Ariel closed her eyes and heard Michael’s moans. She prayed for the sounds to stop. For what was in front of her to stop. But when she opened her eyes again, it was still happening.
She forced herself to run past the men, toward the girl who was so pale and slight that Ariel could hardly believe she was still alive. Up close, the girl’s skin was murky, like old snow. It hung loose on her bones, making her look much older than Ariel thought she probably was.
Ariel tried to grab her by the shoulders to shake her to get her attention, but couldn’t get purchase. Beneath her hands the girl’s body felt pliable and unpleasantly cold, like gelatin. To her disgust and fear, her fingers sank into it, and she quickly dropped her hands to her sides. She caught a glimpse of the baby’s delicate face. It couldn’t have weighed more than three or four pounds, and its eyes were still the indefinite black of a newborn’s.
The girl’s eyes were still fixed on the men a few feet away, but what little light was left in those eyes was quickly dying.
“Run, Allison!” Ariel screamed.
Behind her, there was a great roar that sounded like twenty men dying.
Ariel turned to see that Randolph had plunged his hand into Michael’s chest as though his hand were a well-sharpened blade.
Randolph didn’t pull his brother’s heart from his chest, but Ariel understood that he was tearing it, wrenching it from where it was fixed. Randolph’s face was his own again, and it was bloodied yet filled with beatific pleasure.
Ariel cried out.
As Michael died, his body slumped toward the floor. Randolph turned to look at Ariel.
He can see me!
She watched, stunned, as Randolph let his brother’s body fall. He rose up on his knees and stretched out his hand to her. The triumph had left his face, and it now held a look nearly as miserable and used-up as the girl’s.
“Allison!” he screamed.
No, he hadn’t seen her. He was looking at the girl behind her.
The girl bent her head to kiss the forehead of the baby, then carefully laid the bundle on the floor. Feeling for the balustrade behind her, she gripped it and jumped up on it so that she was able to balance.
Ariel screamed for the girl to stop, and Randolph rushed toward them.
Before he could reach her, the girl smiled a perfectly lucid, happy smile. She wasn’t looking at Randolph, or Ariel, or even Michael’s still form. Her eyes were focused on the distance, beyond the carefully built walls that had helped to hide her. That had helped to ruin her. Ariel saw that she was pretty. Maybe even prettier than she had been when Randolph Bliss had first brought her here.
For the second time since Ariel had come to Bliss House, she watched Allison push herself backwards and fall into the rays of light that reached all the way to the enormous oriental rug spread across the front hall.
Before Ariel could take another breath or cry out, the gallery and everyone in it disappeared without so much as a sigh. Around her, the air that had been so charged with violence and pain and sunlight was now dense with a frigid calm. However horrible that place of death had been, it was far from where she was now, in the bowels of Bliss House.
A shudder moved through Ariel’s body, rattling her chest. She hugged herself tightly, feeling as though she might fly apart.
I couldn’t save her. I can’t even save myself.
When she opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was the flashlight lying on its side, its beam cutting a useless line across the floor of the small room. The great hall was gone. There were objects beyond the light’s reach, but she didn’t really want to know what they were. She bent quickly to pick up the flashlight, but her fingers brushed something ice cold. Shining the flashlight on it, she saw it was a set of scissors, not any longer than her palm. They had a bright white pearly handle but the blades were stained and rusted.
Still shaking, she picked them up and put them in the pocket of her robe.
Will I die here? Like she did?
The first answer to come to her mind was an emphatic no. Please, please, please, no.
She couldn’t get Allison’s image out of her head. Her arms and legs had been like those of a child, even though she’d been much older than Ariel. She thought of the pictures of Holocaust victims she’d seen.
Was the same thing going to happen to her?
Shooting the light around the room, she saw it was completely empty but for an orderly stack of woven baskets the size of the antique traveling trunks that her mother sometimes had around. The trunks had been a source of wonder to her as a kid and always made her think of Babar the elephant and his family and their travels. Safe thoughts. Happy thoughts.
But the little girl that she had been was far away from this horrible place. She would not look inside them.
Shining the flashlight ahead of her, she hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her with a dull thud. And almost walked into the man standing on the other side of it.
“Hello, Ariel.”
Chapter 72
The massive door leading into the tunnel was wide open. Randolph was the only thing standing between Ariel and freedom.
“Jefferson told me you didn’t look like one of us,” Randolph said. “I never met your father. But he was a lawyer, wasn’t he? I’m sure I would’ve liked him.”
Unused as she’d become to moving quickly, Ariel propelled herself into the small space between the man and the hallway wall. There was no thinking to it. She didn’t have to get a good look at him to know that he was the man she’d just seen murder his own brother all those years ago.
Before she could get past, he snaked out an arm and shoved her backwards onto the floor. She hit with an agonized cry. The flashlight fell to the floor and blinked out. The only light left in the hallway was the weak amber glow from the two lights on the wall. Still, it was enough light to see the cruelty in Randolph’s face.
“You’re hurt.” Randolph’s face changed with an alarming swiftness that belied the wrinkles there, and he put out a hand to help her up from the floor.
