Nursery Tale (7 page)

October 10, Late Evening

W
ith the tips of her fingers, Janice McIntyre gently traced the slight swelling at her abdomen. She thought,
Hello, little one
; it made her feel suddenly foolish. She hoped Miles wouldn't wake, see that she wasn't in bed, and come looking for her. Sure, he'd be able to understand that "pregnant women need their special, private moments, Miles," but maybe he'd think there was something wrong, something she wasn't telling him, and wouldn't she really rather he stayed and talked with her a while? But, she considered, his day had been long and wearisome—he'd probably sleep well past the alarm.

She seated herself at the breakfast nook; she reached to her left for the light switch and decided, no, the near-darkness was better (Miles had installed a spotlight on the back of the house, just outside the big kitchen window—"For security purposes, Janice"—and most of the backyard was bathed now in its soft yellow glow). She imagined she did her best thinking in the dark. She remembered that her decision to marry Miles—eight years before—had come to her at 2 A.M., in her darkened Utica, New York, studio apartment. And her decision to forget her job as a high school art teacher and to devote herself entirely to Jodie had come to her in the darkness and quiet of the hospital's labor room, just an hour and a half before Jodie's birth.

She touched her abdomen again and thought, very briefly (not for the first time) of reincarnation—that, perhaps, it was Jodie growing inside her. Again. And she pushed the thought away because—as she had decided before—it was stupid. And unfair.

Her gaze settled on the big, open, beautifully manicured backyard, on the white marble birdbath, and the four flowering dogwood trees they'd planted, essentially at random, and the little, barn-type tool shed just at the edge of the yard. She thought, as she let her gaze wander idly from here to there, that this would be a very good place indeed to bring up any child.

And then, almost against her will, her eyes stopped moving, and her gaze settled on a spot just inside the perimeter of the light, a couple yards to the left of the tool shed—where the illumination was weakest—and she said, just below a whisper, "Who's that?"

A woman was standing there; tall, dark-haired, pretty. And she was standing very still. . . .

W
hen he was a child, John Marsh often woke very early in the morning (as he had this morning) and a special kind of nervous, sweaty fear had prodded at him.
Go on, open your eyes, I dare you; open them!
And he remembered, now, that he had never been able to keep his eyes closed, convinced though he was that something hugely grotesque waited for him, something designed to take his senses away and reduce him to jelly. He realized now that that kind of fear had settled over him again, after nearly a fifty-year absence, but that this time there was reason for it. And he remembered, suddenly, that he had awakened this way the night before, and the night before that—remembered that for the past ten nights, ever since his stupid, drunken drive to Granada, he had awakened early, convinced that she had followed him back.

She?
he wondered, and knew immediately that it was a way of denying, futilely, what had happened.

He swung his feet off the bed to the floor. He switched a light on and quickly scanned his small, memorabilia-filled bedroom. He saw no one. He told himself that he knew he wouldn't. The room had been empty last night, and the night before, and the night before that. And, he knew, it would stay empty. Because Rachel Griffin would have no reason at all to follow him. She was where she wanted to be. Where eternity wanted to keep her. Where her husband and her poor handful of dreams were.

Then, as it had for the past ten nights, the moment came back to him, replayed itself

She said nothing. She smiled a sad, pretty smile, and reached for him through the closed driver's window. She touched his face. And he remembered now that, yes, her touch had been very cold. Deathly cold. But she hadn't—he knew even then—been trying to give him her coldness. She had been saying hello. To an old friend. One she hadn't seen for a decade and a half.

J
anice McIntyre was glad her husband had come downstairs. She wasn't sure why. Maybe, she thought, her mood had changed. Maybe being alone, and in the dark, here, in this particular house, was going to take some getting used to.

Miles turned the bright overhead light on; he seated himself across from her at the breakfast nook, and asked if she'd like some coffee or some cocoa. She said no. He reached across the small table and took her hand; "Is something wrong, Jan?"

"Nothing's wrong," she said. "We pregnant women just need our private moments."

"Yes," he said, and paused. "But are you sure . . ."

