Touch Me in the Dark

by Jacqueline Diamond

  If making Greg her godson would relieve Jody’s mind, that might take some strain off her. Sharon glanced over the form and signed. “It’s no problem. I know Greg will be delighted that you feel so close to him.”

  “Like his aunt, or maybe a grandmother,” Jody said. “I hope that’s all right.”

  “Better than all right. Wonderful.” She rested one hand on the older woman’s shoulder.

  Jody’s premonition about Ian still troubled her, though. Sharon would be glad when the anniversary was over.

  Just a few more days.

  Chapter Fourteen

  On Friday afternoon, Bella moved every stick of furniture in the living room and vacuumed underneath. Then she polished the wood and took a Dust Buster to several years’ worth of crumbs beneath the cushions.

  Pete had never seen his wife so restless. Or so tidy.

  “It’s only a concert,” he offered as he helped remove the draperies to take to the cleaners. “This isn’t even the anniversary yet.”

  “The spirits have warned me. They will be there.” Bella began unhooking the fabric from the rod. “Everyone will be there, even the old minister. I have arranged to bring Grayson Wright, to make the circle complete. It will be as on the night of the murders. They cannot stay away.”

  She ran out of breath, which gave Pete a chance to interject, “What do you expect the spirits to do?”

  “To give us a sign,” Bella said. “They will tell us what we are meant to do.”

  “We’re supposed to do something?” he asked uneasily.

  “We are not merely in this house as observers.” Bella gave him a knowing smile that lasted a shade too long.

  He didn’t like her self-satisfied expression or the deliberate way she gestured, as if she were carving shapes in the air. Her father had suffered from mental illness. But after nearly forty years of marriage, it was a bit late for something like that to manifest itself.

  “Bring on the spirits,” Pete said. “We could use a little excitement around here.”

  Ian couldn’t stop thinking about Sharon. He added to his sketches, drawing her from memory, and was amazed at the detail with which he recalled every twist of her muscles and ripple of her skin. She seemed to exist in three dimensions inside his mind, where he could turn her and view her at any angle.

  Over the next few hours, he worked in a fever on three canvases. The scenes sprang from deep in his subconscious as if they had been taking shape for weeks.

  On one easel, a bush was changing into a menacing creature. Its thorny talons reached to grasp a naked woman who sat with her arms around her knees and eyelids half-shut, unaware of her impending capture.

  The woman was Sharon.

  On the next canvas, a little girl in ribbons and bows played, oblivious to the toys that loomed over her. A hobbyhorse bared sharp yellow teeth; a stuffed bear unsheathed its claws; a wooden soldier hefted its sword. Across one corner of the foreground lay a nude woman, red hair pooled around her as if she had been felled in the act of protecting her child.

  That, too, was Sharon.

  He also added detail to the picture of a man and woman struggling. As he refined it, they no longer appeared to be making love. He could see that they balanced on the edge of an abyss toward which the larger figure was shoving the smaller. As she fought back, her face reflected both terror and determination.

  Again, Sharon.

  Over the course of the afternoon, Ian built up the washes of color and brought out the contours. Although the canvases were far from finished, satisfaction grew inside him. With their raw emotions, the subjects recaptured the passion he’d been seeking.

  By the time he cleaned his brushes, hours had passed without his realizing. Weary but exhilarated, Ian wondered if it was always possible to distinguish between a seizure and the heightened state known as inspiration.

  The pictures all contained at least the threat of violence. Ian abhorred the thought of any harm coming to Sharon, yet the theme dominated his work. Something came over him when he was painting that had its own mind.

  He would never hurt Sharon, of course, Ian told himself. He would never cross the line between fantasy and reality. Even during his seizures, he’d never harmed anyone.

  Then he thought of the slashed drawing in the drawer.

  Frank packed the diaper bag himself. He kept wanting to ask Karly questions. How many toys should he take? Would he need to walk the baby during the concert? But he held back. He could figure out how to handle this himself.

