Beyond Midnight

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  "It was the owl. I saw the owl in front of your house on the day she died. The owl, Nat. I told you about the legend I heard at the sanctuary—"

  "You sure as hell didn't tell me you believed the legend!"

  "You thought it was charming enough when I related it to you—"

  "Charm is one thing, but this is nuts! You're nuts!"

  She recoiled from the blow, but kept on charging forward. There were doors to be knocked down; she'd have to ignore the pain. "Tell me how she died, Nat—tell me!"

  "No!" he said, his voice rising dangerously. "It's over! Done with!"

  "Don't you understand? It's not over! She's not over!" Helen cried. "She's still here—and she's in pain. Tell me how she died, Nat," she pleaded. "Please, please tell me what you saw."

  Tears were flowing freely now; Helen let them flow unheeded. He let out a furious oath, then grabbed her by her shoulders and brought his face close to hers. "You have to know? It's so damned important to know? All right—I'll tell you! I went into the bedroom to change my shirt—the door was locked—she didn't answer—we'd been fighting—I came back down to my study to get a key—went back up—unlocked the door and found her. Dead. Of an overdose. Ergotamine. The drug that so fascinated you the last damn time you were here. God!" he said, investing a wrenching bitterness in the word. "Are you happy now?"

  Helen blinked back more tears. "Was the drawer open? Was she holding a pencil?"

  Another escalation in his anger. His hands gripped her shoulders ever more tightly. "There was no pencil!" he said in a furious voice. "Damn you! Only the bottle of pills, spilled on the rug!"

  "Why was the drawer open, then?" she asked, wincing from his hold.

  "Why? Because that's where she kept the freaking pills! In the freaking drawer!"

  Her voice was a mere croak. "But are you sure?"

  "No, I'm not sure!" he said, throwing his hands in the air so violently that Helen staggered back. "What do you want from me?" he shouted. "What do you want? Every gruesome detail? Is nothing sacred to you? All right! Linda was pregnant, you understand? But not by me. She tried to abort the fetus and ended up killing herself in the bargain! And yes, they did an autopsy! Is that what your next—?"

  "That was your son who died, not anybody else's!" Helen shouted, rounding on him. "How dare you accuse your wife that way?"

  He scowled, then suddenly stopped as if he'd been stabbed. He stared at her with something like fear and said, "How do you know it was a boy? Even Linda didn't know."

  Helen blinked. "I don't know how I know. I—"

  "Mom-meee-e-e," came a wail from behind her. Instinctively Helen snatched her dress from the floor and held it to her breast.

  "The monitor," Nat muttered, waving away her gesture. The wail—heartwrenching, pitiable—evolved into a loud, sorrowful cry through the speaker on the commode.

  "Mom-mee-e-e-e ...."

  Nat was standing with his legs apart, arms at the ready, watching Helen intently from under partly lowered lids— as if, she thought, he were expecting her to metamorphose into some kind of evil old crone. She watched the muscles of his clenched jaw working as he waited for her next move. His breathing was as labored as her own.

  The wail grew louder.

  "I have to go," he said abruptly.

  "And so do I."

  He turned on his heel. Before he was through the door of the bedroom, Helen had slipped her dress over her head and was pulling up the zipper. She glanced at the opened drawer with its unopened condoms, and then at the bed. It was not a bed she would ever lie in; of that she was sure.

  Then she, too, left the room.

  ****

  The silence of Sunday was deafening. No one called, no one came, no one apologized, no one withdrew, no one did anything. All day, Russ and Becky draped themselves listlessly over various pieces of furniture, as oppressive to Helen's spirits as the damp and muggy weather that refused to clear out. The garden was buggy, the house was hot. There was no place to go and nothing to do, nothing to do but wait. The sense of imminence was profound.

  In the evening Helen, hoping to bring down her feverish, anguished state over Nat a degree or two, poured herself a tepid bath. She piled reading material high alongside the claw-footed tub, and brought in the first cup of tea she'd made all day.

  The top book in the pile was a home reference manual that listed symptoms for various illnesses. Helen turned straight to "dementia" and decided, all in all, that nothing came close to describing her state of mind. What she had was not in home reference manuals.

