lauren past him and into the vestibule.

  Still unsteady, Lauren pressed her hand against the glazed cinder block walls. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening.

  “I’ll take you to the principal’s office.” The policewoman’s words reached Lauren as if from the wrong end of a long tunnel. “They’re waiting for you there.”

  Lauren managed to put one foot in front of the other and propel herself forward. It was happening. There had been no mistake. Drew wasn’t in the library or the gym or the bathroom. He was gone. And no one knew where. Darkness once again threatened to steal her eyesight, and she stumbled. She assumed it was the policewoman who grabbed her elbow and led her on, but she wasn’t sure.

  She was in a large open office area and it was in pandemonium. Lauren shrank from the painfully bright lights that accentuated the strained faces of the young women and the old women and the middle-aged men who milled between tightly packed desks and file cabinets. She smelled tuna fish and copying machines and noticed the school secretary crying into a handkerchief as a uniformed policeman barked orders into the phone at her elbow. A man in a shirt and tie quickly wended his way through the tumult and stuck an oversize map under the policeman’s nose. He pointed to something in the right corner of the map. The policeman nodded.

  As Lauren walked through the noisy room, an odd hush seemed to follow in her wake. The change in sound level threw her off balance, made her dizzy. Reaching out to steady herself, she felt two hands grip her shoulders. The grip was solid yet gentle, comforting. She leaned back into the hands and found herself in Mr. Procter’s office. As the door closed behind her, Lauren could hear the hubbub rise in the outer office, even louder than before.

  She blinked at all the people crowded into the small room. Ellen Baker rushed forward and pressed Lauren to her. Mr. Procter and two policemen—one was Dan Ling, in uniform, and the other was a stranger wearing a jacket and tie—stood. All three looked pained and uncomfortable. Dan threw her a weak smile. Two other women, whom Lauren vaguely recognized as teachers, looked at her sympathetically. Drew’s friend Scott and his mother, Melinda, were huddled in the corner. The little boy burst into tears as soon as he saw Lauren. Disoriented, Lauren shook her head. Were all these people waiting for her? How had Melinda gotten to the school before she had and, more important, what were she and Scott doing here anyway? Then everyone began talking at once.

  “Oh God, this is so awful,” Melinda said, releasing Scott and starting toward Lauren. “I was helping out in the library—”

  Scott let out a wail as soon as his mother let go of him. “I’m s-s-so sorry,” he cried.

  “I’m sorry too,” Ellen whispered in Lauren’s ear. She took a tissue from her pocket and dabbed her red-rimmed eyes. “I should have been watching more closely. We were coming from art—on our way back to the classroom—and I was at the front of the line. I know I should have been watching the back of the line too—and if only I had been, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.…”

  Lauren stared at Drew’s teacher and then turned to Mr. Procter, panic welling up from her stomach. She wanted to scream at them: “What did you let happen to my child? I left him in your care. I trusted you.” She opened her mouth and then closed it again.

  “We called your husband and he’s on his way.” Mr. Procter came from behind his desk and pressed Lauren’s hand, his usually ruddy complexion pasty. “They’re going to find Drew for you, Mrs. Freeman. I just know they will.” He let go of her hand and motioned to the policemen. “You wouldn’t believe all the things these gentlemen have already put in motion. They couldn’t have gone far.”

  “I’m Lieutenant Detective Conway and I understand you know Officer Ling,” the policeman in street clothes said. “I want you to know that we’re doing everything we can—and will continue to.” He regarded her with such compassion that Lauren had to turn away. “We’ve broadcast a description of your son, as well as the car and the woman, that this young man gave us.” He smiled briefly at Scott, who was sobbing in his mother’s arms. “And we currently have all available cruisers delegated to cover circumference points.”

  Circumference points? Woman? What woman? A woman Scott knew? She glanced over at Scott and Melinda. Melinda was seated Indian-style on the floor, her arms wrapped around her son. She was rubbing his back and whispering in his ear.

  Lauren winced as a stab of raw pain sliced through her. Where was her son? Was he hurt? Did he need her? Was he even alive? She grabbed onto the edge of the desk as the image of Herman’s empty shell rose before her.

