Suffer the Children (17 page)

It was the bracelet. The bracelet on the girl’s wrist. She had seen it before, very recently. But where? It was a gold bracelet, and it seemed to be set with some sort of stone. It looked like opal, but in the old oil she couldn’t be sure. It could have been something else.

She concentrated on remembering where she had seen the bracelet, why it was suddenly familiar. She drew a blank, and the longer she stared at the picture, the surer she became that it was not a real memory, but a simple
déjà vu
. The illusion of memory. She reached up to adjust the picture, which seemed to be tilted just slightly off center, and decided that she wasn’t going to spend any more time worrying about a bracelet in a picture. She really did have work to do.

She returned to her study, determined to avoid looking out the window until she was well into the rhythm of her work. The day was just too pretty, and she knew
that if she looked out too soon she would find an excuse to close her files and go out into the sun. But the sun could wait. She burrowed into the stack of papers on the desk.

She didn’t really hear the door open an hour later, but was aware that she was no longer alone. She looked around and discovered that Sarah was with her, standing just inside the door, her huge brown eyes fixed on her mother. Rose put down her pen.

“Sarah,” she said, and held out her arms. Slowly, almost warily, Sarah approached her. The little girl stopped when she was just beyond Rose’s reach.

“She wants you to play with her,” Elizabeth said from the door. Rose glanced up.

“I didn’t see you,” she said. “Come in.”

“Not now,” Elizabeth said. “I’m going outside for a while. Sarah wants you to play with her.”

“What does she want me to play?”

“Whatever,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll see you later.” She disappeared, and a moment later Rose heard the front door open and close. She turned her attention back to Sarah.

“What would you like to play?” she asked the silent child.

Sarah merely stood there; then, after a few seconds, she backed a few paces away from Rose and sat heavily on the floor. Rose frowned slightly, then left her chair and joined her daughter on the floor.

“Pease porridge hot,” Rose tried, clapping her hands first on her thighs, then together, then silently outward. There was no response from Sarah, who simply sat on the floor, her face in repose, staring steadily at her mother. Rose decided to try it again, this time guiding her daughter’s hands through the routine.

“Pease porridge cold,” she said. “Now let’s try it together.”

She went through the routine again, and on the first
“Pease” Sarah’s hands clapped against her thighs. But as Rose resumed the chant, the child’s hands continued to slap her thighs, never progressing to the other variations. Rose found herself playing with empty air. Determinedly, she continued the game. Sarah’s hands clapped a steady rhythm against her thighs. Finally, when Rose stopped the game, Sarah’s hands continued to move, clapping hollowly into the silence.

Rose watched the mindless clapping for a minute or two, then could stand it no more. She picked the child up and sat in a large chair, Sarah in her lap. The girl did not resist, but Rose had the distinct feeling that if she did not continue to support her daughter, the child would slip to the floor. She picked up a magazine from a table next to the chair, and began to leaf through it. Every now and then Sarah’s hand would reach out to stop the pages from turning. The third time it happened, Rose realized that Sarah was stopping the pages wherever there was a picture of a cat.

“I know, darling,” she whispered. “If Cecil doesn’t come back in another day or two, we’ll get you another cat.”

And suddenly Sarah was gone. Before Rose could do anything, the girl had wriggled from her lap and dashed out of the room. Rose could hear her retreating footsteps pounding up the stairs, and started to follow. Then she stopped, realizing that there was little she could do, since she had no way of finding out from Sarah what had gone wrong. She stood in her office door for a minute, listening carefully, but heard no sounds from above. It wasn’t until she was sure of the silence that she allowed herself to realize that she had not been expecting silence. She had been expecting pandemonium, an encore of this morning’s tantrum. When it failed to materialize, she felt relief. She left the office door open and returned to her desk.

She had no idea how much later it was when she
once more got the feeling that she was not alone. She glanced over her shoulder, and there, standing once more just inside the door, was Sarah. She seemed to start slightly when Rose glanced at her, and Rose turned quickly back to her work. But she was careful to listen for her daughter’s slightest movement.

