What sounded like a swivel chair squeaked and Alicia felt long, bony fingers encompass her tiny, slender hand. She felt a tiny scratch against the back of her hand. The doctor's fingernails needed clipping.
"I am very pleased to meet you, my poor, unfortunate girl."
Alicia smiled. What could she say?
Dr. Hawke led her to what felt like a dentist's chair and sat her down. "You may leave now, Evan," Dr. Hawke said. "I wish to examine the young lady in private."
"But Uncle…" Evan protested.
"Now, young man!" Dr. Hawke commanded in a forceful tone.
"Yes, sir," Evan said, dejected. "I'll wait for you upstairs, Alicia," he added. Alicia heard a door close.
"Dr. Hawke, I have to warn you I have no money to pay you…" Alicia blurted out.
But the doctor shushed her. "Money is not an issue here. If money were an issue do you think that I would live in a house like this? Now be quiet and let me examine you."
There was a click, and Alicia felt a bright light shining on her face. Then she heard the doctor pull on a pair of squeaky, surgical gloves. "Evan obtained copies of your X rays for me," he said as he gently probed her eyes.
"I will do anything to get my vision back, Dr. Hawke." Alicia said.
"Hmmm," the doctor grumbled.
Alicia felt a lump form in her throat. She didn't like the sound of that "hmmm." Then the light clicked off and the doctor was quiet. The only sound in the office was the ticking of his pocket watch. Finally Alicia broke the silence. "W-will I see again, Dr. Hawke? Is there anything you can do to help me?"
"Yes. There is some retina damage, but that can be repaired fairly easily," Dr. Hawke said. "However, I believe the blindness is caused by another factor."
Alicia's heart pounded. Another factor? Something incurable? Permanent? "What?" she blurted out.
"I believe your blindness is caused by damage to the optic nerve," Dr. Hawke concluded.
Alicia felt a wave of relief sweep over her. She told him the opinions of the specialists, that the blindness was trauma induced, that she was blocking out the memory of the accident, and if she could get over her fear, her sight would return.
"No, no, that's not the problem," Dr. Hawke said reassuringly. "Anyone who believes that prognosis is simply deluding themselves — and you."
"Then I'll be able to see again?" Alicia asked, allowing herself a glimmer of hope.
"Perhaps," Dr. Hawke said.
Alicia felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"Let me explain how the eye works. It is very much like a camera. Light rays enter the eye in much the same way light rays enter the lens of a camera, except with the eye the rays pass through a transparent layer of skin called the conjunctiva. Then the rays pass through a second layer called the cornea which bends them, and then the lens brings them into focus on the retina at the back of the eye, which in turn sends the brain a message along the optic nerve to create a picture of what you are seeing. Do you follow me so far?"
"To tell you the truth," Alicia said, "I'm so tired and so depressed and frightened and confused, it's hard for me to follow along very well. I just can't concentrate like normal."
"To put it simply then," Dr. Hawke said more slowly, "I believe your optic nerves are receiving a scrambled message, though I'm not sure why. This is a very strange case."
Alicia realized she was sweating profusely, either from the heat in the basement or just plain nervousness. Or maybe both. A drop of perspiration fell into her eye and she wiped it away.
"The eye is a very complex piece of machinery," Dr. Hawke continued. "I believe if we could replace the optic nerve, your sight would return. I'm not sure. It is a very delicate operation. And even then the chances of success are roughly one in three. The new optic nerve must fit in smoothly with the rest of the machinery. Like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle."
"When can you perform the operation?" Alicia asked flatly.
"You will need an eye donor," Dr. Hawke explained. "Two eye donors, at least. Perhaps more."
Alicia nodded weakly.
"Do you have medical insurance?" Dr. Hawke asked her.
Alicia felt the familiar despair. "No."
"Then I guess you will have to break into an eye bank," Dr. Hawke said with a raspy laugh.
Alicia frowned. She felt the desperation grip her like a vise. "I'll do whatever you tell me I need to do," she said.
