A Stir of Echoes

A Stir of Echoes Page 10

THERE WAS NO DREAM THAT NIGHT.

It wasn't needed; Anne and I both knew that what Phil had started was still very much with us. We spoke of it the next morning. Richard was still asleep. He'd woken up the night before when we'd taken off his pajamas again to reassure ourselves that nothing was wrong with him. He was making up for the lost sleep now. Anne and I sat drinking coffee in the kitchen before I went to work.

"Are you going to a doctor now?" she asked.

"Why?"

I saw how she attempted to hide the movement at her throat by sipping some coffee.

"Well... is it something you want?" she finally asked.

"It's not as if I asked for it," I said.

"That's not the point," she said.

"Well..." I stirred my coffee idly. "It's also not as if I were sick. You admit yourself it probably made all the difference last night."

She hesitated. Then she said, "Yes, I admit it. That doesn't change the rest of it, though."

"The rest?"

"You know what I mean."

I knew. It was with me even then; the taut pressuring at my skull, the queasy unsettledness in my stomach, the fearful memory of the woman, the dread of things unknown which might become known.

"All right, I know," I said. "I still can't believe it's a-a harmful faculty."

"What if you start reading my mind?" she asked. "You already have, a little. What if it becomes wholesale?"

"I don't-"

"How would you like it if you were- exposed to me; naked to my mind?"

"Honey, I'm not trying to-to probe at you. You know that. The few little things I've picked up were inconsequential."

"Like last night?" she asked.

"We're talking about you, honey," I said.

"All right," she said and I sensed that she was almost nervous in my presence; it was a weird feeling.

"All right. But if you can pick up those other things you can pick up what I think too." I tried to joke but it was a mistake.

"What's the matter," I said, "do you have something to hide? Maybe a-"

"Everyone has something to hide!" she burst out. "And if they couldn't hide it, the world would be in a lot worse mess than it is."

At first I felt only stunned. I stared at her, taking the fallible course of wondering if there was something hidden behind her words. Then I knew that there wasn't, that she was right. Everyone has to have a secret place in his mind. Otherwise relationships would be impossible.

"All right," I said, "you're right. But I think I'd have to concentrate before I could-read your mind or anything."

"Did you concentrate on these other things?" she challenged.

"They were different. They were feelings, not-"

"Won't you admit anything?" she asked.

"Honey, this-power, whatever it is, may have saved our baby's life last night. I'm not anxious to kick it aside just like that."

"You'd rather torment me with it, is that it!"

"Torment you?"

She looked into her coffee and I could tell from the taut, fitful way in which she breathed how upset she was. I knew in other ways too.

"All right," she said. "All right."

"Oh... come on, Anne," I said. "Stop making me feel guilty for this thing. Is it my fault? It was your idiot brother who started it off."

I'd meant-with that unfortunate misconstruing of the male-that it should be a sort of joke. It didn't come out that way. Certainly she didn't take it that way.

She pretended not to take it at all. "Then you're not going to a doctor?"

"What in God's name could a doctor do?" I asked, angry at my own fallible defences. "I'm not sick!" Anne got up and put her cup and saucer in the sink. She stood looking out the window bleakly. He is sick. I knew that was what she was thinking.

"I'm not-sick," I said, adding the final word so she'd think I was just repeating myself, not answering her thought.

She turned to face me. Her expression was very grim.

"Tell me that tonight," she said, "when you wake up shuddering." As I drove up to the house late that afternoon I saw Elsie watering her lawn. She was wearing tight yellow shorts and a yellow sweater several sizes too small for her.

As I got out of the Ford she was just setting down her sprinkler on the small, rectangular patch of grass between our driveways. She straightened up, put her hands on her hips and took a deep, calculating breath. Her sweater, had it been wood, would have creaked.

"There," she said. "That should do it."

"Without a doubt," I said, nodding, and pulled up the garage door. Already I felt that trickling of intrusion in my mind again. I pressed my teeth together and turned back to the car.

