F Paul Wilson - Novel 05 (44 page)

 
          
Eathan
nibbed his palms against his face. "Damn."

 
          
"Or..."

 
          
Eathan
looked at her. "Or what?"

 
          
"Or
there's something else inside her that she couldn't deal with."

 
          
"What's
that supposed to mean?"

 
          
"I'm
not sure," Julie said. She rose to her feet and began walking about the
room, aimlessly. "But I get the feeling Sam is both hiding something
and
drawing me deeper. Most of these memories feel like diversions, decoys to
keep me from tapping into some other memory. Something she's scared of...
something she's repressed."

 
          
"Repressed?
What would Samantha have to repress?"

 
          
"I
don't know," Julie said, turning toward him and fixing him with her stare.
She'd been ready to mention the possibility of her starting the fire, but
something else had just occurred to her. "Maybe neurohortnone injections
are just the tip of the abuse iceberg. Maybe dear old Nathan had his way with
us in other areas as well."

 
          
She
wanted to spark some rage in him, see him shout and scream and hurl things
against the wall.

 
          
But
Eathan only sat there, staring at her.

 
          
"Listen
here, young lady. Nathan may have lost perspective in the area of his
research, but I knew my brother
—
he was no ... no
pedophile!"

 
          
Julie
felt the poison rising in her. She didn't repress it. Instead, she drew it up
and let it fly.

 
          
"With
all due respect, Eathan, you didn't know shit about your brother." She
spat the words. "How do you know he wasn't fucking with our little bodies
while he was fucking with our little minds?"

 
          
"Don't
talk like that. Nathan may have been many things, but he wasn't a sexual
pervert."

 
          
"Damn
it!" she cried. "Your brother was capable of anything! Why not that?
And why aren't you
angry
about any of this, damn you!"

 
          
Eathan
looked away again. "Maybe
—
because I've lived with it
for almost a quarter of a century." His voice sounded almost dead.
"It took me years, but I'm past the anger. I've been more concerned with
dealing with the consequences. And don't forget that he risked his life to save
you two from the fire, even though he knew you weren't really his children.
That was heroic. I haven't forgotten that. And don't forget this: His sacrifice
gave me the chance to raise my two daughters."

 
          
The
fire ... in the shock and rage after reading the journals, Julie had almost
forgotten about that. Maybe no man was all bad, but Nathan Gordon had come
pretty damn close.

 
          
"One
more thing," she said, "then I'll leave you alone. How did you get a
copy of the coroner's file?"

 
          
"It
wasn't easy. But I was a practicing physician in the area, remember? I had
connections."

 
          
"Why
would you want such a grisly thing?"

 
          
"I
look through it every so often."

 
          
"But
why?"

 
          
Eathan's
eyes blazed as they bored into her, but his voice was wintry. "To make
sure he's really dead. Every time Samantha would do something self-destructive
I'd pull it out and look at those pictures just to assure myself that the man
who altered my daughters' brains
—
my daughters, not his
—
wasn't out there somewhere laughing at me."

 
          
Julie
nodded mutely. "I
—
I have to think about all
this."

 
          
"We'll
talk some more," Eathan said, but Julie hurried from the room.

 
          
And
as she walked down the long hallway, she thought, Eathan isn't nearly as
"past the anger" as he thinks.

 
          
That
lightened her own load. Something comforting about sharing the rage.

 
          
But
she was too wound up to devote much thought to that now. She'd had an epiphany
of sorts back in Eathan's room.

 
          
Sam's
subconscious was protecting a blocked memory all right
—
a memory of abuse. It was as mundane and tawdry as that.

 
          
Julie
thought of that kraken; something more horrible lay buried deep in Sam's mind.
A memory so awful that Sam's subconscious had walled it off, relieving her
consciousness of ever having to deal with it again.

 
          
But
what if Sam had made an end run around her subconscious, the way her memories
seemed to be doing now? What if, through her art, she'd accessed the memory and
then ...

