The Walker in Shadows

by Barbara Michaels

  Her father woke the moment she did, sitting up with a stifled grunt as his stiff muscles protested. His sleep-heavy eyes went straight to Kathy. The girl had turned so that her back was toward her father. She was facing Pat, and after a moment recognition replaced the haziness of waking that clouded her eyes.

  "Mrs. Robbins-it is you. I thought I dreamed you." She yawned like a sleepy kitten, her even white teeth sparkling.

  "Kathy?" Josef's voice cracked. Kathy rolled over in bed.

  "Daddy. Did I oversleep? What time…" Then she really saw him. "What's the matter? You look so…"

  She sat up and held out her arms. Josef dropped to one knee beside the bed. Even then he did not embrace her; he took her hands in his and held them tight. Pat, who had moved to the foot of the bed so she could observe what went on in those first, revealing moments, was reassured-about the Friedrichs, if not about their immediate problem. The girl's candid face showed fear, but only for her father, not of him. She turned to Pat.

  "Mrs. Robbins, what happened? He's hurt-his face is all scratched and… Is that why you're here? Oh, Dad, you look terrible!"

  Pat sat down on the edge of the bed.

  "He's fine," she said. "Josef, I could use some coffee, and I'll bet Kathy is hungry."

  "Right." Josef rose to his feet, freeing his hands from Kathy's agitated grasp. "I'll just… I'll be right back."

  He knew, of course, why Pat had dismissed him. Kathy's bewildered blue eyes followed him as he stumbled from the room.

  "Mrs. Robbins, what-"

  "Now we talk," Pat said. "You're the patient, Kathy, not your father. What happened last night?"

  "Last night? I don't understand."

  "Are you taking drugs, Kathy? Pills? Pot? Peyote, or seeds, or-"

  Hoping to catch the girl off guard, she made her voice hard and inquisitorial. She would not have been surprised, or convinced, by an indignant denial. Instead, Kathy blushed guiltily.

  "I've smoked pot a few times… at parties… Please don't tell Dad, he thinks I'm a virgin saint or some-thing. Hey. Wait a minute. You mean last night? Honest to God, Mrs. Robbins-"

  "It couldn't have been marijuana," Pat said, half to herself. "The symptoms weren't right. Besides, I'd have smelled it."

  "So would Dad." Kathy pushed a pillow behind her and sat back. "I'd never be dumb enough to smoke here at home, he's got a nose like a bloodhound. What went on last- Oh!" As she twisted to push the pillow into a more comfortable shape she saw something that made the healthy flush fade from her cheeks. "Oh. I'm beginning to remember…"

  She was looking at the lamp on the bedside table.

  "It wasn't a dream," Kathy said slowly. "That hand- that awful, bony hand… It threw the lamp at me."

  Three

  I

  The hands of Pat's wristwatch pointed to seven thirty when she inserted her key in her door, congratulating herself on being in time to destroy the note before Mark got up. His first class was at nine a.m., and he saw no reason to rise before eight thirty. After all, it was only a twenty-minute drive to campus.

  She had felt compelled to leave a note, in case some uncharacteristic quirk roused Mark earlier than normal, but Pat was thankful he wouldn't see it. She didn't want to tell him the truth and she was too tired to think up a good lie.

  But as she opened the door she realized that the fate that hates mothers had dealt her another low blow. Leaving the door ajar, she made a dash for the kitchen.

  Unfortunately for her, Mark was already on the stairs, and the hall was long. It never entered his head to wonder why his mother was racing through the house in the early morning hours; he entered into the game with youthful enthusiasm, and naturally beat Pat to the kitchen door by at least six feet.

  "The winnah and still champeen!" he shouted, blocking the doorway and foiling Pat's efforts to pass him. "Don't you know when you're defeated? Can't run the way you used to, old lady; sit down and rest those aged bones."

  He swept Pat off her feet and deposited her in a chair with a thud. He loved to carry her around the house; she suspected it was an unconscious revenge for all the years she had dragged him from place to place against his will. Or maybe it wasn't unconscious… Rubbing her posterior, she made a hideous face, trying to hold Mark's attention. It was in vain. His first move, after a long starving night, was always toward the refrigerator.

