HIS HANDS KNOWING EVERY inch of me…memorizing each line and curve…no one knowing me so totally…so intimately…and the lovemaking, wild and sweet…and how willingly…how wonderfully, wonderfully willing…
“Brad!”
I sat up in bed, shaking, my nightgown soaked with sweat. In my dreams he had been with me again, keeping me safe, and then suddenly other hands had been there, hands that weren’t his—hands catching me, holding me, desperate hands that trembled with fear—scarecrow hands—and one of Micah’s hands, dangling bloody from the steel jaws of a trap—and other hands pulling me from a raging fire. And yet, even now, wide awake with terror and grief, I still felt on fire, still felt a stranger’s hands that made me aching and afraid…
Trembling, I reached up and unfastened my bandage, unwinding it slowly, cringing at the feel of my damp, dirty hair. Tomorrow I’d ask Rachel about a bath…a shampoo…I always felt better after a bath…I could think clearer…things made more sense…
I buried my face in my hands and pulled my knees up to my chest, rocking slowly as I’d rocked Kerry when he’d had a nightmare. What was happening? I didn’t understand any of it—Seth’s animosity and Micah’s terror and the strange little girl with the Knowing who told me things about myself that no one else could possibly know. And why was Micah so desperate to help me leave? What had he meant by all that talk about Girlie? He’d made it sound as if something dreadful was about to happen.
Yet even as those thoughts hammered at me, I felt guilty. These people had saved my life—no matter how it had come about—and as for being stuck here, I really wasn’t, was I? There was a wagon. A road that led somewhere. They just didn’t want me to travel yet. Not until they were sure I was really better. And hadn’t my reaction to the scarecrow today proved how unnerved I still was? You’ll never get home.
With mounting uneasiness I walked to the window, opening it wide, leaning out into the cold air until I felt chilled to the bone. No one knew I was here. I hadn’t told anyone about this trip. No one knew where I was supposed to be traveling or how long I should be away…When would anyone even realize I was gone? How long until someone got worried about me? How distant and unreal the world seemed now…how strangely remote…like a world I’d never known except in some crazy mixed-up dream.
I froze.
And even as I gripped the windowsill and felt the gooseflesh up my spine, even as I told myself it wasn’t so, I saw the figure down below pull itself slowly into the woods.
Fear made me numb. I couldn’t tear my eyes from those terrible swaying trees. The minutes crawled by…nothing…no sound…no movement…no one…nothing. Only the pale moon dribbling over the hillsides and the scraggly outlines of bare branches and the silhouettes of rooftops hunched against the sky.
I ran my tongue over my lips, pried my fingers from the sill, began to shiver uncontrollably. I didn’t want to be in this room by myself.
I fumbled for the doorknob and let myself out into the hall. The floor was so cold—as cold as the fear coursing through my veins—and I felt my way blindly across the passageway. If I can just get to Franny’s room, I know I’ll be all right—just to hear her voice, her laugh—we’ll joke about it—what I thought I saw—and then of course it’ll be all right, it won’t really have happened at all…
I knew Franny’s room was right across the hall. I could see the doorway in my mind, but not in the nighttime shadows. My hands slid along the wall, and I sighed in relief, moving swiftly now, feeling for the handle. This had to be Franny’s room—here—for surely I hadn’t walked so many steps, only it was so very dark tonight, darker than I remembered it being before, and as I felt the knob turn at last, I scarcely managed a quick knock before I thrust the door forward and fell inside.
“Franny! Wake up! I just—”
The words died in my throat as I saw them there in bed together.
Rachel hadn’t heard me come in, but Seth was starting up, one arm outstretched for the unlit lamp on the night table. As I froze in disbelief, he, too, held his position, and for one endless moment neither of us moved—I saw my hands out in front of me, the moonlight gleaming across his bare chest, and Rachel’s hair in a dark, tangled stain across the pillows. And Seth’s eyes, like an animal’s eyes, glistening and watchful in the dark, the thick shadow of his beard, the lean, sinewy curve of his upper arm extended—and then finally, as he lowered himself back into the covers, only then was I able to fully realize what I’d done.
“Oh…oh, my, I’m so sorry, I—”
“Seth? What is it?” Rachel roused herself groggily, looking first at her husband, then at me. “Pamela, what is it?” And still, even in sleep, the kindness, the sweetness, never left her voice.
“Oh, Rachel, I’ve made a terrible mistake. I thought this was Franny’s room. I—”
“You look scared to death, Pamela, what’s wrong?” And Rachel sat up now, pushing back her hair with one hand, pushing back the covers with the other.
“It’s nothing—”
“It must be something—you’re shaking like a leaf!” And Rachel was beside me, arms around me, comforting, while Seth sat there in the moonlight and watched and said nothing.
“I…I thought I saw someone—”
“Saw someone! Why, bless your heart, where?” Rachel hugged me, and I could smell her hair, the soap still there, and Seth, his nearness still there.
I looked away. “Out my window. I know you said it was probably nothing, but I did—I really did—see something moving in the trees—”
Seth groaned, and Rachel turned on him.
“Seth, you go right now and see what it is!”
“It’s nothing,” he said flatly. “You and I both know it’s nothing.”
“I don’t know that. Can’t you see she’s scared to death? If she’s this scared, it must be something. You go look. Right now.” Rachel tucked me under her arm, and I heard blankets being thrown back, a body uncoiling. I turned back toward the door.
“I am so sorry, Rachel. I—”
“Don’t be silly. I’m glad you woke us up. It’s awful to be alone when you’re scared.” Rachel gave me another hug and added, “Why don’t you stay here with me till Seth gets back?”
“No, really, I’ve bothered you enough. Please go back to sleep—I’d feel better about it if you would.”
“There’s not a thing to feel bad about,” Rachel assured me, and I heard Seth sliding on his pants, pulling his shirt from the chair. “You try to get some sleep now. And don’t worry, Pamela—we’re here. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
I closed the door behind me, my heart pounding against my ribs, and for several seconds I just stood there, trembling, before I started across the hall again to my room.
I kept seeing that one single shadow disappearing into the trees…
And Seth’s eyes watching me from his bed…
But it wasn’t until I passed the door next to mine that I heard the sound.
A high-pitched, haunting sound…
Like an old, warped record…
Or the unnatural realness of a talking doll…
Girlie laughing.