by John Saul
Michelle stared guiltily into her glass. “I heard you and Mom talking. Were you really going to send me to boarding school?”
“It wasn’t really decided yet—” he began lamely, but when he looked at Michelle’s eyes, he gave up the lie. “We thought it would be better for you,” he said. “Harrison was just getting too rough. You told us yourself you weren’t learning anything anymore. And anyway, it wasn’t boarding school. You’d have been home every day.”
“Well, this is better,” Michelle said. “I’ll make friends here, and I won’t have to make new friends next year. Will I?” There was a sudden anxiety in her eyes that made Cal want to reassure her.
“Of course not. Unless you hate it. Come to think of it, you’d better not hate it, because I’m not sure we’d be able to send you to private school on what I’m going to be making out here. But I want you to be happy, Princess. That’s very important to me.”
Michelle suddenly grinned, breaking the seriousness of the moment. “How could I not be happy? Everybody I know would do anything to be living here. We’ve got the ocean, and the forest, and this wonderful house. What more could I want?”
In a sudden burst of affection, Michelle threw herself into her father’s arms and kissed him.
“I love you, Daddy, really I do.”
“And I love you, too, princess,” Cal replied, his eyes moistening with affection. “I love you, too.” Then he disengaged himself from Michelle’s arms and stood up. “Come on. Let’s get back to those boxes before your mother sends both of us back to the orphanage!”
“I found it!” Michelle cried triumphantly. It was a big box, marked on every side with Michelle’s name. “Let’s take it up now, Daddy, please?” Michelle begged. “Everything I own is in it. Everything! Can’t I unpack it next? I mean, we don’t know where Mom wants everything anyway, and I could put all this stuff away myself. Please?”
Cal nodded his assent and helped her drag the immense box upstairs to the corner room that Michelle had claimed as her own.
“Want some help unpacking it?” he offered. Michelle shook her head vehemently. “And let you see what’s inside? If you knew what was in here, you’d make me throw half of it away.” In her mind’s eye, Michelle saw the jumble of old movie magazines—just the sort of thing her parents didn’t approve of—and the assorted souvenirs of her departing childhood that she had not been able to give up. “And don’t you dare tell Mom I said that,” she added, enlisting her father in a collaboration of silence to help her preserve her childish treasures.
Then, as Cal left her alone in the room, Michelle began ripping the carton open to unpack all her things, first onto the bed, then carefully hidden away in the closet and dresser.
It wasn’t until she’d put the last old toy away that she noticed the doll, still propped up on the window seat where she’d left it a few hours earlier. She went over to the window and picked it up, holding it level with her eyes.
“I’ll have to think of a name for you,” she said out loud. “Something old-fashioned, as old-fashioned as you.” She thought a moment, then smiled.
“Amanda!” she said. “That’s it I’ll call you Amanda. Mandy, for short.”
Then, pleased with her choice of a name, Michelle put the antique doll back on the window seat and went downstairs to see what her father was doing.
As the afternoon light faded from the corner room, the doll seemed to be staring out the window, its sightless glass eyes fixed on the potting-shed below.
CHAPTER 2
The potting-shed had a solid feel to it, a sturdiness that made June wonder what, exactly, its builder had in mind. It seemed to her, as she went over it for the fourth time, that it must have been intended as more than a simple storage and workroom—the windows overlooking the ocean were too carefully spaced; the floor, its oak planks barely worn after a century of use, too well laid; and its proportions too perfect for it to have been used merely by a gardener. No, she decided, whoever had designed this room had planned to use it himself. It was almost as though it had been designed as a studio. The windows overlooking the sea faced as nearly north as the bluff would allow, and beneath them a long counter with beautifully crafted storage cabinets ran the length of the room. Near one end of the counter, a large sink had been installed. The brick walls, streaked with the grime of years, had once been whitewashed, and the wood trim around the doors and windows, peeling now, were painted a soft green, as if someone had tried to match the shade of the foliage outside. One end of the room held a large closet. For the moment, June chose to leave its door closed, and imagine, instead, what might be hidden there. Relics, she thought deliciously. Relics of the past, just waiting to be discovered.
She lowered her body onto a stool and automatically counted the days until the baby would be born. Thirty-seven, she reflected, was a silly age at which to be having a baby. Not only silly, but possibly dangerous for both her and the child. Be careful, she reminded herself. But the thought wouldn’t stay with her—instead, she felt a compulsive urge to begin cleaning out the years of disuse that filled the little room.
She got to her feet, ignoring the heaviness of her body, and wondered how it was that a building that had been abandoned for so many years could have become so filled with junk.
In one corner she spotted a trash barrel, which was, miraculously, empty. Minutes later it was filled, and June considered the wisdom of climbing into it herself to compact its contents.
Congratulating herself on her restraint, she put the idea aside, knowing that if Cal caught her at it, he would be outraged at her carelessness. Besides, it would be just like her to break a leg and bring on a premature birth at the same time. Just now, she had entirely too much to do to risk such a thing. She settled instead for pushing the mess in the barrel as far down as it would go, then adding more until it was in danger of bursting. Then she began looking for something to clean the floor with.