She took it. She had no other choice. But when she tried to stand, her legs gave out and she fell against him.
“You know who I am?” he asked, still supporting her.
She wasn’t fooled by the kindness in his voice.
“I’m not stupid,” she said.
Standing, but still unsteady, she jerked away.
“No,” he said. He pulled her to him, locking her arms behind her.
As much as he was hurting her, Ariel bit back her fear. Knowing what he’d done to the two people she’d just seen, she continued to thrash, trying to pull free.
He was strong. Maybe as strong as her father.
I am going to die, just like them.
Randolph bent his head to speak just a few inches from her ear. “Did Jefferson bring you here? What did he tell you? Did he already do something to you?”
The nasty implication in his words made her more afraid.
She struggled, landing a heel on one of Randolph’s shins. He grunted, but his grasp on her didn’t loosen.
“Ariel,” he said. “Stop!”
She jerked her head back, trying to hit him in the chest or neck, but he snaked his arm around her and squeezed. Once he had a firm hold on her, he dragged her into the bedroom, pushing her onto the bed.
“You’ve got to behave, Ariel.”
She didn’t want to die here, without seeing her mother again. Without the sunlight.
Not thinking, she let her eyes stray to the bright gold sandal lying on the chair across the room.
The man glanced that way as well, and she knew in that second that he had something to do with the Karin woman dying. She wasn’t sure what it was. Had he been up on the balcony that night? Or had it been Jefferson there? Either was a horrible choice.
“She was vile,” Randolph said, seeing where Ariel was looking. “She did the unthinkable to a child. She had it sucked out of her womb like so much trash.
And then she lied about it.”
“You were there when she died, weren’t you?” Ariel said.
“She pretended to be so brave, so brash. She loved doing the things I did with her here. She got a kick out of Jefferson, too. Screwing the son after screwing the father. But I’m afraid Jefferson took it all too seriously. The poor boy fell in love with her.”
He stepped nearer to the bed, so tall beneath the low ceiling of the room that he seemed like a giant. With that thought, Ariel suddenly had the sense that they weren’t alone in the room. Someone else had been here—more than a single someone—and thought the same thing. The feeling overwhelmed her, and while her nerves were already at their limit, somehow it was okay. She felt less afraid. She wasn’t alone. As much as she wished her father were there to help her, she understood that he had never really been there. Something had tricked her into thinking he was because she’d wanted it so badly. But someone was here. Someone who didn’t want her to be hurt.
“She didn’t even scream, did she?” Randolph said. “Just like the other one. As though they were afraid someone would hear them. Someone would know their shame.”
“Get away from me,” Ariel said.
“That was her robe. Allison’s robe. You didn’t know Allison. But you’re young, like she was.”
Randolph stroked her leg. Ariel flinched.
“You must have been pretty. The way you look must break your mama’s heart.” He looked around the room, as though enjoying some distant memory. “Your mother’s been in this room, you know. But she wouldn’t remember. So your being here makes a great deal of sense.”
Ariel hardly heard him. All the panic she’d felt up to that moment dissipated. The walls of the room felt close and solid and, strangely, safe.
Randolph rested his fingertips on the edge of the bed and leaned forward.
She knew what he was capable of, but it didn’t matter. She was not going to die.
Wait.
The voice that came to her was feminine. She had heard that voice before. It was weak, but this time it wasn’t frightened.
When he reached for her again, she didn’t resist, though every nerve in her body screamed for her to kick out, to do her best to get away. The robe had fallen away, and her undamaged leg was exposed, glaringly white. She felt gooseflesh rise on her leg as he touched her ankle, her thigh.
He was awkward climbing onto the bed.
Wait.
I don’t know if I can!
He lowered himself onto her. He smelled like medicine and disinfectant from the hospital. And coffee.
His face is too close!
Except for her father and Jefferson, and the doctors and therapists working on her, no man had ever been so close to her. If he wondered why she no longer resisted him, he showed no sign.
Please! I can’t!
But the voice had left her. Was she alone? With him?
She felt his belt buckle against her stomach, and something worse against the top of her thigh that made her want to scream. He pushed her robe aside, and his hand was sweaty on her skin.
She had to wait. Wait until he turned his head.
He stiffened when the scissors pierced his neck, and his mouth opened in a cry of agonized surprise.
Chapter 73
“Well, look who’s awake.”
The cheerful face of a very young nurse smiled down at Bertie. “Can you tell me today’s date, Mrs. Bliss? I want us to give the doctor a good report.”
When Bertie tried to speak, she felt like she was trying to talk from under water. “Where am I, dear?” she said slowly. “I feel like an elephant stepped on my head.”
The nurse laughed. “That’s a good start. We’ll get that pain taken care of right away, don’t you worry.”
As the nurse started away, Bertie knew she had to stop her. She reached out and touched her arm.
“There’s someone . . .” she said. She knew she had to talk to someone, and could visualize her phone. She was unsure about who it was she needed to call, but she was sure she would remember just as soon as she saw the phone. “I need my phone.”
“I don’t know that you have a phone here. They brought you into emergency a couple of days ago, and you didn’t have anything with you.”
