Hear the Children Calling (7 page)

“How should I know?” her mother demanded.

Jenny’s father smiled, holding out a hand to help her to her feet. At ten, she was nearly as tall as he was, and when she gazed at him, her eyes met his.

“Well, everything’s going to be okay now,” her father promised. “You’re Daddy’s big girl; you’ll be okay.”

Jenny smiled. She hated it when other people called her a big girl, knowing they were making fun of her large bones and long legs. But when Daddy said it, she knew it was out of love.

“Well, get back into bed,” her mother said. “You’ve got a busy day at the clinic tomorrow.”

Jenny’s mouth dropped open.

“Tomorrow?” her father said, protesting for the child, who couldn’t. “Isn’t that a bit soon?”

“She’s got a lot to make up for,” her mother said sternly. “After the nonsense she pulled today—”

“I’m sure that wasn’t Jenny’s fault.”

“Oh, and whose fault was it?”

Another argument was brewing, and her father turned quickly away to stop it. He pulled Jenny’s covers up and leaned down to kiss her good night. “Don’t you worry,” he said. “There’ll be no clinic tomorrow if I have anything to say about it.”

Jenny smiled, but the smile faded as soon as her door closed. She didn’t want to go back to the clinic. Not tomorrow, not ever!

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but all she could think of was that big chair and all the weird machines around it. And the grown-ups’ voices asking her to send thought messages to someone in another room. And demanding that she tell them what voices she was hearing.

Jenny tried to think of the woman with the dog. After a short time, she saw her again. This time she was sitting on a couch. There were two little boys to either side of her, leaning toward a book she held open in her lap. In her mind, Jenny walked closer to the couch.

The woman looked up at her and the book dropped to the floor. She cried out with such fright that Jenny backed quickly away, opening her eyes and ending the dream.

10

K
ATE
E
MERSON WAS SITTING WITH A PICTURE BOOK
on her lap, her boys tucked warmly to either side of her, when the little girl appeared to her. She noticed movement in the doorway and looked up to acknowledge Danny’s presence. Instead, a child with long, dark hair stared at her from the shadows.

“Laura!”

The book crashed to the floor, and in that instant the child vanished. Kate shot to her feet, knocking the boys away in her haste. She ran toward the now-empty doorway.

“Laura! Laura, come back!”

“Mommy, where’re you going?” Chris demanded. He climbed from the couch and followed his mother into the hallway.

Joey tried to keep up, stumbling forward on chubby toddler legs.

“Mommy, stop,” Chris yelled. “Come back and read our book.”

“Mommy, stop,” Joey echoed.

They caught up with her in the kitchen, where they watched in confusion as she spun circles. Her eyes were enormously round. At the sight of tears streaming down her cheeks, Joey burst out crying.

Chris went to her and tugged at her robe. “Mommy, what’re you doing?” he demanded loudly.

The back door opened now, and Danny came in with Boston Blackie. The dog ran to Joey and began to lick the tears on his face.

Danny looked from his wife to his sons, then back to Kate again. “What’s going on here?”

Kate waved her hands in front of her, as if she didn’t know what to do with them. With his big, strong hands, Danny took hold of her smaller ones and held them steady. “Oh, Danny,” she whispered. “She was here. I saw Laura. I saw Laura standing in the doorway of the living room.”

For a moment, Danny just gazed at his wife, uncomprehending. Then he pulled his hands away and turned quickly to the boys. “Hey, it’s getting late, you guys,” he said. “You should have been in bed an hour ago. Let’s go.”

Despite their protests, he took them firmly by the shoulders and steered them out of the kitchen.

“But I wanna know what’s wrong with Mommy,” Chris yelled. “Why’d she throw the book on the floor? Why’d she run away? Why’s she crying? Why—”

“I don’t know, Chris. You go on to bed and we’ll discuss this in the morning.” Danny went upstairs with the boys. A few minutes later, he returned, to find Kate sitting on the living-room couch.

“She was standing right there,” Kate said softly.

“Kate, what the hell is this?” Danny said. “You scared the crap out of those boys, you know. It’s been years since you even mentioned Laura. Why now? And why, for God’s sake, in front of Chris and Joey?”

Kate looked up at him, her teeth set hard. “Because she was there,” she said defiantly. “Laura was standing right there in that doorway.”