Chapter 22
Evan squirmed in the tiny utility closet. He had crept inside the cramped space next to the basement stairs so he could listen to what was going on. He had been angry that his uncle wouldn't let him stay. After all, he had brought Alicia to him. Evan felt responsible for the blind girl now. She depended on him almost exclusively.
Just as he had planned.
Evan placed his eye back to the peephole that allowed him a view of the examining room. He looked at Alicia again. She was the prettiest cheerleader of them all, he thought, even if she was blind.
Such a shame.
A horrible shame.
If only he could so something to help.
He'd do anything to help the blind girl see again.
To make the blind girl his.
Anything.
Chapter 23
As Evan escorted Alicia home after the examination, Alicia's thoughts swirled. An eye donor — two at least. Dead people's eyes, stuck in her head. The idea repulsed her. But if that was the only way to see, to paint, again…
"Alicia, may I take you to the homecoming dance?" Evan asked.
Alicia was speechless. "You want to take a blind girl to the homecoming dance?" she finally said.
"I want to take you," Evan said.
She tightened her grip on Evan's lead arm. "That's really very sweet," was all she could think to say.
"Then you'll go?" Evan asked excitedly.
Alicia felt dizzy. She had to find eye donors. How could she possibly think about going to a dance? "I don't feel very stable, to tell you the truth. I don't feel capable of having a good time at this point."
"No problem," Evan said.
Alicia could tell she had disappointed him.
"Ali!" she heard a voice call to her. Tiffany's voice. "Can you come over for a minute? I have to talk to you."
Tiffany met them halfway down the sidewalk, holding her arm out for Alicia to take. "Thank you, Evan," Tiffany said brusquely, whisking her friend away.
"Bye, Evan," Alicia said over her shoulder, a little put off by Tiffany's rudeness. "I'll call you later."
Inside Tiffany's house, Alicia said, "Do you have to talk to him that way? Evan's been helping me more than…"
Barbed laughter cut her off. Ellen's laughter. "Evan's no great help to you, Alicia," Ellen said. Ellen Sawyer, who had stolen her boyfriend. Ellen Sawyer, whose eyes she would love to scratch out.
"You wouldn't be hanging out with him if you knew what he did to Scott," Tiffany said gravely.
Alicia suddenly felt cold all over. "What did he do? What are you talking about?" she asked, not sure she was ready to hear the answer.
"Well…" Tiffany began.
Chapter 24
Evan saw them coming just a little too late.
Johnny Murphy's Jeep Cherokee screeched to a halt in front of Evan's house just as he was walking up the driveway. Boomer burst out of the Jeep and knocked Evan to the ground.
Evan instinctively rolled into a tight ball as Boomer started kicking him. "This is for Scott," Boomer said through clenched teeth as he rammed his heavy boots into Evan's ribs.
Johnny jumped out of the Jeep. "And this is for Alicia!" Johnny sucker punched Evan in the mouth. Evan staggered backward and fell down. "Stay away from both of them!"
Evan wiped blood from his lip. He looked up at Johnny with hate-filled eyes. "You should be thankful, Murphy," Evan said. "That girlfriend of yours was hitting on Scott Martin since day one — you were just too stupid to see it."
Johnny grew red in the face.
>
"She even made a move on me last week when you were at football practice." Evan climbed to his feet, wincing in pain. "Sat right in my lap in that little MG of hers. Ask anyone. Plenty of people saw us."
Johnny exploded and threw a right hook into Evan's face, knocking him to the ground again. Then he whipped out his switchblade knife and stuck it in front of Evan's face. "You shut up about my girlfriend, you little creep!" Johnny screamed, his features contorted in rage. "Or I'll slash your face. I oughta do it anyway for what you did to Scott — an eye for an eye."
Boomer pulled Johnny away from Evan. "Not the knife, Johnny. He's not worth going to jail over."
"Ask your so-called girlfriend if you don't believe me," Evan said defiantly.
Livid, Johnny stormed back to the Jeep and pulled Evan's clay doll from the front seat. "By the way, geek, you left this at Tiffany's house." With a quick thrust Johnny jammed the knife blade into the clay girl's head.
