Comes the Night (34 page)

Coma. Maryanne still couldn’t believe it.

Okay, talk. She drew a deep breath. “So, Mr. McKenzie asked me about you,” she said. “And not in his usual snide way. A lot of the teachers wanted to know how you were, Alex. Lots of the kids too.”

Maryanne looked at the monitors. Glanced at the numbers as if they’d have something to tell.

“Your mom’s been great. Of course, you know that. She’s here all the time, right? Your dad and sis are worried about you. Your mom updates them a couple of times a day. Oh, and poor Mrs. Betts—she’s been a wreck since this happened. And so have I, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Maryanne’s eyes filled with tears all over again. For Alex’s sake, she tried her best to keep them out of her voice. “The police asked Brooke and me if we saw anything. Asked all kinds of questions about how we found you. But we didn’t have any answers. And... we didn’t tell them about Connie’s missing candlestick. How could we without telling... ” Maryanne lowered her voice, glanced at the door. “About Connie.

“But I did tell them that I heard something. That I woke up when I heard a thump that I thought was coming from the attic. And that I saw you weren’t in your bed at that time.” She paused. “Do you know what one officer asked me? She... she asked me why I didn’t go looking for you then, when I saw you were missing. You should have seen Brooke when she heard that.” Maryanne half smiled with the memory. “She just about took that cop’s head off. The officer actually apologized. She said of course, I had no way of knowing... that none of this was my fault. But, Alex... if only I
had
done something. Followed my instinct.” Maryanne’s fingers went to the ring on her right hand, the one her grandfather’s friend had given her, but there was no solace to be had from it. “If only I hadn’t failed you. But I did. I failed you... just like I failed Jason.”

Maryanne felt the emotions flood in. She couldn’t have stopped them if she tried. Not now, not with everything hitting so close to home, and the flood gates, too long dammed up, were opening. She was swamped by it, drowning in the grief and guilt.

Jason.

She’d not said that name out loud in so long. But now that that much—just the name—had tripped from her lips, more would follow.

She looked into Alex’s still face and prayed to God for her sake, Alex could somehow hear what she was saying. And though terrified to admit it, Maryanne half prayed that for her own sake, no one ever would.

“Jason was my baby brother. He was barely a year old when he died. And it was my fault that he did.”

Maryanne swallowed hard. She’d never said those words to anyone. “My parents went into Toronto for the evening. Something they did every so often. It... it was one of those big dinners Mom’s firm held, and she just had to be there. I’d babysat Jason before. It was no big deal. It... it should have been no big deal.

“He’d been whiny all evening, ever since Mom and Dad left around five. Really whiny and clingy. He wasn’t sick, just running a bit of a temp from teething. He wouldn’t take his bottle. Didn’t want his soother even. I put him to bed at 7:30—that was his bedtime—and that wasn’t a moment too soon for me. I was more than a little frazzled by the time I tucked him in. Tired of hearing him crying. Calling
Me-anne, Me-anne, Me-anne
over and over and over. Even after I put him to bed, I must have gone back into his room a dozen times. No, two dozen! But I couldn’t stop his crying. Couldn’t fix anything. It was coming on to nine o’clock and he still wasn’t asleep! So... so I decided to just let him cry it out. Cry himself to sleep. My grandmother Webb swears by that—and she raised six kids. He kept crying. Kept calling my name. Then I heard a thumping on the wall... some kind of a clatter.

“I thought he was throwing his crib toys again. Just having some sort of tantrum and kicking at his crib railing. And... I was so tired. So very tired of the crying. So I... I just didn’t go to him as he screamed and cried ‘Me-anne.’ Not even... when his crying changed.”

Maryanne could almost hear him. Almost hear that little voice calling out all over again tinged with fear. Gagging. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to hear him crying again, now. She would run to him like a bat out of hell. But it was her tears that were falling now, her voice that was hitching now in her throat. Her head down in her hands. “And... he did stop crying. I remember thinking, ‘
Finally
, he’s asleep!’ That I was right to let him cry it out. Wouldn’t Grandmother Webb be proud of me! Oh, how smart. I was the most amazing babysitter. World’s most brilliant big sister.

“I... I was wrong.

