Lorraine had wanted to run as fast as she could, as far as she could. But the streets surrounding the apartment building were filled with people. Clutching the valise tightly to her chest, she kept her chin tucked down and wove her way through the crowd. Without much conscious effort her mind registered the variety of shoes she saw: platform high heels, black shoes and brown shoes, sneakers with fluorescent laces. Twice, a face looked up at her from the sidewalk, filthy visages belonging to men who were too drunk to even stand. Lorraine ignored them all, and in turn, they ignored her. In a city that had to claim countless homeless families, the sight of a child on the streets at night was nothing unusual.
She didn’t dare look back, for fear the action would bring the stranger into view. Lorraine had no idea how much of a head start she had on him. He’d been five flights above her when she reached the ground level of the building, but if he’d been running he might be right behind her, just inches away from reaching out and grabbing her.
Her heart pounded behind the shieldlike suitcase. She moved around a puddle that filled the gutter of one corner and dared a quick glance to be sure there were no cars coming.
Lorraine had no idea where she was going. She only knew that she had to get as far away from the stranger as possible. Maybe he knew who she really was, but she was too terrified of him to find out. There was no one she could trust now that Bettina was . . . was . . .
Lorraine realized she had turned into a deserted street. Exhausted, she huddled in the doorway of a wholesale fabric shop and buried her face in her knees. She cried long and hard, thinking of the kindly homeless woman who had been like a mother to her these past days. Bettina had been strange, but she’d really cared about Lorraine. The child had sensed that from the start, and had felt marginally safe with her. Now she had no one, no place to go.
Something dripped on her head—water from an air conditioner. Sucking in a deep, shaky breath, Lorraine stood up and looked carefully up and down the block. She was alone. She kept to the shadows as she moved on, afraid someone might pass by and take notice of her. The little girl was too tired to run; the suitcase had grown heavier somehow. She knew she’d have to find a place to spend the night, but where? Could she hide out in a big box the way Bettina had that first night? Or could she stay hidden in another doorway?
The answer came to her at the next corner. She suddenly found herself looking at a brightly lit building. People were coming and going from it at a busy pace. There were all kinds—younger and older people, even kids. Not as young as herself, but young enough. Lorraine saw a crowd she could blend into and, with a surreptitious look behind herself, crossed over to the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Lorraine had found a way to get out of the city, but as yet she didn’t know where she was going. She passed a bagel stand and realized she was hungry. Carefully she reached into the pocket of her red sweater and pulled out a handful of change. She went up to the counter and bought a cinnamon-and-raisin bagel and an orange juice.
The man behind the counter was big and black, with a mouthful of crooked teeth that flashed a bright smile at her.
“You sure are a big lady to buy that all for yourself,” he said.
Lorraine thought quickly. “It . . . it isn’t for me. I’m sharing with my daddy.”
The black man nodded.
“A little snack for the road, huh?” he asked.
Lorraine did not get a bad feeling from him, but still she didn’t want to talk to anyone.
“Uh, yeah,” she said. “My daddy’s waiting for me. ‘Bye!”
“Where are you headed?” the man called out.
Lorraine ignored him. Where, indeed? She found a place to sit, careful to choose a seat beside a sleeping man in case the bagel man looked up and saw her. Then, opening the orange juice and unwrapping the bagel, she looked up at the night’s schedule: Teaneck, Bayonne, Elizabeth; the names meant nothing to her.
She took a bite of the bagel, but hardly tasted it. Suddenly the room around her seemed to grow blurry. Voices grew louder, but all masked together, so that individual words were incomprehensible. Out of it all, deep inside her mind, came the familiar voice of a boy.
Marty! Where were you?
I . . . They were busy with me. I’m sorry, Lorraine. Are you okay?
I’m scared. Bettina is dead!
Oh . . .
And a strange man is after me.
Don’t let him catch you, Lorraine. He’s dangerous. Something very bad is happening here, and he’s part of it. You have to get out of that city.
I don’t know where to go.
You have to come down to Jersey. Atlantic City is as close as you can get to me tonight. Buy a ticket for that line.
What do I do when I get there?
We’ll figure it out then. But, Lorraine . . .
Yeah?
You can’t open that suitcase full of money in front of all those people. You might get robbed by a mean person, or a nice person might tell a transit cop.
Lorraine hadn’t considered this. She realized how close she’d come to making a terrible mistake, and her heart began to flutter.
It’s okay. I’m here to help you now. Find a bathroom and take the money out in there.
Lorraine did as she was told. She stood up and began to search for the ladies’ room, finding one just past a row of ticket booths. The stalls were completely enclosed, right down to the floor. It made it easy for her to hide.
Take out five ten-dollar bills. That will give you more than enough for a ticket.
I’ve got it.
Then go buy your ticket. No, buy two tickets. It’ll throw them off the track. You’re too young to travel alone.
What do I do with the other ticket?
Just leave that up to me. Go on, get in line.
Lorraine headed for one of the ticket booths. She tried to look as if she belonged there, as if she wasn’t scared to death.
A loud conversation cut into her thoughts.
“What do you mean, it isn’t there? You had it five minutes ago!”
