Yesternight (14 page)

Her voice startled me so terribly, I banged a knee against the table.

“Your father was the one who first made me aware that a certain number bothers you,” I said, rubbing the knee. “I learned that you associate the number with drowning. Do you know what ‘associate' means?”

Janie lowered her face toward the paper without writing anything down. An invisible weight pressed down on her thin shoulders, and the shadow of her head seeped across the page. I wondered whether she saw the number eight written across all of the blank spaces on the paper. I envisioned a repressed memory heaving itself against the closed door within her head, the wood shaking, the locks clanking, rattling, loosening . . .

“Are you able to write the number down, Janie?” I asked, softening my voice.

She positioned the sharp tip of the pencil over the paper another time. After a long and languid blink of her eyes, using thick, dark loops of lead, she wrote the number.

            
8

I sat as still as stone to keep from twitching. “Why does that number bother you so?”

Below the digit, she wrote,
I don't know
.

I then launched upon an entire series of verbal questions, which she followed immediately with handwritten answers.

“Do you see the number eight in your dreams about drowning?”

            
Yes.

“Do you see it written somewhere?”

            
On glass.

“Is it on a window? Or a mirror?”

            
I don't know.

“And is there anyone else in these dreams? Someone besides you?”

            
Yes.

“Who?”

            
A man.

“What is his name? Do you know?”

Her eyes went bloodshot. She balled her left hand into a fist, which she used to hold down one side of the paper. Her right hand held the pencil above the remaining empty corner of the page. She released a breath, sending a shiver of a breeze across the edges of the sheet.

I leaned forward, watching, my own lips parting.

Janie lowered the lead to the paper and penned a single letter.

            
N

Immediately afterward, she lifted the pencil's tip back into the air and gawked at what she had just written, as if she, herself, were waiting for another letter to manifest. The purple hair bow slid another half inch closer to her ear.

She returned the pencil to the page and scratched out a second letter.

            
E

My heart galloped. Without drawing too much attention, I grabbed the table and waited for the name of “the man in the other house” to reveal itself.
Ned,
perhaps?
Neville? Neal? Nevan?
The key to the trauma in Janie's past glided into the lock of her closed mental door; I could almost hear the clicking of cylinders and gears. I would pry open the massive, smothering barrier of memory repression for this poor child.

Without a sound, the nib of the pencil returned to the paper. Janie wrote a third letter.

            
L

She set the pencil aside, flopped against the back of the chair, and exhaled a grunt of exhaustion.

NEL,
she had written.

I turned the paper toward me to make sure I read it correctly.

Yes,
N-E-L
.

“N-N-Nel?” I asked, and blood drained from my cheeks. My lips lost all sensation. “Are . . . are you sure?”

She nodded, and her eyes fluttered closed.

Next to my left foot sat my black leather briefcase, and tucked within that briefcase sat the telegram from my sister, to which she had written, MY
DEAR
NELL.

My nickname since childhood.

Nell.

I shook my head, unsure how to even speak another word when such a distressing—and yet such an asinine—hypothesis blazed through my mind.

What if
I
was the man in the other house?
I found myself wondering, of all the foolish things.
What if I hit Violet Sunday over the head with a blunt object—such as a hammer, or a branch—and pushed her into a lake to hide her body?

What if that's what's been wrong with me all along?

I covered my mouth and forced myself to remain composed.

“Nel?” I asked again, and my own nickname caused me to shudder with a spasm that hurt my neck.

Janie did not nod that time. Her eyes remained shut, and she breathed as though sleeping.

“And what does Nel look like?” I asked.

“Brown hair,” she said, again giving me a jolt with the unexpected reawakening of her voice. “Golden eyes.” She lifted her lashes and focused on my own brown hair and golden-brown eyes. “Handsome. He sounds English. Or Danish.”

I almost laughed in relief at that last comment. At the moment, the confusion over an English and a Danish accent sounded so comical—so utterly unrelated to me.

“I've never actually heard a Danish accent,” I admitted.

“I heard him yelling my name.”

“Which name?”

“He said, ‘Violet, Violet, Violet!'”

“How did you end up in the lake?”

She leaned her elbows against the table and sunk her cheeks into her hands.

“Janie?” I asked. “Do you know how you ended up in the water?”

