F Paul Wilson - Novel 05

by Mirage (v2. 1)

  She heard a noise from across the foyer. She crossed it and peeked in the library.

  She'd always loved this great room filled with books.

  Eathan's retreat, a world redolent of rich leather and aging paper. Now she felt like a stranger here.

  Eathan sat in a high-backed leather chair in a pool of light from a single lamp. No book in his hands; instead he stared al the designs in the oriental rug at his feet. The effect was strange and morbid.

  "Eathan—"

  He looked up slowly, as though he'd somehow aged since this morning.

  "Julia... I was going to come up. Going to apologize for overreacting earlier. I was just so upset—"

  "And you had every right to be. I'm the one who should be apologizing. I'm truly sorry."

  He nodded slowly. "I accept your apology. Let's put it behind us and move on, shall we. Just promise me... no more secrets."

  No more secrets? she wanted to say. Look at what you've been keeping from me.

  "You look tired," she said.

  "I am. Getting poor Alma taken care of, consoling her son..."

  She stepped closer.

  He kept looking at her. "You've had some dinner, I assume. I told cook not to bother fixing me anything."

  On the table to his right she spotted a half-empty brandy snifter sitting next to a crystal decanter. She noted his barely slurred words. Had she ever seen Eathan under the influence, even the slightest bit tipsy? She didn't think so.

  "Has there been any word about O'Donnell?" she asked.

  "Word? You mean have they caught him? No, and I very much doubt they will. Just as I doubt that he'll come back here."

  "You don't think it might have been an accident?"

  Eathan grunted. "And is what happened to your sister an accident too?"

  She took another step.

  "I have to tell you something ... ask you something."

  Eathan was staring forward again. He nodded. "More secrets?"

  "As a matter of fact, yes. When you were gone ... I went into the memoryscape again."

  Eathan nodded, still looking blankly ahead. He didn't act surprised.

  "And?"

  She was about to tell him the memory of the game she and his brother had played, the math drill. But she stopped herself. That wasn't the important issue here.

  "I saw a gravestone ... for my mother and father."

  She waited for him to say something but he sat there, silent, staring. This was so hard.

  "I saw my father's birth date."

  Still no response. Was Eathan even awake?

  "And it was the same as yours. In the memoryscape, the same date, meaning that—"

  And now, like that fortune-teller, Eathan turned his head. "That your father and I were twins. So?"

  "You mean it's true?"

  "Of course it is. Identical twins, just like you and Samantha. Why are you so surprised?"

  "I... well, I never knew."

  "Of course you did. Everyone knows that. Or at least they knew it when it mattered—when we were both alive."

  "Well, I didn't. Why didn't you tell me?"

  He stared at her, and she saw the lips within his beard twist with impatience. His words took on an edge.

  "For the same reason I don't go around reminding you that you and Samantha are twins. Why should I tell you what I assume you already know?"

  The library felt alien. Here she stood, surrounded by great walls, by endless spines of books, and at the center, her uncle. And she wondered ... if he shaved off his beard, would he look just like her father? Would it be like seeing her father again?

  She took a breath in the stuffy room.

  "You should have told me."

  And then, bitterly, with his tongue tripping ever so slightly on the words, Eathan said, "And you should have told me about Liam."

  Stung, Julie turned and left the room.

  2

  Julie slept fitfully. She awoke a number of times, and on each; occasion she could taste the remnant of some bizarre dream. Once she was traveling on a train, never able to get off. Next she was in a store trying to buy something but all the clerks and checkers had blank faces, no mouths, no eyes.

  Once she sat up, shivering in fear, like a little girl waking, from a nightmare, feeling something coming for her, something dangerous.

  She was tempted to get up and walk down to Sam's room. At least there'd be someone there, a nurse sitting at her bedside reading a book by a pale yellow light.

  Funny, in life she'd had no use for Sam, but now she felt as if she needed her.

  In life . . .

