by Cat Winters
Mrs. O’Daire sipped her tea, while I stirred my own cup and waited for her to say more.
“Janie never alters anything,” she continued after a spell, cradling the teacup in her lap. “She simply expands upon the memories, recalling items like the fragrance of the pencils with which she wrote or the particular lace on a dress that she wore. The older memories—the childhood events—seem the strongest, and everything grows a little hazier in the later years of Violet’s life. She seems confused about what precisely happened to make her drown.”
“And, as far as you’re aware,” I asked, “Janie never experienced any moments of falling underwater since her birth in 1918?”
“No, there’ve been no brushes with drowning. Whenever I helped bathe her in the early years, she always hated when we rinsed her hair after a shampooing—she’d fly into a tizzy about water going up her nose. But I do seem to remember her father fussing over the same exact thing as a child.”
“Do you have any reason to believe that Janie experienced any severe accidents or abuse?”
“Heavens, no! That child is as protected and loved as a prized peach.”
Once again, I wrote in my notebook, a relative insists that Janie’s past is devoid of any trauma.
And later, after Mrs. O’Daire left the room, I added, Nothing else can be done, I’m afraid, unless I speak more to Janie or someone comes forward with a concealed moment of tragedy in the child’s life. Unless I receive a return letter from Friendly, Kansas.
IN MY OWN room that evening, with a blanket tucked around my legs, I sat on the bed with my legs crossed in front of me and perused every single line of the notes I had compiled during the past three days. I reread the specifics of a possible test I had considered devising.
Perhaps make a list of towns that exist throughout Kansas—Hutchinson, Marysville, Oakley, Independence, Liberal, Goodland—and ask her to point to the ones that sound familiar.
Following my own advice, I, indeed, created such a list. Mining my own knowledge of Kansas, which I had formed during the years I spent in rapturous awe of the worlds of Dorothy and Princess Ozma, I wrote down the names of northeastern towns in the state. Interspersed between them, I included names fetched from my immediate family . . . and from my own imagination.
Kansas City
Topeka
Lawrence
Margery
Leavenworth
Rustic
Manhattan
Yesternight
Junction City
Marysville
Ottawa
Beatriceville
Abilene
Salina
I tittered over “Margery” and “Beatriceville,” knowing Bea would appreciate my incorporation of her name into my investigation.
Oh, Nell, she would probably say with a flip of one of the neckties she always liked to wear with her blouses, you always did like a good puzzle. Maybe you should go find that handsome daddy of Janie’s and discuss Sherlock Holmes with him while playing footsie in front of the fire. Just don’t let him knock you up like that last one. Don’t hit him in the head.
I closed my eyes and rubbed at my eyelids, forgetting how little sleep I had managed to snatch over the past forty-eight hours. My brain somersaulted, and all that pondering and speculating and decoding throbbed within my temples. Rain tapped against my window yet again—the sound of fingernails incessantly rapping against glass—and I swear, I smelled the dampness of the outside world through the pane. The scent of water made me think of drowning, which put me into that far-off lake somewhere in the northeastern corner of Kansas. Skirts billowing and undulating. Ice-cold water rushing inside Violet Sunday’s ears. A blurred man, standing on the shore, peering into the water, while branches dragged her down, down, down into a dark and gaping mouth. Into eel-like grasses that lapped at her legs like long, wavering tongues. And then blackness.
Followed again by light.
I REMOVED MY shoes and resigned myself to a much-needed nap, but no more than two minutes after stretching across the downy white bedspread, someone knocked on my bedroom door. I crawled off the mattress—ill at ease over the idea of a person standing right outside the place where I was just about to sleep.
The keyhole spied with its narrow dark slit for an eye.
“Who is it?” I asked in a voice that came out quieter than I intended.
No one answered. I stepped back and stiffened over the ridiculous notion that the man with the tumbleweed beard from my recurring dream waited on the other side, preparing to kick open the door and blast a bullet through my chest. The taste of iron coated my tongue. A mental image of my legs covered in blood flashed through my mind.