“I know I did, Donny! But it’s gone! Someone must have stolen it!”
Lorraine looked back over her shoulder to see a young couple, no older than seventeen, standing nearby. The girl’s long red hair was hanging down around the purse she had opened on her lap. Her hands moved quickly through it, shoving things out of the way. Her boyfriend leaned close, looking inside himself. Lorraine watched as the girl shook her head. She looked up at the boy with tears filling her green eyes.
“It’s gone, Donny! What’ll we do?”
Donny threw up his arms, his denim jacket coming open to reveal an Ozzy Ozborne T-shirt.
“Oh, this screws us up royally, Sandy! You know we were goin’ down to Atlantic City to apply for work! You know we wanted to beat the summer rush!”
Lorraine immediately realized what had happened. No one had stolen the girl’s ticket. Somehow, Marty had made it disappear. She tried to call him in her mind, but he was gone again. Taking a deep breath for courage, she got out of the line and walked over to the teenagers.
“Hello,” she said uncertainly.
The boy snarled at her. The girl gave her a weary half-smile.
“I heard what you said,” Lorraine went on. “Uhm, if you can do me a favor I can buy you another ticket.”
“Oh, right . . .” the boy said doubtfully.
The girl shushed him.
“What do you mean, kid?” she asked.
Lorraine rubbed the back of one leg with the front of her sneaker.
“Well, see, I’m going to . . . Atlantic City too,” she explained. “But I don’t think they’re going to let me on the bus by myself.”
Sandy nodded in agreement.
“But if you say you’re my sister,” Lorraine went on, “then we can go together and no one will say anything.”
“Gee, I don’t know,” Sandy said. “You’re really young. We could get in trouble.”
“How?”
>
“Well, if someone starts asking questions . . .”
“We’ll say we’re on our way to our father’s house,” Lorraine said. “Our parents are divorced, and Daddy is a . . .”
“He works in one of the casinos,” Sandy offered, warming up to the idea. Her eyes sparkled.
Donny snorted. “Forget it, kid. We don’t need any hassles.”
“You want to get to Atlantic City, or don’t you?” Lorraine snapped. She didn’t see any other way to solve her own problems, and she wasn’t going to “forget it.”
Sandy leaned over and whispered something in the boy’s ear. Then she looked at Lorraine.
“Are you running away from home?”
Lorraine shook her head. “Are you? I won’t ask questions if you won’t. It’s too hard to explain, okay? You just gotta trust me.”
“Trust a five-year-old?” Donny said.
“I’m eight,” Lorraine lied with a glare in her gray-green eyes. “I’m just little. Come on, the bus leaves in half an hour. Do you want a ticket or don’t you?”
“Donny, please . . .”
“All right!” Donny cried. “I give up. Go on and get your tickets, kid.”
Lorraine grinned in triumph.
“Wait,” Donny said. “Sandy, you go with her. It’ll look better that way.”
Playing the big-sister role to the hilt, Sandy took Lorraine by the hand and walked up to the line. The ticket man hardly glanced twice at them as they purchased two bus tickets. Sandy returned to where Donny was waiting and waved the ticket triumphantly.
“We’ll be there in about two hours,” she said.
“Let’s get going,” Donny replied. “We want a seat together.”
He regarded the small child who still held fast to Sandy’s hand.
“All of us,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re up to, kid, but thanks.”
Fifteen minutes later they were boarding the bus. As she was about to walk through the door, something made Lorraine turn and look behind her. Intelligent as she was, she could never have explained the feeling. Perhaps the closest analogy would be the feeling a gazelle might have when the lion is close behind.
Lorraine sensed danger.
She stopped and turned.
“What’s wrong, kid?” Donny asked. “Go on . . .”
Lorraine didn’t hear him. She was staring through the crowd of people, into a pair of dark and familiar eyes. The stranger had caught up to her.
Joe Trefíll locked eyes with his quarry. Then he began to run, one hand reaching out, ready to grab the child.
23
IN ONE OF his dreams that night, Steven found himself standing in a timberland of tall leafless trees. The trunks and branches were so gnarled they seemed to take on the qualities of facial features. If Steven had understood the concept of animism, he would have believed it existed in this dream forest. He walked without fear among the trees. They were powerful beings, but benevolent ones. He reached toward one particularly old tree, wanting to draw courage from the antiquity of it.
But someone was pressing a hand on his shoulder, urging him to do . . .
. . . something.
Go ’way.
Wake up. It’s time to go now.
The trees faded and Steven was disjointedly aware of being in Tatiana’s bedroom. The pressure remained on his shoulder, the shaking persisted.
Wake up!
“N-no,” Steven mumbled, half into his pillow. “S’dark out.”
You have to leave tonight. You’re going to come to us, Steven. We need you.
Marty?
Steven was suddenly completely awake and aware. He realized there was no one touching him.
Get dressed. If you don’t come, we’ll die. We are a unit, and without you we are incomplete.
Earlier in the day, when he’d been more alert, he’d been able to argue with Marty. But now, driven by a force too powerful to resist, he got up and did as he was told. Moving as if still in a dream, he was ready to leave the house in twenty minutes. Carrying his suitcase, he crept downstairs.
