The Presence (13 page)

I don't want to go back into that awful hospital. I had reason to be out of my mind after Baby Joan's death, but my reasons were known only to me. And when I tried to kill myself they didn't know about the nights and the terrible dreams, where I was shaking her, shaking her....

That's the way it was at night for me, listening all over again to Kirsty moan. I know about the terrible dreams, Lottie. I covered my eyes with my hands, then made myself go on reading.

But I can't leave that imprisoned girl there with him. What if he
does
kill her? How could I have ever thought I loved him?

There was only one more page, but I didn't have the strength to read it right away. There was a strange buzzing in my ears, like angry bees. Did you save her, Lottie? You saved yourself. I think now you're trying to save me. You gave me your secret diary as a terrible warning so I could save myself. But can I?

I took the rose from the vase and held it close, looking into the flower's pure, warm heart, and I kept holding it as I read the final page.

What happened today seems like a nightmare.

I decided I had to tell about Belinda. I'd tell Reverend Maxwell. He'd tell the police. Maybe I didn't even have to get involved.

I went downstairs.

Father was reading the morning paper. He looked over the top at me. "Do you know a girl named Belinda Cunningham?
"

My heart slammed in my chest. Belinda? Could it be the same one?

"
No," I whispered. "Why?
"

"
Poor girl. She was about your age. She jumped from the gallery of St. Matthew's. Apparently, she's been grieving, something about a drowning she was involved in. She'd been missing for two months.
"

I couldn't breathe, and I slumped down onto one of the dining room chairs. Mother rushed to get me a glass of water.

"
You shouldn't have told Lottie such a horrible story," she scolded Father. "Now you've gone and upset her.
"

I saw them exchange glances, and I could tell they were remembering the time after Baby Joan that I'd swallowed a whole bottle of Mother's sleeping pills.

I sat there, sick and despairing. I knew Belinda hadn't jumped from that railing. I knew it. Too late. I should have told. Too late, and two deaths on my conscience now. Baby Joan's and Belinda Cunningham's.

Will I ever be forgiven, in this life or the next?

I closed the diary. I was cold, cold, cold, and I pulled the comforter up around me like angels' wings. But my shivering wouldn't stop. I got all the way into bed, huddled into myself, my eyes wide open. Thinking, as Grandma's pretty silver clock on the dresser ticked away the minutes.

One thing was clear to me. Noah was using Kirsty and my need for forgiveness to lure me down into the shades below, the way he had lured Lottie with the promise of Baby Joan. The way he might have taken others and kept them prisoner. He was a ghost, moving invisibly, knowing every whispered secret.

I set the diary on the bedside table and laid the rose on top of it, the way you'd place a flower on a grave. Beside it, on the table, was a folded piece of paper. Had it fallen out of the diary?

I picked it up, opened it, and saw that it was the leaflet Donna Cuesta's mother had given me on our way into
The Nutcracker.
I looked vaguely at the words, my mind still struggling with what I'd learned from the diary.

And then the words weren't blurred at all. They jumped out at me, clear and sharp and horrifying.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?
And her picture—the long dark hair, the wide dark eyes. Donna Cuesta, who had disappeared, who had worn a serpent ring, who had met some mysterious person in St. Matthew's. Who had fallen in love.... Who had vanished.

Could she be down there, behind that wall, prisoner of a ghost?

I was shaking, terrified. Did I have to do something about this suspicion? Tell?

But what if I was wrong? It would be the way it was before. Everyone being kind but nervous around me because poor Catherine was obviously having delusions again. Ghosts and prisoners and murder.

I could show them the diary.

Well, Lottie Lovelace, that crazy old lady. It's the kind of thing she
would
make up. Hadn't she tried to kill herself once?

But what
could
I do?

Did I have to do anything? No. I could empty my mind of all that had happened here, the year I came to spend Christmas with my grandmother. I could go home to the safety of Chicago in three days. Till then I could stay away from St. Matthew's and Noah. I could be sick, maybe even go home early. Or...