Beneath the bottom edge of the door, I spotted the shadows of two feet.
I swallowed. “Who is—?”
“It’s just me, Miss Lind,” said Mr. O’Daire from the other side. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I brought you some dinner and a drink. Mom told me she thought you looked exhausted and malnourished, and . . . well . . . mothers are usually right about that sort of thing.”
I squeaked open the door and found my host standing out there in the hallway, dressed in a pressed white shirt and an evening coat, along with a necktie and trousers the same charcoal-gray shade as the coat. He held a silver tray, topped with another one of his famous ham sandwiches and a side of pretzels, but no pickle this time. Also on the tray sat a glass of clear liquid that smelled as piney sweet as gin.
The dimples I remembered from his heroism at the depot reemerged. “Yes, it’s gin,” he said. “You’re not buying it from me, so you wouldn’t be doing anything illegal if you drank it. I figured you might need a little hooch after all that we’re putting you through in our tempestuous seaside hamlet.”
“Hmm . . .” I eyed the glass brimming with liquid temptation. “Is your little blind tiger alive and kicking down in the basement right now?”
“What blind tiger?” The dimples deepened. “This is a fine old family establishment you’re talking about, Miss Lind.” He lifted the tray. “Shall I bring it in or hand it to you?”
“I’ll take it, thank you.” I procured the tray with care to avoid sloshing the gin and steered the food and drink toward the dressing table.
“Did your chat with Mom lead to any more answers?” asked Mr. O’Daire from the doorway.
“No, it didn’t, I’m sorry to say. Although I greatly appreciate her speaking to me.”
“She didn’t seem to mind.”
“I was just thinking about Janie’s claims about drowning, as a matter of fact.” I adjusted the tray’s position on the table, scooting it just so. “I wondered if she’s ever provided any clarification about a certain aspect of her nightmares.”
“Which aspect?”
“That ‘man in the other house’—she claimed to have witnessed him standing above the surface of the water, watching her drown.” I licked a drop of gin from my right thumb and tasted the sweetness of juniper berries. “But has she ever said how she got into the water in the dream? Did he push her in—and if so, wouldn’t she have bobbed straight back up to the surface?”
“Well . . .” Mr. O’Daire jangled coins about in his pockets. “I’ve always wondered if he had tried to kill her and was attempting to dispose of the body.”
“How did he try to kill her, though? Has she ever mentioned memories of any other violent moments?”
“No, but I suppose he could have—” He blinked, his eyes dampening. He turned his face away and smiled in an embarrassed sort of way. “This is harder to talk about than I expected. All I can imagine now is Janie’s little face underwater.”
“Oh. . . . I’m sorry. I most certainly wasn’t trying to put that image into your head.”
“He—he could have done something without her realizing it, I suppose.” Mr. O’Daire scratched at his lower lip. “Poisoned her, for example. Hit her over the head with something blunt, like a thick branch . . .”
Involuntarily, I gagg
ed.
“Maybe he gave her eight blows,” he added, oblivious to my disgust. “Maybe that’s why she says, ‘Watch out for the number eight!’”
Bile charged up my gullet. I doubled over and clamped a hand over my mouth, envisioning children’s heads marred by blood in my front lawn.
“Miss Lind?”
I shut my eyes and saw a branch bashing a human skull, cracking bone. My own arm swung the branch through the air, striking my imagined version of Violet Sunday in the head—eight times in a row. Eight. Eight. Eight. Watch out for the number eight!
“Miss Lind?”
I gasped for air, still doubled over.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Why did you say that?”
“Say what?”
“The thing about the branch. Oh, Christ.” I staggered over to the bed. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Do you want me to get you a wastebasket?”
“No!” I waved him away. “I don’t want you to see me.”
“Should I leave?”
“Don’t ever mention someone getting hit in the head again.” I collapsed onto my side on the mattress and squeezed my arms around my middle. “I’ve seen it myself. It’s horrifying.”
