Michael
Michael didn’t move for several minutes, waiting until he was sure Lane Kramer had moved away from his door. What was she waiting for? The metallic snick of a pistol magazine sliding into place? A cryptic call to his comrades in Prague? He’d seen the sidelong glance she threw at him when they reached his door, the wary look of surprise when he startled babbling about the view from the turret room. She was suspicious—but of what exactly? He scowled at his own shadow on the far wall, stretched and ghoulish in the wavering candlelight, a grotesque shadow puppet. He supposed it was a wonder she’d let him in at all.
She had certainly done the place up right; he’d give her that. Even in the meager light, the room was like something from a glossy travel rag. She’d kept the elaborate woodwork, softening it with unfussy fabrics and period furniture with clean, straight lines. The result was both understated and authentic, no mean feat for a place as pompous as the Cloister. Her doing, he wondered, or a decorator’s?
Finally, reluctantly, he forced his feet to move, slow, tentative steps, as if he expected the gleaming floorboards to suddenly open up and swallow him. He felt a queer kind of vertigo as he ran light fingers over the chair rail and beadboard, wrapped them briefly around the clear, satiny coolness of the mercury-glass doorknob, as if he’d entered a kind of time warp. From the bathroom door he walked off four careful paces, then leaned all his weight on his front foot until he was rewarded with the familiar give and groan of old boards. Everything changed. Everything the same.
And wasn’t that exactly what he’d been afraid of?
The pretty little redhead, though—that was new. Women like that—long-limbed and green-eyed—had no business at the Cloister. But then neither did he anymore. What the hell could he have been thinking? He’d turned the car around not once but twice, ready to abandon the entire idea. And yet here he was, in the middle of a tropical storm for crying out loud, with no idea what he hoped to accomplish.
Too tired to bother with laces, he pried off his shoes, heel to toe, a practice that still earned him the odd scolding from his finishing school–mannered mother whenever he ventured home to Boston, which wasn’t often these days. Dumping his canvas tote on the bed, he moved to the window, pulling back the heavy blackout curtain—fast, like yanking off a bandage. Nothing but pelting rain and the thin whistle of the wind squeezing itself into the chinks between window and frame. And then came the beacon, blue-white through all the whirling wet noise, illuminating and terrible. Sister Mary Constantine’s all-seeing Eye of God.
Letting the curtain fall back, he turned away. He wanted to believe it was normal to be here, simple nostalgic curiosity. But deep down he knew it for what it was—unfinished business. Somewhere along the way, he’d taken leave of his senses. But then, that had been fairly predictable, hadn’t it?
His parents would be livid if they knew he was here. No—scratch that. His mother would be livid. His father would simply shrug it off, as he shrugged off most things Michael did. Still, this little quest of his was hardly worth a family squabble. Maybe he should call the whole thing off. It wasn’t too late. He could pull out the minute the roads were clear, watch Starry Point recede in his rearview mirror once and for all, and no one would be the wiser. But he couldn’t decide any of that now. He needed sleep, the deep, dreamless variety that dumped you into a black hole and let you crawl out when you were good and ready. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept like that. No, that wasn’t true. He could remember—he just chose not to.
With a jaw-cracking yawn he yanked off his sweater and tossed it on a nearby chair, then fished a few essentials from his tote: toothbrush, toothpaste, and a well-thumbed edition of Poe, which he placed on the bedside table out of sheer habit. For once, he had neither the stamina nor the need to read before bed.
He brushed his teeth by candlelight, briefly tempted to take advantage of the fancy shower and what remained of the hot water to wash off the road grime before he slipped between his hostess’s neatly pressed sheets. In the end, though, the knobs and jets presented more of a challenge than he was willing to tackle in the dark. Cold water in the morning would have to do. He’d probably need it to wake up anyway.
Beside the bed, he emptied his pockets into a small driftwood bowl: keys, cell phone, loose change—and a small button of faded pink satin. He’d excavated the button from a leather case he kept in his dresser back home, where he stashed the bits of his life he no longer had any use for: the diamond cuff links he had received as a graduation present but never wore, the rosary of shiny black beads that had failed to aid his boyish prayers, the class ring from Exeter with its bloodred stone, still bright as the day he’d received it. All symbols of the person others expected him to be.
Except for the button.
The button was real—the only memento he had of who he really was. He lingered over it briefly, the fabric worn thin at the edges, barely pink at all now. Most people had actual memorabilia, albums filled with photos, chests stuffed with baby clothes and discarded toys. He had a button. The candlelight flickered red against the backs of his lids as he closed them, fighting the dizzying barrage of memory—bourbon fumes and the sour pong of vomit, terror mingled with revulsion.
For a moment he stood stock-still, shoulders bunched high and tight, as if the T-shirt he was wearing had suddenly grown several sizes too small. When he finally managed to shove the memory away, he opened his eyes and tossed the button into the bowl with his keys. As he blew out the candle and collapsed into the antique mahogany four-poster, he tried to remember why he’d ever thought it was a good idea to come back to Starry Point.