Was anyone here? Sam already should be settled inside, silent and immobile, unaware that her mind, her memories, were a South Bronx of the cerebrum. Where was Eathan? Over by his flowers, planting bulbs for next spring?
"Julia."
The voice from behind startled her.
She turned and saw Eathan striding toward her.
He was dressed in the relaxed garb of a country squire, all tweed and expensive leather boots. Every time they'd spoken since she left for the States, he'd asked her to come and visit. Do the holidays at Oakwood, spend some summer vacation there. She always found an excuse to put him off.
Now she was here.
She shifted the bag in her hand. "I'd forgotten how beautiful it was."
Eathan turned and looked around at the house. "Oakwood? I haven't done much inside, of course. Kept it clean. Kept your rooms pretty much as they were."
Eathan had never married. The very idea of her uncle Eathan married seemed strange. He was perhaps the most self-sufficient of men. No room for a woman in this picture.
But that was before she had left. Had things changed?
He reached out and took her bag, and started walking toward the house.
"Is Sam—?"
"Yes, I had an ambulance bring her here yesterday afternoon. She's in her old bedroom. Dr. Evans thinks it best she be in familiar surroundings."
"Who's Dr. Evans?"
"Samantha's psychiatrist."
"Psychiatrist? I didn't know—"
"You'll learn all about it later. I had to move some things out of Samantha's room to make space for the monitoring equipment. I hired a trio of nurses who are rotating coverage, plus physical therapists... all very good people."
Julie nodded. They were on the steps that led to the giant oak doors.
"I'd like to start right away," she said. "I thought I saw some further deterioration before we left. I'd hate to think that's continuing."
"Yes. Well, anything you want I'll arrange for. Oh—I've already had the satellite dish installed on the roof, and they tell me our present phone line will handle the—what's it called?"
"Modem?"
Eathan smiled. "Right. A modem."
Julie knew he preferred old-fashioned forms of communication. Her descriptions of the wonders of the Internet had always fallen on politely deaf ears.
"Anyway, the lines are all set. You should be able to connect to your Dr. Siegal in New York."
Eathan pushed open the front door. Julie entered the foyer, all polished wood—the oak from which the manor took its name—and saw the staircase leading to the second floor. It still seemed terribly large.
She thought of the scene she'd relived in Sam's memory-scape, the two of them playing right here. And she remembered that the memory had been altered. Why had the nonexistent Perseus sculpture been substituted for the real-life microscope? It bothered her that she couldn't find an answer.
"Would you like to freshen up, perhaps some lunch?"
Julie smiled at Eathan. She saw his concern for her, always worried that she didn't get enough rest, that she didn't eat enough food.
She shook her head. "No. Let me get started."
"Very well. I'll put your bag in your old room. You know where Samantha's room is. The nurse is there...."
Julie reached out and touched Eathan's arm. "Thanks. I'll be fine."
Julie walked up the great carpeted staircase, her hand trailing on the smooth grooves of the walnut handrail. She knew those grooves, remembered chasing Sam up and down these stairs countless times.
Ten years since she'd lived here, and with each step, more memories of her childhood seeped from the walls and stalked her all the way to her room.
2
Her bedroom looked more like a guest room. She'd pretty much cleaned it out when she moved to the States, leaving no sign that anyone had grown up here. As she dropped her bags next to the bed she realized she was hungry after all.
Downstairs in the large, anachronistically modern kitchen she found some sliced turkey and Diet Coke in the fridge. The cook, an apple-cheeked matron with a warm, friendly smile, came in and insisted on making her a turkey sandwich on heavy whole-wheat bread from the bakery in Bay. She remembered this bread, dark, heavy, a meal by itself. She wolfed it down and headed for Sam's room.
On the way she stopped off in the library. It looked much the same as it had during her school days when she used to come here to check out something in the encyclopedia. Smelled the same too—that rich mixture of old paper in good leather bindings. She inhaled and sighed. This had always been her favorite place, with its bookshelves stretching all the way up to the ceiling, crammed with tomes of all shapes, colors, sizes, and bindings. The old Britannica set still occupied its spot on the shelves immediately to the right. Julie moved to her left, found the library's book on Greek mythology, and looked up Perseus.
A pretty busy fellow in his day, it seemed, but Perseus's major accomplishment was killing Medusa, the snake-haired horror whose visage turned men to stone. He did it by not looking directly at her, but watching her in the polished surface of his shield as he walked backward. To fool Medusa about his backward approach, he'd worn a mask on the back of his head.
Right. The Perseus sculpture Samantha broke in the memoryscape had some sort of face on the back of its helmet.
Whatever, the trick worked: Perseus got close enough to cut off Medusa's head.
But why was Perseus substituted for the microscope in Sam's memory? What was the point? The mask? The shield mirror? Looking backward? Not looking backward?
Was there a point?
Frustrated, Julie jammed the book back into its slot on the shelf and went upstairs to Sam's bedroom.
She stopped on the threshold. White curtains were drawn against the morning light. A woman in a starched nurse's uniform swiveled in her chair, her reading glasses perched precariously on her nose. She started at the sight of her, glanced quickly at her patient, then back to Julie.