  That left Aunt Mary's worsening condition. That afternoon she'd given everyone a scare by forgetting, for at least fifteen minutes, what day it was and what had happened on Saturday (she'd gone to a slide show on urban gardens at the senior center). Half an hour later, she was fine again. Most frustrating of all, the episode was completely unlike her other lapses—forgetting words like afghan, or how to use a waffle iron.

  Helen was scheduled to see a doctor about her aunt; but that wouldn't be until a week from Tuesday, and that was too far away. After some reading, she was more confused than ever. She sighed and put the book aside, then moved on to her next terrible concern: the outburst of near-hysteria that had prompted a dozen children to be pulled out of The Open Door in little more than a week.

  Nat had been right, of course: Helen was obsessing over Salem. Now she'd found a collection of essays that tried to interpret the witch hysteria of 1692. Surely there'd be an answer in there somewhere. If she could just understand the past, she felt that she'd be able to understand the present. Wasn't that the whole point of history?

  And so Helen read of Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, the nine-year-old daughter of a minister and her eleven-year-old cousin, who one day suddenly began weeping and staring and running around on all fours making strange, guttural sounds.

  Bewitched, said the examining physician.

  The hunt for witches began. Soon the girls named the minister's servant, the Barbadian slave Tituba, and two other lowborn women, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborn, as their tormentors. Tituba, terrified by her interrogators, eventually confessed to flying through the air and being a handmaiden of Satan.

  The hunt continued. More women were accused. More women accused. Soon men were blamed, including a former minister. Neighbors came forward. Old grudges were satisfied. Trials were instigated. Those who admitted their guilt were put in prison. Those who proclaimed their innocence were hanged.

  Nineteen died on the gallows. Four died in jail.

  One man was braver and more adamant than the others; he refused to plead at all. For his convictions, Giles Cory was pressed to death under a weight of stones. In his death agony, his tongue protruded from his mouth. The sheriff shoved it back with his cane.

  Why?

  ****

  He looked haggard and tense and fiercely distracted.

  "Peaches? What're you doing back here already?" Nat glanced at his empty wrist, as if it could tell him the day of the week, and then looked blankly at her again.

  He hadn't shaved; hadn't showered; probably hadn't slept.

  "The weather. And something's wrong," Peaches added as she swept past him into the hall and dropped her leather travel bag on the marble-tiled floor. "I heard it in your voice on the phone this afternoon. Is Katie all right?"

  "Of course she is," he said, annoyed by the mere question.

  Had he been drinking? She searched the brooding features of his face for evidence of it but found nothing there but raging torment.

  Helen Evett. It was as she hoped: He was beginning to doubt her at last.

  Peaches put her hand on his forearm and said softly, "Then what is it, Nat? Tell me. I've been in agony all day, worrying about you."

  "Unnecessary agony, in that case. I'm fine," he said bitterly.

  Despite his mood he grabbed hold of her bag and said, "I'll take this up for you. Katie's in the tub, getting her bath. She'll be glad to see you," he added as they m
ade their way up the stairs. "She's been whining for you all day long."

  "I missed her," said Peaches simply. "I'll be glad to put her to bed if you like."

  "If you're not too beat. The housekeeper quit, incidentally. And I couldn't find the phone number for that market that delivers—we're out of milk. And why the hell can't anyone make a decent sweater? Katie's red one—which she insisted on for school tomorrow—turned everything pink when I tried washing it. You're gone a day and a half," he said, "and the whole house falls down."

  Peaches laughed and said, "That was your idea, Mr. Mom."

  "Well, next time I get one of my bright ideas—stop me."

  They were in Katie's bedroom now. Katie heard their voices and called out excitedly, "I'm in the baftub, Peaches!"

  Peaches turned to Nat and gave him a look much warmer than anything she had before. "It's wonderful to be back home, Nat. Shall I take over from here?"

  "God, yes," he said abruptly, and he left her to it.

  Suppressing a grimace of disappointment, she watched him leave, then went into Katie's bathroom with a cheerful smile on her face. Katie was all enthusiasm; she needed someone to push her boats through the tub while she tried to sink them with her washcloth. In a minute or two, Peaches was extracting what she needed from the child.