  But she's not dead, Julie thought. Sam's not dead.

  But she might as well be if I don't do something. It's all falling apart in there. Devolution, entropy, got to find an answer before her memoryscape flattens into an endless, featureless, lifeless sea.

  Eventually Julie fell asleep again.

  Twenty-Six

  Dr. Elizabeth Loftus is doing fascinating work with false memory. She's been able to create fake childhood memories in adults ranging in age from 18 to 63. Her subjects became genuinely convinced that they'd got lost in a particular store at a particular age; each embellished the false childhood memory with a host of personal details and emotions, but it never happened. Some were so adamant about the veracity of the memory they were willing to bet money on it.

  —Random notes: Julia Gordon

  1

  Morning light filled her room. For a moment it seemed like another dream, but then she felt the cold, damp morning air, and the light in her eyes. What time was it?

  She turned to the end table and saw the small digital clock. 10:30. Way too late.

  I'm sleeping too much, dreaming too much . . . chasing phantoms, chasing secrets.

  1 think I'm losing it.

  She got up quickly. She needed a dose of reality—needed to talk to Eathan some more. She had to clear the air between them.

  Downstairs, the maid informed her that Dr. Gordon had left, that he had business to attend to in Whitby.

  Julie went into the dining room hoping for a note from Eathan, but found nothing except a pile of rolls and coffee. She picked up a roll and bit into it, savoring the taste as it crumbled in her mouth. Good to have a real sensation. She poured herself a cup of coffee, dosing it with milk and sugar. She gulped it down and poured another.

  She had to get out of the house.

  She finished the roll and found her jacket in the hall closet. She stepped out the front door and stood there, taking in the gently rolling hills that led to the high moors. A chilly morning, damp, rehearsing for an English winter. No police about this morning.

  She went down the front steps and cut around the side, heading for the cliffs.

  She took the path slowly, scanning left and right. What am I looking for? she wondered. A bit of fabric stuck to one of the brambles? A half-smoked Gauloise? A shoe-print?

  And all the time she wondered: What if Liam had nothing to do with Alma Evans's death? What if she did fall? I mean, if a whole hotel can fall off one of these cliffs, why not a lone woman? It had almost happened to her.

  Why the hell couldn't she accept that Liam had done this? He had motive: The missing tape of Sam's memoryscape placed him at the scene of the Branham Bank bombing. He had opportunity: He'd been on the grounds; maybe Alma had caught him stealing the tape and he disposed of her. It was all so plausible.

  Resisting the obvious was irrational, so much more like Sam than Julie.

  Maybe I'm not the girl I was.

  She kept searching the trail, peering into the tiny crevices of the rocks. Surely good Inspector Stephens and his men would have found any clue that had been left behind. But it was important to Julie to look for herself.

  The wind blew at her open jacket, and the mist dampened her skin.

  Then she spotted something peeking out of a tiny crack between two rocks. A bit of white. But when she bent to reach for it, she found it was a tiny flower
with three white petals. Pretty, hiding in the crevice, protected from the wind.

  She kept walking until she reached the cliffs.

  No need to go to the edge, she thought. Unless someone else was down on the rocks.

  There was a grim thought.

  Just yesterday morning she'd come up here to clear her head, to look over the edge—and all hell had broken loose.

  Poor Alma.

  She stared out at the water and watched the sea fret, as the locals called the fog that rolled in with the tide, make its way toward shore. Beautiful... and eerie. The fog bank seemed almost alive, moving like a living thing.

  She turned around.

  And saw that she wasn't alone.

  Liam stood on the path, glaring at her. Julie was keenly aware that the cliff was behind her, and that below were the same rocks that had so roughly cradled Alma's body. She felt a tightening in her midsection.

  Liam's eyes flashed. "You gave me the hell up!"

  Julie tried to keep her voice calm. "You should know— th-that there are probably police here, watching—"

  Liam took a step closer.

