Shadows Burned In (23 page)

“I didn’t think you wanted charity, Rocky,” was all he said.

“Didn’t say I
wanted
it.”

The sheriff looked hard at the old man, and if Applewhite
had been a woman, he might’ve gotten choked up at what he saw there.

Abject surrender.

Humiliation.

He saw in the drifter’s eyes the gray certainty that Rocky
had chosen this course for himself. And now it was just a matter of playing out
the hand. Fate forced down his throat.

The old man turned away from the probing gaze.

“Well,” said Applewhite, wiping his mouth and standing up
straight, “it doesn’t matter anyway. McFreod doesn’t matter. What matters is
Jackson thinks you had designs on his daughter—”

“I never touched her!” The old man’s voice rose, a shield.

“I didn’t say you did. Never thought it, even. But that
doesn’t matter either. All that matters is that he thinks you did. He’s a
protective man.”

The old man knew what was coming now. His voice broke. “A
good father,” he said.

But the sheriff clucked his tongue against the roof of his
mouth. “Well, his daughter might have something to say about that. But what I
was gettin at was, he’ll tell the other parents that you’re here and what he
thinks you had on your mind. And then one of the local bluehairs will bake a rum
cake, ’cause that’s my favorite, and bring it to my office and, just as they
start to shamble out the door, will say,
‘O
h, by the
way, can you run that nasty old pervert down at Old Suzie’s house out of town
?
T
hanks
,
Sheriff
.’
And then I’ll be right back here tellin you what I’m tellin
you now. Only it won’t be your choice to leave then.”

Rocky leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “I have
a home here,” he said simply. “Finally. It just ain’t fair.”

The old man looked up at him, hoping to find—
something
.
Applewhite decided to let the cliché in his head die in his throat.
No use
tellin him what he already knows.

“Tomorrow, Rocky.” The sheriff walked by him and stopped.
The dog, chin flat on the floor, stared up, watching the sheriff. Applewhite
cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, old
-
timer,” he said,
heading out the front door.

As he stepped onto the porch, Michael walked up to him. “Can
we go home now, Sheriff? I’m sleepy.”

“Sure,” said Applewhite, placing a hand on the boy’s head.
“It’s no wonder, either. Your momma’ll make me a pecan pie for bringing you
home.”

“Really?” Michael’s eyes lit up. “Can I have a piece?”

“Sure. If she’s still letting you have sweets after she
grounds you.”

The light faded a bit. “Oh yeah.”

“Well, I’ll put in a good word for you,” grumbled
Applewhite. “But you only get a small piece.”

 Michael looked up at him, beaming. “Deal!”

The sheriff glanced over to Jackson and his daughter. He was
kneeling down in front of her, talking low but hard.
It’s late, bub
, thought
the sheriff.
Let it go for tonight
. “Y’all sure you don’t want me to
give you a ride?”

David looked over, a little irked at being interrupted. “No,
that’s
okay
, Sheriff,” he said in a fake phone voice.
“We were just getting ready to walk on home.”

Applewhite nodded. The thought came to him that the girl,
Elizabeth, might’ve been safer with old Rocky than walking home alone with
Jackson, but he dismissed it. Truth be told, it was as groundless as Jackson’s
suspicions of the old man had been. “All right then, come on, Michael.” He led
the boy to his squad car, muttering in answer to Michael’s excited tittering, “
No
,
I’m not going to run the siren. It’s too damned late for that. And I’ve got a
headache.”

As the sheriff’s car pulled out of the driveway, gravel
popping like muted firecrackers, David and Elizabeth watched them go.

“Come on, honey,” said David
.
“Let’s
go home. It’s late. And your mother’s worried. Damn near worried herself to
death.” He was so relieved to have her back safe. He turned an eye up to the
stars and aimed a thought at the center star in Orion’s Belt:
Thank you, God
.

They began walking across the wide front yard, the grass
stroking their shoes with midnight dew.

Chapter 21

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Elizabeth said for what seemed like the
millionth time. She didn’t really care about the punishment this time; she was
just
tired
. It had been a long day, full of fear and fun and
frustration. Now all she wanted to do was go home and crawl under the covers
and dream of riding in Rheanna.

“I know you are,” he began, not really knowing where he was
headed, “but you can’t just run off like that.”

“I know, Daddy.”