Money, you’re going to need money.
I don’t have any.
Find some.
I don’t want to steal!
You can mail it back someday. This is an emergency! Do you know where you can get some?
Steven thought, and remembered that Helga kept money in a jar in the kitchen. She used it for emergencies. He went there and was surprised to find one hundred eighty-six dollars, a few quarters, and one dime. He shoved it all into his pocket.
What do I do now?
You have to get to the airport. When you arrive, I’ll tell you what to do next.
Marty, I’m scared.
But Marty was gone again. It disturbed Steven how easily the other boy faded in and out of his mind, but not enough to make him go back upstairs and forget this whole idea. With a sigh of resignation, he opened the back door and walked out onto the patio. He carefully closed and locked the door behind him. Then he walked as quietly as he could around to the front of the house. The street was shadowy and deserted, as asleep as the people in the houses that ran down either side of it. Still, Steven expected that any minute someone would catch him. A dog would start barking, or someone who was up late would glance out a window, or . . .
Panic began to overtake him. He started to run, heading toward the main road.
He no longer thought of resisting the call to join Marty and the “others.”
24
SAMANTHA SAT CURLED up on the couch in her living room, one of Julie’s paintings spread out on the coffee table. The lamp beside the couch cast a softly bright glow over the paper. Julie had been in bed for over an hour, and Samantha felt somewhat lonely without her presence. It was a strange feeling, after living by herself for so long, but she didn’t like the quiet in the house. She had turned on the eleven-o’clock news, just to hear another voice. For some reason, she didn’t want to be alone this night, even if company meant an impersonal image on the television.
But Samantha wasn’t really paying attention to the news. Her eyes were fixed on the painting, studying every detail. Somewhere in that picture was the answer to her questions. It seemed impossible that a child’s primitive artwork could conjure up feelings of vague memories, but Samantha had had enough experience with emotions over the past few days to trust her basic instincts.
Julie, albeit subconsciously, was sending her a message. It had to do with a beach, and a place named Haybrook’s, and a little girl with a broken pail. Somehow, that was all connected to Julie’s presence here, and to whatever had happened in her garage.
No matter how long she stared at the picture, however, nothing came to her. She got up off the couch, grabbed a sweater from the closet, and went outside. The wind blowing down from the mountains was chilly, filled with the promise of rain. The dogs barked a few times, but she called out to hush them, and they quieted at once.
She moved along the path to the garage. In the distance an owl called out a warning that it was on the hunt. The wind rustled the wisteria vines, tapping them against the split-rail fence. Samantha reached the garage. She pulled the door open. Reaching inside, she switched on the light.
The Bronco II sat quietly waiting for another day of work. Samantha went to the driver’s side and got in. She held the steering wheel, trying to bring back some kind of memory.
She heard the door going down.
Samantha turned, half-expecting to see the door descending behind her. It was closed tightly, as it was supposed to be. Samantha sat in the truck a few more minutes, then hopped out again. She went to the bypass switch and pressed the button. A new memory came back to her. She recalled having trouble opening the door again.
It opened just fine now.
No, it wasn’t just the big door. There had been something wrong with the lock of the back door. She retraced her steps as she might have taken them that night. The lock on the back door was broken now, smashed by the ax Samanth
a had found on the floor when she arrived home with Julie. She’d put the ax back up on the wall. She looked at it, trying hard to remember.
Her head was beginning to ache from all the brain activity it was being forced to deal with. Samantha rubbed her forehead and yawned. Nothing was coming to her tonight. Maybe all she had to do was sleep. In the morning she might see things more clearly.
Upstairs in her bedroom, she drifted off to sleep, and did not dream anything significant that night.
When she woke up, she didn’t think of the previous night at all. She could hear Julie getting dressed, singing a song about the sunshine. Samantha pushed her covers aside and leveraged herself out of bed. She felt achy all over. Passing Julie in the hall, she mumbled good morning and went to take a shower.
Refreshed and awakened completely, Samantha dressed herself in jeans and a madras shirt and went downstairs. Her place was set with two pieces of toast with butter and jelly and a glass of orange juice.
“What a nice surprise,” she said. “Thanks, Julie.”
“I would have made you coffee,” Julie said, “but I never really watched you use the coffee maker.”
“That’s okay,” Samantha said, reaching for the toast. “I don’t feel like coffee today anyway.”
Julie sat down and began to put jelly on her own toast.
“Are you going to work today?”
“No, honey,” Samantha said. “My vacation starts today.”
Samantha ate some toast. Remembering Wil’s thoughts that Julie might have been brought in from another state, she decided to bring up the subject.
“Julie, I’d like to ask you some more questions today,” Samantha said. “It’s just a way that might help your memory come back.”
“Sure,” Julie said. “But I don’t remember anything more since yesterday.”
Samantha believed this, but she had to try.
“Have you ever been to Utah?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about Arizona?”
A shrug.
“New Mexico?”
“Why are you asking?” Julie said.
Samantha explained how Wil Sherer had been unable to find any orphanages in Colorado that had sheltered a child named Julie.
Cries of the Children Page 14