"Hey, what happened last night?" Elsie asked. "I called Dorothy today and her father said she's not baby-sitting anymore. What'd you do-hypnotize her?" A twisted thread of thought from her mind told me what she half-imagined I'd done. I felt my stomach churning.

"You got me," I said, blandly. "Nothing happened."

"Oh?" She sounded disappointed.

I got into the car and drove it into the garage. As I got out and slammed the door I saw her standing out there, hands still pressed to her hips, shoulders designedly back, waiting. I started to walk toward the back garage door, then realized that would be too overt a rebuff and, with a sigh, I went back out the front way and reached up to lower the overhead door.

"I'm having some friends over tomorrow night," Elsie said. "Why don't you and Anne drop by? Might be fun."

"We'd like to, Elsie," I said, "but we're having dinner at her mother's house tomorrow night."

"Oh? That's a long drive." Anne's mother lived in Santa Barbara.

"I know," I said, mentally kicking myself for picking such a poor lie. The door banged down. "We don't see her very often, though." Oh, well, I thought, we can always eat out and go to a drive-in movie. Elsie ran smoothing hands over her shorts.

"You sure you didn't hypnotize Dorothy and tell her not to sit for me anymore?" she asked. There was a mince to her voice too; the kind she had in her walk.

"No, that's Phil's department," I said, turning away. "Say hello to Ron for me. Sorry about tomorrow night."

She didn't answer. She must have been aware of the fact that I was avoiding conversation. There was no help for that. I just couldn't take much exposure to her mind.

When I opened the front door, Richard came running out of the kitchen. "Daddy!" he cried. As I swept my son into my arms I felt a burst of love from him. He kissed my cheek and tightened his small arms around my neck. Inchoate, wordless affection seemed to pour into me; love beyond words, beyond expression, a surging of trust and need and unquestioning devotion. Sometimes I think the whole experience-with all its hideous points-was worth it for that brief moment.

"Hello, baby," I murmured. "How are you?"

"Hi," he said. "How you?"

I pressed my face against his warm neck. Then Anne came out of the kitchen and the sensation dwindled. I walked over to her and kissed her. It wasn't returned.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello, Tom," she answered, quietly. That sense of withdrawal was still in her. I kissed her again and put my arm around her. She tried to smile but it was strained.

"I went to a doctor today," I said.

For a second there was a leaping of hope in her mind but then it funneled off. She looked at me bleakly. And? The word touched my mind.

"And?" she asked.

I swallowed, smiled. "Nothing," I said, trying to make it sound like consolation. "I'm in perfect physical shape."

"I see." Quiet; subdued.

"Honey, I did what you asked."

Her lips pressed together. "I'm sorry," she said, "I can't help it." After she'd gone into the kitchen, I sat down with Richard for a few minutes and talked to him. Presently, I put him down and went to wash up for supper.

"The girl left her glasses here last night," was the first thing Anne said at supper.

"Oh? Well..." I made a disconcerted sound. "I really don't think I'd care to take them back. Maybe we can mail them."

"I threw them out," she said flatly and I felt a momentary burst of that protective hatred that had been in her the night before. I decided then that I'd have to concentrate on not anticipating her words. Her thoughts were coming too clearly now, too easily.

"Did you give Elizabeth her comb?" I asked.

Anne shook her head. "No. I forgot."

"Oh."

Silence a while. Then, as if it were the usual thing, I turned to Richard with a smile.

"Did you baby?" I asked. "What was she-"

Anne's fork crashed down on her plate.

"Tom, he didn't say anything." Her voice was so restrained it shook. I stared at her a long time before looking down at my food.

"Mama?" Richard asked. "What, mama?"

"Eat your food, Richard," she said quietly.

We ate in silence for a few minutes.

"Oh, I... forgot to tell you," I said finally, "I'm not working tomorrow. I don't have to." Anne picked up her coffee cup without looking at me.

"That's nice," she said.

I jolted up with a rasping cry, my body alive with apprehension.