  Of course, it would be simpler to leave the baby with Mrs. Torres, but Karly seemed to want the baby along, and he agreed. Even at this young age, he wanted their daughter to hear her sing in public. Lisa wouldn’t get many opportunities in the future. His wife was moving about in the kitchen, fixing dinner with the radio tuned to a pop station. She usually hummed along with the singers, but tonight she was saving her voice. In fact, she hadn’t sung around the house for several days, and he missed the lovely sound.

  Frank paused, a receiving blanket in one hand. What the hell was he doing? Why was he trying to deny Karly something so essential to her being?

  Sure, he wanted dinner on the table. And their daughter needed her mom around. But he’d fallen in love with Karly the way she was. The way she used to be. Did he really want to turn her into something else?

  The problem was that marriage had turned him into something else. He scarcely remembered the aerospace engineer he’d been a few years ago, with a respectable, steady salary and a smorgasbord of benefits. He’d never dreamed he would enter his thirties as a prematurely aging competitor in the rat race, struggling to support a family in a cramped apartment. Karly didn’t understand. She looked at him and saw a failure, that was the problem.

  They had to work together or it was no good. He couldn’t go on shouldering the burden alone.

  Sharon didn’t understand why she felt so tense about going to the concert tonight, until the truth dawned while she waited for Greg to tie his shoes. Although two nights remained before the anniversary, they would all be at the church, just as the Fannings had been on the night of the murders.

  “Ready?” Ian appeared in the open doorway. Against the severity of a navy jacket, his features had a hawk-like cast.

  Sharon frowned at a smudge on his forehead. Ian always seemed to wear a touch of paint somewhere on his face or clothing. This smear was auburn. He’d been painting her again.

  “Ready!” called Greg from the couch where he’d sat torturing his shoelace into a knot. “Last one to the front door is a weasel!” He raced toward the stairs.

  Ian gestured for Sharon to precede him. First, she reached up and scraped away the speck with a fingernail. “Paint,” she said.

  “I’m thinking of having a total-body tattoo,” he murmured. “That way the mess won’t be as noticeable.”

  “I like you just the way you are.” Standing close, Sharon inhaled soap, paint and memories. Her body tightened with a longing to go back to the moment when the two of them had created their own work of art.

  Then she heard her son calling from below, and turned toward the stairs.

  Last night, Karly had taken a while to become accustomed to the church with the chorus present. Now, full of rustling people, the arched space had changed yet again. Even the acoustics would be different, although, with her experience, she shouldn’t have a problem adjusting.

  Backstage, she warmed up and donned her maroon robe. Her fellow singers greeted her warmly.

  When they filed onto the stage, her gaze picked out Frank near the end of the second row, close to the piano and the painting of the Madonna. In the row behind him, Sharon gave Karly an encouraging smile. She looked happier tonight than she had in a long time, with Ian on one side of her and Greg, then Jody, on the other.

  Ian was a handsome man, almost larger than life. Karly had never trusted fellows who turned heads wherever they went, but he seemed to be good for her sister.

  Some elder
ly people, late arrivals, stopped to greet Jody. From her sister’s description, there was no mistaking the flashy Bella Gaskell, and that must be Pete beside her. Accompanied by an old man using a walker, they took the empty seats next to Frank.

  Everyone’s here.

  Karly frowned at the unexpected thought. Her father and stepmother weren’t here, so what did she mean by everyone?

  Lynda sat at the piano, clicked on the reading lamp and opened her music. When a draft ruffled the pages, she slapped them back in annoyance. Sharon scooted from her seat and went to the rescue, standing by the piano and holding the pages. That was so like Sharon, always attuned to other people’s needs.

  The buzz of the audience began to fade. Folding her hands in her lap, Karly found they were clammy. Like most performers, she suffered a little from stage fright, but that usually went away once she began performing.