I picked up the rose and held it against my face as I reread Lottie's words:

...two deaths on my conscience now. Baby Joan's and Belinda Cunningham's.

Will I ever be forgiven, in this life or the next?

If I didn't try to rescue Donna Cuesta, who might or might not even be in need of rescuing, would I ever be forgiven? In this life or the next?

It was like being given a second chance. A life I could save in exchange for a life I had ended.

It was almost morning. I'd lain awake all night. I went to the window and looked out. Still dark. The roof of the house across the street was garlanded with Christmas lights. They shone red and green, reflecting themselves in the palm trees and the leaves of a giant bird of paradise.

There wasn't a sound. No traffic. No dogs barking. I would have liked a dog barking, another creature awake like me. I had a decision to make. And only a little time to make it.

The Presence stood by his wall of ladies and talked to Lydia, his first and deepest love. He still loved her, after all these years, even though she was the one responsible for all his pain and heartache. She'd led him to believe she
loved him when the two of them were in the youth choir. But she'd pulled away, screaming, when he'd pressed himself on her that night after choir practice. He'd tried to stop her with his hands around her throat, so intent on whispering his love for her that he hadn't heard the deacon come up behind him.

The deacon said afterward that he hadn't meant to bring the heavy candlestick down so hard on Noah's head. Noah heard him say that, because he wasn't really dead. He was dead, but undead. He could stand, but his body still lay on the green carpet of the sanctuary, blood trickling from his ears and his nose and his mouth. He could speak, and he did, but no one heard him. He'd told them he hadn't meant to kill her. He'd thought she loved him. But when he'd tried to touch her in an intimate way, she'd started screaming. He'd only wanted her to be quiet, so they could talk. He hadn't meant to squeeze so hard. They couldn't hear him as he explained to them what really happened.

He'd wanted to go to Lydia's funeral, but when he tried to leave the church, he'd found he was trapped there. When he threw himself through the open door, he was jerked back, like a cow on a tether. When he tried to climb through a window, his body could not make the movements happen.

The slow realization came that he was not to be allowed to leave St. Matthew's. It took weeks before he recognized that this life sentence was, in reality, a death sentence.

It took more months before he realized all his ghostly powers, before he felt and understood his forever loneliness and looked for someone to fill Lydia's place.

And now he almost had Catherine.

"
She isn't you, my darling Lydia," he told the painted picture. "But I believe she is more like you than any of the others.
"

He walked beneath his ladies, smiling, speaking a word of love to each of them.

"
My little wildcat," he said affectionately to Florence.

He stroked Donna's painted foot. "And
you
tried to escape, you rascal. I would have kept you longer. You were the best, so far. But after that, I couldn't trust you. You would have told. And I had to put you with the others. I had to hide you in a safe and secret place.
"

He stopped in front of the half-finished painting of Catherine. "I haven't completed your likeness yet. But you will see how I plan to honor you, as I've honored all my ladies.
"

He sat in his easy chair then and put on the CD of Sibelius.
Finlandia.
He could feel in the music the forests and the lakes, the mountains and the snow that he'd never see. He closed his eyes. Sibelius would keep him company through the long, long night.

I finally slept, and it was after eleven o'clock in the morning before I woke up. There'd been no dreams, bad or otherwise. I felt calm.

Birds chirped outside my window. Sunlight striped the floor.

I put on the pink robe, brushed my hair, and examined my thoughts again. Last night I'd made my decision. Did I feel the same way this morning? Yes. Was I still at peace with it? Yes.

Noah would be waiting at three. I'd be there.

I went downstairs. Grandma was sitting at the dining room table, which was covered with photographs. I stood behind her and smoothed her hair.

"Old pictures," she said, smiling up at me. "I thought you might like to see them."

"Great!" I was surprised that I was this lucid, this free from doubt. I leaned over the back of the chair and picked up one of the photographs. It was of a little girl with curly hair and dimples, knock-kneed on roller-skates. "Is this my mom?"