  "Don't give me any of that crap! The stupid locals couldn't find their own bloody shoelaces. But now the Yard and the rest of the damn country know I'm here."

  Julie glanced over her shoulder. She could hear the sound of waves breaking on the rocks below... far below.

  "What did you expect? Alma Evans is dead."

  Liam looked away, raising his hands to the sky. "Ah, and you're thinking I did that? More likely it was your bloody uncle. Or maybe—just maybe—it was an accident. Did that little thought ever occur to you?"

  The waves crashing, a steady tattoo.

  "But you wasted no time in telling 'em about me, did you now."

  "She's dead. Eathan thought—"

  Liam leaped forward and grabbed Julie. "I should push you off the bloody cliff!"

  She let out a yell but the wind took it, and she was far too frightened to make another sound as he drove her back, closer and closer to the precipice, backing her up until her heels were on the edge and she could feel the sand and shale giving way beneath them.

  "Why don't I give them another body to scrape off the rocks?" He shook her. "Eh?"

  But then he yanked her back and shoved her roughly away from the edge.

  "I didn't do a thing, love," he said, near breathless with anger. "Not a blessed thing. I wanted to help Sammi. Christ, I wanted to help you, but now ..."

  He took a step back down the path.

  "Well, you've fixed it so's I'd better be makin' meself scarce. It's too bad. I loved your sister... and"—he looked back at her with a flash of a smile—"I liked you."

  Julie believed him. He could have thrown her off the cliff. And he easily could have sneaked into Oakwood and harmed Sam by now. But he hadn't.

  "I tell you this," he shouted. "That uncle of yours has more secrets than those mementos of your childhood. Sammi suspected something about him. But you're all she's got now. Look after her well, sister Julie. And do this for me, will you?" He looked Julie right in the eye. "If she ever comes out of it, tell her that I never gave up on her." Another flash of a smile. "And tell her that if there's a way, I'll be back." His expression turned grim. "And you, sister Julie—you watch your back."

  With that, Liam raced down the path.

  2

  Like a moth to the flame, Julie was drawn back to the study.

  She wished she'd had more time with Liam, time to get over the shock of his presence so she could ask him about the missing videotape. Had he seen it? Had he peered through a window while Alma was watching it?

  What about that scene on the cliff? Was he really going away, or was he hoping she'd pass that on to the police while he stayed nearby, watching?

  A thought struck her: If he'd been able to pilfer from the family room, why couldn't he have reached the study? He'd been so fascinated by the wall cabinet.

  Julie stepped over to Eathan's desk and opened the top drawer.

  The key was missing. Damn! Liam had been up here too.

  She ran to the wall cabinet and unlocked it with her own key. She heard her breathing, deeper, huskier... almost hyperventilating. Got to keep cool, she thought.

  She pulled open the doors, and with the nervy aplomb of a practiced safecracker, she ran through the combination for the file cabinet. She flubbed it once, and for a dreadful moment she feared the combination had been changed. But the second time through, the lock opened.

  Inside, all the files hung in straight, neat rows, pretty much as she'd left them. She rifled through them, seeing the letters, the affidavits, the yellow and tattered clippings from decades ago.

  They seemed to belong to someone else's life.

  She went to the window. The driveway was clear, empty. I could have all the time in the world, she thought. Or just a few minutes.

  A scene she'd witnessed in Sam's 'scape had hovered on the edge of her thoughts for the past two days, haunting her. Now it leaped front and center: little Julie, playing with matches behind the furnace.

  She pawed to the back of the file and pulled out one of the old newspaper clippings. This one was dated later than the one in the unlocked file. She scanned the crumbly paper, forcing herself to read every word, numbing herself to the gruesome details of the fire: How the bodies of Lucinda and Nathan Gordon were found close together—"As if he was trying to get his wife out," a state trooper said—a fire of unknown origin, probably electrical, that started in the basement, and how it spread so quickly through the old house.

  . . . started in the basement. . .