  As they awaited Lynda’s nod, the other chorus members seemed to take a deep breath with one impulse. Candy, her blonde hair upswept and anchored by a jeweled comb, gave Sharon a conspiratorial wink.

  Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

  As the church swelled with the lyrics of Circle of Life, Sharon felt her heart expand. Standing by the piano, she had a clear view of Ian, Greg and Jody. Her family looked enraptured by the music.

  She thought about the unexpected offer of a job near her old hometown and about Karly’s accidental discovery of the rental at the Fanning house. Gazing at Ian, watching his taut expression gentle as he listened to the singers, Sharon could almost believe she had been brought here on purpose to help guide this man out of his darkness. Also to make a better home for Greg, who was resting his cheek on Jody’s shoulder.

  This evening felt right and inevitable.

  Pete Gaskell nodded appreciatively while his wife clapped in time to the music of Day by Day. He wished he had her sense of rhythm.

  Grayson Wright was clapping too, a bit off the beat. Pete liked the guy’s low-key wit and self-deprecating manner. He didn’t see what Bella had been so worked up about.

  Her mother had gone to her grave feeling guilty that she hadn’t done more for her brother, as if stealing and secretly reburying his casket weren’t enough. Now Bella felt duty-bound to resolve some sort of problem, although Pete didn’t see what she could possibly accomplish.

  After this weekend, he hoped they could put this business behind them.

  The song ended to warm applause and Karly stepped forward. Sharon’s sister was a pretty woman with long thick hair and natural stage presence. Even wearing the same maroon robe as the rest of the chorus, she stood out.

  Bella laid one hand on her husband’s wrist. “Soon,” she whispered.

  “Soon what?”

  “Soon the sign will come to me.”

  He sighed. The only signs he expected to see were the ones that said ‘No Smoking’ and ‘Exit.’

  Lisa had fallen asleep in Frank’s arms by the time her mother began to sing I Don’t Know How to Love Him. He was relieved that he didn’t have to worry about her fussing.

  As his wife’s voice soared to the rafters, he forgot all about his daughter. Up on the stage, Frank saw the vulnerability that had touched him the first time he heard Karly perform. This was what he’d fallen in love with, this mixture of confidence and hesitation, this willingness to open her soul to an audience.

  He wished she would go on singing and never stop.

  The applause surged through Karly with a jolt of adrenaline. Even Frank, although he couldn’t clap without waking the baby, was beaming ear to ear.

  She took a brief bow, slightly embarrassed by the crowd’s enthusiasm. It wasn’t her intention to distract from the rest of the program.

  As she stepped back, she saw Lisa stir and yawn. Frank plied the baby with a bottle but the angle was wrong, and the baby squirmed. A moment later, she began to fuss audibly.

  Although most of the audience hadn’t noticed anything yet, Karly knew that crying was sure to follow. The noise would upset her husband and annoy everyone else, and there was nothing she could do about it without disrupting the concert even more.

  This was what she’d been afraid of. She was up here singing instead of down there playing mommy. No doubt she’d hear complaints from Frank afterwards.

  Greg leaned forward from the row behind and wiggled his fingers at his little cousin. Lisa stopped fidgeting and tried to grab them. Shifting into Sharon’s empty chair, Ian reached forward and, after receiving a hesitant nod from Frank, lifted Lisa onto his lap. The tall man cradled the baby while Greg made funny faces, to the baby’s obvious delight.

  Karly relaxed. Given Lisa’s cheerful disposition, they just might make it through the concert. The baby was still playing quietly in Ian’s arms when the choir finished You’ll Never Walk Alone and she got ready for her second solo.

  At the piano, Sharon turned the page for Lynda. Her sister must have brushed the lamp, because the shade tipped slightly, casting light up toward the painting and throwing odd shadows over nearby members of the audience. Neither Sharon nor Lynda appeared to notice.

  The oval of light defined a new work of art, in which the Madonna became a painting within a painting and a small section of audience was the main focus. There were only a handful of people sitting in that section, and they were all involved with the Fanning family. The scene looked as if someone posed them deliberately.

