Authors: Margot Dalton
A
COUPLE OF HOURS LATER,
on a hill near the house, Ari lay on his stomach in the slanted rays of evening sunlight. He drummed his feet on the ground as he chewed a spear of grass.
“Churks,” he muttered. “Fizzlespit.”
Amy looked at her brother with tense sympathy. These words were part of their private language, seldom used and shockingly profane. The fact that Ari was saying them now showed how sad and lonely he was.
“We get to fly to the ranch this weekend,” she
said, watching a dark green beetle as it lumbered through the tangle of grass. “Daddy promised. It’ll be fun to see Tom and ride our ponies, won’t it?”
But Ari wasn’t ready to be comforted. “I wish Daddy would get married.” He plucked another blade of grass. “We need a mother.”
Amy turned to him in confusion. “We already have a mother.”
“I mean, we need one who lives in our house. If Daddy got married, we’d all move back to the ranch and live together and be like a family.”
“Do you think so?” she asked wistfully.
“If Daddy was married, he wouldn’t worry so much what school we went to. When Mummy was home, Daddy and Van and Steve all lived on the ranch together. I hate being in this place.”
“It’s not so bad here,” Amy said loyally. “Daddy wants us to go to school without having to ride so far on the bus, and Mrs. Klassen is really nice. I like the aquarium at school,” she added. “And the model of the hydrogen molecule. Don’t you?”
Ari scowled. “I want to go back to the ranch. We need to find a lady for Daddy to marry.”
“Maybe he could marry Margaret.”
“You’re so
dumb,”
Ari said. “Daddy could never marry Margaret.”
“Why not? She’s nice to us all the time, and she cooks and cleans and everything.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted after a few moments of deep concentration. “But it can’t be Margaret. It needs to be somebody different”
“Like who?”
“I don’t
know,”
Ari repeated. “But I’ll think of somebody.”
The twins lay quietly for a while. Then, like birds or fish moving in response to an invisible signal, they got up at the same moment and began to run, swooping down the grassy hill with their arms spread wide and their legs flying.
They ran until they were exhausted, then climbed another hill, heading for one of their favorite places on the new farm. It was the oldest building on the property, a big stone barn nestled at the foot of the hill and surrounded by trees.
The previous owner had used the barn to house a couple of vintage automobiles, and several improvements had been added to protect the valuable cars. All the windows were stoutly boarded, and a metal overheard door that was operated from outside by pressing a button had been installed. The control button was inside a panel that could be secured with a padlock.
Although the lock had been removed along with the contents of the barn, the control button remained functional. Ari loved to press it and watch the big door slowly open and close, sliding as if by magic.
When Vanessa reported on the existence of the automatic door, Margaret had immediately forbade the twins to play anywhere near the barn because they might get locked inside, a suggestion that made Ari scoff privately in derision.
“How could we get locked inside?” he asked Amy
when they were alone. “You have to be
outside
to push the button. Margaret doesn’t know anything.”
So they ignored the housekeeper’s order and continued to frequent the barn. Amy was a little anxious about their disobedience, but her loyalty to Ari always outweighed her caution.
Now she followed him down the hill and crept along behind him as he edged toward the old building. The door was open which meant that somebody was inside.
Ari glanced over his shoulder and nodded. Amy understood at once, following him to the base of one of the trees beside the barn. The twins climbed silently into the middle branches, then moved out of the tree onto the shingled roof and crept up toward the row of air vents.
These vents were about two feet square and situated near the peak of the roof. Each twin stopped at the edge of an open vent. They clung to the rough shingles and slithered forward until they could peer down into the shadowy depths of the barn.
Steven’s yellow sports car was parked in the shadows, and Steven himself sat with three other boys on some baled hay as they passed a skinny cigarette back and forth.
The twins exchanged a wide-eyed, startled glance, then edged forward for a better look.
They’d never seen these boys, who must have slipped onto the property through a back road. They were a tough-looking group, hard-faced and scary, not
at all like the happy neighboring kids who used to be Steven’s friends on the ranch.
The twins watched the four boys for a moment, then withdrew from the vents and looked at each other in alarm.
They slid back down the roof, melted into the tree branches and considered their next move.
“We should tell Daddy,” Amy said in a hushed voice. “Let’s bring him over here. They’re not supposed to be smoking.”
Ari shook his head.
“Why not?” Amy whispered. “The hay might catch on fire. Then the barn would be wrecked.”
“It can’t burn,” Ari muttered. “It’s made of stones.”