"I'm sure." She squeezed his hand to reassure him. "Nothing's wrong."

"Okay," he said, though he sounded unconvinced. He stood. "I'm going to make myself some cocoa, anyway."

"Miles?"

"Yes?" He went to a cupboard, opened it.

"Who lives next door, Miles?" She nodded out the kitchen window. "Don't the Gellises live there? Isn't that their name? Gellis?"

Miles found the cocoa and went to the stove with it. "Uh-huh. I've said, let me see—" He feigned remembering. "Exactly eight words to them." He grinned, took a teapot off the stove, filled it at the sink.

"Is she tall, Miles? Mrs. Gellis, I mean. Is she tall? And does she have long, dark hair—"

Miles glanced at her incredulously. "Are you kidding, Jan? You've seen her, you were introduced to her, in fact, and she's just the opposite—"

"Oh. Yes. Well, I was only wondering. I saw this woman out there"—she nodded at the window—"and I thought that at this hour of the morning—"

Miles cut in, "There's something I need to tell you, Jan."

"Yes?" she said, annoyed by his interruption.

He mixed the cocoa and hot water, brought it back to the table. "Mr. Jenner called me at the office, today—"

"The real estate agent?"

"Uh-huh. He wanted to talk about that . . . thing—" He paused. "About the child they found here—"

"I don't want to hear this, Miles. I really do not—"

"Janice, I think it's way past time that you accepted Jodie's death!
Five
years, Janice, almost six—" He stopped. A cold, expressionless anger had come into Janice's face, had transformed it.

"I know he's dead, Miles." She said the words in a strange, quiet monotone, her lips barely moving. "If you'll remember, if you'll take the time to remember,
I
was the one who found him, and
I
was the one who tried . . . to breathe life back into him—" She began to weep.

"Jan, this is pointless. It's not Jodie we're discussing, for Christ's sake. We're discussing some poor, dead child neither of us ever knew. And I wanted to tell you that Jenner said the D.A. in Penn Yann isn't going to involve us in any investigation. He feels . . ." Miles paused; Janice had stopped weeping. The anger remained, but it was slowly dissipating. "The District Attorney seems to feel," Miles repeated, his tone softer, "that the Griffins were somehow responsible. Apparently, when the Griffins lived here, there were lots of rumors—"

"The Griffins?" Janice cut in.

"Yes, Jan. I've told you about them. Their house stood almost precisely on the spot where this one stands now."

"Oh yes," Janice said. She remembered obliquely that it was something he'd told her weeks ago. "Yes," she repeated. The anger had all but vanished, now—only traces remained, as if she had come in from a frigid winter night and hadn't quite finished warming herself.

"And the D.A. says the child was probably their responsibility—"

"Miles, you've told me what you wanted to tell me." Her tone was crisp. "So, if you don't mind, can we please just drop it?"

Miles looked silently at her for a moment; then, "Yes. I'm sorry. Let's go to bed."

"You've barely touched your cocoa, Miles. Finish it. Then we'll go to bed." She smiled a tentative, apologetic smile. He smiled back immediately.

She said, "Melissa."

"'Melissa'?"

"If it's a girl, Miles, we'll name her Melissa. And Francis if it's a boy. What do you think?"

"Can we talk about it?" he said, grinning.

"Sure we can talk about it. Make me a cup of cocoa and we'll talk."

Fifteen Years Earlier

N
othing marked the spot—no crudely improvised cross, no stone. All Rachel knew, as she looked out their bedroom window, her hand holding the heavy curtain aside, was that the boy had been buried "north of the house." Although she had—uncertain why—asked Paul to show her the exact spot, he had merely reiterated "north of the house," and added that it was all she needed to know. She realized that she was grateful he'd been so closemouthed. If she'd been with him at the burial and knew the spot she would probably have gone to it daily, perhaps to mutter "I'm sorry!" over and over again, as she had done before, or perhaps merely to remember, and to regret. This way, she could almost convince herself that the boy hadn't been buried at all. That, in fact, he hadn't even died.

October 12

N
orm Gellis opened the door wide, took a bag of groceries from his wife, and peered into it. "Did you get 'em, Marge?"