“I didn’t realize—do you want me to drive you to another town for the rest of the weekend? Is it too much to be stuck here?”
I dug my palms into my eye sockets and groaned.
“Miss Lind?”
“I’m sorry. This is so embarrassing.” I laughed and burbled up tears at the same time.
Mr. O’Daire held the doorknob, his mouth tipped open, knees bent, as though he debated between propelling himself forward to assist me and escaping down the hallway.
“Don’t worry about me, please. I’m fine.” I sniffed and wiped at my eyes. “Thank you for the food and drink. Once my stomach settles, I plan to enjoy them and then lose myself in a long night’s sleep.”
“Is there anything else you need?”
I shook my head. “No. Thank you. Please go, so you don’t have to keep subjecting yourself to this.” I pushed myself up to a seated position with the swaying, erratic movements of a lush. Strands of my hair fell down over my eyes, reminding me of blood enmeshed in the locks of little children. “I’m fine.”
Mr. O’Daire hesitated.
“Go. Please!”
He closed the door behind him, sealing me inside the room with my thoughts alone, which was never a good thing.
THE BOOZE AND the food and the rest helped immensely. I awoke the next morning feeling quite foolish for my behavior, and I even lost a great deal of my enthusiasm for the entire reincarnation line of thinking. Until proof from Kansas traveled west—if proof, in fact, was coming—I resigned not to believe in anything.
After dressing and fussing over my hair, I ventured out of doors and roamed the green grounds of the Gordon Bay Hotel, adhering to stone paths and sidewalks to avoid the swampy sections of mud and standing brown water. To the south, on the westernmost point of the cliff, I happened upon an overlook with a wrought-iron railing, below which the waves continued to perform their impressive display of swelling to great heights and smashing against boulders. The roar and swoosh of the movements reverberated deep within my chest. The water’s spray salted the air with an invigorating zest, and it felt splendid to inhale it through my nose.
The scenery relaxed me so entirely, in fact, that I lost all track of time until Mr. O’Daire traipsed my way from some back exit of the hotel, asking how I was feeling. Much blushing and apologizing ensued on my part, and a great deal of “No, no, no, don’t worry about it” tumbled from him. The whole exchange ended with him offering to drive me to one of the more populated towns to the north to have lunch with him.
The nail of my right index finger toyed with a patch of rust on the railing. “I can’t,” I said. “I’m not supposed to involve myself with any of the parents of the students whom I’m testing.”
He leaned back against the railing, no more than three feet to my right. A breeze tousled his blond hair, mussing the careful comb lines that he looked to have just created before joining me out there. He appeared to have recently shaved, as well, his cheeks smooth, unblemished, with no traces of stubble. I smelled the ginger of his shaving soap.
“Who from the Department of Education is going to see you eating lunch out on the coast with me?” he asked.
“A parent from Gordon Bay might also drive up for a meal. Or one of the teachers with whom I’ll be working at one of my next assignments will spot us and raise eyebrows when they meet me.”
“It’s merely a meal . . .”
“I would be risking my job. I would be compromising my work with Janie.”
He wrapped his fingers around the rails behind him and sighed—a sound of frustration. Sexual frustration, to be precise, but I wasn’t about to say as much. I wasn’t entirely sure how we had wandered into such territory after a night in which he had nearly witnessed me vomit. Professors had warned against patients falling in love with their psychologists, due to the intimacy and comfort involved in psychotherapy, but they never suggested that a school psychologist might elicit feelings of amour in a parent. Perhaps my vulnerability had made me attractive.
“I wish I could get away for an informal chat,” I said, “but it’s simply not possible. Or wise.”
He raised his gaze to mine, and we regarded each other with one of those too-long looks I knew so well.
I pushed away from the railing and retreated up the stone steps that led to the hotel’s back lawn.
“What happens with Janie after you leave at the end of this week?” he asked from behind me, still at the overlook. “What do I do about the discovery of the existence of Friendly?”