"It is. And here's your aunt Sharon. And look, here's your great-aunt Beverly with me. Weren't we hot? The boys called us 'the sizzling sisters.' Or sometimes 'the toothsome twosome.'"

I looked down at the two perky faces under the big flowered hats. "I can see why."

Last night, before I'd managed to get to sleep, I'd looked again at the blank, shining photograph that Lottie had taken. I'd stared at it, trying to see a shape, a shadow.

There was nothing, of course.

I'd turned it over and read "Noah" on the back in Lottie's writing, which I'd come to know so well. "The man who wasn't there," I'd said out loud, and now I thought, I hope the real Noah won't be there today.

But he would.

My stomach gave a warning cramp, but I willed it away. My stomach was not as serene as the rest of me.

Grandma held out another picture. "Remember the boy I told you about? The one who brought me the dandelion? Here he is."

I took the picture. "But that's Grandpa."

"Of course it's Grandpa. Did you think I'd let a fellow who was that creative and imaginative get away?" She smiled at me smugly and laid the picture tenderly on top of the others. "It's been seven years since he died, and I still miss him. We used to go dancing. I still dance with him every night when I dream."

I leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

"All right," she said briskly. "How about some breakfast?"

"Just some cereal, thanks." I took the Cheerios from the pantry shelf. "Oh, by the way, Collin asked me to go on a picnic with him to Tournament Park. We'll ride our bikes. There's a band playing Christmas music."

I opened the refrigerator to get milk so I wouldn't have to look at her as I lied, and I saw the plump little turkey defrosting for tomorrow. Christmas.

Grandma was beaming at me. "A picnic in the park? What a splendid idea." She stood, knocking over a couple of pictures, bending to pick them up. "I'll help you get the food together. Oh, and you know what? I have a backpack somewhere. We can pack everything in that."

We fixed two thick ham and lettuce sandwiches. There were two winter pears and a small roll of goat cheese with herbs to go with them. She put the last of the cookies into a plastic bag, and two cans of juice into the freezer to ice up.

"If there's too much, there'll be someone around who'll be glad to get it. There are always homeless people in Tournament Park. It just breaks your heart to see them." She sighed. "I'll go look for that backpack."

I rummaged around in the kitchen drawer while she was gone, searching for a flashlight. There was one, but its light was dim. I rummaged some more, looking for new batteries, but I couldn't find any. There was a red candle, though, and a dog-eared book of matches and a roll of plastic tape. I'd need that, too. I slipped everything into the pocket of my robe.

Grandma stowed the picnic carefully in the backpack, with paper plates and napkins patterned with holly leaves. She put in a block of ice.

I felt bad knowing that Collin and I weren't going to eat the food or even be together. But pretending to go on this picnic would give me all the time I needed. And he
had
asked me. That part wasn't a lie.

"What time is he coming for you?" Grandma asked.

"He isn't. We're meeting there." I glanced at my watch. "My gosh. It's almost one o'clock already. I need to hurry."

I ran upstairs, put the photograph in the diary, and wrapped them both in the paper they'd come in. I taped the package securely. On the front, I printed Miss Lovelace's name and address. There was a small post office I'd noticed a few blocks from Grandma's. These had to go back. I'd given my word.

I dressed quickly in jeans and a black sweatshirt, the darkest clothes I had, and put on my running shoes. Maybe I'd have to run. The flashlight and candle and matches went in my pocket.

Before I left the room, I pulled my locket up from where it lay next to my skin, next to my heart. When I opened it, Kirsty's face smiled out at me. Friends forever.

"I'm doing this to make amends," I whispered. "I don't believe now that I am going to speak to you. But if I can save someone else, I hope you'll think it a fair return on what I did to you." I held the locket to my lips, then slid it back to where it had lain since the day I first got it.

When I came downstairs, Grandma handed me the backpack. I slipped Miss Lovelace's package in beside the food.

"Enjoy your day, sweetie," she said. "Be home in time for dinner." She smiled. "I like saying that. It's like the old days, when your mother went out somewhere in the afternoon. Having you around brings back so many good memories."