“But we should—”
He waved a hand to silence her. She settled more comfortably on the branch and swung her foot, liking the feeling of being up in the sky, hidden like a bird among the rustling green leaves.
But she didn’t like the boys who were down in the barn with Steven. They looked mean and threatening, like bad dogs who might bite you for no reason.
“We could push the button and close the door,” Ari said at last. “If we do, they can’t get out. They’ll be trapped.”
Amy shivered. “No, Ari. It’s so dark and scary in there.”
“Serves them right,” Ari said. “They’re bad, and Steve shouldn’t be with them. Dad would be mad if he knew what they were doing.”
“But it’s really mean to lock them inside the barn. You know it is.”
He avoided her eyes, looking down at a long scratch on his ankle.
“Besides,” Amy went on, “if we close the door and trap them, Daddy will lock up the button so we can’t open the door by ourselves anymore. He was going to do it last week but he forgot. Let’s just go away and leave them alone.”
Ari was on the point of climbing down from the tree. He scowled and hesitated.
Amy pressed her advantage. “It’s so much fun to play in there, Ari. If Daddy locks the barn, we won’t be able to get inside.”
“We could get a rope and swing down from the air vents like mountain climbers.”
Amy thought about the peak of the barn, almost as tall as the tree they were sitting in. “It’s too high. Besides, how would we get back up?”
“We could climb the rope,” he argued, but Amy could tell that he was weakening.
With relief, she turned and began to climb down the tree, slipping rapidly through the leaves and branches until she dropped to her feet on the hillside.
Ari joined her, and they ran back up the hill toward the flaring colors of the sunset, their small bodies lost in the vastness of the prairie sky.
S
OMEHOW, CAMILLA MANAGED
to get through the remainder of the first day in a blur of classes, meetings and seminars. By the time she finished her office work and sent her reading lists to the library to be posted, it was twilight.
The campus was peaceful in the slanting rays of light, with small groups of students strolling and talking quietly. Thunderheads were beginning to mass beyond the snowcapped mountains and the sky was vivid with sunset colors—streaks of orange and dusty pink and violet.
Though it was still early in September, the air already carried a hint of frost, and some of the trees were beginning to wither. A few leaves drifted to the sidewalk in front of her, crunching underfoot as she walked toward her apartment.
Camilla looked down at the fallen leaves, lost in a deepening melancholy.
Madonna and Elton were both at the door when she entered her apartment They welcomed her with enthusiasm, mewing and rubbing frantically against her legs, which only happened when they wanted something. Camilla soon determined that Elton was hungry, while Madonna was eager to go outside.
Camilla opened the glass balcony door to let Madonna escape into the branches of the adjacent poplar, then set her pile of books on the kitchen table and filled Elton’s bowl with dry cat food.
While-he was eating, Camilla went into the bathroom and ran the tub, adding a liberal dash of scented bubbles. She stood at the counter to take out her contact lenses, then stored them in their little plastic case. She rubbed her eyes with relief as she looked at herself in the mirror.
The change was always so dramatic, because her eyes weren’t blue at all. They were actually a clear, pale gray, like the sky on a cloudy day.
She’d chosen the tinted lenses mostly for practical reasons, because they were easier to find if she dropped or misplaced one of them. But tonight she was gratified to see again how much the lenses altered her appearance.
When Jon Campbell had seen her all those years ago, she’d had gray eyes….
Camilla touched the bridge of her nose, then picked up a hand mirror to study her profile critically. The plastic surgeon had repaired the cartilage in her nose skillfully. But back in that long-ago summer, her nose had been freshly broken and wasn’t healing properly. It had been noticeably crooked, and somewhat thicker at the bridge.
And her hair, too, had darkened a lot over the last two decades. Twenty years ago, her long braid had been pale blond, almost silver, hanging all the way to her waist.
Camilla put the mirror aside, stripped off her clothes, turned off the faucet and stepped into the tub, settling with a weary sigh among the fragrant mounds of bubbles.
Perhaps the man wasn’t lying, after all. It seemed quite possible that he didn’t recognize her, and he’d only arrived in her classroom by some kind of ghastly coincidence.
When their eyes first met, he’d looked puzzled by her own shocked reaction. There’d been no answering spark of recognition from him, no meaningful smirk or veiled threat. Just a look of good humour, masculine admiration and a readiness to smile and respond if she gave him any encouragement.
Jon Campbell seemed too blunt and forthright to carry off some kind of sinister deception. Still, she could hardly dare to hope that the man truly had forgotten what happened between them twenty years ago in that dirty motel room.