Evan groaned in pain as if he himself had been stabbed.
"That's what's going to happen to you next!" Boomer said with a malicious smile. "If you ever go near Scott or Alicia again."
Johnny took the clay girl, the knife still in its head, and threw it beneath the wheels of his Jeep. Then he jumped in the Jeep and backed it over the figure.
Evan gasped in honor.
Boomer laughed. "Good one, Johnny."
Johnny and Boomer exchanged high fives. Their arms were still waving in the air when a gunshot exploded.
Chapter 25
A covey of birds was flushed from a nearby elm tree.
Evan didn't move. Had he been shot? He gently flexed his arms and legs, testing his body for injury.
"Leave that boy alone and get on out of here."
Evan recognized the gruff voice even before Johnny's grandfather came into sight. Old Man Murphy had a Winchester pump shotgun resting in the crook of his muscular forearm; the barrel was still smoking. His leathery, wrinkled face was covered with white stubble, and he was wearing an old, crushed hat with fish hooks sticking out of it.
He smiled and revealed a set of crooked teeth. "Fun's over, Johnny." Then the smile quickly vanished. "Take your friend and get the hell of out of here. Now!"
Johnny glared at his grandfather. "Someday I'll make you eat that gun, old man."
Boomer hopped into the Jeep and Johnny roared away.
"Are you all right, son?" Old Man Murphy asked Evan, lowering the barrel of the gun.
"Yeah. Thanks."
For a moment the old man said nothing. Evan wondered if the old man was going senile. Then he muttered, "I never did like that punk. Hard to believe he's my kin." He turned and walked away without saying another word.
Evan looked around to make sure the boys weren't coming back for him. Then he tenderly lifted the clay girl from the gutter. His work of art, his labor of love, had been mutilated. Johnny's knife was still jammed in its head, and the body had been crushed by the Jeep tires.
Evan removed a handkerchief from his pocket — Alicia's handkerchief — and gingerly pulled the knife out of the clay girl's head. He noticed the red dragon design on the handle of the knife and decided he liked it. The knife was his now, as far as he was concerned.
He carried the clay girl into his backyard and dug a hole next to where he had buried the cats.
Yes, he would give the girl a proper burial.
He would give them all proper burials.
Chapter 26
"I don't believe you!" screamed Alicia as Tiffany finished telling her what had happened to Scott. "Evan wouldn't… he couldn't…" She burst into tears. The thought of her boyfriend hurt like that, his face reduced to a bloody pulp, now a mass of scar tissue, was impossible for Alicia to imagine. When she saw Scott in her mind's eye, he was the most handsome boy she had ever seen in her life. His friendly smile quickly breaking into a goofy grin. That was her boyfriend. Not some sideshow freak.
"Believe it, Alicia," added Ellen. "His face looks like it was raked over by a sharpened fork. The gashes are just awful. I visited him in the hospital right after the accident. He was barely conscious. He was bundled up like a mummy. But ever since they took the bandages off, he doesn't want to see anyone."
Alicia fell back in the easy chair. She wasn't sure what to believe. Could she trust Ellen and Tiffany to tell her the truth? They weren't exactly the most devoted, trustworthy friends a girl could ask for.
Besides, even if what they said about Scott was true — that his face was totally messed up — how did they know it was Evan who had done the damage, and not the accident itself?
A gunshot derailed Alicia's train of thought. She sat bolt upright. "What was that?"
"That's what I'd like to know," Tiffany said uneasily, moving toward the window.
At any moment, Alicia expected a bullet to crash through the window. A part of her hoped it would go right through Ellen's head.
"I think it's just Old Man Murphy shooting off his gun again!" came Tiffany's voice.
"Down by Evan's house?" Alicia asked, worried. "They're doing something to Evan, aren't they?"
"Ali, have you heard a word we said the last ten minutes?" Tiffany asked.
"She heard us — she just doesn't want to believe it," Ellen said.
"It's all true, Ali," Tiffany said adamantly. "He's a nut. It's not just the guys joking around. Sure, they make up a lot of outrageous stuff about Evan that's not true. But some of it's not made up. And we're getting nervous about it."