Just inside the closet, disappointingly empty of long-secreted treasures, she found a broom, a pail, and a mop. Opening the window a crack in hope of freshening the stale air, June began sweeping the dust into a pile.
She was nearly halfway across the floor when the broom suddenly dragged against something. She poked at the caked dirt. When it didn’t break up, she stopped to look at it more closely.
It was a stain of some sort that covered a couple of square feet of the floor. Whatever had been spilled there had apparently been left to dry on its own, and, as it dried, dust had settled on it, worked its way in until now the mess lay, perhaps a quarter of an inch thick, impervious to the broom.
June stood up and reached for the mop, wondering what the chances were of finding the old plumbing still in working order. But before she had a chance to experiment, Cal and Michelle appeared in the doorway.
Cal gazed around the potting-shed and shook his head. “I thought you were just going to look around and make some plans.”
“I couldn’t resist,” June said ruefully. “It’s such a pretty room, and it was such a mess. I think I feel sorry for it.”
Michelle stared around the cluttered room, and her arms involuntarily hugged her body as if she had been seized by a sudden chill. Still standing by the door, an expression of distaste on her face, she spoke. “This place is creepy—what did they use it for?”
“It’s a potting-shed,” her mother explained. “The gardener’s headquarters, where he kept all his tools, and raised seedlings, and that sort of thing.” She paused for a moment, as if thinking something over, then went on. “But I have the strangest feeling they used this for something else, too.”
Cal’s brow arched. “Playing detective?”
“Not really,” June replied. “But look at it. The floor’s solid oak. And those cabinets! Who would build something like this just for the gardener?”
“Until about fifty years ago, a lot of people would have,” Cal said, chuckling. “They used to build things to last, remember?”
June shook
her head. “I don’t know. It just seems too nice to be a potting-shed. There must have been something more to it …”
“What’s that?” Michelle asked. She was pointing to the stain that June had been working on when they came in.
“I wish I knew. I think someone must have spilled some paint. I was just going to try to mop it up.”
Michelle went over to the stain and knelt beside it, examining it carefully. She started to reach out and touch it, but suddenly drew her hand away.
“It looks like blood,” she said. She stood up and faced her parents. “I’ll bet somebody got murdered in here.”
“Murdered?” June gasped. “What on earth would put such a morbid thought into your head?”
Michelle ignored her mother and appealed to her father instead. “Look at it, Daddy. Doesn’t it look like blood?”
A small smile playing around his mouth, Cal joined Michelle and examined the stain even more carefully than she had. When he stood up, his face was serious. “Definitely blood,” he said solemnly. “No question about it.” Then his smile got the best of him. “Of course, it could be paint, or some kind of clay, or God knows what. But if it’s blood you want, I’ll go along with it.”
“That’s disgusting,” June said, wanting to dismiss the idea. “It’s a beautiful room, and it’s going to make a wonderful studio, and please don’t try to tell me horrible things happened in here. I won’t believe it!”
Michelle shrugged, glanced around once more, and shook her head. “Well, you can have this place—I hate it.” She made a move toward the door. “Is it all right if I go down to the beach?”
“What time is it?” June asked doubtfully.
“Still plenty of time before dark,” Cal assured her. “But be careful, princess. I don’t want you taking a fall the first day here—I need paying patients, not my own family.”
As Michelle started toward the path that would take her down to the cove, her father’s words rang in her head: I don’t want you taking a fall. But why should she? She had never fallen in her life. Then it came to her. It was that boy. Her father was still thinking about that boy. But that hadn’t been his fault, and even if it had, it didn’t have anything to do with her. Happily, she started down the trail.
Cal waited until Michelle was out of sight, then took his wife in his arms and kissed her. A moment later, when he had released her, June peered up into his face with a quizzical look.
“What was that all about?”
“Nothing in particular, and everything in general,” Cal said. “I’m just happy to be here, happy to be married to you, happy to have Michelle for a daughter, and happy to have whatever this is on the way.” He patted June’s belly affectionately. “But I do wish,” he added, “that you’d be a little more careful about what you do. Let’s not have anything happen to you or the baby.”
“I’m being good,” June replied. “I’ll have you know that in the name of propriety, I didn’t get into that barrel to tamp the trash down.”
Cal groaned. “That’s supposed to make me happy?”
“Oh, stop worrying. I’m going to be fine, and the baby’s going to be fine. In fact, the only one I worry about is Michelle.”
“Michelle?”
June nodded. “I just wonder how the baby’s going to affect her. I mean, she’s had all our attention for so long, don’t you think she might resent the competition?”
“Any other child might, I suppose,” Cal mused. “But not Michelle. She’s the most repulsively well-adjusted child I know. It must be genetic—Lord knows it can’t be the home we’ve provided.”
“Oh, stop it,” June protested, a hint of seriousness hiding behind her bantering tone. “You’re too hard on yourself. You always have been.” Then the banter was dropped, and her voice grew quiet. “I’m just afraid she might feel threatened by a natural child. It wouldn’t be unusual, you know.”
Cal sat heavily on the stool, and crossed his arms over his chest in a manner that June associated with his talking to a patient.