Yeah, we're twins.
Julie raised a hand to the nurse, indicating that there was no need to get up.
Sam's room—but different.
Toward the end, before she ran off to Europe, Sam had started filling her walls with art, her own bizarre sketches and strange drawings from the other students at art school, along with garish images ripped from punk-rock magazines, all haphazardly taped to the wall.
Most of them were gone. This wasn't Sam's room anymore.
Only one painting remained on the wall now, something Sam did when she was young. A country house in a meadow, sitting under a perfect blue sky. Unusual for Sam's work, even at that early age. The only giveaway that Sam did the painting was the windows in the house. They were all black, dark ugly smudges dotting the carefully rendered clapboard.
Julie's eyes always were drawn to those black holes, to the secrets inside the house.
The nurse was still looking up.
"Miss, would you like a few minutes alone?"
She had a thick Manchester accent; she spoke in a hushed tone as if this were a wake.
Which it may very well be, thought Julie.
Julie shook her head. "No, thank you."
She walked around the bed to the makeshift computer table holding her equipment. Everything looked in good order. She'd have to check the connections, of course, then do some tests to see if the satellite link was operational.
She flicked a switch. The computer beeped, and ran through its diagnostic check.
She looked at Sam, half expecting her to react to the noise.
But she lay there, immobile. Her skin smooth, her face relaxed, giving no hint of the chaos within. She looked free. At peace.
Julie looked around for another chair and saw an oak straight-back against the wall. Sam used to sit in it and pretend to do homework, all the while filling sketchbook after sketchbook.
Julie pulled the chair to the console and sat down.
3
It took most of
the afternoon to initialize the system and set ;jf the protocols with the satellite link.
When everything was up and running, she asked the nurse to call Eathan into the room.
"I think I'm all ready," she said when he arrived.
"You're going in now? Can't you wait until after dinner?"
Julie shook her head. "No. Time is important, I think. I told you, I'm concerned about progressive deterioration. Besides, Dr. Siegal is on-line and waiting. Is something wrong?"
"I have to go to Leeds, to pick up someone at the airport."
She turned. "Really? Who?"
"Someone who may help. Someone who you'll want to meet. But that's my secret until dinner."
She smiled. "Thanks for letting me do this. I know you don't agree...."
Eathan raised a finger.
"Just be careful."
"Not to worry. Dr. Siegal will be monitoring me all the way."
This time, anyway.
"The wonders of modern technology. Oh—what about the nurse?"
"She'd better wait outside. What I'm doing is about as deep an invasion as one can make. I'd like to show some respect for Sam's privacy."
"Consider it done."
As Eathan and the nurse left, Julie donned her helmet, then slipped the data glove onto her right hand.
She opened and shut the fingers, double-checking that her guide, the glove, was in good working condition.
She spoke softly. "Okay, Sam—let's see what you've been up to while I was away."
Julie used the glove to press icons on the screen, initializing the programs, establishing the link, checking the feedback system. A green light at the bottom told her that the feed was going out to Dr. S.
"Here we go," Julie said.
She leaned forward; it had been days since her last visit. She licked her dry lips. Would there be anything left?
Thirteen
Memories die. If the brain loses synoptic connections to a memory, it's gone forever—the event cannot be reconstructed by the brain's convergence systems, at least not without help.
—Random notes: Julia Gordon
You sense it immediately.
It's different.
Sam's memoryscape is even more of a disaster zone, more of a post-apocalyptic nightmare. There's been change, deterioration.
You recognize the nodes that you visited previously, barely glowing in the deepening gloom. The dollhouse estate appears to be sinking into the scorched surface of the 'scape as though it were quicksand, taking its childhood memories with it.
Some of the glowing mounds you saw on the horizon during your first visit have disappeared completely, and the remaining there are like scattered blooms in the desert.
This is bad. If you had any doubts about the progressive deterioration of Sam's memoryscape, this confirms them. Her mind—her life, her self—are disappearing before your eyes.
But wait... the studio is still glowing. Have the paintings within changed? The studio is key, you're convinced of it.
But you keep turning, farther to your right. And there on the horizon, something still glows, pulsating with life. Excitement bubbles within you as you point the glove and sail toward it.
Along the way, you notice a white ball—glaringly white— rolling along the ground on a path diagonal to yours. Your paths will intersect ahead. You look beyond it for someplace from which it could have sprung but you see nothing, no one. It appears to be moving under its own power. You pause, waiting for it to come within reach, and when it does, you touch it. The ball stops. Its glowing white surface shimmers as a seam forms along its equator. It splits open and the northern hemisphere flips back, revealing its contents.
A cube, as black as the charred surface of the 'scape. You touch it and it splits open, revealing another glaringly white sphere. You touch the sphere and nothing happens. Nothing else nests within.
Another crazy matrioshka doll. First Sam in Julie in Sam, now this. Is there a reason for only three nested dolls? God, is it important? And why are two of the dolls always the same? What does it mean?