She picked up the pencil, and with her left cheek cradled in her palm, she wrote a figure over and over and over at the bottom edge of the paper:

            
8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Did someone hurt you?” I asked, leaning closer, the bottoms of my toes pressed hard against the floor of my shoes. “Do you remember someone hurting you?”

She growled from deep in the bottom of her throat, and with a single stroke of her pencil, she dashed a line through all of those eights. The force of the lead ripped the paper.

“Janie?” I asked.

She shot to her feet, and the chair crashed to the floor behind her. “No one will take me to Kansas,” she said through her teeth, her hands braced against the table. “Not Michael O'Daire, not Rebecca, not frustrating Miss Simpkin—so I am
never
going to remember what happened. Unless you can take me there yourself, Miss Lind, don't ever ask me again.”

She knocked the paper to the ground and stormed out of the cloakroom.

A
t lunchtime, Janie grabbed her tin lunch pail and skipped outside with the rest of her classmates as though nothing were amiss. Through the chilled and frosted window, I observed her chatting and laughing with two other girls, the three of them perched on a log that looked to have been a spruce, their legs and boots swinging, hair bows flapping, their breaths crystallizing in the air.

Janie's aunt ate her own lunch in a sphere of blissful silence at her desk in the empty classroom. She flipped through a magazine,
McClure's
, and looked as relaxed as can be, until my footsteps disturbed the calm.

A shadow crossed her face. She closed
McClure's
and asked, “How did your chat with Janie go?”

I smoothed out my coat, which I'd slung over my left arm. “She wasn't keen on discussing Kansas with me.”

Miss Simpkin nodded, as though she expected that answer.

“Has she ever mentioned Kansas City?” I asked.

“Not that I remember.”

“Do you know of anyone named Nel?”

The schoolteacher dabbed her face with a napkin and contemplated my question. “No, I don't think so. Why?”

“Janie claims to have known a man by that name. She said he had brown hair and amber eyes, and he spoke with an accent that might have been English or Danish.”

Miss Simpkin tried to smile, but the expression made her eyes moisten. “I can't think of her ever meeting anyone English or Danish.”

“There wasn't even a Nels or a Nelson?”

“I'm getting so nervous that you are, indeed, seeing Janie as an insane child.” She held the napkin against her bottom lip. “Despite what you just said about the possibility of reincarnation, after what you witnessed the other night, after hearing all of her strange ramblings, I'm so worried what you might think of her.”

“I see her as a highly intriguing child who's reaching out for some sort of assistance,” I said.

“I'm so torn between doing what's right for Janie and keeping my sister calm.”

“I understand. I'm still here for the rest of the week and will do my best to keep an eye on the situation without pressing Janie for further information.” I pulled my coat over my arms. “If you don't mind, I need to take a short walk into town and send another telegram.”

“Is it a telegram related to Janie?”

I squished my lips together and debated whether I should lie and tell her it wasn't. “It's related to me,” I said. “There's a little something that's worrying me, and I need to take care of it before I return to the other children this afternoon.”

“You're not ill, are you? You didn't catch pneumonia when you slept on this atrocious old floor, did you?”

“No, I'm fine.” I procured my gloves from the right coat pocket. “I just need to contact a family member about a little personal matter.”

“Ah.” She sat back. “I won't pry then.” She reopened
McClure's
.

I walked away, tugging my gloves over my hands, my heart pounding.

I
PAID FOR
another ten-words-or-less telegram.

            
URGENT QUESTION HOW DID I GET THE NICKNAME NELL

That time around I listed the Gordon Bay Hotel as my return address instead of the schoolhouse. Again, I paid for Bea to send me a telegraphed reply.

Upon leaving the post office, however, doubts attacked. My feet came to an abrupt halt on the sidewalk, and I almost swung back around to yell to the postmaster,
Stop! Never mind!
The phrase URGENT
QUESTION now struck me as overly dire and worrisome—so terribly melodramatic. Bea might fret about my well-being. She knew the job often frustrated and exhausted me. I couldn't imagine what she might think if she learned the reasoning behind my question . . . if “reasoning” could be used to describe it.