"We've all done a lot of talking since the accident," Ellen said. "All the guys decided to talk straight about Evan, about what's made up and what's real. They're scared, Alicia. They don't want to admit it, but they're scared."
"So what do they say that's real that's so awful," Alicia challenged. "That he's smarter than they are? That he's kinder than they are?"
"Dead cats," Tiffany said, as if that said it all.
"Dead cats? What about dead cats?" Alicia asked.
"He's associated with dead cats. Charlie's seen him carrying one late at night, and I've seen him bury one in his backyard."
"Charlie's one to talk about dead cats," Alicia said. "Not exactly something you could take to court."
"He talks to himself," Ellen said. "A lot. It's spooky. Whole conversations."
"Says who?"
"Boomer and his brother. They heard him once while following him after school. They were up to their usual antics. It gave them such creeps, they decided to just go home. They told their father about it. Then that night when Evan's uncle went to the hospital, Boomer's dad said the same thing happened. Boomer's dad said it gave him the creeps too."
"Evan's uncle almost died that night," Alicia said. "Most people would cut him a little slack under the circumstances."
"Evan's uncle didn't almost die," Ellen corrected her. "He died. Flatline. He was dead for a good long while, then suddenly he wasn't dead anymore."
Alicia shrugged.
"I think Evan's a schizophrenic," Tiffany said.
"You don't even know what that means," Alicia replied with a sigh. She felt her head begin to swim. She shrank back and let herself be swallowed up in the easy chair. She simply refused to believe what they said about Evan.
"It's just a lot of lies and exaggeration," Alicia said, knowing that if she didn't have Evan to hang onto, she could easily whirl out of control.
"Alicia, we came here because we care about you," Ellen said. "We're scared for ourselves. What happened to Scott and you is a nightmare. We're scared we might be next. We're scared that something worse might happen to you."
"Lies and exaggeration," Alicia repeated out loud. And to herself again and again. Lies and exaggeration.
It had to be.
Chapter 27
When Evan entered the house, Dr. Hawke was there to greet him.
Evan went to the kitchen sink and washed the blood and the dirt from his hands.
"Have they been beating up on you again, boy?" Dr. Hawke asked.
"Yes, sir," Evan said acidly.
Just like me when I was a kid, Dr. Hawke thought.
"You love that blind girl, don't you?"
"Yes, sir, I do," Evan said, wiping his hands on a dirty dishrag. His eyes drifted down to the kitchen floor as if studying a piece of chipped linoleum. "But she doesn't love me."
"Not yet," Dr. Hawke said.
Evan didn't reply.
"You know what you have to do, don't you?" Dr. Hawke asked.
Evan shook his head no.
"No gain without pain," Dr. Hawke said.
No gain without pain echoed an evil voice in Evan's mind.
Chapter 28
Evan's hand was shaking as he took another sip of his uncle's cold, German lager beer, one he had snuck out of the fridge. Not that his uncle would mind. His uncle was pretty cool. His uncle and Alicia Norris and maybe Old Man Murphy next door were all pretty cool.
The rest could all die.
He grinned. He had a few wild ideas he'd have to give a little thought to. He'd knew that all he really had to do was wait for the voices to give him a little help. The voices were very creative. Evan had come to enjoy their company.
He ran the cool beer bottle over his swollen lip where Johnny had punched him.
They had beat him up because of what had happened to Scott. Not that they needed a reason. But now Alicia would know. Or suspect. He took a deep breath, snatched the phone from its cradle with a trembling hand, and dialed Alicia's number.
Alicia picked up right away. "Hello?"
Some mucus caught in Evan's throat. He took another drink of beer.
"Hello?" Alicia asked anxiously.
"Hello, Alicia," Evan said breathlessly. He had never called a girl before. He hadn't realized how difficult it would be.
"Evan…?"
"Hi," he said, picturing her standing with the phone pressed against her face. She was so great looking with her wild hair and dark brown eyes. Her eyes could still blaze right into him even though they were sightless.
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