  After a moment fraught with suspense, Mark looked up from the paper. His smile had vanished.

  "Kathy or her old man?"

  "What do you-"

  "Which of 'em is it? How sick? Is she all right?"

  "How did you know?"

  Mark handed her the note. For the first time Pat saw what was on the other side of the paper. She cursed her own good manners. If she had folded it, instead of trying to show Josef she trusted him… Kathy had begun a theme on economic theory. Her name was neatly inscribed in the upper-right-hand corner.

  "Oh, damn," Pat said, and then took pity on her distraught son. "She's fine, Mark. Really."

  "I'll cook breakfast," Mark said. "You talk."

  So she told him. She and Jerry had lied to Mark often enough, when he was too young to bear pain lightly- when a neighbor's dog, adored by Mark, had been hit by a car, when a pet hamster had been devoured by Albert in an absentminded moment. But, as Jerry had always said, never lie if there's a chance you'll get caught.

  Mark almost burned the bacon as he listened. He interrupted only once, when she mentioned drugs.

  "No," he said flatly. "Not Kathy."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "I'm sure. Nobody but high-school kids takes LSD these days, and…" Mark stopped, giving his mother a wary look. They had had this discussion before, and it always ended in a fight, because Mark maintained no one over forty knew anything about drugs, and then Pat would demand how he knew so much. This time they were both too preoccupied with other issues to pursue a minor one. Mark went on indignantly, "Damn it, Mom, how can you suggest theories like that when it's obvious what happened?"

  "You mean-"

  "Friedrichs. I knew that old pervert was-"

  "No." It was Pat's turn to be positive. "I know. Wait, you haven't heard the rest of it."

  She left out only one thing-her own dream, which had so oddly echoed Kathy's nightmare. When she finished, Mark's eyes were shining and his face had the queerest look, half excitement, half wonder.

  "She was awake, when she saw it?"

  "Of course she wasn't," Pat snapped. "She dreamed she woke up. I've had that happen in dreams, so have you."

  "So she dreamed she woke up. Tell me again what she dreamed she saw when she dreamed she was awake."

  "Now, see here, Mark-"

  "Please, Mom. In detail."

  Pat sighed. "Oh, all right. I haven't got the strength to argue with you.

  "Kathy said she was lying on her side facing the window." Pat spoke slowly, trying to reproduce, if not the girl's exact words, the mood and the atmosphere. "She wakened with a start, the way you wake when some loud, unexpected noise jars you out of sleep. She said she could feel her heart beating. It was a frightening sensation. She lay still for a moment, wondering what had awakened her and why she felt so alarmed. She saw the curtains-filmy white dacron-moving in the night breeze, like ghostly figures. But she knew that wasn't what had frightened her."

  "Go on," Mark said urgently.

  "My scrambled eggs are getting cold," Pat said, taking a bite. "Besides, I'm trying to remember exactly… She was cold, horribly cold. The window was open only a few inches, but she felt icy air envelop her body, as if it slid under the blanket to get at her. With the cold came a mindless terror, and a conviction that something was in the room."

  "Something or someone?"

  "She said 'something, " Pat admitted. "She couldn't see clearly, but she imagined a kind of curdled shape in the shadows. She was afraid to call out. If a thief had sneaked into the room, an outcry might alarm him and cause him to attack her. She said she an
d her friends had discussed what they would do in such cases, and had decided the safest course was to pretend to be asleep. Thieves don't usually attack people unless they-"

  "Never mind the crime lecture," Mark interrupted. "We've discussed it ourselves; what defenseless citizen hasn't, these days? It wasn't a burglar that woke Kathy."

  "I don't know that and neither do you," Pat said. "She did decide to remain still-which wasn't a difficult decision, because she couldn't have moved if she had wanted to. Then… then the objects in the room began to move around."

  This was the part of the story that bothered her most. All the rest could be explained away. So could this, of course, as a product of dreaming; but…

  "Small objects at first," Pat went on reluctantly. "Papers on the desk lifted and scattered. That could have been the wind. But wind couldn't have shifted a pair of china figurines or pulled books from the shelves-or moved the lamp on the bedside table.It… it's a rather heavy lamp, with a bronze base. She had chosen one of that type be cause the dainty porcelain types fall over easily, and don't give enough light to read in bed."

