Summer of Fear

by Lois Duncan

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk about him like he was already dead,” I said. “He’s not, you know. He can get better.”

  “We can certainly hope so,” Mom said. “After dinner I’m going to call the hospital. There may have been some change since Mrs. Gallagher called this afternoon.”

  “You won’t have to do that,” Julia said. “I’m going to the hospital later this evening. I’ll bring back a report on how the professor is doing.”

  “You’re going to the hospital?” My heart caught in my chest. “Why would you do that?”

  “Mike’s driving over to pick up his mother,” Julia said pleasantly, “and he asked me if I wanted to ride along.”

  “How nice!” Mom said. “I’ll cut some flowers for you to take with you. If the professor isn’t well enough to enjoy them, at least they’ll make the room a little less depressing for his poor daughter.”

  “But why should Julia go to the hospital?” I demanded. “She isn’t a friend of Professor Jarvis’s. She hardly knew him and besides that—besides . . .” I let the sentence trail off weakly. The words I wanted to speak burned on my tongue, but I couldn’t say them. Besides that, I longed to shout, Julia is the one responsible for his being in the hospital in the first place! Whatever purpose she had for going there had to be a bad one. She’s planning something—something terrible!

  Instead, with a violent effort, I brought my voice under control.

  “I want to go too,” I said.

  I thought I saw a flicker of irritation in Julia’s eyes.

  “We’re not going to stay,” she said. “We’re just going to pick up Mike’s mother.”

  “That’s all right,” I replied. “I don’t plan to stay long either.”

  “Then why do you want to go?”

  Out of the blue an answer occurred to me. “I want to meet Mrs. Chavez. The professor talked about his daughter so often, I’d like to see her and tell her how sorry we are and find out if she needs anything while she’s here.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Dad was regarding me with more approval than he’d shown for weeks. “That would be a gracious thing to do, Rae.”

  “You can take her the house key,” Mom said. “I locked up the Jarvis house. She and her husband will be wanting to sleep there. And while you’re at it, take her my cell phone. She mentioned forgetting hers in their rush, and I want her to be able to reach us easily if she needs us.”

  “But I can do that!” There was an edge to Julia’s normally well-modulated voice. “There’s no reason Rachel has to come. Besides, there may not be room in the car considering we have to pick up Mrs. Gallagher.”

  “There’s plenty of room for four people to ride in Mike’s car,” I said firmly. “And I’m sure he won’t mind my going, if that’s what you’re going to bring up next. Remember, he’s as fond of me as if I were his sister.”

  “Don’t be so smug, Rachel!” Real anger flashed in Julia’s eyes. “You just kill your own snakes and leave me kill mine!”

  “What?” I said, and from his seat beside me Bobby echoed the question. “What was that you said? About killing snakes?”

  “It’s just a local expression.” Julia flushed. “Somethin’ they say back home. What I meant was that Rachel should mind her own business. She’s not goin’ with Mike no more and there’s no good reason she’s got to shove her nose in where she’s not wanted.”

  There was a moment of silence. Everyone at the table was staring at Julia as though unable to believe their ears.

  It was Dad, at last, who said gently, “You can’t mean that, Julie. It’s not as though you and Mike were going out on a date. Rae has as much right to go over to the hospital as you do. Don’t let the fight you girls had last night, whatever it may have been about, stand between you. We’re all one family; let’s try our best to get along together.”

  Julia dropped her eyes and swallowed hard. From where I sat across from her, I could see the tendons in her neck standing out like taut wires as she struggled to contain her emotions. For once, things were not going her way. For the first time since her arrival in our home she didn’t have the situation under control.

  I wasn’t sure why, but for some reason the last thing in the world that Julia wanted was for me to accompany her on her trip to the hospital.

  “All right,” she said finally in a low, tight voice. “All right, Tom. You’re right, of course. I’m sorry I got so—so upset.”

  “Rae can be pretty upsetting sometimes,” Peter said sympathetically. “I can see why you wouldn’t really want her to tag along.”

