Time Out of Mind (92 page)

“
Where is Jonathan now?” Gwen's voice had fear in it.
“You said you saw him. Is Jonathan where you're going?”

“
Was it Jonathan?” Sturdevant asked quietly.

“
Ask me”—Lesko walked through toward the front
door—“the old guy called it right.”

“
I'm going with you.” Gwen ran after him.

The telephone on the kitchen wall rang.

Imbeciles.

The gate. The gate had to be closed. Ella yanked open
her desk drawer and found a pair of scissors. These in one hand and her cane in the other, Ella struggled with the bolt
of the door that was still whole and passed into her entrance
hall. At a closet there she snatched a long, hooded coat,
which she hadn't worn in almost a quarter century. There
were no boots. There had been at one time but some servant
had removed them over the years. They were never used.
Miss Beckwith never went out in weather. Miss Beckwith
hardly went out at all.

The storm stung her cheeks. And the snow on the drive
way seemed to bite at her ankles and try to crawl up her
legs, and the cold went through her coat as if contemptuous
of it. But she was managing. She could move quickly and
without great peril of falling if she stayed to the ruts pressed
into the snow by the cars and if she watched where she
was stepping. She pressed on stiffly, like an awkward nov
ice skier, her eyes locked on the ground immediately before
her, daring only once to glance up and measure the distance remaining to Raymond Lesko's knotted belt. Another fifty
feet. Good. Keep moving.

“
Good evening, Ella.”

Close. Keep going. That's good. Yes.

“
It won't close, Ella. The snow will stop it.”

Ella denied the voice as well. And what it said. The gate
will close. It is a heavy gate. And the snow is not so high.
It will need a little push, perhaps. But it will close.

A shadow moved. The man who was not there stepped
closer.

“
No!”
Ella shrieked. But still she would not look up.
With one bare hand she clawed at the blocking snow while
the other held the scissors stiff-armed toward the shadow.
It moved closer. It crossed the line between her columns
where her locked gates should have been.

“
Stay out of here! Stay out!”
She drew back the scissors
and hurled them at him, backhanded. They sailed harmlessly by, but it seemed to Ella they passed through him.
Ella squealed. Her cane. Where was her cane? She groped
for it in the snow and, finding it, tottered to her feet. Once erect, she gripped the cane at its tapered base and swung it
wildly at the night.
“Burke!”
she screamed.
“Burke!”

“
Burke is gone now, Ella.” The voice was almost gen
tle. “Burke, Bigelow, Hack, your father. They're all
gone.”

Ella's thin chest was heaving. Her head remained cocked to one side in a desperate hope that what was vague in her
vision would remain vague in form. Her mouth began to
froth at its corners. Her eyes were wide and unblinking in
spite of the snow.

“
It's time, Ella,” the voice said softly.

“
I'll kill you,” she hissed.

He smiled. It was a sad smile, as if she'd made a very
poor joke.

“
It's time to answer for Margaret, and for Jonathan and
for poor Lucy. There was never a need to harm Lucy.”

A low, growling wail started deep in her throat. She slashed viciously with her cane, although his shape re
mained ten feet distant, between her pillars. Now she hurled
the cane as she had the scissors. The cane struck his chest,
but lengthwise and without force. He snatched it before it
could fall and held it for a long moment. He seemed to
study it. At last he brought it down to his side. Something
in his pose brought another wail from Ella. She spun drunk
enly toward the house, her arms reaching for it. She fell face down in the snow. She lay there gasping, staring at it,
waiting in terror for the shadow to cross over her.

“
You must be cold,” he said.

If she was, she was not conscious of it. She stood, look
ing hard into his eyes as he peeled off his coat and wrapped
it around her shoulders.

“
Are you Jonathan?” she asked.

His eyes took a sort of hitch, like that made by a film when it jumps to another scene.
`

”
I know. Mr. Lesko told me.”

”
I know that, too. Jonathan, let's get away from here.”

Get a grip on yourself. Think. If you can just get to
...
where? Get to where?

She tried to remember. There was a building, she knew,
that she wanted to reach. A place with light and warmth
and stout doors. But the snow was piling high and her feet
were numb and the hem of her coat was heavy with ice.
She would never reach it. He would be there first.

Ella looked back.

He was coming. Steadily. Unhurried. The cane swinging
in his right hand. There was hardly any snow. Why was
there so little snow for him and so much for her? Every
thing seemed turned around somehow. She was even moving downhill now. How could that be when her driveway
climbed steeply upward?

At last Ella reached a broad, open space that was flat. It should have been where her front terrace and her wisteria
trellis were, but it was all so different. The trellis was so high, so much bigger, and its posts seemed more like steel p
illars. She heard a scream. An odd scream, not like a
woman's. It came again. From a distance. She stared past
the pillars and saw it. It was a horse. A horse was screaming
because it had fallen and could not rise and there were two
men, policemen. Oh, glory. Yes. Policemen.
“Police,” she croaked. ”I need you. Police!”
But the wind shredded her words and drove them back
into her face.