Second Child (34 page)

She let her imagination run free, and after a while it all began to make sense to her.

It
had
been D’Arcy’s dress she’d put on that night. Up until now she hadn’t been sure, but as she thought about it, the certainty of it grew in her mind.

Perhaps it was even the dress she’d worn that night when her fiancé had thrown her over.

But no, that couldn’t be right—that dress would have been all covered with bloodstains. And besides, after the ball at the club that night, D’Arcy had never been seen again.

And then it came to her.

The dress had been intended for her wedding.

After all, the dress she’d worn tonight had no stains on it. It had been dusty, and yellowed with age, but even as she’d put it on she had the feeling it had barely been worn at all.

And that was why D’Arcy had come to her, even though she was wide awake.

She’d known where Melissa was going, and had wanted to wear her beautiful dress—her wedding dress—just once.

She got out of bed and went to the window. It was a clear night, and the moon, half full, was high in the sky. The ocean glinted with a silvery light, and the foam of the gentle surf on the beach glowed with an eerie phosphorescence.

She almost imagined she could see D’Arcy out there even now, a pale figure almost lost against the ghostly light in the churning waters.

What had truly happened to her tonight?

Until tonight she’d never actually believed that D’Arcy really existed, except within her own imagination. She’d simply made her up, and used her to face the world when things became so painful that all she herself could do was run away.

And until tonight D’Arcy had only come when she had called her.

But tonight she hadn’t called D’Arcy at all.

Tonight, as she’d put on the dress and the makeup, D’Arcy had simply emerged out of nowhere.

Creeping in.

Taking over.

She shuddered, although the night was warm. Could it be possible? Had D’Arcy actually come and possessed her?

And if she had, what did it mean?

The story she’d heard on the beach kept running through her head. Was it true? Was D’Arcy coming back this year, a hundred years after she’d disappeared into the night?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sound.

A sound from above her.

The sound came again, and this time she was certain what it was.

It was a sob, and it was coming from D’Arcy’s little room in the attic, directly above her own.

A chill ran through her, and she tried to decide what to do. But even as she thought about it, she knew she had no choice.

She had to go upstairs and see if D’Arcy were truly there.

Her heart already beginning to race, she pulled on her robe and, taking her flashlight, went to the door. She listened for a moment, but save for the muffled sobbing from above, the house was silent.

She moved quickly down the hall, not turning on the flashlight until she’d reached the door that opened into the attic stairs. Finally she grasped the doorknob, twisted it, and pulled the door open.

Its hinges squealed loudly, and Melissa froze for a moment. Then she cast the beam up into the dark gloom above.

A figure stood there, clothed in white, its face veiled, its arms concealed behind its back. A scream rose in Melissa’s throat but was strangled into a terrified gasp as the specter’s right arm rose.

And then, as a gale of maniacal laughter erupted from the specter’s mouth, an object flew toward Melissa, bouncing on the stairs, landing a moment later at her feet.

She stared at it, her eyes wide, her heart pounding.

It was a hand, glistening redly with fresh blood.

Moaning as her gorge rose and nausea threatened to overwhelm her, Melissa turned and fled down the hall, her feet pounding the floor as she raced to her parents’ room.

She burst through the door, hurling herself onto her father’s bed, her sobs of terror rattling in her chest, cutting off her breath.

Charles, suddenly wide awake, snapped on the light and stared at his daughter’s ashen face. “Missy! What is it? What’s wrong?”

In the other bed Phyllis, too, stirred, then sat up. When she saw Melissa clinging to her father, her expression darkened. “Oh, really, Melissa,” she began, but Charles silenced her with a look.

“What is it, sweetheart?” he asked again.

“D-D’Arcy,” Melissa stammered, her voice quavering. “I—Daddy, I
saw
her. She—She threw her hand at me.” Her sobs overcame her once more, and Charles held her close, cradling her against his chest.

“No, honey. It was just a nightmare. You just had a bad dream.”

“But it wasn’t a dream,” Melissa insisted. “Daddy, I saw it!” Even as she uttered the words, she realized they were an almost perfect echo of the words she’d spoken to her mother the night Blackie had disappeared. Instinctively, her eyes shifted to her mother, and her heart sank.