“Kate, that’s impossible,” Danny said, sitting beside her. “Laura’s been gone for nearly six years. She’s dead, Kate. I thought Dr. Lee helped you come to grips with that.”

Kate slid away from him. “I could never come to grips with my child’s death! I’ve never felt right about it. Why didn’t anyone see her fall overboard? Why didn’t anyone ever find a body?”

“We live near the ocean,” Danny said, in a patient
tone used for repeating the same information for the umpteenth time. “Strong currents—”

“No, there were no currents,” she said, shaking her head vehemently. “Danny, I know Laura is alive. I’ve seen her . . .”

“You’ve seen dreams!”

“I’ve seen Laura,” Kate said. “She’s sending messages. Just like the ones she used to send me years ago. Don’t you remember, Danny, how she could do that?”

Danny picked at a loose thread on the couch, saying nothing.

“I can remember one time she did it,” Kate went on. “It was when she was three and a half, when Mrs. Ginmoor first started sitting for us. I was driving home from the boutique and I saw Laura running down the block crying. By the time I swung around to catch up to her, she was gone. But when I got home, Mrs. Ginmoor said she had never left the back yard.”

“You saw a child who looked like Laura,” Danny said.

“It was Laura,” Kate insisted. “I know my own daughter, for God’s sake. And I found out something: a big stray dog had come into our yard just moments before, and it frightened Laura so much she started crying out for me. Her physical body was in that back yard, but she sent her spiritual body out looking for me.”

Danny sighed. “Kate, I remember that incident. I still say it was just a child who looked like Laura. The whole thing was coincidence.”

“Like the time I saw Laura crying at the foot of our bed, only to find she was still in the throes of a nightmare in her own room?”

Kate’s eyes challenged Danny for an answer. He didn’t respond.

“Like the time Mandy Seacoff’s mother called to say Laura was comforting her sick daughter when all the time Laura was sitting right on this couch, watching television? Like the time—”

Danny shot up from the couch. “All right,” he cried. “There were strange incidents. But they mean nothing now, because Laura is dead. And no amount of hoping is going to bring her back.”

“Danny, I don’t think she is dead,” Kate said. “I think something happened to her and she’s trying to send the same kinds of messages to us. She’s in trouble, Danny, and I can’t ignore her.”

Danny bowed his head, looking like a forlorn little boy despite his size. “Dear God, Kate,” he moaned. “You were doing so well these past years. I thought, after we had Chris and Joey, that everything would be all right.”

“It won’t be all right until I find Laura.”

Danny went back to the couch again, taking Kate in his arms.

“I know you wish our little girl was still here—”

“I’m going to bring her back again.”

“Oh, Kate . . .” He said nothing more. Danny knew his wife was a stubborn woman, and if he pushed her, there was no telling what she would do.

“Danny, help me?”

“You know I will,” Danny said, kissing her softly. “Come up to bed, Kate. Come and rest. In the morning you’ll be thinking differently.”

“No, I won’t.”

“It’s late, Kate,” Danny said. “We’ve had a hard time.”

“I’m not crazy, Danny.”

“I never said you were.” He stood up, leading Kate with him.

Upstairs in their bedroom, Kate went to the window and pulled back the priscilla curtains. The full moon illuminated the beach below, where the dark rim of the bay rippled gently along the sand. Kate followed the sparkles of moonlight on water as far as the horizon.

“She’s out there,” she said. “Somewhere, our little girl is out there waiting for us.”

She let the curtains fall and shuffled over to the four-poster.
She climbed in next to her husband, cuddling close to him.

Danny reached to flick off the light, then turned in the blackness and embraced his wife. He wished at that moment that he could hold her like this forever, to protect her from the demons that toyed with her mind. For it had to be demons, even the psychological kind, that had brought about this renewed interest in Laura. And Danny didn’t want anything to hurt his beloved Kate.

In a short time, hugging tightly, the two of them were fast asleep. And Kate found herself in the desert again.

She was walking along a seemingly endless highway, dust kicking up around her feet. Sagebrush dotted the landscape about her and the glaring sun made her squint. She stopped abruptly when she came to the bleached skeleton of a long-dead animal. Slowly, the dream-Kate bent down to pick it up.

The few tufts of fur that still remained tickled her hand as they blew in the desert wind. Kate dropped the skull. The dull thud reverberated endlessly, thumping noises that sounded like . . .