"Yes, Norm, I did. Two boxes, like you said."

"Are they the right size, Marge? You didn't get the wrong size, did you?"

"Whatever you added to the list, Norm." She made her way into the kitchen. "I didn't even look at it," she called back. "I just gave it to the man behind the counter."

Norm followed her into the kitchen and set the bag down on the table. "Okay, so where are they? In that bag, there?" He nodded at the bag Marge still carried. She set it on the table.

"I don't know, Norm." She sounded vaguely annoyed. "They're here somewhere."

He grinned at her. "Does this bother you, Marge? Does it make you a little queasy?"

She retrieved a box of Sugar Pops from one of the bags, turned her back to him, put the box in a cupboard. "It doesn't bother me, Norm. Like you said, we need to protect ourselves."

"I know that's what I said, Marge. But do you believe it?"

She turned, smiled.
I'm on your side
, the smile said. "Of course I believe it, Norm."

"Damn right!" He took some cans out of one of the bags. "Who in the fuck packed these, Marge? Did you pack 'em?" He withdrew a box of Charter Arms hollow-point .38 calibre bullets from the bottom of the bag; he studied the box closely for a moment; he opened it, withdrew one of the slugs, and held it up lengthwise, between his thumb and forefinger, at half an arm's length, so his wife could see it. "It don't really look like much, does it, Marge?"

She hesitated, then, "It's not supposed to look like much, is it?"

He grinned again. "It'll take most of your head clean off, Marge. Did you know that?"

"No," she answered immediately. "I didn't know that." Her voice was trembling a little.

Norm laughed shortly; he put the slug back in the box. "Go to sleep now," he murmured.

"Sorry, Norm?" Marge said. "I didn't hear you."

He looked up sharply at her. "I wasn't talking to you, Marge." He looked back at the box, "I wasn't talking to you at all."

T
immy Meade thought the fence frightened Sam Wentis and he wondered if he should ask him why.
Hey, Sam, why you scared of the shit damn fence?
But, he considered, you just didn't talk to Sam the way you talked to other kids.

"Look what it says here," Sam Wentis said. "It says 'Empire.'"

"That's the brand name, Sam."

"'Empire'?"

"Yeah, 'cuz this is 'The Empire State.' Didn't you know that?"

Sam didn't answer.

Timmy repeated, "Didn't you know that, Sam—that this is . . ."

Sam turned his head suddenly, his eyes wide, his mouth tight. And Timmy Meade felt a quick, sharp chill take hold, as if, impossibly, his friend was somehow threatening him. He laughed a high, nervous, cackling laugh.

And a moment later, the laugh came back to him from somewhere in the woods just behind. And something about it its pitch, its duration; he didn't know what, precisely—made him shudder.

He laughed again, louder and longer.

And he saw, as he laughed, that Sam Wentis was quickly scaling the six-foot-high Empire fence.

"Sam, what are you trying to do?" Because there were jagged spikes of fencing at the top. "Are you trying to hurt yourself? Shit damn, if you wanta hurt yourself, Sam, go ahead. I hope you slit your shit damn neck!"

Then he saw that Sam Wentis was straddling the top of the fence. In the next moment, he had jumped to the other side.

"Sam?" There was no response. Sam Wentis stood motionless on the opposite side of the fence. On his eighth birthday, several years earlier, Timmy Meade received from his parents a big white rat. He named it Samson, for no particular reason, and kept it in a large wire cage. Six months later, he noticed that Samson had grown listless, that he had no appetite, that he'd even lost some weight. After a good deal of thought, Timmy decided that Samson wanted his freedom. The cage was large, yes, but a cage is, after all, just a cage, and no living thing was meant to spend its entire life in one. So, that afternoon, when Samson wasn't looking—because it was going to be a surprise—Timmy opened the cage door and left the room. When he came back a half hour later he saw two things: He saw that, somehow, the cage door had closed by itself, and he saw that Samson, having left the cage, was, grotesquely, trying to butt through the wire to return to it. A mass of dark blood covered his snout.