21

“You’ll have to go. You can’t live here anymore.”

Len met her eyes. “Why?” he whispered.

“You know why,” she said quietly.

For a long moment she thought he might strike her. But at last he laughed, a dry, empty, hissing laugh. He bowed, a quick jerk of his head. “I understand,” he said. Why did he seem amused?

For the next few years she had seen less and less of him, although she called him on the phone, hating the sound of his voice, which became almost entirely a whisper, like the sound of something dragged across snow. And he called her once a week, always polite, always secretive.

He went north at last to do “research,” as he put it. And then she stopped hearing from him, and what was she supposed to do? She wanted to forget him completely, but that was impossible.

And then the nightmares had begun, the terrible dreams of the intruder in the seemingly peaceful place, the slow steps, and the terror that woke her night after night.

The terror that still kept her awake. She sat in her dressing gown. Rain pattered on the window, and she nearly prayed aloud for sleep. As if she could pray. As if she would be heard even if she did.

She would not be able to sleep. She probably should see Mark’s doctor. Sleeping pills would be a blessing, although she wondered if she might take the entire bottle, every single pill, and sleep forever.

The idea was almost amusing. Not that she would ever do that. No, she was not destructive to herself. Only to the people entrusted to her. She ate them like a vulture. She had not wanted to be evil. It had been tricked into her somehow, at some point. Some alloy in her makeup, the sort of fault that had made the foil snap and turn into a jagged rapier.

Sandy opened the door into the kitchen, spilling light across the floor. “Oh!” she gasped. “It’s you!”

“I thought I’d have a toddy, after all. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Sandy took over the filling of the kettle. “Tonight, I don’t know why. But tonight I am so nervous.”

“There’s no reason to be nervous,” said Mary.

“No reason! Every day all these ghastly things happen. Crazy men all over, hurting people. And always crazy men, you notice. Never women.”

“There are sick women.”

Sandy paused, bottle of rum in her hands. “Of course. Many miserable women. But they don’t go around hurting people. Strangling. Beating to death. Slaughtering innocent people in their houses. Men do that. Crazy men.”

Sandy added honey to the cup, and poured rum, the gurgling of the liquor like a sinister chuckle. The sound of it dazed Mary, and she gripped the counter top to bring herself back into what she supposed was reality: the gleaming stove, the faucet a hook that dripped water.

“Men who have no idea what it is to be a human being,” Sandy continued. “Who are totally wrapped up in their own minds. Who think the world is all inside their heads.” She stirred hot water into the cup. The spoon jangled in the china, and a drop of rum glistened on the countertop. “They should do something about these men.”

“What?” Mary whispered. “What can they do?”

“Sometimes I think it would be better for everyone if they did not have news about craziness. If when someone was killed, they didn’t even talk about it. How many times have I turned on the television and seen policemen carrying a bag with a body in it.”

Sandy was obviously nervous tonight. She was rarely so talkative. “Make a toddy for yourself,” Mary suggested.

“No. I will sleep well. Nothing interrupts my sleep. It’s just something about tonight. Made me scared.”

“The weather.”

“I like rain. Comforts me, makes me glad to be indoors. But do you know what? If they didn’t have the bad news on television, they’d never catch the crazy men who do all these things.”

“Naturally, if something happens, they have to tell us. No matter how ghastly it might be. It is, I suppose, their responsibility.”

“That’s right. They have to do it. They have to tell us the truth, even if we don’t want to hear it.”

The drink was still too hot. “We should,” said Mary weakly, “try to think of pleasant things.”

Sandy nodded. “We will.”

Mary turned on the television in her bedroom. Hills and trees, and a herd of wild beasts sprang into focus. A lioness lowered herself into tall, brown grass. The herd twitched. One of the animals was aware of something. Another lioness hulked through the grass.

Her father had hunted in Africa many times, although he had rarely talked about it. What he had enjoyed there was a secret, a ripeness that he had held to himself. Once, squeezing a tick out of a dog’s fur, he had remarked that in Africa they had ticks as big as nickels.

The herd churned, and Mary turned off the television. She knew too much about hunters and their quarry.

Someone answered immediately, but she knew it was a switchboard designed more to screen than to admit as soon as she heard the tone of her voice. “I’m sorry, Dr. Kirby doesn’t have night duty.”

It was important.

“I can have you speak with the physician on duty.”

When would Dr. Kirby be in?

“We don’t expect him tomorrow, but we do expect him …”

Mary could, she supposed, insist on speaking to Kirby. She could identify herself, describe herself as a client, and insist on his home phone. But what could she say? How could she start from the beginning over the phone?

“Is there a message?” the voice was saying.

She had been obsessed with her father, and so broken by his death that she had imagined—or had she believed—that his spirit was alive in the body of her son. That burden had twisted her son into an inhuman thing. But Mary could not say any of this to the bland voice on the switchboard. “No, no message.”

“Can I tell him who called?”

Mary smiled to herself. Tell him that a woman who wishes she could change everything she ever did called up and wanted to say hi.

“No,” said Mary. “No message.”

Mary slept, waking briefly once as rain clawed the window. She listened for a moment to the rain, and then, once again, she slept.

This time the dream was more detailed than it had ever been. The house was dark, and cold, but somehow pleasant, a large fireplace before her with a half-charred log. There was a kitchen off to her left somewhere. She sensed it, and felt that something cheerful was possible there, perhaps even some sauce simmering on the stove. It was raining, but she was safe from the rain.

Then there was a bump upstairs. Someone was treading the floorboards above her, a slow, jerky step. The steps half-stumbled to a doorway, and then someone stood above her, watching her, someone who knew her, and she could not turn around. Whoever it was walked slowly, gathering strength, to the head of the stairs, and once again stood watching her as the rain fell outside.

The person descended the stairs, carefully, the steps creaking with the weight of the body, and when his foot left the bottom step she wanted to turn, she wanted to cry out, but she could not, and then she wanted to wake, but she could not. The steps one after another crossed the floor, a slow, heavy stride that was in no hurry and yet determined, and then the person was just behind her, a long, cold breath on the back of her neck.

A hand fell upon her shoulder and gripped her hard, so hard she wanted to cry out, but she could not. Her voice leaked a long hiss of air, and then she turned her head.

“Len!” she gasped, because it was Len, but then he turned his head so the light fell on it clearly, and it was the ruined face of her father’s corpse.