I pivoted back toward him on my left heel. “I’m working on some ideas that I’m not yet prepared to discuss. If anything comes from them, I’ll let you know.”
“You’ll be working in other towns, though.”
“I know where to find you, Mr. O’Daire,” I said with a smile. “I can guarantee that you’ll be receiving a rushed telegram or an immediate personal appearance from me if another breakthrough occurs.”
I turned and continued navigating the slick steps, holding out my arms for balance. “Don’t worry,” I added. “You’ll likely hear from me again.”
“Doesn’t it get awfully lonely, this traveling psychologist life of yours?”
“Of course it does.” I peeked over my shoulder. “That is precisely why I’m rushing away from you and your offer of lunch.”
He let go of the railing, and his black coat fluttered like the feathers of a bird catching the wind.
I pressed onward, promising myself that I would grab the Mary Roberts Rinehart book I’d just purchased and hide away in a restaurant, or even the schoolhouse, if that’s what it would take to while away the rest of the weekend without succumbing to my stupidity.
CHAPTER 14
Janie, to my surprise, appeared at school on Monday morning. Or, rather, to my surprise, Rebecca O’Daire allowed Janie to attend school, despite my continued presence in the building. The child did not smile at me, or wave, or even look my way when she entered the classroom with her fellow students, and I got the distinct impression that she ignored me on purpose. In fact, when she bustled by me to take her seat at her desk, she forced her irises to the far right corners of her eyes and kept her gait stiff.
The students settled into their seats, and Miss Simpkin led them in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thereafter, I devoted the rest of the morning to testing the twelve-and thirteen-year-olds with Stanford picture interpretations, bow-knot tying, the repetition of five to seven digits, counting backward from twenty, vocabulary testing, dictation, and “What’s the thing for you to do?” scenarios. The examinations ran without much fuss; I offered my staple “fine” and “splendid” responses. And, all the while, the smooth right edge of my list of Kansas town names stuck out from the side of the record booklet. Wai
ting.
An hour before lunchtime, I entered the main classroom, minding the loudness of my footsteps to keep from interrupting Miss Simpkin’s animated reading of Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha.”
Janie listened to the poem with her hands folded on top of her walnut-colored desk, her posture impeccable, shoulders lifted, spine straighter than Miss Simpkin’s yardstick that hung from a nail on the wall. The child wore a purple ribbon that held her hair back from her pink little ears.
I stopped beside her desk and leaned down.
“Janie.”
Her shoulders flinched. She peeked up at me with eyes round and bright green.
“Would you please join me at the back of the schoolhouse for one more question?” I asked.
Miss Simpkin ceased reading. “Didn’t you already test Janie, Miss Lind?”
“I just have one more question to ask her. It’ll take two minutes.”
The schoolteacher gave me a small shake of her head, her eyes apologetic. “I’m sorry. Janie is just about to come up front to read.”
“It’s rather urgent. I think Janie will find it entertaining. It involves geography.” I mouthed the word please to Miss Simpkin.
The teacher sighed. “I would like to review the question with you in the cloakroom first.”
“Of course.”
“Excuse me for a moment, class.” She set the book on her desk and marched down the aisle behind me.
Once inside the cloakroom, I lowered my voice to avoid prying ears. “I’m still investigating Janie’s link to Kansas. I’ve devised one more test to give her.”
“You heard my sister—she doesn’t want you speaking to Janie anymore. The only reason my niece is even in this classroom this morning is because she begged to come to school. I swore to Rebecca I would keep you two apart.”
“I witnessed the severity of Janie’s nightmares, Tillie. They won’t disappear on their own.”
“Rebecca doesn’t want you interfering.”
“It’s not interfering. I’m a psychologist”—I slapped a hand to my chest—“hired to help children who don’t have regular access to mental assistance. I see that Janie is suffering from sleep disturbances and in dire need of a more advanced curriculum. It’s my professional duty to help her. You yourself called me here to help her. Let me give her one last test.”
