Flashback

by Amanda Carpenter

  Grace dared to look at him then, and she found him staring at her with an arrested look on his face. He was leaning forward, long fingered hands clasped, elbows resting on knees, and his intelligent, dark face intent. “You’re trying to tell me that Dana is somehow telepathic,” he said flatly, and the flatness was an automatic protestation of disbelief.

  She hesitated. “I think so. You see, there’s one more thing I’d like to tell you, and I’ve never mentioned this to anyone before now, not even to Dana. When I fell down the stairs, all those months ago, I was all alone in the house. You know the position of the staircase. There is no way anyone could have seen me on the floor because there aren’t any windows that show the area just at the foot of the stairs. I don’t really remember how long I lay on the floor since I was in a lot of pain, but it couldn’t have been more than five minutes when I heard glass breaking at my back door. I’d locked the door the evening before—I can remember that very vividly—it comes from having lived too long in the city, I think. A few moments later, Dana stumbled into the room. She was limping and holding her side.” Grace smiled and the smile held more than a hint of remembered pain along with a great deal of affection. “I didn’t put it together at the time, David, but I’ve had plenty of time to think since the accident, and to remember. Dana was limping and favouring her left leg, and it was my left hip that had been broken. She was holding her left side as if it hurt her, the side where I’d broken three ribs. And there is no way on earth that I know of that she could have known I’d hurt myself.”

  Silence again in the room. David looked down at his hands and then at the carpet a while, and Grace waited patiently for some kind of reaction. Finally he looked at her, and there was a glimmer of a rueful smile in his dark eyes. “I have to believe what you are saying since there are too many points in your story that can be corroborated with other people. Still, it’s quite something to swallow all at once. One always hears of this kind of thing happening—I guess you’d call it psychic phenomena—but it’s always easy to doubt when there is no first hand experience. Do you have any idea of how controlled she is…with this sensitivity?”

  She shook her head. “No. She never talks about it, and can you blame her? Can you imagine the reaction of some people, the risk of ridicule, or worse, ostracisation? The child’s had enough to bear as it is. I wouldn’t have told even you anything, David, except that I didn’t want you to blame her for somehow ‘knowing’ something about you that she perhaps logically shouldn’t have. She can’t help it. And I must say, I think you are taking this very calmly, for just having heard it from a sick old woman.”

  He shook his head and clasped her hands affectionately. “Stop that, or I won’t come back to visit you, ever again. I have to admit that something had already happened to make me wonder a bit—oh, it’s nothing, really. It was just something like today, where she’d known something she by rights hadn’t any access to and could have had no previous experience of…” His voice trailed off into nothing as his dark eyes widened with some kind of shock and he whitened visibly, muttering, “Oh, my God.”

  Grace leaned forward, alarmed. “What is it, David?”

  With an apparent effort he managed to shake off whatever had hit him and he smiled at the worried woman. He took in her tired face and realised that the visit must have taken more out of her than she was willing to admit. “It’s nothing, less than nothing. No, really, it was just a passing thought.”

  Driving home, Dana was furious to find that her hands were visibly shaking; indeed, her whole body was trembling with reaction. With a wave of anger, she thought of how David Raymond had intimidated her, even before she’d made a fool of herself by butting into a conversation and exposing herself to so much criticism and—from his point of view—justified anger. And it was all because of some sketch that she’d made of an unknown place. What had she drawn, anyway? As she thought back, wondering, the realisation hit her with that same sickening dread that she’d felt when she heard herself speak, scant minutes before.

  She had drawn the same alien landscape from her nightmares. That was where she’d seen it, where she’d got the idea. And the picture had meant something to David Raymond, something vitally important. She pulled into her driveway automatically, shifting down and then, switching off the ignition. But the picture had been from his mind.

  Obviously, then, the nightmares were, too. They had begun to make a queer sort of sense, even to her, who had no idea really of what was going on in them. They were connected enough in theme and form so that she guessed that they were actually nightmares from memory, not from the mind’s imagination.

  Not from her imagination, at any rate. She wasn’t going crazy, at least not quite yet. She was merely dreaming David Raymond’s dreams. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, as the thought struck her.

  And she wondered briefly, just before she opened the car door to get out, at how the phrase seemed to echo in the confines of the interior.

  She slammed the car door behind her, still shaking, and cursing it. Why was she so out of control now? Realising that she was mentally involved with another person had never hit her so hard before. She was surely acquainted with her own self enough not to be shocked by what she was experiencing now. Why was she feeling this incredibly powerful jumble of emotions? Why was she shaking with anger and dread and a certain kind of violent fear she’d never known before?

  Why did she feel so dangerous?

  She burst into the house and slammed the door behind her, panting a little at her headlong rush into the house. She wiped at something that trickled down her forehead and realised how profusely she was sweating. The edge, she was at the very edge. Perhaps she was wrong after all. Perhaps she was going stark raving mad. Perhaps the pressure and the utter vulnerability of her self to others was finally getting to her, as she’d always known it would. Perhaps—

  She turned shortly and stared at her mother, just now entering the living room. Something of her emotional upheaval must have shown in her face, for Denise said sharply, “Dana? Are you all right? You look absolutely dreadful.”