  Mark paled visibly. Pat knew he was thinking of Kathy's lovely little face, with its fragile bones and delicate skin. The lamp had been lying on her pillow, where her head had rested. At best, it would have bruised and cut her.

  "It didn't hit her," she reassured him again. "She moved when it started to topple. She remembers running and screaming, nothing more; not even her father grabbing her."

  Mark started to speak; then he closed his mouth and cocked his head. Pat knew the look, and was on guard when he said craftily, "She's probably lying, to protect her father."

  "You don't believe that any more than I do. You're trying to distract me, and I only wish I knew what from. Homework? Did you finish that paper? Is that why you're up so early, hoping to get it done before class? If you think I'm going to type it for you, at this hour-"

  "The paper has been turned in," Mark said, in injured tones. "I have to get to school early, that's all. I told Jim I'd help him with his math before class."

  "You mean Jim told you you could copy his homework. Get going, then. I'm so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. I'm going to bed."

  Mark insisted on helping her upstairs, as if she were a hundred years old. She sank into dreamless slumber the minute her head hit the pillow.

  II

  It was late afternoon before she woke, and she probably would have slept longer if Albert had not settled down on her stomach. He did that when he decided it was time for his slothful humans to arise and feed him.

  Pat heaved the cat off, and got up. The house was quiet, so she knew Mark wasn't in it. He had returned from school, however. The dishes piled in the sink and the splashes of spaghetti sauce on the stove told her that. She got herself a cup of coffee and drank it, glancing through the paper as she did so. Then she went outside.

  The first thing she saw was her son's back. He was sitting on top of the fence that separated their house from that of the Friedrichs'. She was too far away to hear what he was saying, but she could see that he was talking; his head bobbed up and down, and once he waved both arms in an eloquent gesture that almost sent him toppling off the fence.

  The grass needed cutting again. Pat waded through it toward the fence, her mouth set. She moved silently, but some sixth sense warned Mark of her approach. He turned a tousled brown head toward her, and before she could speak he said in dulcet tones, "I'm not breaking the rules, Mommy. My feet aren't touching the forbidden ground."

  "Smart mouth," Pat said.

  There was a giggle from the other side of the fence, and a voice said, "Hi, Mrs. Robbins. Isn't it a pretty day?"

  "Hello, Kathy. How are you feeling?"

  "Fine." A wide blue eye appeared in a crack between two boards. "Dad said I didn't have to go to school. But I feel great. I wanted to thank you for what you did last night."

  "That's quite all right." Pat felt peculiar talking to an eye. She came closer to the fence. "Is your father there?"

  "No, ma'am. He went to work."

  "I've been thinking perhaps you ought to see a doctor, Kathy. Just to be on the safe side."

  "Oh, that's not necessary, Mrs. Robbins. Really. Mark just explained everything to me." The eye narrowed in an expression only too familiar to Pat, who grimaced dis gustedly as Kathy continued in adoring tones, "He knows all about it. I mean, I really appreciate him telling me. It's not so scary when I know it was a ghost, not me going crazy or anything like that."

  Even after years of exposure to that curious phenomenon that passes for reasoning among the young of the human species, Pat was left speechless by this comment. She glanced up at her son, who was regarding her with what could only be described as a superior smirk. Then he looked away, and his expression changed to one of guilt and alarm. If Pat hadn't been so angry she would have laughed. She didn't need Kathy's cry of greeting to know who was approaching.

  "Hi, Dad. You're home early."

  "One of my meetings was canceled," said Josef's deep voice. "We have a date for dinner, Kathy, remember? If you're sure you feel up to it."

  Pat leaned against the fence, folded her arms, and prepared to enjoy the conversation-if it was going to be a conversation and not a dialogue. Would Josef acknowledge Mark's presence? It would be difficult to ignore the lanky figure atop the fence, but if anyone could do it, Josef was the man.

  Kathy foiled her attempt to remain a detached spectator.