Emergency? Bertie suddenly couldn’t breathe. She could hardly focus on the nurse leaning so close for the pain in her chest and head. Nearby, a monitor went into alarm mode.
“It’s all right, honey. Breathe!”
Bertie gasped, clutched at the sheets. She’d known by the look in his eyes that the man wanted to hurt her. Before he raised a hand to her, she had understood exactly why he wanted to hurt her. And it broke her heart.
The nurse flitted around her, finally put a mask over her face.
Oxygen eased its way into her nose and mouth, and she felt the pain in her chest relent.
That man. I know who it was.
“Better?” the nurse said.
Bertie breathed deeply.
Where is Randolph? She wanted to ask the nurse, but didn’t have the energy.
“I’m going away for a minute.” The nurse touched the monitor to turn off the alarm. “But I’ll be right back. Okay?”
Bertie nodded. The oxygen was clearing her thoughts, but not the pain in her head.
Why can’t I remember? Think, Roberta. Think!
Her father’s voice. It was always his voice when she knew she was in trouble. When she was feeling pressured, she never could remember important things. Everything had been so simple when she was a girl. If she did well, her life was happy and calm. If she made a mistake, then she was punished. It had seemed to her that it was the way the world was supposed to work. She’d tried to raise Jefferson that way, God knew. Maybe there had been times when she should’ve punished him instead of looking the other way. But he’d been so good. Such an easy baby. It had been the Judge who was hard on him. She’d just wanted to make up for it. It wasn’t Jefferson’s fault that his father was sometimes cruel.
But he’s never too cruel, is he? He never crosses the line. Not with me. Not with Jefferson.
Now she couldn’t stop thinking about the three of them. Their life together.
Isn’t it a good life?
It had been everything she had ever wanted. Everything that her parents had told her married life should be. Except her mother hadn’t prepared her for Randolph’s peculiar tastes in their marriage bed. Her mother had told her (rather proudly, Bertie thought) that she had always insisted that Bertie’s father approach her only when the lights were off, and never, never, never at that particular time of the month. There had been girls from school, of course. Girls who weren’t afraid to share that kind of information with each other. When she’d told her best friend and former roommate Mary Borgsmiller about what Randolph had required her to do—well, she had been so ashamed, but she’d had to tell somebody—Mary had giggled and told her that she was being a prude. “You should’ve watched more Three’s Company and less The Facts of Life, Bertie!”
The truth was that he’d never hurt her. He teased her a lot, but he’d never humiliated her outside of the bedroom. Certainly their life had its pleasures.
Yes! It’s been a good life!
But a thought pressed against the inside of her throbbing head. The hospital room smelled of disinfectant and was too chilly to be comfortable. The blanket resting on top of her was too thin to offer protection. She was alone, and she hated to be alone. If she had had her way, her house would’ve been filled with children: noisy, happy children on whom she could shower love and silliness and happiness. But there had only ever been Jefferson.
It was Jefferson she’d been thinking about. Until three or four years ago, Jefferson had been hers. Then he had changed. He still liked to be around her, but Randolph had put a kind of claim on him, taking him away unexpectedly on overnight trips, sharing jokes with him she wasn’t in on. But the opposite had happened, too. Sudden, angry arguments between them that she never u
nderstood. Randolph fuming, Jefferson storming out of the house. She’d been relieved when he went to college. She loved him so much, but she knew now that she had failed to make him care about other people with the same intensity that she had. Randolph had interfered.
Her breath had calmed to almost normal; her heartbeat felt steady. That would make the nurse happy, and it meant she might remember things better.
Bertie gingerly touched her hand to her head and felt the bandages that swathed her like a nubby turban. The pain made her want to squeeze her eyes shut against the wan sunlight coming through the cheap vinyl blinds, and call for the nurse to bring her morphine or something else terribly strong. With the same hand (the other was attached to the IV), she reached for the bedside telephone and, with some effort, slid it closer.
“Mom?”
Bertie opened her eyes. Her darling boy!
Jefferson stood over her, tentative but concerned. At least he loved her, and she was glad of that.
“Mom, we thought . . .” he said.
“Will you give me that cup of water? My throat’s dry.”
Her head felt much better. The nurse had indeed eventually returned, trailing a rather bored looking male resident who shone an appallingly sharp light in her eyes, okayed some painkiller to be administered through her IV, and left without further comment. Still, she had called a weak “thank you” after him. Even if he didn’t have any manners, she had managed to keep hers.
Jefferson picked up the cup of water and held its straw to her lips. When she was done drinking, she waved the cup away with some irritation.
“What’s wrong? Do you want me to get the nurse?”
“A terrible thing has happened, Jefferson. I don’t have my phone and I need you to get a message to Rainey when you leave here. I need you not to tell your father.”
“That’s crazy, Mom,” he said. “Rainey can’t do anything for you. Dad and I will take care of you. You need to stop worrying about other people like that and concentrate on feeling better.”
“What I feel is devastated. And not a little afraid of the fact that some man broke into our house and tried to kill me.”
Bliss House: A Novel Page 31