  She licked dry lips and said shortly, “I’m fine.” She turned on her heel and headed for the kitchen, her movements jerky and uncoordinated. She needed a drink badly. Turning on the faucet at the kitchen sink, she stuck a finger under the gushing water until the flow became suddenly cold. Then she grabbed a glass, held it under the water flow, and switched off the faucet as she tilted the glass up to her mouth, drinking greedily. She didn’t stop until the entire glassful had flowed down her parched throat and then filled it and drank again. It was so hot, hotter than any other summer she could remember. She set the glass down on the counter and slowly turned to face her mother, who had followed her into the kitchen. She could feel her mother’s sharp worry.

  Denise surveyed her for a while and then asked abruptly, “How long has it been since you’ve had a decent meal inside you? Have you eaten at all today? Look at you—you’re as thin as a stick.”

  Dana clenched her hands, and felt the sweat on her palms. “Don’t nag at me,” she gritted, between her teeth. “I’m all right. Can’t you just leave me alone?”

  A flicker of surprise on her mother’s face, and then a look of anger. “There is no call for being rude, young lady, no matter what you think the provocation. I won’t have that tone of voice from you, do you hear? Now sit down and I’ll fix you something to eat.”

  “Didn’t you just hear what I said?” Dana suddenly exploded into a shout. “I said to leave me alone, for crying out loud! I don’t want to eat—I’m all right. Just drop it, will you?” She turned away, feeling close to the end of her rope and nearly ready to break into tears. She was just so tired. She hadn’t slept well in years, it seemed, and she stumbled from sheer exhaustion.

  Even in the midst of her own emotion, she could feel her mother’s reaction, the anger, the bewilderment, and the ever present worry that worked on Dana’s own patience like water on a stone. Even her ow
n mother thought she was going loony. “Dana, sit down! You look as if you’re going to fall any moment now. I’m going to call the doctor and get you an appointment. You don’t look well at all.”

  “Why can’t I make you understand?” Dana’s voice rose to a scream, putting her two fists against the sides of her head as if a bell was pealing intolerably in her ears. “Oh, I can feel you loud and clear, but every time I try to communicate my thoughts and my feelings to you, you don’t even hear what I’m saying! I said to leave me alone! Get out of my head! You’re all crowding me to death!”

  She turned drunkenly as her mother stood there stunned, and she ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Rushing headlong into her bedroom, she locked the door behind her and threw herself on to her bed and spent all of her pent-up feelings in a storm of hard, racking, dry sobs. Images flashed by in her head of the terrible nightmares, the sweating fear, her own precarious control and finally, the unknown future. As she tried to look beyond that blackness, exhausted, futilely looking for some ray of hope, it overwhelmed her and sucked her right in.

  She slept.

  Chapter Three

  Absolutely nothing of importance happened to Dana for the next few days. The weekend came and went, the weather darkened to rain and blustery gusts of wind, and then became fair again on Sunday evening; both she and her mother studiously avoided one another, both still feeling a bit tender and self-conscious about their uncharacteristic clash; and Dana had not one single nightmare come to plague her night’s repose.

  She became physically rested again, ate a little more, and was generally able to present a more or less normal aspect for others’ viewing.

  Nevertheless, in spite of the innocuousness, the complete and utter normality of the passing days, the peacefulness of it all, Dana still felt stretched tight, on edge, starting at any undue noise or sudden sound. She would start awake in the middle of the night, looking around her wildly, checking out of her window to make sure everything was still sane and peaceful. She wasn’t sure what she was watching for; all she knew was that she was worried and frightened. It was a perpetual fear, as if she expected to die any time, as if she expected the world to turn into an enemy, as if she expected someone to walk up and put a knife in her back. And as she thought of that, she remembered one of the nightmares that she’d had, of that cool, clean blade sliding so easily into her skin, right into her own stomach. In spite of her intellectual knowledge of her unmarked skin, the feeling was so vivid in her mind and the remembrance of the nightmare so immediate, she would sometimes check her stomach, just to assure herself of the smooth, unblemished skin.

  That didn’t help.

  She started to jog to see if that would help ease some of the perpetual restlessness, the ultra sensitivity to noises and atmospheres in her. She started out lightly, increasing her speed and distance each day very slightly, and she felt her muscles toning up, tightening, sometimes painfully. She’d come back home, panting and blood pounding, but she couldn’t seem to exorcise the devil that was riding her back.

  All her senses were taut, vibrating. She saw things too clearly, she heard things too sensitively, and once when her mother brushed her arm accidentally, the reverberations of that human touch shivered through her. She was living too intensely, by the edge of that pit, constantly desperately concentrating on whatever came her way, because she knew that she would fall into the pit sooner or later. She was living like there was no tomorrow, like her death was to be that night, or that very next day, never stopping, never slowing, and the constant, rapid clicking of her brain as it stored information on every needless sound and incident and feeling was like the inexorable ticking of a timer on a bomb. She was living too high, too hard, as if she’d taken a drug and was flying though she knew the crash would come.