Her mother’s face was a mask of anger.

But then she heard her father’s soothing voice. “Of course you saw it, honey,” he told her. “The things we see in dreams always look real. But it doesn’t mean they’re really there.” He reached over to his nightstand and pulled a Kleenex from the box that always sat there, then gently wiped the tears from her eyes. “Now let’s get your face washed and get you a drink of water.” While his wife looked on with open disapproval, he got out of bed and led Melissa into his bathroom. He ran cold water in the sink, then soaked a clean washcloth and mopped Melissa’s face.

As the cold water touched her skin, Melissa began to feel the terror she’d experienced only a moment ago start to loosen its grip, and she let herself relax slightly. But as she wiped her face on the towel her father handed her, her eyes darted furtively toward the door. “Mama’s mad at me,” she whispered. “She—She thinks I made it up.”

“Well, if she does, she’s wrong,” Charles assured her. “A nightmare can be more frightening than anything else, and if you’re scared, you have every right to come in here.” He handed her a glass of water, waited until she’d finished it, then spoke again. “Now, what do you say you and I go take a look at the attic stairs and see what we can find?”

Melissa nodded, and followed her father out of the room. A moment later the two of them stood at the foot of the stairs to the attic. The hall lights were on, and even the shadows at the top were all but washed away.

Melissa stared at the floor where only a few minutes ago the bloody hand had lain.

There was nothing there.

She frowned. Was it possible?

Had she truly imagined the whole thing?

But it had been so real—so horribly real.

She stooped down, running her fingers over the dark-stained wood of the floor, then looked at them closely, uncertain whether she hoped to find traces of blood or not.

But again there was nothing. Except for a little dust, her fingers were clean.

“Do you want to go up and look at the attic, too?” Charles asked.

Melissa shook her head. “I—I guess I must have been wrong,” she breathed. “But it was so real, Daddy. I was so sure I didn’t dream it.”

Charles slipped his arm around her and walked her back to her room, then tucked her into bed. “Do you want me to leave a light on?” he asked after he’d kissed her good night.

Melissa shook her head. “It’s all right. I’m not afraid of the dark.”

“Okay. Sleep tight, and if you have another bad dream, don’t be afraid to wake me up.” He switched off the light, closed her door, and returned to the master suite.

Phyllis, still sitting straight up in bed, arms crossed, began talking the moment he walked into the room. “She was sleepwalking again. If you’d let me use the restraints—”

Charles glared at his wife. “Those goddamned things aren’t a solution to the problem. She’s so terrified of them, they’ve become part of the problem itself! I’m calling Dr. Andrews tomorrow. I want him to talk to her.”

Phyllis’s head came up. “Oh, perfect!” she spat. “Everybody in town already thinks she’s crazy, and now you want to pack her off to that psychiatrist!”

“For God’s sake, Phyllis,” Charles shot back, his own voice rising to drown out his wife’s words. “She’s been through a lot the last couple of weeks. She’s had to adjust to Teri’s arrival, and tonight she watched a boy die! She’s in shock, and she’s got to be feeling confused and frightened. But tying her to the bed isn’t an answer, and it won’t hurt any of us to talk to Burt Andrews again—”

“And what about me?” Phyllis demanded, her voice rising to match her husband’s. “Do you think any of this has been easy for me? The only good thing that’s come out of this summer is Teri! She’s been an absolute angel to me, and to Melissa, too. And what does Melissa do? Dresses up like a ghost—whom she apparently thinks is real—and goes out and scares one of our friend’s children literally to death! She’s not crazy—she knows exactly what she’s doing,
and she does it just to embarrass me! Well, I won’t have it. I tell you I—”

Her tirade stopped abruptly and she stared at Charles in stunned shock.

For the first time in their marriage, he’d slapped her.

Burying her face in her hands, she began to cry. Charles, stunned for a moment by his own action, stood frozen, then turned away. “I don’t suppose I should have done that,” he observed with ominous mildness as he got back into his bed. “But quite frankly, you deserved it.”

He reached over and switched off the light, then rolled onto his side, turning his back on his weeping wife.