Camilla lowered herself among the bubbles so the water came to her chin. She lifted a slim foot and touched the faucet with her toe, idly tracing the outlines of the gleaming brass.
Maybe, for once in her life, she was going to be lucky. Perhaps the tinted contact lenses, her nose surgery, darkened hair and a few more inches of height were going to be enough to disguise her real identity from Jon Campbell.
Briefly she wondered what the man was like, how he’d turned out after all these years.
He seemed similar in some ways to the boy she
remembered, but there were subtle differences, as well. Jonathan Campbell now had a look of wealth and power, despite the casual air. He was obviously a man with a privileged background and enough money to do anything he wanted—even go back to college full-time if he chose.
In fact, he seemed to be everything the campus myths claimed
her
to be. Camilla smiled grimly at the irony, then sobered and reached out to run more hot water into the tub.
Regardless of what he’d become, he was a threat to Camilla, and she knew she had to get the man out of her life quickly to preserve her own safety.
Elton wandered into the room, licking his whiskered chops with satisfaction. He stood erect, with his front paws resting on the edge of the tub, and stared at her solemnly. Camilla blew a couple of soap bubbles into his face, making him blink.
She smiled sadly. “Too bad a professor can’t just walk out of a class the way her students do. Should I drop that creative-writing class, Elton?”
The cat watched her with his usual inscrutable expression.
“Oh, I know. You’re right, of course,” Camilla said. “Dr. Pritchard can hardly drop a class simply because…”
Because the professor happens to share some unpleasant and embarrassing sexual history with one of her students.
Camilla’s throat tightened with anxiety. Of course,
she had the power to remove a student from her class, but in order to do that she’d need a good reason.
Maybe if the work was hard enough, the man would quit of his own accord. After all, he’d probably been away from college for more than twenty years, presumably doing a lot of rugged, outdoor work, if his callused hands were any indication. No doubt he was going to find it difficult to adjust to the daily grind of classes and homework.
Camilla’s spirits lifted a bit.
Maybe she could give out the individual research assignments a couple of weeks early, and find some way to make Campbell work harder than anybody else. But she’d have to do it soon—before he had a lot more opportunities to sit at the back of that room and study every detail of her face and body.
Camilla climbed from the tub, dried herself on a big green towel and slipped into a terry-cloth robe and slippers, then made her way to the kitchen with Elton at her heels. She brewed a pot of herbal tea, put a small frozen entrée into the microwave and spread her books out on the glass-topped table.
What assignment could she give Jon Campbell? It had to be something tedious enough to convince the poor man that he wasn’t really interested in completing a senior writing class.
Camilla put on her reading glasses and began to work. After a few minutes, the microwave beeped and she got up, carried the tray to the table, picked up a fork and ate without tasting the food.
A short while later Camilla returned to her problem.
Maybe an analysis of character development in Chaucer?
How about a comparison of editorial styles of seven major newspapers, or a definitive look at the American novel from Hawthorne to Updike…
The pages blurred in front of her eyes. Camilla took off her glasses and dropped her head into her hands, rubbing her temples wearily.
It was beginning to rain. She could hear the heavy drops flowing down the windowpanes, pattering on the floor of the balcony. The sound was seductive, almost mesmerizing, carrying her back through the years.
Back to 1977, and the terrible events of that early summer…
July 1977
I
T’S RAINING AGAIN,
but I’m so cold and dirty that I don’t care anymore. It’s weird how people are always so afraid of being caught in the rain, as if getting wet is the worst thing that can happen to them. I’ve spent the last three nights out in the rain, sitting in the ditch by the highway with a jacket over my head. My clothes are filthy, my hair’s all stringy and I haven’t eaten since…I can’t remember the last time I had anything to eat.
It’s been a couple of days at least, but the hunger pangs have mostly passed. I’m dizzy a lot of the time
and I still feel like throwing up whenever I remember what happened.
My knife didn’t help me a bit when he finally came to my room. He just laughed and snatched it from me like it was some kind of toy. When I tried to fight back, he hit me so hard that I could feel my nose breaking. The taste of blood in my throat sickened me almost as much as the things he was doing to me.
I can’t bear to think about the things he did. I won’t think about it. I won’t…
After he was finished, he rolled over and fell asleep. I got up, found the knife on the floor and jammed it as far as I could into his chest. He shouted and thrashed around, clutching at the knife handle. I don’t know if I killed him, but I hope so. I didn’t stay long enough to find out, I just grabbed some clothes and money and ran away.