“It’s about being accountable, Elizabeth. I mean, webschool
is the same thing. You got kicked out because you played your game too late.
And then instead of staying home and reflecting on that and maybe catching up
on your studies, you ran out today without permission. And
then
, after
your mother and I talked to you about it and we agreed no more webgames for a
week, you go and run off
again
.”

“I
know
, Daddy.”

But he wasn’t listening. His fear had given way to his need
to lecture, to reestablish control. “I moved us here because I thought it would
be safer for you. And then you go and run off. Again. Did you know there’s a
child molester escaped from prison up in Huntsville? Did you know that? What if
he came down here and found you? Hell, how do you know that old man in that
house wasn’t him?”

“Daddy, Rocky’s a nice man. He just kept me company.”

“Elizabeth, you’re too young to tell the nice men from the
not-nice men. Your mother’s right about some things, and one of them is that
people will take advantage of you if you give them half a chance. And being
irresponsible is like handing them a key to your room.”

My room
, she thought.
Wouldn’t I like to be there
now
. . .

“Being irresponsible is just plain—un
safe
.”

“That’s it!”
shouted her 3V voice.
“No more.
Enough!”

“Is that all that matters, Daddy? Being safe?” She stopped
and stared up at him, fearful but defiant, her heart thumping a million miles a
minute. “I’ve been
safe
all my life. I want to have
fun
. I want
to—”

“Stay alive till you’re eighteen!” he said. David’s face was
on fire. He had uprooted them, brought them here, paid the tuition for the best
webschool he could find, and come looking for her in the middle of the night
for . . . what?
Fun?
“Then you can go to college. Having
fun
is
half of what it’s for.”

“I’ll be dead by then!” Elizabeth shouted. The hurt pumping
through her chased the fatigue away. She felt like she wanted to cry and hit
her father at the same time. Her voice was fueled by all the quiet moments
alone in her room, all the times she had silently cursed him. Her stomach
hardened around butterflies, her fists clenched. “I’ll end up just like
you
!”
Elizabeth pummeled him with her tone because her fists couldn’t. “I never want
to be like you!”

For the first time, David realized what it all meant . . .
the running away, the
leaning
away from him when he was near her, the
retreating to her room (now, he saw, simply to get
away
from him)—she
hated his guts.

She couldn’t stand being around him.

His own
daughter
.

David remembered those precise feelings and never having the
courage to voice them. Even that day when Queenie had . . . when Queenie disappeared.
Or the day his old man lay delirious in the hospital bed. He started to shake
as the realization sank in. His hands felt cold and slick. He felt detached,
like on those nights when his mother used to come visit him in his bedroom.
Like he was standing outside himself, watching someone else use his body, speak
with his voice. He wanted to tell Elizabeth to run away, that she was
absolutely right to be furious with him, afraid of him even.

Children always know
, he thought.

Despite thinking exactly the opposite, he spewed a line at
her from the Adult Handbook: “You’re too young to know what’s right for you!”
Adrenalin
e
coursed in his arms
as he gestured over her to make his point.

Elizabeth flitted her eyes back and forth, watching her
father’s arms. Without even realizing it, she guessed their distance from her,
their power, and identified an escape route behind her. Her eyes returned to her
father’s.

He saw her gauging him, planning her escape from his
physical threat. Again he saw himself in her. Again his heart ached, seeing God’s
ironic sense of humor. He wanted to lower his arms around her,
protect
her,
but knowing she would run from him kept him from moving. That really would send
him over the edge. Instead, to fill up the space between them, he said, “Your
mother and I have done everything we can for you. We moved here for you!”

Elizabeth glared up at him with brimming eyes. “That’s a
laugh, Daddy! We moved here for
you
!”

Watching from outside himself, from over his own shoulder, David
wanted to say, “You’re right,” but the man who was his father’s son stood over Elizabeth,
fists working, enraged. Feeling like a spirit displaced from a reality it could
no longer touch, he struggled to regain control of the burning anger that
possessed him.

Elizabeth tracked his fists, knew that she should take her
escape route now, before it was too late. But a greater part of her, the one
that dared face down Mallus in Rheanna, wanted to make her stand. “Go on, then!
Show me who’s right!”

(that’s enough)

“You’re gonna learn what it means to be responsible and
follow The Rules,” said David, his voice flatly reading lines of déjà vu, one
fist arcing back.

Elizabeth’s breath hitched as she prepared to run. Time
slowed as she focused on his fist. David tensed for a blow he struggled not to
deliver. Then, a sharp, insistent growl came from beyond his peripheral vision.