  Karly didn’t have time to think about the strangeness of was happening. The time had come for her to sing.

  Karly was halfway through Close Every Door when Sharon noticed the lamp casting an eerie light on the faces nearest her. Frank, Ian, Jody and the Gaskells sat in skeletal indifference as the stark interplay of bright and dark turned them to bony caricatures. From this angle, they were hardly recognizable as human.

  The room became steeped in the cold dampness of a grave. In the odd light, all Sharon could see were a half-dozen or so uplifted faces. She picked out Grayson Wright, sitting with the Gaskells, and the elder Pastor Arbizo beside him.

  When she looked for her son, her vision became distorted. Greg and Lisa were no longer a boy and a baby girl but wizened, gnarled creatures. Evil had touched them. Evil was transforming them.

  Fear froze Sharon in place.

  Pete Gaskell turned at his wife’s excited gasp. That was when he saw the children, or the things that had taken their places, beastlings with hollow eye sockets and pointed teeth.

  “My God,” he whispered. “What is that?”

  “A sign,” his wife hissed back, squeezing his hand. “A sign that we must rescue them. Tonight, Pete.”

  He rubbed his old eyes twice, and finally the pair looked like children again. But he’d seen them misshapen and so had Bella. Until this, he’d feared his wife might be deluding herself with the notion that her uncle’s death had left some evil loose in their midst.

  Now he was beginning to fear she might be right.

  Karly noticed the strange transformation of the children as she finished her song. Startled, she could barely hold the last note as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

  The bizarre shadows turned the children’s tiny features into death’s heads. She didn’t see how lamplight could create such an effect, yet it didn’t go away when she blinked.

  She wanted to shout out a warning or to kneel in prayer. Then a figure from the row ahead lifted Lisa from Ian’s lap. At the same moment, the stage lights softened, and Lynda adjusted the lamp.

  The ghastly visages took ordinary human form. Lisa gurgled happily in her father’s arms. She was safe. Frank had kept their little girl safe.

  Applause swept through the church. In a daze, Karly bowed and moved back to join the others. What on earth had she seen?

  Yet what counted most was her tremendous relief at the sight of her rock-solid husband sheltering their daughter. That was why she’d married him, because he was the kind of man who would always be there for his family.

  She needed
that, Karly thought. She needed Frank to bring her home.

  Even after the lights returned to normal, Sharon’s knees trembled. She knew there must be a rational explanation for what she’d seen, but her instincts told her this had been a vision.

  Her family’s history overshadowed the present and threatened the future. That was the significance of what she’d seen, and the implications couldn’t be avoided. She and Ian had to confront it while they had the chance.

  Bella Gaskell had suggested a séance. Once beneath consideration, the idea now struck Sharon as a godsend. They needed to find out how to protect the little ones while there was still time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  People surrounded Karly, praising her and the other singers. Sharon waited beside the stage, glad to see her sister enjoying this well-deserved glory.

  Although she hoped to find out whether Karly had observed the bizarre change in the children’s appearances, finally Sharon could wait no longer. Greg was drooping against Ian, and not even the formidable Jody, who had ridden with them, could hide her weariness. Waving to her sister and mouthing, “Call you tomorrow,” Sharon went outside with the others.

  The parking lot was half-empty by now. Two spaces from Ian’s car, the Gaskells were helping Grayson Wright into their car

  “Mr. Wright.” Sharon crossed to him. “I’m glad you could come.”

  The old man renewed his grip on his walker. “Your sister,” he said, “is the kind of singer who makes a man want to drink champagne from her slipper. I’m too old for champagne and the only slippers under my bed these days are my own, but she sure made me feel young again.”

  “Thank you. I’ll tell her.” Determined to go ahead now that she’d made up her mind, she shifted her attention to the Gaskells. “Bella, I’ve been thinking about your suggestion of a séance. I was wondering…”