39

I sat on a dusty box of books, waiting, my mind twisting around itself. The taste of Diana’s blood upon my lips was feeding my obsession, endangering my life. I felt myself growing weak and cold in the wake of too much anticipation and too little nourishment. I had wasted too much energy during my imprisonment, and then I had to wait for Boyd and the boy, and as I waited, I grew fainter.

I would rather hunt. And feed. And be warmed.

Diana. I tasted her still, I ached for more. Yet I had to wait.

They came home; I heard their footsteps loud on the boards above my head. I listened to the murmur of their voices, and I knew they fancied themselves superior, believing I lay locked and helpless beneath them.

Boyd. The years I had spent thinking about him, wondering about him and me, and what could have been. What had he thought of me over the years?

I knew. I knew what he thought. He had hunted me, tracked me, and had come to leisurely enjoy his kill. He thought I was locked up.

Well. Our confrontation would occur, but no doubt a little differently than Boyd imagined. I would never become but another trophy in his collection.

Suddenly it became very clear to me why She had fostered this queer relationship with Boyd. She had left nothing to chance in my development, and this night I would pass my final exam.

I needed to be clear-headed, swift of reaction, in case he had tricks of his own. Hunger weighed heavily on my mind, the weakness devastating to my faculties.

Diana. I tasted again her sweetness on my tongue.

I searched the house with my consciousness. The adults had gone to bed, I lowered their eyelids and put them to sleep with a brief wave of conducive music. My Diana was sleeping, too—lightly. Boyd and the boy were in the boy’s room, both sitting on the bottom bunk. Books rested on their laps, and they talked. They talked of destroying me while in the very room that used to be my own. That room used to be my bedroom, where once I had childhood dreams, thoughts, childish motives and emotions. My room. My place, my sanctuary, my boundaries of life, from birth through age twelve.

They were arguing about me.

I sent some music to keep them occupied, and I enjoyed monitoring their reactions to my fine-tuned talent. I wove nets for them, nets of danger, of injury, of pain, and I drew them tighter and tighter about the two, reveling in the stench of fear that fell through the floorboards and into my lap. I wound the nooses tighter around their necks, wrapped them securely with bonds of insecurity, ineptitude, ineffectiveness, and futility.

I had them secured in their own emotional excretions far tighter than Rosemary ever bound me with her leather and shackles.

And then I concentrated on Diana.

Wake up, my darling. Remember my promise? Come to me and I will give you everything.

She remembered. She got up and with very little encouragement opened the door and walked through the house. She never hesitated to turn on a light; she remembered about the symphony of darkness. She was too good, too precious, too wonderful. My saliva glands ached in appreciation.

Come directly to me, through the kitchen. Open the cellar door. Take the steps, one at a time, oh, my child, oh, yes, come, come to Angelina, she will give you everything. Everything and more.

My body went limp with hunger as I saw her little pink pajamas pad down the dusty cellar stairs. The precious child, I would soon have her life, her experiences, to hold as my own; I would know her for who she really is; I would, for a short moment, be one with her, two personalities merging into one, and then her identity would flicker and vanish, but I would have her essence; I would have her unspoiled virgin expanse, and I would not squander it as her parents and society eventually would. I would keep it fresh, eternally youthful.

Or maybe she could become mine, I could introduce her to life as I had known it. My precious Diana could become my legacy to Wilton, Pennsylvania; I could leave behind a little piece of myself, another of my kind.

Or she could become my companion, and she would call me Mistress.

Come to me, Diana, my precious.

And then she was in my arms, soft and cuddly, smelling warm and sweet from sleep, and she rubbed her fists into her eye sockets as I danced her around the floor.

“Amy!” I heard her brother call, and I shot him with a harpoon of fear that cramped his stomach. She’s mine now, you brat. You just leave her be.

We sat together at the tea-party table, she so prim and proper in her fuzzy pajamas, with sore little hands in her lap, and I drank in her smell as I smiled and lifted a tiny, empty plastic teacup in a mock toast to her health. She looked down at her hands.

“Diana, my darling, what is it? Oh, I know. I promised you a journey, and here we are in this ugly, scary cellar.” I stood up and held out my hand to her. She looked up at me with those trusting, loving eyes, and I knew I had to give her that, just that; I had to give to her the child-pleasure dream of a lifetime. Then she put her little hand in mine, and I led her to my hiding place under the stairs and she crawled in with me. I held her warm body close to mine, so close that I could feel her pulse even in her little legs, and I began to gently remove her sleepsuit as I spun her final illusion.

“Suddenly I could breathe again. It felt like I’d been tied to the chair with thick ropes around my chest, and then suddenly they disappeared.

“Will was taking great gasps, too, holding his stomach, and I knew by the look on his face that his bowel control was not quite as good as mine.

“But something had changed; the air felt different. The fear was no longer oppressive. Will tested the strength of his limbs, then took clean clothes to the bathroom to change. On the way out, he looked at me and said, ‘A psychopath did that?’ and left me with a new type of fear and a thought or two about stakes.

“When he returned, he said, ‘Amy’s gone down there. C’mon. We’ve got to go now.’

“ ‘Wait a minute, Will,’ I said. ‘Amy can’t get to her, nor she to Amy, right?’

“ ‘Well . . . Right. I guess . . .’ His answer was not as confident as I would have liked.

“ ‘Don’t you think we should wait until just before dawn, like we said? She’s secure in the box, right?’

“ ‘I’ve got to get Amy.’

“ ‘Wait. Can Amy open the box?’

“ ‘No.’

“ ‘But you could.’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘If Angelina can make you that afraid, maybe she can make you open the box.’

“Will came back in and sat down on his bunk. His face wore the pain of self-sacrifice in the name of guilt. ‘Boyd,’ he said, ‘she’s my baby sister.’

“ ‘I know.’ I looked at my watch. ‘It’s just after midnight. Dawn is at five. Let’s at least wait a couple of hours.’

“Will pulled at his hair. ‘Oh, God,’ he said, then buried his face in his hands, while we sat there, waiting.

“I believe I did the best I could do under the circumstances. My conscience is as clear as it can be about that night. I truly believed that Will’s box was strong, and that his little sister couldn’t open it. I guess maybe I was a little afraid to go down there—I mean, who wouldn’t be?—but I really, honestly, believed that the little girl would be all right.

“But it was less than a half hour later that Will cried out, and I knew that I had underestimated everything.”