“Now look,” he said. “Michelle takes things in stride. My God, just look at the way she’s reacted to moving out here. Any other kid would have squawked like hell, threatened to run away, done all kinds of things. But not Michelle. For her, it’s just a new adventure.”
“So?”
“So that’s the way it’ll be with the baby. Just a new member of the family to get to know, and take care of, and enjoy. She’s just the right age to become a babysitter. If I know Michelle, she’ll take over the mothering, and leave you to your painting.”
June smiled, feeling a little better. “I reserve the right to mother my own child. Michelle can wait till she has one of her own.”
Suddenly her eyes fell to the strange stain on the floor, and she frowned. “What do you suppose it is?” she asked Cal as his gaze followed her own.
“Blood,” he said cheerfully. “Just as Michelle said.”
“Oh, Cal, be serious,” June said. “It isn’t blood, and you know it.”
“Then what are you worried about?”
“I’d just like to know what it is, so I’ll know what to use to get it off,” June said.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Cal offered. “I’ll see what I can do with a putty knife, and then we’ll try some turpentine. Chances are it’s just paint, and turpentine will cut right through it.”
“Do you have a putty knife?” June asked anxiously.
“On me? Not a chance. But there’s one in with the tools, if I ever find them.”
“Let’s go find them,” June said decisively.
“Now?”
“Right now.”
Deciding that the best thing to do was to humor his pregnant wife, Cal followed as June led him into the house. Confronted with the jumble of boxes in the living room, he was sure June would give it up as a hopeless cause, but instead she scanned the mound expertly and suddenly pointed.
“That one,” she said.
“How can you tell?” Cal asked, baffled. The label on the box clearly said Miscellaneous.
“Trust me,” June said sweetly.
Cal hauled the box down from its perch near the top of the pile and ripped the tape off it There, right under the lid, was his toolbox.
“Incredible!”
“Precision labeling,” June replied, a bit smugly. “Come on.”
She led him back to the studio, and settled herself on the stool while Cal began chipping at the offending stain. A few minutes later, he looked up.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Won’t it come off?” June asked.
“Oh, it’ll come off all right,” Cal replied. “I’m just not sure what it is.”
“What do you mean?” June got off the stool and lowered herself next to her husband. What had been the body of the stain on the floor was now a pile of crumbling brownish dust scattered around her feet. She reached out and, hesitating, picked up a little of it, rubbing the dust between her fingers, feeling its texture.
“What is it?” she asked Cal.
“It might be paint,” he said slowly. “But it looks more like dried blood.”
His eyes met his wife’s.
“Michelle might have been right after all,” he said. He stood up and helped June to her feet.
“Whatever it is,” he added, “it’s been there for years and years and years. It certainly doesn’t have anything to do with us, and it won’t take long to get that stain out. Once it’s out, you can forget all about it.”
But as they left the studio, June turned and looked once more at the brownish mess on the floor.
She wished she were as sure as Cal that she would forget all about it.
Michelle paused on the trail and tried to guess how far down it was to the beach. Hundreds of feet. For a moment she toyed with the idea of trying to find another route down. No, for now, at least, she should stick to the path. There would be plenty of time later to scramble her way through the rocks and brush tha
t clung to the face of the bluff.
The trail was an easy walk, cut in switchbacks, worn smooth by years of use. Here and there it narrowed where winter storms had eaten it away, and there were occasional rocks in her path, which Michelle kicked over the edge, then watched while they gathered force in their plunge to the beach below, disappearing from her line of sight before she heard them crash at the bottom.
The trail ended very close to the high tide line, but this afternoon the tide was out, and a rocky expanse of beach, broken irregularly by a series of low granite outcroppings, lay before her, curving outward in both directions toward the arms of Devil’s Passage. The water, trapped in the tight cove, boiled and eddied, its swirling currents twisting the surface into angry patterns that even to Michelle’s inexpert eyes looked dangerous. She began walking north, intent on discovering if it might be possible to follow the beach all the way to the foot of Paradise Point. It would be a neat way to go to school—along the beach, then up the bluff and through the village. Much nicer than taking the crowded MTA to Harrison in Boston!
She had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when she noticed she wasn’t alone on the beach. Someone was crouched over a tidepool, oblivious of her presence. She approached the figure warily, unsure whether she should speak, go on by, or maybe even turn back. But before she could make up her mind, the person looked up, saw her, and waved.
“Hi!” The voice seemed friendly, and when he stood up, Michelle saw that it was a boy, about her own age, with dark curly hair, startlingly blue eyes, and a wide smile. Tentatively, she waved back, and called out a hello.
The boy bounded across the rocks toward her.
“Are you the girl that moved into the Carson house?” he asked.
Michelle nodded. “Only it’s our house, now,” she corrected him. “We bought it from Dr. Carson.”
“Oh,” the boy said. “I’m Jeff Benson. I live up there.” He gestured vaguely toward the bluff, and Michelle’s eyes followed his gesture, though there was nothing to be seen.
“You can’t see our house from here,” Jeff explained. “It sits too far back from the cliff. Mom says the bluff’s going to fall into the sea sooner or later anyway, but I don’t think so. What’s your name?”
