by John Saul
“That was mean and cruel, Jeff Benson.”
“It wasn’t either!” Jeff shot back. “My mother says she doesn’t understand why they don’t lock her up! She’s crazy!”
“I don’t have to listen to you anymore! I’m going home. Come on, Alison.”
Her face set, Sally wheeled around and started back toward the road. Alison hesitated for a minute, then started after her. “Are you corning, Lisa?”
“I want to go down to the cove,” Lisa whined.
“Then go to the cove,” Alison told her. “I’m going with Sally.”
“Who cares?” Lisa shouted to the departing girls. “Who cares what you do? Why don’t you go see your crazy friend?”
Ignoring her, Sally and Alison continued on their way. When Lisa saw she wasn’t going to get a reaction from them, she shrugged.
“Come on,” she said to Jeff. “I’ll race you down the trail!”
Michelle hobbled painfully up the front steps and across the porch. She opened the door, stepped into the house, and stood still for a moment, listening.
There was no sound, except for the soft ticking of the clock in the hull.
“Mom?”
When there was no reply, Michelle started up the stairs. In her room, she would be safe.
Safe from Jeff Benson’s terrible words.
Safe from his accusations.
Safe from the suspicion she could feel all around her.
That’s why her mother hadn’t wanted her to go with her father this morning.
Her mother thought the same things Jeff Benson thought.
But it wasn’t true—she knew it wasn’t true.
She went into her room, dosed the door, and moved to the window seat.
She picked up her doll and cradled it in her arms.
“Amanda? Please, Amanda, tell me what’s happening. Why do they all hate me?”
“They’re telling lies about you,” Amanda’s voice whispered to her. “They want to take you away, so they’re telling lies about you.”
“Take me away? Why? Why do they want to take me away?”
“Because of me.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“Because of me,” Amanda repeated. “They always hated me. They don’t want me to have any friends. But you’re my friend, so now they hate you, too. And they’ll take you away”
“I don’t care,” Michelle said. “I don’t like it here anymore. I want to go away.”
Michelle could see Amanda now. She was only a few feet from her, and her eyes, pale and shining in the gray light of the overcast day, seemed to be boring into Michelle.
“But if you let them take you away,” she heard Amanda saying, “we can’t be friends anymore.”
“You can come too,” Michelle suggested. “If they take me away, you can come with me”
“No!” Amanda’s voice was suddenly sharp, and Michelle instinctively stepped backward, clutching the doll close to her chest. Amanda moved toward her, her hand out.
“I can’t go with you. I have to stay here.” She took Michelle’s hand. “Stay with me, Michelle. Stay with me, and we’ll make them all stop hating us”
“I don’t want to!” Michelle protested. “I don’t know what you want. And you always promise to help me, but something always happens. And they blame me for it. It’s your fault, but they blame me for it! It isn’t fair! Why should they blame me, when it’s you?”
“Because we’re the same,” Amanda said quietly. “Can’t you understand that? We’re exactly the same.”
“But I don’t want to be like you,” Michelle said. “I want to be like me. I want to be like I used to be, before you came.”
“Don’t say that,” Amanda hissed. Her face, furious now, was twisted into an expression of hatred. “If you say that again, I’ll kill you.” She paused, and her milky eyes seemed to blaze with a light of their own, “I can do it,” she said softly. “You know I can.”
Michelle shrank away from the black-clad figure, terrified. She wanted to run, but she knew she couldn’t. She knew that Amanda was telling her the truth.
If she didn’t do what Amanda wanted her to, Amanda would kill her.
“All right,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”
As she said the words, the rage seemed to drain from Amanda’s face, and she smiled. “Take me out to the bluff,” she said. “I want to go out on the bluff, out by the cemetery.” She took Michelle’s hand once more and started to lead her out of the room.
“This is the last time,” she said softly. “After this, it’ll all be over, and they won’t laugh at me anymore.”
Michelle wasn’t sure what Amanda was talking about, but it didn’t matter. All she knew was that it was almost over.
This is the last time, Amanda had said.
Maybe things were going to be all right after all. Maybe after she’d done whatever Amanda wanted, things would be all right.
She left the house and began walking slowly toward the cemetery.
June stood very still, staring at the canvas on her easel.
How it had gotten there, she didn’t know.
Yet there it was, terrifying her. She had been staring at it for a long time—it was as if the picture had trapped her in some kind of hypnotic trance.
It was the same picture she had found in the closet.
Only it was finished now.
She stared at it in utter horror, unable to fully comprehend it.
The sketch was now a complete painting.
There were two people, a man and a woman.
The man’s face was still hidden from view, but the woman’s face was not.
It was a beautiful face, with high cheekbones, full lips, and a perfect widow’s peak at the forehead.
The eyes, green and sparkling, were almond-shaped, and they seemed to be laughing.
It would have been a beautiful picture, except for two things.
The woman was bleeding.
From her breast, and from her throat, blood was gushing, spilling down the woman’s body, dripping to the floor. In contrast to the serene expression on the the painted face, the blood had a grotesque quality to it. It was almost as if the woman didn’t know she was dying.