David looked to his left. Rocky’s dog stood there, steady as
a statue. Her lips curled away from her fangs, the crinkle around her eyes framing
fiery slits. The will drained from David. He stared at the dog, her rumbling
snarl warning him. He had stepped through a looking-glass into an alternate
universe where black was white, up was down. Good was evil. Sapped of their
strength, David’s arms fell to his side.

He felt himself reenter the sweating reality of his own
body. He heard quick, crunching sounds and ripped his eyes away from the dog to
watch Elizabeth running across the grass and up the street toward their home.
“Elizabeth, wait! I’m
. . .
” But he didn’t finish. It
was an insult to her to even think of saying it. He looked back to the dog. She
hadn’t moved an inch. He saw himself reflected in her eyes and a voice spoke in
his head.

If you ever move to hurt her, ever again, I’ll come back
for you. And make it right
.

A man’s voice speaking through the dog. The crazy thought
scared the shit out of him because he knew it wasn’t crazy. It had just
happened. Hadn’t it?

David looked past the dog, her ears still flat, and saw
Rocky standing on the rotting porch, staring at him. Had it been the old man’s
voice he’d just heard? Had it been in his head or had Rocky actually spoken? Not
that it mattered. Not really.

“No.” The word breathed out of him. “Never again.”

He slowly backed away from the dog. She watched him warily
as he went but made no move to follow. Turning his back on the scene, David walked
home by way of a dozen streets he hadn’t seen in thirty years.

Elizabeth could feel him in her doorway.

She couldn’t see him because she had the covers over her
head, but she could hear him there, breathing. She didn’t move. Maybe if she
was still, he’d pass her by.

David watched her listening to him. He wanted to go to her,
put his arms around her, but he knew she would pull away.

And can you blame her?
he asked himself.
You
frighten her
.

His chest deflated with the thought. How could reality have
become so inverted? How could he have become the thing he’d hated most? He’d
guarded against it, dodging from wall to wall to avoid it as he’d walked the pathway
of his life. And all that caution for what? The shadows had outmaneuvered him
by hiding in the light.

Everything was reversed in this parallel universe. So
familiar and so wrong at the same time.

Her words flew up at him inside his head.

(I never want to be like you)

Maybe she’s right to think that way
.

David wanted desperately to tell Elizabeth she was wrong.
That he’d stepped back from the brink. But he couldn’t bring himself to enter
her room, her sanctuary. A holy place of ownership, a sacred circle into which
no evil could step. And that’s what he felt like at the moment—an evil thing.

(she’s afraid of evil)

Twisted inside.

But he couldn’t make himself leave the doorway either. He
was afraid if he did, he might miss his only chance to tell her he loved her,
to
make things right
, like the voice had said. To make her understand
that it wasn’t him that had almost
. . .
But that was a
lie too. It
had
been him. And that’s why he couldn’t move now. Nothing
he could do, nothing he could say, could change that he’d almost struck his own
daughter in anger.

Goddammit, I can’t just stand here all night.

Hiding under the covers, Elizabeth felt him move into in the
room. She lay very still, unconsciously starting to plan her escape route
again. When he sat down on the bed next to her, the bedsprings creaking under
him, a great calm descended over her.

Elizabeth thought it through as the seconds passed and was surprised
she wasn’t hyperventilating, shivering,
something
. But she wasn’t.
Animals can sense earthquakes, she knew. Cats and dogs, elephants and horses,
even insects start to act funny before an earthquake happens. She’d found it
true in humans too. You can sense—see, hear, smell, feel, taste,
know
—something’s
coming, and so you prepare for it in your mind. You pull in the patio furniture
and tape the windows and duck and cover inside because that’s the safest thing
to do when facing a natural disaster.

If that were true, it made sense the reverse must also be
true. When something’s
not
coming, when the coast
is
clear, you must be able to sense that too.

So Elizabeth just lay there, letting him sit on the bed. And
David just sat on the bed, watching over her.

The next morning Elizabeth awoke before she even knew she’d
fallen asleep. She made slow movements beneath the covers. When her brain began
to think again, she realized she might very well touch her father by stretching,
since the last thing she remembered was him sitting beside her. Still
pretending to be asleep, she edged her head from under the covers, peeped
beneath her eyelids, and looked around the room as best she could without
giving herself away. But she didn’t see her father.