  She wondered what a nervous breakdown felt like.

  Monday morning, she took her new drawing pad and roamed around outside, sketching small wildfire, and anything else that happened to catch her eye. She passed the morning in that fashion and then made her way back to the house at lunchtime, pleased with her morning’s work. She was good and she knew it, but she wasn’t so conceited as to think she held any particular genius. She knew better than that. She did know, however, that she could draw, and she spread out all of her drawings on the kitchen table to show her mother, who seemed impressed.

  “I thought I might try something a little more ambitious,” Dana began, hesitantly, and was rewarded with a surprised and approving smile. Encouraged, she went on, “I rather thought I might get together a collection of my wildlife drawings and do them in ink, perhaps splashing a little colour on a few. It would be hard work, I—I’ve never worked in ink before, but it sounds fun, doesn’t it?”

  “You know how I respect your work, Dana,” her mother replied, leaning against the kitchen counter and letting her eyes roam over the various sketches while she sipped from a coffee cup. “And you know that you’re good. You’ve never been anything but honest with yourself. What were you planning on doing with the ink drawings after you’ve finished with them?”

  She shrugged. “I really don’t know. Maybe I could get them displayed in a bookstore or an art store somewhere. I was thinking about trying that. But first I have to get the drawings done!” She paused and then glanced at her mother, noticing with affection how Denise’s hair was beginning to silver. It was striking against her dark hair. “Do you really think they might sell?”

  Her mother’s response was immediate and sincere. “Yes, I do. Your drawings have a sensitivity and a delicacy about them that is tremendously appealing. I think you have a great deal of promise.”

  “Thanks.” Dana smiled slightly at the encouragement and praise from her mother, and Denise breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. It was the first real smile she’d seen from Dana in days.

  But then the smile was fading and Dana’s eyes went unfocused as her head came up like a questing dog’s, sniffing the wind. She said briefly, “The front door. Would you get it, Mom? I don’t really feel like talking to anyone today.”

  And Denise frowned, saying, “Sure, I’ll take care of whoever it is.” She noted the pallor in Dana’s cheeks and the way her fingers tightened on her drawing pad. “Is everything all right, dear?”

  “Oh, yes,” she answered, too quickly. She tried to smile again, but it was the same facial movements that Denise had seen for the past three weeks. The older woman knew a sinking feeling. “What could possibly be wrong?”

  After staring at her daughter hard, Denise shook her head slightly and left to answer the knock at the front door that had not yet come. Dana kept her face averted until her mother had left the kitchen, and then she blew out a shaky sigh. She would steal out the back way while her mother talked to David Raymond. She knew that his intention was to speak to her and not her mother, but she had no desire to have what she was sure would be an unpleasant encounter with him. Then her head jerked, and her hand slipped on her pictures, sending them scattering to the floor.

  “Oh, no,” she said in a kind of moan, panic fluttering through her stomach. “He’s coming for the back door, instead!” She’d felt him change his mind just as she’d known his original intent. It sent her scrabbling on the floor in a frantic effort to pick up all of her pictures and get out before he actually looked. “Mom! He’s coming to the back door instead! Hurry and—oh, shoot!” That last was as a firm knock sounded not five feet away from where she was crouched. She straightened slowly, knowing she couldn’t escape now since the curtains across the window in the back door were pulled wide open and that his eyes were on her.

  She went to the back door and pulled it open reluctantly, just as her mother hurried into the kitchen from the front of the house. Dana lifted her eyes as if her gaze were under a heavy weight, and she met the dark, blank eyes of the silent man in front of her. He was still. Then he moved, breaking out of that silent pose. “Hello, Dana,” David said quietly. “May I come in, please?”

 
If Dana had been by herself, she would have been rude and refused, but her mother was standing there and watching, and Denise never tolerated rudeness to a visitor. Dana dropped her eyes and stepped back. She searched frantically for some kind of clue as to why he was there, feeling the air before her delicately, with invisible antennae, but she could pick up nothing aside from a grim purpose and the intention to speak to her. That unsettled her more than most anything else would have; she always relied on her extra sense like most people rely on their sight or their hearing. It was a mistake to do so, she knew suddenly. Sometimes it just didn’t seem to work.

  She had no inkling as to what to expect. She didn’t know if he was angry or sad, or if he had anything on his mind other than a purely social call. No, that wasn’t true. He wouldn’t be so determined—and that she could sense—if he was merely paying a social visit.

  Unknown to her, Dana’s face had whitened considerably, and the skin under her eyes and around her fine nostrils was stretched tight from tension. David glanced at her assessingly and then looked across the room to her mother, who had stopped just inside of the kitchen doorway. “My name’s David Raymond,” he said smoothly, striding forward a few steps and holding out a browned, calloused hand. Denise shook it as he continued, “I’m your new neighbour renting the house from Grace Cessler. I met your daughter a few days ago—last week sometime, wasn’t it?” This was thrown over his shoulder to Dana’s silent figure. She didn’t bother to reply. “We saw each other again at Grace’s. I’m her cousin’s grandson.”