 
          
God,
that had to be it.

 
          
That
was why it was such slow going in Sam's memoryscape. The key memory had been
repressed all her life, so even now, even after her consciousness had been
ruined, Sam's subconscious was still guarding it, blocking Julie, throwing
other memories at her as distractions.

 
          
But
a memory of what? What could have happened, what could be so awful that merely reliving
the memory of it could devastate her consciousness like that? Maybe it was a
combination of the memory and some sort of instability in Sam's brain as a
result of Nathan's experiments.

 
          
That
had to be it. If Nathan hadn't toyed with Sam's internal wiring, she probably
could have handled reliving the repressed memory. She might have suffered other
repercussions, but she wouldn't be in a coma now.

 
          
Damn
Nathan Gordon! Did he do something worse than dose them with neurohormones? Sam
had a deeply buried memory. Most so-called repressed memories were fiction, but
Julie felt she was dealing with the real thing this time. And what repressed
memory would be most deeply buried?

 
          
Sexual
abuse.

 
          
A
wave of nausea swept over Julie. Was there no end to this?

 
          
She
wished she knew how to cry. It would bring some relief. But she couldn't cry.
Nathan Gordon had seen to that.

 
          
Only
one thing to do. Go back into the 'scape and scour that third level for a clue
to the whereabouts of the hidden memory. She'd have all the answers then, and
maybe the key to Sam's recovery.

 
          
But
she was too tired now. She needed rest.

 
          
She
headed for her bedroom. Just a few hours and she'd be okay. . .

2

           
The sun was high when Julie opened
her eyes. She snapped up to a sitting position and grabbed her bedside clock.
Eleven
A.M.
She'd wanted only a couple of hours. The morning was practically gone. She
leaped out of bed and headed for the hall. She didn't have to get dressed
—
she was still wearing yesterday's clothes. A shower would
have been heaven but she didn't have time.

 
          
She
spotted Clarice in the hall.

 
          
"Where's
my uncle?"

 
          
"Oh,
he's out, mum," the maid said. "Been out since early morning."

 
          
Julie
hurried down to the dining room and found a note on the table:

 
          
Julia,

 
          
Had
to go to
London
for the wake. Will be back
tonight.
Do
NOT
do
anything with Sam until I get back. Very important
that I
talk to you
first.

 
          
Love,
Eathan

 
          
Put
off going into Sam's memoryscape until tonight? Not a chance.

 
          
Julie
got a cup of coffee from the kitchen and hurried upstairs. This was perfect.
She could make two trips into the memoryscape before Eathan returned. Maybe
then she'd have proof enough to make even Eathan admit that his brother truly
had been a monster.

 
          
And
maybe she'd even have the answer to Sam's condition.

 
          
Children
under
age
8
are
especially
susceptible to fake memories
because their frontal lobes are immature
,
and that's where the time and
place of a memory
—
its
source
—
are stored.

—
Random
notes: Julia Gordon

 
          
You
enter the memoryscape and find yourself in the gallery, but this is a strange
one
—
inside the hollowed-out
stump of a shattered redwood. It's empty save for the large canvas
—
Sam's last work. More detail has been added. You now see
that the bright yellow-orange light radiating from behind the central darkness
is fire, flames roaring into the night, reaching for the full moon. And that
central darkness now has a shape. Unquestionably a human silhouette. But whose?

 
          
Liam?
In Sam's memory he'd been silhouetted against the flames from the Branham Bank
fire.

 
          
Could
be him . . . and it could be someone else.

 
          
You
go outside and scan the upslope of the volcano-Smoke, black and toxic, still
drifts from the ragged maw, streaking the clouds with red from the sputtering
fire in its belly. The dead trees that littered the slope yesterday are all gone
now, the last sign of life removed like a stubble scraped away by a giant
razor.