“You know how I feel the mood of rooms? Well, soon the feeling in that living room as I sat with my popcorn and soda changed. It felt colder. Depleted somehow, yet heavy. Oh Lord, strange as this sounds it felt as if the walls were watching me. When I realized it, I jumped off the couch and ran up the stairs. Something was wrong! I felt it. Not just a niggling feeling now—but a thumping, hammering one. Something was
horribly
wrong in the house.

“I saw him, Alex. I saw my baby brother. Tangled in the blinds. His little face was turned toward me as he dangled helplessly there and I’ll never forget that sight. I don’t know how I did it, but I snapped the blind cord with my bare hands and ran with Jason to my parents’ room. I was already giving him CPR while I called 911. I begged my little brother—please, please be okay. Please, J-Bug, I begged him, please be okay. I screamed up to heaven!

“Heaven didn’t hear me. Jason... he wasn’t okay. He was gone. He was gone and his last thoughts were why wasn’t I coming to save him? Why didn’t I come to help? The last person he looked for was me. And I just let him choke to death.”

Maryanne looked into Alex’s unopening eyes. Looked at her unflinching face. She’d never spoken this sorrow to anyone. Never told another being this truth that shredded her soul.

“The paramedics came and raced my baby brother away in the ambulance. The police came, asked me questions, looked at the bedrooms. One officer stayed with me until my parents finally came home. But... my parents didn’t really come home, not like before. Mom and Dad were already lost to me. Lost to each other.

“Alex.” Maryanne lowered her gaze, unable to look her friend in the face as she confessed the rest. “I... I told my parents, the police,
everyone
that I didn’t hear any crying. Not so much as a peep. No one knew that he called out to me and I ignored his last cries. That I let him just die. I told the police, my parents and everyone else that I hadn’t heard a thing. The lie never got easier. It only got harder and harder every time I told it, and yet I could never untell it!

“It’s all my fault. I ignored the feeling and sat down on the couch. I was so damn mad at Jason. Tired of running up there all night. Tired of his crying and whining. And in a moment of hellish frustration I answered that feeling out loud with ‘oh so what!’. That’s
exactly
when the crying stopped, as if to catch those words on my lips forever and ever and ever. Of course I didn’t know something was wrong—that he was choking. But if I had just listened to that feeling, my brother would still be alive.”

Maryanne’s head shot up as she looked over at Alex. The tears kept streaming down. “And if I’d paid attention to that feeling the other night, maybe you’d be okay. Not in this coma! Maybe you’d never have been attacked. And if you die, Alex. If you... if you don’t make it back up from this... I’ll own that too.”

It was the footsteps behind her, not the swinging of the silent door that caught Maryanne’s attention. The nurse smiled kindly, yet sympathetically, at her. She had to know that she’d been crying, still Maryanne wiped a hand across her eyes.

The nurse went to Alex’s bedside. She checked Alex’s pulse, shone a light in her eyes. She changed the IV bag, made sure the lines were clear and then looked at the same monitors Maryanne had studied earlier, writing down the numbers on the chart at the foot of the bed.

“The numbers are higher than they were before,” Maryanne said.

The nurse answered, “A little higher.”

“Bad higher?”

“Just higher.” She smiled again. “Alexandra’s awfully lucky to have a good friend like you.” The door swung closed behind her.

Maryanne stood slowly, looked up at the clock on the wall and was surprised to see how much time had passed. She’d missed supper at Harvell House. Mrs. Betts would be having a fit. But there was something else she had to do. One last thing she had to tell Alex Robbins.

“We’re going ahead with our plans.” She turned to make sure the door was still closed, then turned back to Alex. “We’re going to dig up Connie’s body this weekend when everyone’s away. And everyone
is
going away. Betts is pretty insistent that no one is staying home after what happened to you in the attic. So Brooke and I are going ahead with the plan to stay at a motel, and then sneak back into the house. We have to do it now, before the snow comes to stay. Black casters against white snow... we’d lose so much of our ability to hide.

“We’re doing it for you too, Alex. Because we know you’d want us to finish this. To give Connie the chance to finally rest. Find peace.” She drew a last shuddering breath, leaned over and brushed Alex’s dark bangs back to kiss her on the forehead, just below the bandage. “Yeah, I know.” She laughed weakly. “You’d shoot me for that if you were awake.”