. . . like running feet.

Kate looked up, and there was Laura racing toward her.

“Laura!”

Kate began to run, faster and faster, down the long stretch of road. Laura ran toward her, her sleeveless dress fluttering around her, arms stretched out. But a few feet away, the child stopped.

“Laura, come here,” Kate cried. “It’s Mommy. Come here, Laura. Let me help you.”

Laura shook her head vigorously. “I’m not Laura,” she cried.
“I’m not Laura!”

She turned and ran away from Kate with a scream so loud it broke through the barriers of Kate’s subconscious, forcing her awake.

For a long time, Kate lay trembling, staring at the stripe of moonlight that shone through a gap in the
curtains. She wanted to wake Danny, to tell him she had seen Laura again, and that she sensed more than ever that their little girl was in danger. But Danny wouldn’t listen to her. He had made that very clear.

So Kate cried silent tears for her daughter and made silent vows she would work on her own to find her little girl.

Danny said nothing of the previous night at breakfast. The boys seemed to have forgotten all about it and were as wiggly and giggly as usual as they downed bowls of hot oatmeal with strawberry preserves on top.

Kate thought that all was forgotten until Danny went to kiss her good-bye before leaving for work at the car-repair shop he owned.

“I’ll call you this afternoon at the boutique.”

He said good-bye to the boys and left.

“Is Mrs. Ginmoor coming today?” Chris asked.

“Yes, she is,” Kate said. “It’s a work day for me.”

“I wish you could stay home.” Chris pouted. “I miss you when you go to work.”

Kate went to Chris and hugged him. “I’ll come home early,” she promised.

Before she could finish, the doorbell rang. A UPS man in a brown uniform greeted her. He handed her a large yellow envelope. It was from Walter Suskind’s Photography Shop. Kate opened it and pulled out a thick pile of eight-by-tens. From each, the black-and-white visage of her daughter smiled out at her. Kate carried them back to the kitchen.

“Tell you what,” she said to Chris. “I’ve got some paperwork I can do at home today. I’ll tell Dorothy I won’t be in.”

“Oh, boy,” Chris cried. “Joey, Mommy’s staying home today.”

“Mommy,” Joey cried.

Kate waved a hand at them. “But Mrs. Ginmoor is still coming,” she said. “I have to do work at home, so I’ll need her help.”

Chris climbed down from his chair and went to hug
his mother. “I’m just glad you’re home today,” he said.

“Finish your breakfast, boys,” Kate said. “I’m going to be in my bedroom. You can just let me know when Mrs. Ginmoor arrives.”

When the elderly sitter showed up, half an hour later, she was surprised when Chris answered the door.

“Where’s Mommy?” she asked Chris.

“Upstairs,” Chris said, frowning. “I knocked on her door, but she told me to go away.”

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Ginmoor said. “I hope she isn’t sick. Let me go up and check.” She went up the stairs, Joey and Chris tagging behind her. At the door to the master bedroom, she knocked and called out to Kate. “Kate, dear, are you ill?”

“I’m fine, Mrs. Ginmoor,” Kate called back. “Just very busy.”

“The boys are worried about you.” She heard Kate groan, then a shuffling of papers.

A moment later, the door opened. Kate grinned sheepishly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was so caught up in paperwork. I’ll be staying home today, Mrs. Ginmoor. But I still need you to keep the boys out of my hair.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Ginmoor said doubtfully. She had never known Kate to reject her children this way. She glanced at the pile of papers Kate held in her arms. No, not papers. Photographs. She wondered what was on the other side of them.

“Well, I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Yes, Kate,” Mrs. Ginmoor said. “Come along, boys. Let’s get out the play clay.”

Joey followed her obediently, but Chris stayed behind. He threw his arms around his mother and, in doing so, knocked the photographs from her arms.

With a gasp, Kate fell to the floor and started gathering them up. Mrs. Ginmoor came rushing back to help her. “No, it’s all right,” Kate cried. “I can handle it myself.”

“Oh, Chris, look at the mess you—” Mrs. Ginmoor
stopped short. She picked up one of the photographs, then met Kate’s guilty eyes. It was an old picture of Laura, but it had been altered. The soft baby curls had been lengthened, the brows darkened, the face shadowed along its edges to look thinner. All the pictures were altered in different ways, dozens of them, to look like Laura might if she were still alive.