I massaged my forehead with my wool-covered fingers and thought again of Mr. O'Daire surmising that someone had tried to kill Violet Sunday by hitting her over the head. I remembered
Janie circling my own made-up town name, “Yesternight.” And, of course, I remembered “Nel.”

I let the telegram travel on its way, unencumbered by me.

After I packed up my tests for the afternoon, I returned to the Gordon Bay Hotel and spotted Mr. O'Daire raking the inn's front path clear of yellow leaves. He wore a coffee-colored vest over white shirtsleeves and pinstriped trousers one shade lighter than the vest. The temperance of the day's weather must have prompted him to forgo his heavy black coat, and so he appeared to have shed a burdensome outer skin. He looked younger—more like a college fellow ready to hit the stands for a football game.

He lifted his head, as though catching my arrival out of the tops of his eyes. His raking stopped, and he stood up straight.

“You look like the Fuller Brush Man,” he said with a smile, “walking up from the street with your bag and your determined expression.”

“I'd make a terrible Fuller Brush Man.” I readjusted my hold on my briefcase. “Too much chatting and flattering.”

“You're not one to flatter people?”

“I make people feel better by first drawing out their flaws and fears”—I smirked—“not their strengths.”

“No, I don't think you'll sell housewives many brushes that way. Maybe nerve pills.”

I shifted my weight between my feet and cleared my throat. “Do you have a moment to chat about Janie?”

“Of course. I was just finishing up with this yardwork before I head over to my mother's. She's insisted upon cooking you a nice supper and asked me to fetch it for you.”

“Oh, that's far too generous of her. You shouldn't have let her go to all that trouble.”

“We're both just so grateful for all you're doing to help.” He leaned both hands against the rounded tip of the cast-iron rake. “What did you need to tell me about Janie?”

“I spoke with her again this morning.”

“Oh?” His fingers tightened around the rake. “And what did she say?”

“She told me that the mysterious Man in the Other House was named Nel, spelled N-E-L. Has she ever known a Nel?”

He cocked his head and rocked his jaw back and forth. “No, I can't think of anyone with that name.”

“Has she ever met anyone Danish?”

“Danish? No. Why?”

“She claims this Nel to be Danish, or possibly English; she wasn't entirely sure which. She said he had brown hair and amber eyes.”

“You see what I mean?” He tipped the rake's handle to his right. “This is precisely the type of thing that's been happening ever since Janie could talk. Little, specific details appear at random, as though a memory suddenly gets illuminated inside her mind.”

“That's an interesting way to put it.”

“It's what's happening.”

I pulled my notebook and a pencil out of the briefcase. “Can you say that again?”

He smiled. “I don't entirely remember—”

“‘Little, specific details,'” I said, jotting down the words, “‘appear' . . . ‘appear at . . .'”

“‘. . . appear at random,'” he added, “‘as though a memory suddenly gets illuminated inside her head.'”

I nodded and finished writing. “And does she bring those same new details up at a later date?”

“Usually, yes.”

“And they're consistent with what she said earlier?”

“Always,” he said without a trace of doubt.

“Your mother said as much, too. It's fascinating how tightly Janie adheres to her stories.” I tucked the notebook back into my briefcase and stepped up to the brick stoop in front of the door. “If you do eventually remember someone by the name of Nel, or any name remotely close to it, please let me know. It would be extremely helpful.”

“Certainly. Is that all there was from today's interview with her?”

“Well . . .” I fastened the clasp on my bag. “This might mean nothing at all, but Janie also showed an interest in Kansas City. Has that town ever arisen in conversation?”

“I don't believe so. Just Friendly.”

“And does the word ‘Yesternight' mean anything?”

“Yesternight?”

“Yes.” My cheeks warmed, for I felt foolish discussing an item that had, I'd believed, originated in my own imagination.

“No.” He raked aside three golden leaves that lay plastered against the bricks. “I can't think of her ever mentioning it. It's a word like
moonburn
.”

“Moonburn?”

“I don't know if there's a name for it—a compound word that's a twist on a regular compound. Yesterday/yesternight. Sunburn/moonburn. I once wrote a short story called ‘Moonburn' about a man who found it impossible to be awake in the daytime.”

“Ah, that's right.” I clasped the doorknob. “You're a writer.”