  "Mrs. Robbins is there on the other side of the fence, Dad," she said gaily. "Aren't you going to say hello?"

  "Hello," Josef said.

  Feeling like a fool, Pat responded.

  "You'll excuse us," Josef said smoothly, "but we've a long drive and I don't want to be late. Kathy?"

  "Yes, all right. Good-bye, Mrs. Robbins, and thanks again. So long, Mark. See you."

  Pat scuttled toward the house. What a fool she must have looked, lurking behind the fence. But there was no gate in it. Jerry had made sure of that.

  Later, she was to call herself bad names for ignoring the vital clue in that conversation. But she was thinking of other things, such as Josef's successful attempt to squelch Mark by pretending he was invisible, and when she reached the house she found another distraction. She had condemned Josef for bad manners-he might at least have thanked her for her all-night vigil-but as soon as she walked in the back door she heard a knock at the front. When she answered it she saw a messenger carrying a long white box. It contained a sheaf of exquisite, long-stemmed yellow roses. The card was particularly eloquent, it read simply, "Thank you," and his name. But how had he known that yellow roses were her favorites?

  She was looking for a vase tall enough to contain such elegance when Mark came in. With cool effrontery he picked up the card and read it aloud.

  " Thank you, Josef.' Where does he get off using his first name?"

  Rummaging in seldom-used cabinets high above her head, Pat found a tall crystal pitcher.

  "We spent the night together, after all," she said.

  "Hmph," said Mark.

  Pat put the flowers on the table between the brown plastic bowl and the chipped cream pitcher.

  "Classy," Mark said. "Inappropriate, but classy."

  "You've been seeing Kathy, haven't you?"

  Mark dropped the spoon he had been playing with, and dived under the table in pursuit of it. When he came up his face was red, but that might have been explained by his upside-down position. However, one look at his mother's face told him the futility of denials.

  "Two hundred years ago they'd have burned you as a witch," he muttered.

  "Don't flatter yourself, you aren't that enigmatic," his mother said cruelly. "I should have known you were up to something; you've been so cheerful lately. Today's con versation with Kathy was just a little too fluent if you had seen as little of her as you claimed."

  "And?" Mark raised his eyebrows.

  "And, while I was searching her room last night I
found a note-don't sneer at me like that, I had to do it, Mark! It was under the blotter on her desk and it said, 'Meet me at the usual place, midnight.' It wasn't signed; but I thought at the time the writing looked familiar. If I hadn't been concerned with more important things I'd have put two and two together long before this."

  "We only met a couple of times," Mark mumbled.

  "Where?"

  "That old oak tree at the back of their yard. The branches go down almost to the ground on one side, and-uh-"

  "I don't know what to say."

  "That's a change," Mark said cheekily. "Hey, Mom, take it easy. I'm not doing anything you need to be ashamed of."

  "The note had one other word. I didn't quote it because I didn't want to embarrass you."

  Mark's eyes fell. "You sign letters that way even to people you hate. Great-Aunt Martha-"

  "I do not meet Great-Aunt Martha under the oak tree at midnight. Mark, let's not play games. You know what I'm talking about."

  "Yeah, I do, and I think I'm being insulted. Mom, let me handle it. I know what I'm doing."

  "Do you?"

  They ate in cold, unhappy silence. The velvety roses mocked Pat with their serene beauty and their promise of friendship. If Josef Friedrichs found out Mark and Kathy had met clandestinely-and in such a stupidly romantic, potentially dangerous place… Why couldn't they get together at a local pizza place or even a bar? But Pat knew why. Kathy was so closely supervised she could only elude her father late at night, after she was supposed to be in bed. Josef was wrong to treat a girl that age like a baby or a criminal, but his folly did not excuse Mark's.

  III

  Winston Churchill, it is said, conducted World War II on three hours of sleep a night, augmented by frequent naps. Pat was not one of the napping kind; her afternoon sleep always left her cross and groggy, fit only for an early night. She went to bed at ten. Mark's light was still on. He had been at his desk since seven, and when she glanced in to say a rather cool good-night she was softened by the evidences of scholarly industry. His desk was piled high with books and he was taking notes with furious energy.