 
          
You
look up. The moon ... no
—
no longer a moon, just a
cluster of glowing rocks floating in the sky
—
shattered.
Even the moon isn't safe from the progressive deterioration of Sam's mind. The
fragments provide scant illumination.

 
          
It's
the most hopeless place you've ever seen.

 
          
Hopeless...
because you realize you haven't much time left
—
Sam
hasn't much
time left.

 
          
But
there's got to be something here, planted on the slope between the flatland and
the fire above. A clue to the ultimate memory ...

 
          
Propelled
by the growing terror that you'll lose Sam if you don't find something, you
start up the slope, searching. What else can you do?

 
          
Nothing
catches your eye, nothing at all. It's all dead here.

 
          
And
then, to your right, about halfway up the flank of the volcano's cinder cone,
you see a tiny streak of light.

 
          
You
hurry toward it and find a crack in the cinder and ash-strewn crust. Not a
volcanic side vent, for there's no heat coming up. More like a cave or tunnel
that's been reopened by the eruption. The faint light is leaking from within.
Deep within.

 
          
You
enter and, like a moth, you float toward the light.

 
          
Or
perhaps "lights" is more accurate. You see them far ahead. They seem
to be in motion, swirling like lightning bugs in a midsummer field.

 
          
Your
heartbeat kicks up its meter. Is this the way to the lost memory you're
searching for? Obviously whatever's down here has been buried, hidden away.

 
          
Abruptly
the tunnel ends and you find yourself in a huge, seemingly limitless cavern.
It's as if you've passed through the volcano and emerged on the other side. But
you sense this is a pocket world, completely encased in stone even though the
living rock gives way to a field of golden grain, with dark green presses
undulating sinuously as they reach toward the stars.

 
          
And
—
God
—
what stars. They twirl
deliriously above like flaming pinwheels. The night air is alive and awhirl
with light. You laugh. You know this place. It's Van Gogh's
Starry Night.
You
and Sam had a running argument about it for years, Sam insisting the
phantasmagorical scene sprang from Vincent's imagination, and you infuriating
her by saying it was the result of some neurochemical aberration, that this wasn't
artistic vision, this was psychosis
—
this
is what the poor mad artist actually
saw.

 
          
God,
how you could drive each other crazy.

 
          
But
now, to
live
in the painting, to see the stars swirl and the cypresses
dance, it's ... it's wonderful.

 
          
But
where are the village and the steepled church of the painting? This landscape
appears uninhabited.

 
          
No,
not completely uninhabited. There's one house there, nestled among the trees in
the background. It looks like
—

 
          
Oh,
no. Not that house again. Not the
Millburn
house. You don't want to go in there again. It's too
painful. You start to turn away, then stop.

 
          
Why
else are you here? Certainly not to be comforted. You're supposed to be
exploring all the memories you can find. Isn't that what this is about? And you've
learned that the associated pain seems to be directly proportional to their
importance.

 
          
Clearly,
knowledge has a price in this memoryscape.

 
          
Your
insides coil with dread as you turn and start toward the house.

 
          
You
try to keep from wondering what you will find within; you study the writhing
cypresses that seem to be made of green-brown flame rather than vegetation, and
you marvel at the twisting shadows cast by the whirling stars, yet you cannot
shut out the raised, angry voices filtering though the night air from somewhere
nearby. Men's voices. You follow the sound around the side of the
Millburn
house.

 
          
And
there
—

 
          
Nathan
and a young Eathan face each other like two prizefighters waiting for the
bell, separated by half a dozen feet and a redwood picnic table. You feel the
thickening tension between them. Nathan has a pair of work gloves folded in
his right hand. Twenty feet away is the vegetable garden with rows of corn and
tomatoes and eggplant. A rake and a hoe lie where Nathan must have dropped them
upon Eathan's arrival.