Your growing frustration tempts you to boot the whole mess across the memoryscape. But before you can do anything, the black cube snaps closed on the smaller sphere, and the outer sphere closes over the cube. The ball begins rolling again, rolling away, origin and destination unknown.
You watch it for a moment, then continue on toward the pulsating light. As you near it you see a vast plain. Odd figures stand here and there, a man on his knees, a girl holding a bird skeleton in her hands. A multicolored cube swirls, oozing color as though alive.
The figures cast long, black shadows ... and now you remember seeing this painting. You laugh. You know this strange place. It's a Salvador Dali, one of his whimsical surreal landscapes: The First Days of Spring. You prefer his earlier, more realistic work. This is dumb. But to Sam this was a disturbing painting, sad, overwhelming. You didn't get it.
So much about art you never got. All those extra courses you took in Saint Martha's School, determined to show Sam you could be as artsy-fartsy as she. All it took was a little effort.
Not. Even with a lot of effort, you never got it. But you have an excellent memory. You can see a painting and name the artist, the work, and even the year it was painted. But as to what it means or what it does for you?
Usually nothing.
But now to enter the painting, to see the figures move, the shadows stretch to the horizon, the colors pulsate ... it's wonderful. Incredibly beautiful.
And then you see something else. A new structure, not in the painting.
A house.
You stop. Something terribly familiar about that house.
You don't move any closer. You want an answer first. Whose house is it?
You look down at the ribbon bar showing Sam's respiration and pulse. Both have picked up. Because you're here? Or because—?
The house. You know what it is now. It's the house in Putnam County, in Millburn. Your house—before the fire, before it burned and took your mother and father away.
A pang of loss hits you like a blow, surprising you. Funny, you thought you were over that.
You hesitate.
You've pictured the house before, even thought about it, but always in flames. Always with the fire in the basement racing to the first floor, quickly dancing up to the roof. Always with your father rushing back in, running, hurrying to save your mother.
You never imagine the house like this: peaceful and intact, small and inviting, with a front porch with an old-fashioned glider, the clapboard siding painted eggshell white with rose trim.
They're in there, you think.
Your mother, your father, captured by Sam's memory, lookine the houselike they did.
Still, you don't move. It's too much for you.
And yet, how can you turn away? How can you not go in?
You point your glove at the old Victorian house and begin to glide toward it, up to the front door. It opens and ...
... the smells waft around you—the rich, sharp tang of the crackling fireplace competing with the aroma of the dinner in the oven, a roast of some kind. The light-bedizened balsam in the corner adds a pine scent to the mix.
A man comes out of the kitchen. Dark hair, thick, dark mustache, and piercing eyes.
Daddy.
The word, the concept, so ancient, so primal. Your heart stops. Time stops. You want to run to him, throw your arms around him, but you can't. You're not here. You're Scrooge and this is Christmas Past. You can only watch.
You watch Daddy stop at the fireplace and stare at it. He crouches and grabs a poker. He jabs at the wood, stabbing it, forcing it to burn hotter, brighter.
Little Julie and Sammi are crouching too, huddled together on the stairs. So small, just past toddler age, two girls in matching Dr. Demon's. No way to tell them apart, no way to keep them apart. They heard the shouting and have come down to see.
Someone else comes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands
on a flowered apron. It's Mom. Her blond hair in a Brady Bunch shag, and her smile so fragile, as if ready to crumble at any second. Except when she looks at you.
Mom ... as if it were yesterday.
"Nathan," she says. "Nathan, we have to talk."
Daddy continues his assault on the wood, unable to leave the fireplace, to turn to the woman.
Finally, he stands up, slowly leaning the poker against the red brick hearth.
"And what exactly did you want to talk about?"
Mom comes closer. Another wipe of the hands on the apron. Struggling to clean them, to make the stain go away.
"Nathan, what I said, I didn't mean."
"Oh, you didn't? That wasn't what you meant? Why the hell else would you say something like that?"
Mom doesn't move. She stands her ground. She shakes her head. "Because we have no life. You and your work, this obsession with your theories. You're never here. And when you are..." She glances toward the stairs and sees the two forms crouched there. "Never mind."
"No, Lucy, I won't 'never mind.' I care more about our family than you can imagine." He takes a step toward his wife. "But who do you care about? Who do you love?"
Why is he asking her that? And like that?
Mom shakes her head. She looks like she's about to cry. The two girls are frozen on the stairs, an audience watching everything, understanding none of it.
"I-I-"
Another step, and he's in her face, yelling. "Answer me! Who the hell do you love? Who the hell do you care about?"
And Mom turns away—except she turns slowly—like a wind-up ballerina. Her gaze falls on the two girls.
There's an answer there. Through the yelling, the jumble of smells and emotions... an answer.
And then a knock on the door. Ignoring it, Daddy turns back to the fire and stabs at the logs again. Mommy hesitates, then goes to the door and opens it.
It's Uncle Eathan, looking incredibly young, with longer hair and a much fuller beard than he wears now. The girls are so glad to see him. Even Mommy forces a smile.
F Paul Wilson - Novel 05 Page 12