  “I’ve already got someone checking on any similar incidents in the area and the state police have been contacted,” Lieutenant Conway was saying. “We’re on the LEAPS computer with a Mass BOLO on your son—”

  “BOLO?” Lauren asked, needing to slow him down.

  “‘Be on the look out,’” Dan told her.

  BOLO, Lauren thought, staring at the policemen. BOLO on your son … The blackness began at the edge of her vision and thickened toward the center with the nauseating motion of a tidal wave. The room grew excruciatingly hot and there was a loud buzzing in her ears. The floor slanted toward her.…

  * * *

  A horrible, bitter smell assaulted Lauren and she twisted her head away from it. When it came back at her, she swatted at it. Get away, she tried to scream. Leave me alone. But she was buried under a heavy layer of nausea and darkness and no words could make their way through.

  “She’s coming to,” a woman’s voice said.

  “Lauren,” Todd called. “Laurie, it’s me, honey. Are you all right?”

  “Let her take her time,” the woman cautioned. “It would be best if everyone cleared out and gave her some space.”

  Lauren heard whispers and the sound of shuffling feet. She opened her eyes. It was bright and hot, and she was stretched out on a hard linoleum floor. The ceiling had a rusty water stain that looked like Bunny. Todd was kneeling over her, holding her hand. “Todd?” she said through parched lips.

  “You fainted, Mrs. Freeman,” the woman said. When a pair of oversize glasses and a wide band of freckles filled Lauren’s vision, she recognized the woman as the nurse at Drew’s school. But she was unable to imagine what Ms. Veroff was doing with Todd. “You’re at Thatcher School,” Ms. Veroff said in a calming voice. “You’re going to be fine.”

  Thatcher School. Drew. She tried to sit up and immediately felt the blackness closing in on her again. Todd grabbed her and she clung to him.

  “Stay where you are, Mrs. Freeman,” Ms. Veroff cautioned. “Take a sip of water and give yourself a few minutes.”

  It was true, Lauren thought, closing her eyes again. The worst nightmare lurking in every mother’s imagination was actually happening to her. Lauren pushed the water away and buried her head in Todd’s chest. The tears she had been holding back since Mr. Procter’s call burst through.

  “We’ll find him, Laurie,” Todd said, his voice shaking slightly. He kissed the top of her head and wrapped his long arms tightly around her. “It’s got to be some kind of bizarre mistake. There’s no reason for anyone to kidnap Drew. As soon as they realize they’ve got the wrong kid, they’re sure to let him go.”

 
Lauren shook her head but found she still couldn’t speak. There had been no mistake. Someone had taken Drew because of her. Because of the chronicle and Rebeka Hibbens and that damn Immortalis. She’d quit school. She’d wait tables for the rest of her life. She’d do anything, anything, to get Drew back. She shook her head again, more violently this time. She had to get control of herself and tell him what was going on. “I-I … There—”

  “Shush, baby,” Todd said. “The police have everything under control.”

  Lauren pulled away from Todd and took a large, shuddering breath. “There’s there’s more to this than you know,” she told Todd, then she turned to the detective. “I’ve been receiving threats for the last month—”

  “Threats?” Todd’s face was bloodless, his eyes huge. “What kind of threats?”

  Conway glanced at Dan and then said to Lauren, “I’ve got Zaleski over at RavenWing right now. I’m sorry I didn’t take this all more seriously before.”

  “Take what more seriously?” Todd demanded. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Lauren told him everything, starting with the poppets and Jackie’s death and ending with the Bellarmine urn containing Herman’s empty shell. Dan and the lieutenant took notes. Todd stared at her, his eyes filled with horror and incredulity.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Todd demanded, his face as white and hard as if it were chiseled in stone. “How could you let it go on for so long?”

  “Dan and I informed the police twice in the past few weeks,” Lauren snapped. “What else was I supposed to do?”

  Conway cleared his throat. “Now, Mrs. Freeman, from your experience with these—”

  “When the lieutenant said there wasn’t enough evidence to open an investigation,” Lauren started to explain to Todd, “I figured it must be some crackpot.…” Her voice petered out and tears ran down her cheeks as she realized that it had been some crackpot. “Oh,” she moaned, “it’s all my fault.” She covered her face. “If anything happens to Drew … If anything …”