  “I wish you two would make up,” Bobby said. “Then Rae could move back into her own bedroom. How am I going to have guys over or anything if I’ve got a sister sitting in there reading her dumb books on the other side of a flowered sheet?”

  “Rae can move back whenever she likes,” Dad said. “I’m sure she won’t find it too easy herself, rooming with an eleven-year-old brother. Nothing would make me happier than to see—”

  The doorbell rang.

  “That’s Mike.” Julia kept her eyes on the table. I wondered if she was afraid that if she lifted them she would disclose something that she didn’t want us to see.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, shoving back my chair. “I’m through eating.”

  I jumped up quickly, before Mom could open her mouth to protest the pile of untouched food on my plate, and hurried to the door. When I pulled it open it seemed for a moment as though time had fallen away and it was spring again, for there was Mike, his thumbs hooked casually in the pockets of his jeans, his hair already fluffing up from an effort at combing that hadn’t survived the short trip from his yard to ours. I’d opened the door to find him this way so many times, flashing his quick, happy grin, saying, “Hi, Carrottop. Are you ready?”

  Now he said, “Hello, Rae. Is Julia ready?”

  “Almost,” I said. “We’re just finishing dinner. Is it all right if I go with you to the hospital?”

  “Sure,” Mike said. “Glad to have you. I know you must be worried about the professor. You were always so fond of the old guy.”

  “Not ‘were,’ ” I said. Why did everyone keep talking about Professor Jarvis in the past tense? “ ‘Am.’ He’s alive, Mike! He’s still alive!”

  But a half hour later, standing with Mrs. Gallagher and Bonnie Chavez in the white-walled room at Presbyterian Hospital, I wasn’t so certain.

  “Is he—I mean, are you sure he’s—breathing?” I whispered.

  “Yes, dear. Do you see that gauge? It’s measuring his heartbeat.” Mrs. Gallagher put a plump arm comfortingly around my shoulders. “He’s doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. It’s just lucky that Bobby found him when he did.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Mrs. Chavez said tremulously. She was a gentle-faced woman who looked startlingly like the photograph of Mrs. Jarvis that the professor kept on the piano in his living room. “Daddy was always so strong and healthy. That’s the only reason we agreed to letting him stay alone after Mother died. We wanted him to come live with us, but he was so definite about not wanting to leave Albuquerque. He had so many friends here, and he loved the stimulation of being close to the University.”

  “Something like this could have happened anywhere,” Mrs. Gallagher told her. “In Clovis as well as here. You shouldn’t blame yourself. No one is to blame.”

  Someone is, I thought miserably.

  Cautiously, so as not to risk disturbing the various tubes and tapes, I moved closer to the bed and stood gazing down at the motionless figure that had only yesterday been a vital, active human being. The face on the pillow appeared so shrunken and strange that if it hadn’t been for the crown of snowy hair I might not even have recognized it as the professor’s. The lips hung slack over a formless cavity of mouth, and the eyes were sunken deep into dark hollows beneath the shaggy brows.

  I reached out gently and touched the gnarled hand that lay limp upon the sheet, and I felt no
answering pressure, no response of any sort from the lifeless fingers.

  “He looks so different,” I said haltingly. “His face—”

  “It’s his teeth,” Mrs. Gallagher said. “One of the first things they did when we got here was to take out his dentures. They were afraid they might slip and get caught in his throat while he was unconscious.”

  “And his glasses,” Mrs. Chavez said. “We were so used to seeing him wearing glasses. And, of course, he was always smiling and talking, never still like this. Even when he was sleeping, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this still.”

  There were footsteps behind us and Mrs. Chavez turned.

  “Oh, how pretty!” she exclaimed, trying to smile. “Look, Mrs. Gallagher, we have flowers!”

  “Aunt Leslie thought you might enjoy them,” Julia said. “Mike and I stopped at the gift shop on the way up and got a card to go with them.”