  Julie felt sick. She leaned against the file cabinet.

  Oh, God. Was it me? Eathan had always said it was an electrical fire that raged through the wooden house. But was I the cause? Did 1 start the fire that killed my parents?

  She closed her eyes and felt the horror, the fiery terror of being trapped by the choking smoke and searing heat... no way out and surrounded by hungry flames.

  She straightened and tried to shake it off. I don't know. I'll never know. And I can't beat myself up about something 1 may have had nothing to do with.

  She kept reading.

  The bodies were burned beyond recognition. Eathan Gordon, brother to Nathan, could not identify either corpse.

  That's what they were, then. Corpses. Not people anymore.

  But the dental records for both Lucinda and Nathan Gordon had confirmed exactly who the corpses were.

  That was it, then. Two lives ended, two bodies reduced to charcoal, identified by their teeth, and buried. Nothing left but a headstone and some yellowed newspaper clippings.

  And their children, of course. Sam . . . and me.

  One of whom may have started the fire.

  Her hands trembled as she replaced the article. But as she closed the hanging folder she spotted something she hadn't noticed before-, a flat box of some sort, wedged far back in the long file drawer.

  She pulled it out, no easy thing with the bulging files.

  A metal box, letter-size—locked.

  She pried at the lid but that sturdy little lock held it shut tight She put the box on the table behind her and reached back into the drawer, feeling around its bottom, searching for a key. Nothing.

  Julie turned and stared at the box sitting on the table. She thought of matrioshkas, all those nesting dolls in Sam's 'scape. And here in the real world: Inside the locked wall cabinet is a locked file cabinet, and inside the locked file cabinet is a locked box.

  And inside that?

  She picked it up and studied the lock more closely. She could break it open. It didn't look that strong.

  She put it down again. What am I thinking? Hadn't she hurt Eathan enough already? When am I going to stop?

  She had to put the box back.

  She was reaching for it when she heard steps in the hall outside. She hurried to the door and peeked down the hallway. Clarice was heading this way.

 
; Julie darted back to the file drawer and pushed it shut. She jumbled the numbers on the combination. Then she shut the wall-cabinet doors and locked them.

  When she turned she saw the metal box on the table behind her. Damn! She'd forgotten it. Or had she? Too late to reopen the wall cabinet. Only one thing to do.

  Julie hurried to the nearest bookshelf and grabbed the first oversized volume her hand contacted. She tucked it under her arm and slipped the box behind it. She reached the door just as the maid entered.

  Clarice jumped at the sight of her. "Oh Lord, mum, you gave me a start!"

  "I'm sorry," Julie said. She hurried by her, keeping the book between Clarice and the box.

  In Sam's room the nurse got up and excused herself as soon as Julie entered.

  Julie went to her sister's closet—empty now except for bedding and medical supplies—and put die box on the top shelf, slipping it under a comforter. Later, after Clarice was gone, she'd return it to the locked file cabinet.

  She turned back to her sister and moved to the bed.

  "What's in the box, Sam? Any ideas?"

  She turned to the computer terminal and its attached headgear, ominous now as the virtual reality it created became less virtual... and more real.

  She stepped over to it and eased herself into the recliner.

  "Am I going to be hurt some more, Sam?" She looked at her sister one more time before slipping on the headgear. "I want to know about the fire, Sam. I want to know if I had anything to do with starting it. Do you know? Can you help me?"

  She slipped on the headgear, took a deep breath, and started the program.

  Twenty-Seven

  Source amnesia is the root of most false memories. The source of a memory—its context in time and place—is its most fragile aspect, and. often the first to decay. Once that's gone, the memory is adrift, so to speak, and the brain can no longer distinguish whether the event it encoded was real or imagined.

  —Random notes: Julia Gordon

  You slowly turn around in the newly-empty study, and your eye is caught again by the tantalizingly familiar boardwalk painting. You remember the white dot you saw at its end after your brush with the thing in the sea.