Teri, who had been listening in the hall outside the master suite, crept away, then hurried back to her room, where she opened the bottom drawer of her chest and removed an object wrapped in a handkerchief. Carrying it to the bathroom, she made certain the door to Melissa’s room was locked, then unwrapped the object and placed it in the sink.

It was the hand from the mannequin in the attic, and now, as she washed the catsup she’d used for “blood” off the plaster, she looked it over carefully.

One of the fingers was chipped and another had cracked when she’d thrown it down the stairs.

But the trick had worked perfectly. Melissa, as she had the night she’d found Blackie hanging from the rafter, had instantly run to her parents’ room, and Teri had more than enough time to strip off the dress, stow it away in one of the trunks, then clean the few drops of catsup from the stairs before returning to her room, fully prepared to “wake up” if Melissa started screaming.

Instead, it had been her father and stepmother who started screaming, and she’d listened to every word of the fight.

A psychiatrist.

She smiled as she thought about what the psychiatrist would say when Melissa told him about D’Arcy. With any luck at all, they’d lock her up right away.

She dried the hand off, then left her room and went back to the attic, where she fitted it back onto the mannequin.
At last, turning off the attic light, she returned to the second floor and her own room.

As she turned off the light and climbed into bed, she glanced out the window.

Across the terrace, beyond the pool, she could see Cora Peterson’s little house.

And in one of the windows on the second floor, she saw a figure dimly lit by the moonlight.

It was Tag.

She frowned, wondering how long he’d been there.

And how much he’d seen.

Burt Andrews leaned back in the chair behind his desk, his eyes wandering to the calendar, where his regular Tuesday-morning golf game had been scratched out and the name “Holloway” scribbled in its place. When Charles Holloway had called him on Sunday morning, Andrews had tried to put him off until the following week, when one of his regular clients had canceled. But Holloway had kept after him, and finally, reluctantly, Andrews had agreed to reschedule his golf game. Now, listening to Charles explaining what had happened, his eyes flicked toward Melissa, who was sitting quietly in a chair between her parents, her hands folded in her lap, her head down. So far she hadn’t said much of anything at all, and Andrews was certain he knew why.

Phyllis.

Though she’d done her best to appear as if the only thing on her mind was her daughter’s welfare, she hadn’t been able to pull it off. What was really bothering her, Andrews was certain, was not what might be wrong with Melissa, but what her friends in Secret Cove might
think
was wrong with the child. “All right,” he said, leaning forward once more. “I think I have a grasp of what happened. Now I think it’s time I talked to Melissa alone.”

Charles rose to his feet immediately, but Andrews didn’t miss the flicker of wariness that came into Phyllis Holloway’s eyes, and he made a mental note to try to find out from Melissa what was really happening between mother and daughter. Then, as quickly as the oddly furtive look had crossed Phyllis’s face, it was gone, and she stood up, too. “We’ll be in the waiting room, dear,” she said, bending down to give Melissa a peck on the cheek.

Andrews’s expression reflected nothing as he saw Melissa unconsciously shrink away from her mother’s lips, nor did he speak until her parents had left the room. But as the door closed, he leaned back again and smiled encouragingly at the girl. “Sounds like it hasn’t been the greatest summer in history,” he said. “Are things pretty bad between you and your mother?”

Melissa hesitated, but finally nodded. “It—It seems like she’s mad at me all the time. It doesn’t matter what I do, it’s always wrong.” Her eyes glistened with tears, but she wiped them away, determined not to give in to them.

Andrews smiled sympathetically. “Don’t you just wish you could disappear sometimes?”

Melissa sniffled and looked up. How did Dr. Andrews know that? But then she remembered the last time she’d seen him, almost two years ago. At first she hadn’t liked him at all. His beard had hidden his face, and she’d always felt like she was talking to someone she couldn’t see. But as she’d gotten to know him, and begun to understand that he wouldn’t laugh at her no matter what she said, she’d started liking him. In fact, now that she was actually here, she realized she really
wanted
to talk to him. Except for D’Arcy, he was about the only person she wasn’t afraid to talk to. She nodded. “I wish we didn’t come here in the summer at all,” she said. “I like the city a lot better.”