“Rebecca claimed that particular story represented my pain over the change in Sam after the war.” He swept aside another leaf with a screech of metal teeth. “I guess she was fancying herself a psychologist at the time.”

“If you'd like, when I return inland, I can see if anyone I know is able to recommend a psychologist on the coast who might be able to help Sam. I would love to speak to him myself, but my specialty is children.”

Mr. O'Daire peeked up at me with only his eyes. “As you've already seen, most people shun psychological help out here. They all assume emotional troubles equate to ‘nuthouse.'”

“Sam is a prime example of what happens when a person doesn't receive much-needed assistance. People like your ex-wife should realize this and not fear me.”

“I know that as well as you do, Miss Lind. Remember”—he raked away nothing at all—“I'm the one who rushed out into a storm to make sure you arrived here, safe and sound.”

“Yes, I most definitely remember. And I'm still grateful for that feat of heroism.” I twisted the doorknob.

“Where would you like your supper served?” he asked before I could disappear into the hotel. “There's a fire roaring in the lobby's hearth right now. I could arrange it for you there.”

“In the lobby would be lovely. Thank you.”

“I'm serving drinks again downstairs tonight. You're welcome to partake in that particular style of Gordon Bay Hotel hospitality, too.”

I sighed and shook my head.

“I know, I know.” He raked again. “You're a respectable employee of the Department of Education.”

“One day, Mr. O'Daire, when I am long done working in
Gordon Bay, after I've solved the mysteries of Janie, I'll journey down into that basement of yours and enjoy a glass of booze with the rest of your regulars.”

“A glass will always be waiting for you.”

“Thank you.” I smiled again and disappeared into the lobby with my briefcase bulging with notes about his daughter.

U
P IN MY
hotel room, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at Bea's telegram from the week before.

            
YES MY DEAR NELL FRIENDLY IS A NE KANSAS TOWN

My mind dwelled upon the curious coincidence of a woman called Nell with a violent past investigating a girl potentially harmed by a Nel in another life. I couldn't shake the sensation that Janie had looked at me that morning as though she might have recognized her Nel in me.

A knock came at the door.

I crammed the telegram into my bag. “Who is it?”

“You have a telephone call,” said Mr. O'Daire through the wood.

I froze, puzzled as to who would be calling me at the hotel. “I do?”

“It's a Miss Beatrice Lind.”

All worries dissolved at the spoken name of my oldest sister. I jumped up from the bed and swung open the door. “My sister is calling?”

“I don't have an extension up here.” Mr. O'Daire gestured with
his thumb toward the staircase to his right. “You'll have to take the call down at the front desk.”

“That's perfectly fine.” I straightened my cockeyed sweater. “I wonder if she might have traveled to the coast as a surprise.”

“I don't think she's calling locally.”

“Well, in any case, it'll be splendid to hear her voice.”

“Come along.” He led me through the white hall, and I traipsed down the staircase behind him.

At his front desk, he handed me a black candlestick telephone and its bell-shaped earpiece.

“I'll go fetch your supper and give you some privacy,” he said in a whisper. “I don't expect anyone to come seeking a room while I'm gone.”

“Thank you,” I whispered back. Both of our mouths lingered just a few mere inches away from the mouthpiece; Bea must have heard us, despite the hushed words.

He grabbed his coat from the rack.

I put the phone to my ear and asked, “Bea? Is that truly you?”

“Hello, sweetie,” she said from the other end. “How are you doing?”

“I'm fine. I'm so happy to hear from you.”

“You're in a hotel this time?”

“Yes, I am.”

Mr. O'Daire peeked over his shoulder on his way out the door.

I waved and waited for him to shut the door behind himself before saying anything more.

“Alice?” asked Bea.

“Sorry. The hotel owner was just leaving for his mother's house.” I sidled a foot to my right to better see him out the window. He bent
down in front of his car and cranked the engine until it rumbled awake.

“Is it a very big hotel?” asked my sister. “Did he say he was fetching you supper?”

“Yes, his mother is cooking it for me at her house. There's been an entire to-do about my lodging situation here in Gordon Bay. The boardinghouse is tawdry, apparently, so I'm staying at a hotel owned by one of the students' fathers.”

“That sounds more pleasant than the usual crowded lodgings the state squeezes you into, although I know hotels can make you anxious.”