Everything had suddenly been torn away; my life was only this moment of sudden waking and staring toward the living room where the woman was, waiting for me.

Then I became conscious of Anne awake, looking at me in the darkness. She didn't speak. She didn't make a sound; but I knew the angry fear in her.

Deliberately, ignoring every impulse screaming in my mind, I lay back and let breath trickle from my lungs, then lay there fighting the need to shiver violently. I clutched at the sheet with talon like ringers and closed my eyes tightly. My brain seemed lightninged with awareness, my body tense and sick with it. But I had to pretend it was nothing. I knew she was there, waiting.

I don't know how long it was that I struggled against the pull of that woman. She was a living presence to me now. I actually hated her as I would hate another human being; hated her for being in there, for trying to drag me to herself with cords of icy demand.

Only after a long while did I sense a breaking up of her power. Still I remained tense, ready to fight. Only when it had passed completely did I let my muscles go limp. I lay there, strengthless, knowing that Anne was still awake.

I jolted again when the lamp clicked on.

For a moment she said nothing; just looked at me without expression. There the resistance in her seemed to drain off. She looked at me more carefully.

"You're soaking wet," she said.

I looked at her speechlessly, feeling the cold drops trickle down across my cheeks.

"Oh... Tom." She threw aside the covers and suddenly ran from the room. I heard her go into the bathroom, then she came back with a towel. Sitting quickly on the edge of the bed, she began patting my face. She didn't say anything.

When she'd finished, she put down the towel and brushed back my damp hair with her fingers.

"What am I doing to you?" she asked.

"What?"

"I should be helping you, not fighting you," she said.

I must have looked very frightened and very hapless because she leaned over and pressed her cheek against mine.

"Tom. Tom," she whispered, "I'm sorry, darling."

After a few moments she kissed my cheek and sat up. I could tell from the obdurate expression on her face that she was going to try to face it fully and resolutely.

"She-was in there again?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And... if you'd gone in," she said, "do you think you'd have seen her?" I drew in a deep breath and let it flutter out.

"I don't know," I said. "I just don't know."

"You're sure she exists, though," she said, "I mean-"

"She exists." I knew she had been about to ask me if I was sure the woman didn't exist in my mind only. "I don't know who she is or what she wants here but... she exists." I swallowed. "Or did"

"You... really think she's a-"

I shook my head tiredly. "I don't know, Anne," I said. "It doesn't make sense. Why should a place like this be haunted? It's only a couple of years old-and the only person who ever lived here was Mrs. Sentas' sister. And she just went east." I smiled wryly at the memory. "Not west," I repeated Phil's little joke.

She had to smile.

"Tom, Tom," she said, "remind me to kick my baby brother right smack in the teeth the next time we see him."

"Will do," I said weakly.

She hesitated a moment, then said, "You think maybe we should-"

"No," I said, forgetting my resolve not to anticipate her words. "I don't think Phil could help. Although it wouldn't hurt to write him and tell him to cut out hypnotizing people if he doesn't know what he's doing."

"I'll write in the morning," she said.

In a little while, she turned off the lamp and lay down beside me.

"Do you forgive me?" she asked.

"Oh, honey..." I put my arms around her and felt the warm fullness of her body against me. "There's nothing to forgive."

Which was when it came to me; simply, with absolute clarity.

I started to tell her, then stopped.

"What were you going to say?" she asked.

I swallowed. "Uh... in order to get out of going to another of her damned parties," I said, "I told Elsie we were going to your mother's tomorrow night for dinner."

"Oh." Anne made an amused sound. "So what do we do? Take in a drive-in movie until it's safe to return?"

"Exactly."

I lay there quietly, holding her close. What I'd started to say to her hadn't been about Elsie. I'd only said that to conceal my original words. Because, as I'd started to speak them, it had occurred to me that Anne might not want to hear them; whether she believed them or not. And, somehow, I felt that she would believe them now-even though the working out of them might be only an accident. After all there was a fifty percent chance of my being right no matter how or why I made the prediction-that our coming baby would be a girl.