  “Thank you, dear. They’re lovely,” Mrs. Chavez said politely. “Now I must try to place you. Are you related to the kind woman who phoned me to tell me about my father’s accident?”

  “I’m Julia, her niece,” Julia said. “And this is Mrs. Gallagher’s son Mike. We all just loved your father. He was a very popular person.”

  “I used to do his yard work,” Mike said. “He was a great guy to work for, always patient about letting me plan my work time around swim meets. He’d come and stand and talk to me while I did the edging. He was interested in so many things that he could hold a conversation about anything.”

  “He was wonderful with young people,” Mrs. Gallagher said. “It was the professor who first got Mike started reading. When he was a little boy he hated to read, and then one day Professor Jarvis brought over a book about a boy who wanted to be a long-distance swimmer, and Mike didn’t put it down until he was finished.”

  Their voices droned on behind me, rising and falling in a pattern of forced conversation, and I turned my mind from them and concentrated all the strength of my thoughts upon the figure on the bed.

  Professor, I cried silently, this is Rachel, your friend! Are you there, Professor, someplace beneath the sagging skin and the death-mask face? Are you thinking and knowing? Are you there?

  The professor didn’t move. His fingers remained limp in the warmth of my hand, and I tightened my grasp on them, willing them to stir, to give me some sort of movement so I would know life existed.

  Professor, it’s Rachel, I told him frantically. Please, look at me, speak to me, do something!

  “We really have to be going,” Mrs. Gallagher was saying. “Are you sure there’s nothing more we can do for you? Will you be staying at your father’s house?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Chavez said. “We’ll be going there later. My husband’s gone out to get something for us to eat, and we’ll sit with Daddy a bit longer. I’m sure the nurses will take care of him, it’s just that I hate the thought of going off and leaving him with strangers.”

  “If you need any errands run, just let me know,” Mike said. “My hours at the pool are pretty loose.”

  “Feel free to ask me for anything too,” Julia said. “I’m free to do anything that will help. Let me know if you’d like to have me come down and sit with your father a while so you can get some rest.”

  It was then that I saw it—the flicker of an eyelid. If I hadn’t had my gaze so concentrated on the professor’s face I would have missed it altogether. Now, suddenly, I saw that the shaded eyes, sunken deep into the sockets, weren’t closed after all. They were open and staring, half-covered by the shadow of the gray lashes, and with no facial movement to accentuate them they seemed as expressionless as the eyes of a plastic doll.

  Yet when I leaned closer and could see into them, they were far from empty. They were thinking, knowing eyes, and they looked straight into my own.

  Save me, they screamed from the confines of the immobile face. Save me, Rachel! Get me out of here! I’m trapped! I cannot help you! You must do it alone!

  “—wonderful of all of you,” Mrs. Chavez was saying, her voice warm with gratitude. “It’s so good to know that Daddy’s friends are on call to help. It would have meant so much to him, knowing how many of his neighbors loved him and were concerned about him.”

  “You have to let me help,” Julia said. “I’d be so glad to sit with him. I lost my own father just recently and I know what it means—”

  She would be so glad to sit with him. Of course. What was it I had read only yesterday—that a witch could cause death by walking three times clockwise around a sick man? The book had described this as difficult to accomplish because most beds stood against a wall.

  But a hospital bed was on rollers.

  I couldn’t fall asleep that night. Not that this was unusual. It seemed like forever since I’d fallen asleep quickly and easily, the moment my head touched the pillow, and woken up in the morning refreshed and happy! On this night I couldn’t even read. Bobby refused to let me have the light on, so I lay tense and restless in the stuffy, cramped area on the far side of the room divider, listening to the snoring sounds my brother made in slumber and trying not to be aware of the odor of his sneakers, which lay on the floor directly on the other side of the flowered sheet.

  In the room above me, the lovely, yellow-walled room which I had painted myself the summer before, lay Julia. I could picture her there, lying flat and still, her hair loose upon the pillow, her lips curved slightly as she smiled in her sleep. Or was she sleeping? Perhaps, instead, she was lying awake, just as I was, thinking back over the events of the day and planning for tomorrow.