  "And after the carnival, then what? Did you have any visitors?"

  "Uh-huh. Mrs. Evett. And Daddy was mad at her and he was yelling and I waked up."

  "And did you eat breakfast with that bad Mrs. Evett?" Peaches asked softly, watching the door.

  "No. I diddent."

  "Well, good. Now I'm back and I won't go away anymore. We won't let that bad Mrs. Evett do that to me, will we?"

  Katie shook her head, apparently without comprehending. No matter. The seed was planted; it needed only occasional watering. Peaches wrapped a big blue towel around Katie, then lifted her solid little form out of the tub, stood her on a thick chenille rug, and patted her dry. Nat had laid out Katie's pajamas, mismatched in two different patterns. Katie wanted Snow White on the bottom and the top, so Peaches went out to the dressing room to make the exchange.

  When she came back, she found Katie in her father's arms. "Hey, pumpkin," he was saying in an obviously contrite voice. "How about if I tell you an extra long story tonight?"

  "And Peaches, too? Two stories?"

  His voice was warm and amused as he said, "Okay—if you still want to hear another one. But my story is very long and very exciting: all about the adventures of Percy the Porcupine and how he got mixed up with a bunch of horses," he said, rubbing his unshaved chin on the open palm of his daughter's hand.

  "Daddee-e! You scratch!" she said in a giddy squeal. "Like a por ... por ...."

  "Porcupine," he said, lifting the Snow White pajama tops from Peaches as he passed by her, chuckling.

  "I'll just dash out for milk," Peaches told him.

  "Great," he said. "I'm sorry about that. And—well, for the surly reception, Peach."

  She tried the warm look on him again. This time, it seemed to take. His own look was melancholy, but that was all right; she could work with melancholy. She got in her car and backed out of the cobbled parking area just as the first rumble of thunder rolled through. Good. There was always the chance that the cat would be huddled in the gazebo, waiting to be let inside.

  If not today, then tomorrow.

  ****

  Violent thunderstorms pounded Salem until midnight and then moved east, leaving the city scoured and clean in its wake. By morning, a bright sun and cool Canadian air helped lift Helen's spirits out of the ditch where they'd spent the night.

  Helen hauled Russell out of bed and loaded him into the Volvo, then picked up Scotty on her way to The Open Door. She'd hired the boys to paint some playground equipment, and today was the first good drying day they'd had in a while.

  She hadn't expected to see the Porsche.

  It was parked, lights flashing, in front of the school where the patrol car had sat so recently. Nat was behind the wheel, obviously in too big a hurry to go into the parking lot. Helen caught a glimpse of Peaches—who wasn't due back in Salem until that evening—taking Katie into the preschool.

  Helen's spirits surged, then sank, then collapsed altogether, leaving her in emotional chaos.

  Suddenly Scotty said, "Mrs. Evett, stop the car!"

  She slammed on the brakes close behind the Porsche. "What? What is it?"

  Scott threw the back door open. "Mr. Byrne promised us a ride," he said. "'Member, Russ? C'mon! We got time."

  "No way," said Russell sullenly.

  "Hold it right there, Scotty," Helen said, but it was too late. The boy was making a beeline for the passenger side of Nat's car.

  "I'll get 'im," Russ said suddenly, jumping out of the Volvo.

  "Russell—the door," Helen said, exasperated that both boys had left both doors open. She was leaning over to close them and move out of the way of the beeping car behind her when she saw one of the four-year-olds from the preschool being rushed across the street by her father.

  Alarm bells went off. The Rosdicks were in the middle of a bitter custody battle; as far as Helen knew, Mrs. Rosdick hadn't given anyone else permission to accompany her daughter. The fear was confirmed when Lisa Rosdick came running from the parking area, screaming hysterically for someone to stop her husband just as his car screamed off in the opposite direction down the avenue.

  While Helen watched in astonishment, Scotty dove headfirst into the Porsche, with Russell right on top of him, and Nat threw the car into a sharp U-turn across oncoming traffic and roared off after the fleeing car.