Sarah came into the room and began moving around, touching objects, picking things up to examine them, then putting them back where she had found them. Rose heard the small feet shuffling around the room, heard the tiny clicks as Sarah replaced the things she picked up. Then there was a silence, but Rose restrained herself from looking around to see what the girl was up to. Then she felt something touch her leg, and realized that Sarah had crept under the desk. Rose smiled to herself as she remembered how much fun she had had as a child pretending a desk was a cave. If her daughter was anything like she had been, she would be happy there the rest of the afternoon. Rose turned all her attention back to her work.

As the afternoon wore on, Rose was occasionally aware of movement under the desk, but it wasn’t until she felt something being fastened around her ankle that she finally put her work aside. She sat very still, wondering what it was that Sarah was attaching to her. She waited, expecting something to touch her other leg, and she wasn’t disappointed.

The girl was tying her feet together. Rose began planning the show she would put on for her daughter when Sarah had finished. She had tried the same trick as a child, tying her father’s shoestrings together as he sat at his desk, and had been gratified when he stood up, stumbled violently, then crashed around the room for almost a full minute before collapsing to the floor in a hopeless tangle. At the time it had never occurred to her that her father had not actually been out of control of the situation, and, indeed, it wasn’t until this very minute that she realized that he had put on the
same carnival for her that she was about to stage for Sarah. Then she felt Sarah finish.

“Well,” she said loudly. “That’s that. I guess I’ll stretch my legs.” She could picture the child grinning and quivering with suppressed laughter beneath her.

Rose pushed away from the desk and moved her feet carefully to test the length of the string she was sure was hobbling her ankles. It seemed to very long indeed, and she wondered how she was going to be able to fake the thing convincingly.

It wasn’t until she was fully away from the desk that she realized that there was no string at all, that it was something entirely different that was around her ankles.

She reached down and felt something hard. When she looked, she felt her heart skip a beat, and had that feeling in her stomach that she often got when an elevator dropped away beneath her feet. It was the bracelet.

She pulled it from her ankle, forgetting about Sarah for the time being, and examined it carefully. Yes, it was the bracelet from the picture: gold set with a small opal. Tiny flecks of dirt clung to it, as if it had been lying outdoors for a long time. She stood up, intending to take it into the rear study for a careful comparison, and felt something else, something flopping against her other ankle.

She looked down once more, and didn’t immediately recognize the other object It was a pale, whitish color, but badly stained, and seemed to have a buckle of some kind on it Then she realized what it was.

A collar.

A cat’s plastic flea collar.

“Where in the world—” she muttered as she unfastened the collar from her ankle. She straightened up and examined the collar. It was dirty too, but it was not the same kind of dirt that was on the bracelet The collar bore specks of a reddish-brown substance.
It took a while for Rose to realize that the substance looked like dried blood. When she did realize what it was, she stepped to the office door.

“Mrs. Goodrich,” she called. “Come here, please. Quickly.”

When she turned back to the study she realized that Sarah was still under the desk, tightly crouched, her small face peering out of the darkness like a rabbit trapped in a hole. Rose stared back at the child, not having any idea what to say. When Mrs. Goodrich appeared at the door, Rose hadn’t moved.

“I sure hope my pies don’t get ruined,” the old woman said, wiping her hands on her apron. Then, when Rose didn’t turn around to face her, she stopped wiping her hands and spoke again.

“Is something wrong, Miz Rose?” she asked.

“I—I don’t know,” Rose said unsteadily. “Look at this.”

She held out the flea collar, and Mrs. Goodrich reached to take it from her.

“Looks like a flea collar,” the housekeeper said. “Same kind we put on Cecil.” Her eyes caught sight of the stain. “Here, what’s this?”

“I’m not sure,” Rose said, hoping Mrs. Goodrich would offer an alternative.

“Why, it’s blood,” the woman said. “Well, if that don’t beat all. Where’d this come from?”

“Sarah,” Rose said vaguely. “Sarah put it on my ankle.”

“Well, that’s a peculiar thing to do,” the old woman said. “Where do you suppose she got it from?”