  Tomorrow—and the next day—and the day beyond that—how far ahead did Julia’s planning go? If only it were possible to look through those eyes of hers into the depths of her mind! I couldn’t believe that she was moving impulsively along one day at a time in a haphazard manner. What had happened today was for Julia one step along a road toward a particular destination. What was it Julia wanted so desperately? Where was her road leading? And what was to become of us all if and when she reached her goal?

  If I could answer these questions, maybe I would be able to stop her. But where were the answers? Not in the books I’d brought home from the library; I had read those from cover to cover. Not in Professor Jarvis, a speechless, motionless captive in a hospital bed. If only there were someone, I thought, who knew Julia before she came here, someone who might have an understanding of her motives and intentions. But who? Her parents were dead and so was the woman who worked for them. Julia had no brothers or sisters, and she had spent so little time in Lost Ridge that it was doubtful she would have friends there, the kind she would have confided in.

  No family, no friends. It was like trying to make sense out of a book that began in the middle with nothing before it but blank pages.

  The more I thought about the problem the more insurmountable it became, and when I fell asleep at last it was a fitful, dream-laden sleep that brought little rest.

  In the dream I was running along the edge of a road. Red cliffs rose to one side and a sheer drop-off lay on the other, and Mike was running with me.

  “Will we get there in time?” I cried to him. “Can we get there before it happens?”

  “Are you crazy, Rae?” he shouted. “If you’d only explain—”

  “I can’t!” I gasped. “There’s no time!”

  And far ahead at the curve of the road there appeared, as I had known there would, a car. I knew who was driving. I had dreamt this dream before. Long before the car was close enough for me to see the face behind the wheel, I was running toward it down the middle of the road, waving and shouting.

  “Stop!” I cried. “Stop!”

  And then, just as had happened the last time I dreamed it, as the car was bearing down upon me close enough so I could actually see the expression in the driver’s eyes, I awoke.

  There was nothing but darkness, and for a moment I wasn’t certain where I was. I was drenched with sweat and yet I was shaking as though I were
cold—cold in this stuffy little room in the middle of summer. I stretched out my hand and felt the sheet hanging by the side of the bed and remembered. It was Bobby’s room, and I was here because I had chosen to be.

  The horror of the dream still clung to me. I lay quiet, breathing hard, trying to collect myself. It was at that moment that a thought occurred to me, a thought that seemed to come from nowhere and had nothing whatsoever to do with my nightmare.

  Julia did have a friend who knew her before she came to Albuquerque! The friend had written her a letter that had arrived that morning!

  Why didn’t I think of it sooner? My heart began to pound with excitement. If Julia hadn’t moved it, the letter lay right now on the dresser in the room where she was sleeping. All I had to do was go upstairs and get it and any information in it was mine!

  Did I dare? Even as I asked myself the question I was sitting up and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. Bobby’s snores told me he was so deeply asleep that he wouldn’t wake up if a herd of elephants came thundering by. I shoved aside the makeshift curtain and got out of bed, then crossed the room and went down the hall to the stairs. My feet made no sound. I knew the house so well that there was no need for a light.

  Once on the second floor, I glided soundlessly down the hall to the door of the room that had so recently been my own. It wasn’t until my hand was actually on the knob that I began to feel frightened. What if Julia wasn’t asleep?

  She has to be, I told myself reassuringly. It’s almost dawn! It’s the time of night when people sleep the deepest! But Julia was not “people” in any ordinary sense of the word. Who could say which hours she might choose for her supernatural activities? Were spells cast during the hours of darkness more potent than those cast in the light of day? If so, this might be the very time when Julia was most likely to be awake.

  Did I have a choice? No, I thought, none. If I was going to get my hands on that letter it had to be now. Breathing a silent prayer I turned the knob and pushed the door open quietly.