  Leaving her own Volvo standing, Helen rushed out to drag the hysterical mother from the middle of the road. They ran to her office to call the police. Helen's hand was shaking violently as she punched in 911. She thought, I'll have to put it on speed dial if this keeps up.

  She gave a brief description of the crime, then handed over the phone to Lisa Rosdick for the rest. Parents piled up, agog, in the hall outside her office. Another thought occurred to Helen: Will they blame this on me, too?

  And then the most horrible, belated, unbelievable thought of all.

  My son is in that car, on a high-speed chase after a lunatic. My son!

  She ran back to the street, more filled with shock than with rage, more filled with rage than with confidence. How could he? How could he endanger my son?

  For an agonizing eternity she waited for the Porsche to return, shepherding an embarrassed Buick. But no one came back. A police car pulled up. Helen realized, for the first time, that Lisa Rosdick was alongside her, crying, incoherent; had been there the whole time.

  My son. Helen scanned the avenue up and then down, straining for sight of the Porsche.

  The officer and a couple of parents tried in vain to get Lisa Rosdick to calm down. Finally the officer—the same one who'd come about the graffiti—gave up and turned to Helen for information. She told him what she knew in a voice as calm as soft rain, afraid that if she lost control she'd never get it back again.

  The officer was reassuring but cryptic, telling Helen only that everything was under control.

  Peaches was there now, too. She was smiling as she said to Helen, "There's a call for you in the office."

  Helen felt a sudden rush of loathing for her. "I'm busy," she said, and turned away.

  Peaches tapped her on the shoulder. "It's Nathaniel Byrne," she explained.

  Whirling back to face her, Helen said angrily, "Why didn't you say—?" She bit back the rest and said, "Thank you," then ran back to her office, seizing her phone in a death grip.

  Nat's voice was passionless, careful. "I'm sorry I couldn't get through to you sooner; your phones have been tied up. We're two or three minutes away."

  "I hope my son enjoyed the ride," she said coldly.

  "I'm sorry about that, too. I made a judgment call."

  "Your judgment stinks," she said, losing it at last. She slammed down
the phone, taking out all her pent-up emotion on AT&T.

  By the time she got back outside, she could see the sleek black car bearing down on them. Helen stood on the curb like a prison matron, arms folded across her chest, trying to decide whom to pummel first: him or her son.

  The car pulled up alongside and the boys jumped out, oblivious to her fury.

  "Oh, man, that was so-o cool," crowed Scotty. "I'm not gonna forget that as long as I live!"

  "Yeah, but my dad was in lotsa chases better'n that," Russ argued, loyal to the last.

  "Man, I'm savin' up for a cell phone. Gotta have a cell phone. The cops got 'im, just 'cuz of us. Can that guy drive or what?"

  "It was the Porsche," said Russ. "It practically drove itself."

  "Oh, like you know—"

  Helen wasn't really listening. She was watching the driver, shadowed by the low roof of the car, for some sign, some ... anything. The passenger door was still open. Out of nowhere, Peaches slung her lithe body gracefully into the bucket seat and closed the door. The Porsche took off, leaving Helen in its dust.

  She rounded on her son. "What's the matter with you?" she said, whacking him on the shoulder. "Are you crazy? Jumping in a car like that on a high-speed chase through the city? What's the matter with you?"

  Russell, mortally embarrassed in front of the gathering, rallied to his own defense. "We didn't even run a light! He just kept behind the guy and called the cops and told them where he was!"

  "Yeah, Mrs. Evett," said Scotty, dimly sensing disapproval through his euphoria. "He even used his turn signals."

  "I don't care what he used! When you see something dangerous going on, you're supposed to jump out of the way, not in the way!" To Scott she said, "Wait till your mother hears about this!"

  She began shooing them toward the school building like a couple of errant lambs until she realized, quite suddenly, that both the boys were taller than she was. When had that happened? Here they were on the cusp of manhood, and she was still treating them like ten-year-olds—treating them like the boys they were when Hank died. Becky was right.

  It had to stop. "I'm sorry for losing my temper in front of everyone," she said to both of them outside her office.