“I’m not sure,” Rose said. “I don’t have any idea at all, really.”

“Well, if she got it off that cat, I wish she’d tell us where the cat is.” She sniffed the air. “I smell my pies.” She bustled away, and Rose listened to her footsteps fade down the hall.

“Sarah?” Rose said. The child crept a little way out
from under the desk. “Sarah, darling, it’s all right,” Rose said, not knowing if it was all right or not. “Come out from under there.”

She reached down and gently pulled her daughter the rest of the way out, then picked her up and carried her upstairs. She set Sarah on the bed and covered her with a comforter. “Take a little nap,” she said, and bent down to kiss her gently on the forehead. She was behaving with a calm that she did not feel.

She heard Jack’s car coming up the drive as she went back down the stairs, and waited for him at the front door.

“Hi,” he said, but the smile faded from his face when he saw how pale she was. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Has something happened?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said quietly. “Let’s go into the study. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

She stepped into her office and picked up the bracelet and the collar. Then she followed Jack down the hall.

“Why don’t you pour us both a drink,” she said, closing the door behind her. Jack looked at her curiously.

“You sound upset,” he said. “What’s been going on around here?”

She told him what had happened and showed him the two objects. He examined the collar briefly, then turned his attention to the bracelet.

“This looks familiar,” he said slowly. “I’d swear I’ve seen it before, but I can’t remember where.”

“The picture,” Rose said.

“Picture?” Then he looked to where she was pointing, and his eyes found the bracelet on the little girl’s wrist. “Good Lord,” he breathed. “Are you sure it’s the same one?”

“I haven’t compared them yet, but yes, I’m sure,” Rose said. “And the strangest thing is that earlier, before Sarah put it on my ankle, I was looking at the
bracelet in the picture. I was almost sure I’d seen it somewhere before, other than in the picture.”

“Has Sarah been wearing it?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know, If she has, I hadn’t noticed it consciously. But I suppose she must have been.”

Jack moved to the picture and held the bracelet up next to its representation in the portrait. It was the same bracelet.

“It’s the collar that worries me more,” Rose said, taking a long swallow from her drink.

“The collar?”

“Well, where do you suppose she got that? And how do you suppose the blood got on it?”

“You mean Cecil?” There was clear disbelief in his voice.

“What else could it be?”

“Oh, now, come on, Rose. Sarah loves that cat.”

“I know,” Rose said miserably. “But put it all together. The cat’s gone, Sarah was apparently trying to get at the knives just this morning, then she got upset at pictures of cats this afternoon. And now that.” She pointed to the bloody collar.

“You think she’s killed Cecil.”

The words hit Rose, and she recoiled almost visibly. She realized that that was exactly what she thought; she had merely refused to put words to it. She nodded dumbly.

“I don’t believe it,” Jack said. “I just don’t believe it.”

“Then where did she get that collar? And the bracelet, too, for that matter.”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “But I don’t believe she killed Cecil. She wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“How do we know she wouldn’t, Jack? How do we know what she would do or wouldn’t do?” She was on the verge of tears, and Jack reached out to comfort her, but she turned away.

“What do you think we ought to do?” Jack said.

“Call the school, I suppose,” Rose said. “Talk to Dr. Belter. He wanted to know if anything unusual happened. And God knows this is unusual.”

“What axe we going to tell him?” Jack said uneasily. “That Sarah found a couple of things and we think she killed the cat?”

“I don’t know,” Rose replied. “I’ll just tell him exactly what happened and see what he thinks about it.”

“When are you going to call him?” A note of belligerence had crept into his voice.

“Right now,” Rose replied, moving to the phone. She dialed the telephone, and was connected to the doctor a couple of minutes later. He listened to her story, and when she finished he asked some questions.

“How is she now?” he wanted to know.

“Sarah? I guess she’s all right. She doesn’t seem to be upset, if that’s what you mean. She’s upstairs, sleeping.”

Dr. Belter considered, then spoke again.

“Why don’t you both come to the school on Monday? You and your husband? Then we can talk about it Can it wait until then?”