My mother was passed out in the living room when I left. She never even knew what happened.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. After what he did to me, nothing matters anymore. It doesn’t matter what I do.
But I have to eat if I want to stay alive, so I’ll probably get to the city and start selling myself on the street. I’ll have to find some way to get cleaned up first, though. Nobody would pay to have sex with a girl who looks the way I do right now. It’s been two weeks since I ran away, and I haven’t seen a mirror for a long time so I don’t know if my nose has started to heal. It doesn’t hurt quite so much anymore, but I think it’s still pretty swollen.
I’m kind of scared at the thought of being a prostitute. Until he did what he did, I’d never even… nobody had ever touched me before. But now it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I just have to find some way to get a little money. I have to clean myself up and wash my hair, and find some clothes somewhere.
The sky is starting to lighten, and the sun will be rising soon. Meadowlarks are singing on the prairie all around me. They sound almost crazed with happiness. It’s amazing how the dawn can still be so clean and beautiful when it shines down on a world as ugly as this.
I’m sitting on a piece of cardboard in a wide, grassy ditch, and I’m stiff and cold, sore all over. I’d give anything to have a hot meal and a bath. A hot bath would be the most wonderful thing in the world.
Maybe I can flag down one of the semitrailers that keep passing on the highway, and get to the city that way. But people are such busybodies. The driver will want to know where I came from. He’ll take me to the police and they’ll either put me in jail for murder or send me back home.
Home.
God, what a laugh. I’ll die before I go back there. But I don’t know what else to do, and I’m so scared. I’m really scared. The mist is clearing and I can see for a little way down the ditch. There’s a man over there by the intersection. He must have stopped sometime during the night. He’s got his motorcycle pulled off the highway, and he’s been camping in a little
tent. Now he’s up and moving around. He’s got a portable stove set up on some rocks. I can smell bacon frying.
Oh, Lord, it smells so good! I think he’s brewing coffee, too. Maybe a guy on a motorcycle won’t be so likely to call the cops.
Before I can lose my nerve, I get up and begin walking down the ditch toward him. It’s funny, I’m putting one foot in front of the other but I’m not sure if I’m still upright. The world is spinning, and all of a sudden there’s sky where the ground is supposed to be.
I feel somebody kneeling beside me, lifting me. Now I can see a face. It’s not really a man at all, just a boy not much older than me. He’s got blue eyes and thick brown hair, and he looks so nice….
S
HE LOOKED BLANKLY
at the streaming window. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped at them with the back of her hand, then fumbled in her pocket for a wad of tissues.
Finally, she pushed the books aside, stumbled into her living room and curled on the couch, hugging her knees. She switched on the television and let waves of brightly coloured images wash over her, drowning the painful memories in gusts of canned laughter.
N
EXT MORNING,
Camilla crossed the campus and went into the arts building. She bypassed her office and headed straight for the large theater where she taught freshman English.
Ninety-six students were registered this term, practically an impossible number. She sighed when she looked up at the tiered rows of seats filled with anxious young people.
While they stared down at her in hushed stillness, she moved across the front of the room, set her books on the desk and found the class list.
“Good morning. My name is Dr. Pritchard.”
There was a nervous murmur of greeting.
“When I read your name,” Camilla went on, “please indicate your presence with the word
here
and a raised hand so I’m able to check you off on the list. Regular attendance in class is vital because we’ll be moving rather quickly through a very large body of material. Anybody who skips more than two sessions without a valid excuse will receive a grade of incomplete on the term. Is that understood?”
The students nodded.
Camilla looked down at her alphabetized class list. “Aaronson?”
“Here.”
“Anders?”
“Here.”
“Appleby?”
“Yo, Doc!”
Camilla glanced up sharply. Appleby, who wore a bandanna and a couple of earrings, gave her a cherubic smile and waved. Camilla ignored him and went on reading names.
The sixth name was Campbell, and Camilla looked up at the speaker.
My God, it’s Jon! she thought in confusion. But how can it possibly…that was twenty years ago, and I saw the man yesterday in my…
She struggled to get her thoughts under control while the students watched her curiously.
Of course. This had to be Jon Campbell’s son.
He was no more than eighteen or nineteen, but he looked exactly like Jon as a young man. This boy had the same clean-cut good looks and direct blue eyes, the thick brown hair highlighted by streaks of gold after long days in the summer sun…
Camilla took herself firmly in hand and continued to call off the students’ names, stealing a couple of glances at Steven Campbell as she read.