Shouldering her book bag and wiping her eyes one last time, she headed home to Harvell House.

Brooke

B
ROOKE PAUSED A
moment, arching her back to ease the ache.

Maryanne had just started her turn in the pit, which was inching close to three feet deep now. They’d both dug for a while, but it soon became obvious one of them was going to have to move the displaced soil away from the edge of the hole, as it was quickly becoming too hard to lift each new shovelful clear of the last. So they’d started taking turns, one in the pit, one beside the pit moving the soil back a few feet.

Another load of dirt hit the pile, some of it tricking down to land on Brooke’s runners.
Break time’s over
. She drove her shovel into the unearthed soil, hefted it, and tipped its contents several feet to the left. Then repeated the process, again and again and again.

They’d kept up a conversation of sorts for the first fifteen minutes, but they really didn’t have a lot to say to each other. They were all talked out, after last night in the motel.

Brooke and Maryanne had been the last of the students to leave for the American Thanksgiving weekend. Mrs. Betts had ushered them out to Brooke’s car, suitcases in hand, with obvious relief. After the assault on Alex, absolutely no one was being permitted to stay back this year. Nobody wanted to.

So they’d gone to the motel as planned. Not the low rent spot she’d invited Seth to before school had started, but the nice new motel out by the highway. Her mother had sent her plenty of extra money to see herself through this holiday alone.

Initially, after hearing about the attack on a student at Harvell House, her mother had wanted her to come home for the break, offering to cancel her vacation plans. Talk about irony! Her mother finally putting her first and she couldn’t go home. Not with what she and Maryanne had to do. So Brooke had reassured her mother that security—at the school, at the residence and in the town—had been tightened to the point of ridiculousness. When her mother persisted with the protests, Brooke had said she’d made friends here in Mansbridge and no offence, but she wanted to spend the holiday with them. There was enough truth in the words that her mother bought it. With Brooke’s blessing, she’d gone back to anticipating her getaway with Herr Kommandant.

But the whole motel thing, which Brooke had so been looking forward to when she originally hatched the idea, was a bust. Predictably. With Alex still lying comatose in a hospital bed, neither of them had felt much like partying. Nevertheless, Brooke had drunk half a bottle of Grey Goose vodka just on principal. They’d been so busy with the casting, she hardly ever managed to get drunk these days. Even Maryanne had had a drink last night—a very weak screwdriver—joining Brooke in a toast to Alex. And then another to Connie. And then they’d talked. And talked and talked.

So this morning, the conversation dried up pretty quick. As they fell into a rhythm, they let their shovels do the talking.

The pit work was the worst, of course. The digging was hard, and the shovel had to be lifted so high. Even the sound of the shovel driving into the compacted earth was different. It made a very solid
thunk
sound when it bit in, compared to the lighter
scritch
sound the same implement made when it plunged into the loose soil. But no matter whether you were in the pit or up above, the sound of a shovelful of soil hitting the ground was the same.
Plop
.

On and on they shoveled.
Thunk-plop
.
Scritch-plop
. After a while, the sound sort of drove out thought.
Thunk-plop
.
Scritch-plop
.
Thunk-plop
.
Scritch-plop
.

Thud
.

At the new sound, Maryanne dropped the shovel and scrambled out of the pit.

“So, switch off again, I guess?” Brooke said dryly. They’d just switched five minutes ago.

“I’m sorry, Brooke. I just... can’t.”

Of course she couldn’t. Brooke was surprised she’d lasted this long. Given the way Maryanne felt the cellar’s vibes, just coming down here was enough to set her nerves on edge. And the deeper the pit grew, the grimmer Maryanne looked. Fortunately, Brooke suffered from no such sensitivity. Squeamishness, yes. She really wasn’t looking forward to dealing with bones. But at least she didn’t feel them the same way Maryanne seemed to.

“Don’t sweat it.” Brooke lowered herself carefully into the pit and picked up Maryanne’s shovel. “Okay, let’s see what it is you hit.”

A few scrapes of the shovel and she had her answer.
Wood
. A rough, unfinished plank.

They’d actually improvised some kind of coffin for Connie. Given all the awful things they’d done to her, Brooke would not have been surprised to find the girl’s remains without so much as a burlap sack between her and the soil.