And scrawled across the picture, in the same crimson as the blood pouring from the dying woman, was one word: Whore!
It was hard for June to look at anything in the picture except for the woman’s face, but as she stared at it, trying to fathom it, she began to realize that the background of the picture was familiar.
It was the studio.
The windows were there, and the ocean beyond. The two figures were on a couch. June slowly moved across the studio until her perspective on the windows and the sea was the same as that on the canvas.
She glanced around, trying to place the couch in the picture. It would have been a little to the left, standing out from the wall about five feet.
She realized where it would have been before she really looked.
The stain.
The ancient stain she had tried so hard to clean up.
She forced herself to look at the spot.
“No!”
She screamed the word, then screamed it again.
“Dear God, no! It’s not happening!”
Across the floor, from no apparent source, a stain was spreading. June stood transfixed, unable to tear her eyes from the spot.
It was blood.
“No!” She uttered the word once more, then, calling on all her willpower, she fled from the studio.
Jennifer, lying in her bassinet—forgotten by her mother—began to cry. Softly at first, then louder.
At the clinic, Josiah Carson and Cal Pendleton sat quietly in their office, waiting for the neurosurgeon to finish his autopsy.
The moment Billy Evans had died, Cal had taken the responsibility for his death upon himself.
“I moved him. I should have waited.”
“You had to move him,” Josi
ah told him. “You were just too late, that’s all. If you had only gotten to him sooner—” Carson let his voice trail off, let the words sink into the distraught man across from him, sure that Cal was remembering the panic that had gripped him yesterday. Then, when he was sure Cal understood him, he made his voice soothing. “By the time you got to him, the damage was already done. It’s not really your fault, Cal.”
Before Cal could make any reply, the phone rang. Carson picked it up. He recognized June Pendleton’s voice, knew she was crying.
Something had happened.
She was sobbing, nearly incoherent, but Josiah understood that she wanted them to come out to the house immediately.
“June, calm down,” he said. “Cal’s right here, with me. We’ll get there as soon as we can.” He paused, then: “June, is anyone hurt?” He listened for a moment, then told her to stay where she was. Cal stared at him as he replaced the receiver on the hook.
“What’s happened? Josiah, what’s happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Carson replied. “June wants us out at the house, right now. Nobody’s hurt, but something’s wrong. Come on.” He stood up, but Cal hesitated.
“What about—?”
“Billy? He’s already dead, Cal. There’s nothing we can do for him. Let’s go.”
Cal reached for his coat.
“She didn’t say what was wrong?”
Carson ignored the question and led Cal out of the office.
As they left the clinic, Josiah Carson realized what was happening. It was all about to come together. He didn’t know how, but he was sure. June Pendleton had found something.
Something that was going to explain everything.
Or make it worse.
June had just put the telephone down, and was wondering what to do next, when it suddenly began ringing. He’s not coming, she thought. It’s Cal, and he’s not coming. He’s going to tell me he’s busy, and he can’t come. What am I going to do?
She picked up the phone.
“Cal?”
“June? It’s Corinne Hatcher.”
“Oh.” June’s voice faltered. “I’m sorry. I was just talking to Cal. I—I thought maybe he was calling me back.”
“I won’t keep you long. Look, this may sound crazy, but have you seen Lisa Hartwick today? I’m with Tim, and we’re trying to find her. She and some friends—well, it sounds silly, but they were going ghost-hunting.”
June had heard nothing except that Corinne was with Tim Hartwick.
“Corinne, can you and Tim come out here?” She tried to keep her voice calm, reasonable. “Something strange has happened.”
Corinne was silent for a moment. Then: “Strange? What do you mean?”
“I can’t begin to describe it,” June said. “Please come.”
There was an edge of panic in her voice that made Corinne say, “We’ll be right there.”
Sally Carstairs and Alison Adams crossed the street and began walking toward the schoolground, intending to take the shortcut across it to Sally’s house on the other side.
“We shouldn’t have left Lisa,” Sally was saying. “When Mom finds out, she’ll be mad.”
“There isn’t anything we could have done about it,” Alison replied. “Lisa’s like that—she always does whatever she wants to. If you want to do it too, fine, but if you don’t, tough!”
“I thought you liked her.”
Alison shrugged. “She’s okay, I guess. She’s just spoiled.” They walked along in silence for a moment, then a thought occurred to Alison. “I thought you were her friend.”
“Whose?”
“Michelle’s. Before she got crippled, I mean.”
“I was.” Sally smiled, remembering how Michelle had been only a few short weeks ago. “She was nice. She probably would have been my best friend. But ever since she fell, she’s sort of stayed by herself.”
“Do you think she’s crazy?”
“Of course not,” Sally said. “She’s just—well, she’s just different now.”
Alison suddenly stopped short. Her face turned pale. “Sally!” she gasped. “Look!”
They were near the swings, and Sally quickly saw what Alison was pointing at.
Annie Whitmore’s body lay twisted in the dirt, one leg still hooked over the seat of the swing.
Jeff Benson’s words rang loudly in Sally’s ears.
Who did you kill today?