 
          
Even
in the wan starlight you can see that Nathan's cheeks are flushed with anger;
small droplets of spittle fleck his mustache. Eathan seems calmer, but only
marginally so. His expression is difficult to read through his beard, but his
rage appears to be calm, cold.

 
          
You
look around. No children about. How could... ? You glance up and see a little
face peering through the screen of one of the upstairs windows, watching with
wide, wondering eyes. Sam with her games of surprise and boo.

 
          
Abruptly
your perspective shifts. You're looking down on the scene from above, through
the aluminum screen on your bedroom window. You're Sammi and you're wondering
why your father and uncle are so mad.
You
know now that Nathan's not
your father, but to little Sammi he's Daddy
—
and
you can't separate her feelings from your own while you're here. Everything is
turmoil.

 
          
"You
had no right!" Daddy shouts. "No damn right at all!"

 
          
"I
had no right?" Uncle Eathan points to the experimental journals that lie
scattered across the picnic table. "You play God and then have the nerve
to stand there and complain about someone snooping through your file
cabinet?" He throws up his hands. "There's no talking to you, Nathan.
You're insane!"

 
          
"I
left those papers with you for safekeeping. I expected you to respect my
privacy. I thought I could trust my own brother not to break into my
files!"

 
          
"Trust?"
Uncle Eathan says. "How does that word even pass your lips?"

 
          
Daddy
looks as if he's about to explode. He jabs a finger at Eathan's face.

 
          
"And
how does it pass
yours,
brother? It appears that nothing of mine is
safe when you're about. Isn't that right?"

 
          
"What...
?" A guilty look sweeps across Uncle Eathan's face. Suddenly he seems on
the defensive, unable to meet his brother's eyes. "I don't know
—
"

 
          
"You
know
damn
well what I'm talking about...." His leer is all
bitterness and fury. "Don't you."

 
          
Uncle
Eathan refuses to take the bait. He draws himself up and glares back at his
brother.

           
"Don't try to change the
subject. And for the record, I did
not
break into anything. You left the
cabinet unlocked."

 
          
Daddy
kicks the picnic table. The journals jump and one tumbles to the grass.

 
          
Those
journals
—
they're Nathan's. The ones
you spent a last night reading. What are they doing here? Just this morning
Eathan told you he didn't discover them until
after
the fire. And yet
here he is, confronting Nathan with them.

 
          
The
shouting draws your attention back to the picnic table.

 
          
"Damn
you, Eathan! You could have left your papers scattered on my floor and I never
would have so much as glanced at them!"

 
          
"Well,
I
did
glance at these. I was curious where your work was going. I... I
was aghast.... I can't believe what you've done! It's criminal."

 
          
"And
I couldn't believe what
you
did!"

 
          
"Nathan,
you're incredible! Don't even attempt to gain the moral high ground here.
You're a monster. I... how could you? Your own
daughters,
Nathan!"

 
          
"Skinner
used his own child
—
"

 
          
"He
didn't use
drugs
on her!"

 
          
Daddy
waves his hands between them. "Shut up! You'll do no one any good by
opening your mouth about this." He lowers his voice and it takes on a
placating tone. "I've made a mistake, Eathan. I acted rashly and I regret
what I did. But what's done is done. I can't turn back the clock. And there's
been no harm, as you can see. They're both perfectly healthy, normal children.
Perfectly normal. So let's keep this between us
—
for
the girls' sake."

 
          
But
Uncle Eathan isn't buying any of it. He shakes his head. "Too late,
Nathan. I already told Lucy
—
for the girls' sake."

 
          
In
a heartbeat Daddy's angry flush fades to ashen shock. His voice is hoarse,
barely audible as he sways and clutches the edge of the table.

 
          
"No!
You're lying! You wouldn't hurt her like that!"

 
          
Shaking
his head in disgust, Uncle Eathan gathers the journals from the picnic table,
picks up the one in the grass, and shoves them into his brother's arms.

 
          
"Maybe
you'd better read those again
—
then tell me about
hurting."