She remembered last week, when Michelle had been playing with Annie Whitmore.
Who did you kill today?
She remembered Michelle, walking along the road, coming from town.
Who did you kill today?
Grabbing Alison’s hand, Sally Carstairs began running across the playground—running home, running to tell her mother what had happened.
CHAPTER 27
Michelle walked slowly along the trail at the top of the bluff. A light rain was beginning to fall, and the horizon, indistinct against the steel gray sky, faded away. But Michelle, listening to Amanda’s murmurings, was oblivious to the day.
“Further,” Amanda said. “It was a little further.”
They took a few more steps, and then Amanda stopped, her brow creased, her expression uncertain.
“It’s not right, It’s all changed.” Then: “Over there.” She drew Michelle a few yards farther north and stopped near a large boulder that stood precariously balanced above the beach.
“Here,” Amanda breathed. “It was right here …”
Michelle looked down to the beach below. They were directly above the spot where only a month and a half ago she had picnicked with her friends. At least, they had been her friends at the time.
Now the beach was empty; the tide was out, and the litter of rocks, worn smooth by centuries of flowing water, lay exposed to the threatening afternoon.
“Look,” Amanda whispered. She was pointing to the far edge of the beach, where the retreating sea had laid bare the shelf of tidepools. Michelle could make out two figures, indistinct in the rain.
One of them she recognized at once: Jeff Benson. And the other one—who was the other one? But suddenly she knew it didn’t matter.
Jeff was the one.
It was Jeff Amanda wanted.
Who did you kill today?
His words rang in her ears, and Michelle knew Amanda was listening to them, too.
“He’ll come this way,” Amanda purred. “When the tide comes in, he’ll come this way. And then.…” Her voice trailed off, but a smile wreathed her face. She kept one hand on Michelle’s arm, but with the other she reached out and touched the boulder.…
June was still sitting by the telephone when Cal and Josiah Carson arrived.
She heard them come through the front door, heard Cal calling to her.
“In here,” she replied. “I’m in here.”
Her voice was dull, and she was pale. He went to her, kneeling down by her chair.
“June, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“The studio—it’s in the studio.”
“What is? Has something happened? Where are the kids?”
June stared at him, her face uncomprehending. “The kids?” she echoed. Then it hit her. “Jenny! My God, I left Jenny in the studio!”
Her torpor was gone. She stood up, but a wave of dizziness struck her and she sank back into her chair. “Cal, I can’t do it—I can’t go out there. Please, go out there, and take Dr. Carson with you. Bring Jenny back with you.”
“You can’t go out there?” Cal asked. His expression reflected bewilderment. “Why not? What’s happened?”
“You’ll know. Just go out there, and look. You’ll see.” The two men started out of the room, but June stopped them. “And Cal? The picture—the picture on the easel: I didn’t paint it.”
Cal and Josiah exchanged an uncomprehending look, but when June said nothing else, they started for the studio.
They could hear Jenny crying before they were halfway there. Cal broke into a run. He dash
ed inside, glanced hurriedly around, but ignored everything except his daughter. Scooping the howling baby into his arms, he cradled her against his chest.
“It’s all right, princess,” he crooned, “Daddy’s here, and everything’s going to be fine.”
He rocked her gently for a moment, and her howling quieted. Only then did he look at the painting on the easel, the painting that June had made such a point of saying she hadn’t done.
He stared at it, frowning slightly. At first, it made no sense. And then he realized what it was—a woman, dying in the act of making love, her expression a combination of rapture and—and something else. But what was it?
“I don’t get it—” he began, his voice puzzled and uncertain. But then he saw the expression on Josiah Carson’s face, and his words faded in his throat.
Carson was staring at the picture, a look of comprehension slowly taking shape on his face.
“So that’s it,” he whispered. That’s what happened.”
Cal stared at the old doctor. “Joe, what is it? Are you all right?” He took a step toward Carson, but the old man waved him aside.
“She’s done it,” he said. “Amanda finally saw her mother, and she killed her. A hundred years later—she killed her. Now she’ll be free. Now we’ll all be free.” He turned to Cal. “It was right that you came here,” he said quietly. “You owed it to us. You killed Alan Hanley, so you owed it to us.”
Cal looked wildly from Josiah to the picture, then back to Josiah. “What the hell are you talking about?” he shouted. “What’s going on? What is it?”
“The picture,” Carson said softly. “It’s all in the picture. That woman is Louise Carson.”
“I—I don’t understand—”
“I’m trying to tell you, Cal,” Carson said. His voice was reasonable, but a strange glint shone in his eyes. “That woman—it’s Louise Carson. She’s buried out in the cemetery. My God, Cal, June went into labor on her grave—don’t you remember?”
“But that’s not possible,” Cal said. “How would June know—” Then he remembered: I didn’t paint it …
Cal moved closer to the painting, studying it carefully. The paint was fresh, barely dry. He stepped back again. Only then did he realize that the setting of the picture was the studio. It gave him an eerie feeling. His gaze left the canvas to sweep over the room. He was vaguely aware of Josiah Carson, behind him, muttering indistinctly.
