Beyond Midnight (52 page)

"
Are you kidding? W
hat do you think I am? Some tom
—
"

Katie stirred in her car seat, which instantly reduced him to a whisper.

"
—some tomcat?
"
he finished.
"
Listen to me. I
'
m driven to you the way a starving man
...
a thirsty man
... oh, Christ, I don
'
t know how or why I
'
m driven to you, Helen. I just am.
"

He lifted her hand slowly to his lips in a kind of silent homage.
"
Whatever is happening between us is way, way bigger than anything that
'
s happened to me before.
"

Helen sighed deeply. It didn
'
t seem possible to be so unhappy about happiness. She said,
"
We need time to talk, really talk, Nat. We seem to make time for everything else.

He thought that was funny; even she could see a certain lunatic humor in the remark.
"
But it would be nice if we had more than two minutes,
"
she said dryly.
"
There are things I want to tell you
...
and things I want to know.
"

"
About Linda.
"
It wasn
'
t a question.
"
Sometimes I feel as if we
'
re in a kind of
ménage a trois—you,
me, and her ghost,
"
he said, unwittingly hitting a bull
'
s eye.
"
She
'
s more in my thoughts now than ever—and yet you
'
re always there, too. It
'
s an odd, odd thing,
"
he mused.

They rode for a while in silence, reluctant, still, to come to grips with that ghost.

Eventually Helen turned to another worry altogether.
"
Two more parents withdrew their children, this time from the fall session. Is that still within the range of normalcy?
"
she asked him lightly.

She assumed that he
'
d come back with a resounding
"
absolutely!
"
Instead he said with a troubled air,
"
Is anyone offering a reason why?
"

"
Nothing that makes sense,
"
she admitted.
"
They tell me the program
'
s too structured; the program
'
s too loose. The setting
'
s too urban; there are too many shrubs. That
'
s why I think it
'
s really the salmonella thing. When we had that false alarm three years ago, I had to write and then call every single parent to reassure them. Even then I could tell some of them were reserving judgment.
"

"
I don
'
t think it
'
s salmonella this time.
"

"
Maybe, but one of the parents is particularly paranoid about that kind of thing; she might
'
ve gone too far in her speculations.
"

"
Helen. There
'
s another rumor going around,
"
he said.
"
I had no intention of telling you—I
'
m still not sure I
'
m doing the right thing here—but five withdrawals is too many. Unless someone
'
s decided that the preschool
'
s been built on a toxic dump, five is too many.
"

"
What
...
is it, then?
"
she said with a sinking heart.

He hesitated, then said,
"
Someone
'
s been mouthing off about Satanism in connection with Russ
'
s graffiti.
"

She was dumbfounded.
"
What!
"

"
Yeah. Apparently one of the neighbors across the Common saw the boys at the statue, then called the police. Supposedly, after the kids were hauled off she sent her husband out to look at what they
'
d done. The woman told someone who told someone who told someone—you know how it goes—and a Satanist version, with Becky as gang leader, slithered onto the grounds of the preschool during the Ice Cream Social.
"

"
I don
'
t believe it,
"
she said flatly.
"
Who told you?
"

"
Eventually the story ended up in the lap of Constance Bonham, who
'
s a neighbor of mine. She
'
s the one who came to Peaches and me with it. It
'
s so asinine. I
'
ve had Peaches working overtime trying to track this thing down.
"

Still in a state of shock, Helen said numbly,
"
What did she find out?
"

Reluctantly, he answered her.
"
It seems your aunt was telling some people at the Social about how you made your kids go back and clean off the paint; she was very proud of that. Her story must
'
ve got merged with the Satanist crap and...
"

He shrugged unhappily. It was obvious that he didn
'
t want to be doing this.

For the rest of her life, Helen remembered everything about that moment: the black, moonless night, the black leather of the car
'
s interior, the black hood that clawed the road ahead of them, even—bitter irony—
'
That Old Black Magic
' playing softly
on the FM.

Black. Round and round it went, down and down it went: black, black rumors. A rumor of Satanism, no matter how absurd or unrelated, would bring down the school in no time flat. Every preschool director in
America
knew that. A lifetime of work, a career dedicated to caring for children she loved—gone. The prospect was mind-boggling.

"
But
...
there was nothing Satanistic,
"
she said, dazed.
"
There was an initial
R.
And the usual—well, the f-word, only it looked like
f-u-c-h.
And last of all, the word
Sarah.
That was it.
"

She turned to him and said helplessly,
"
You do believe that, don
'
t you?
"

"
God—you have to ask?
"
But he added in a depressingly grave voice,
"
You
'
ve got to confront this head-on,
Helen. Call a meeting of the parents and deny it.
"

"
No,
"
she said, shaking her head.
"
If
I
do that, it
'
ll look like I
'
m protesting too much. I have to hope it blows over. I can
'
t believe that anyone would seriously believe such trash. Anyone who knows Becky. . .
"

An image of Becky popped up in her head: sweet, lively, generous Becky, with her funky black clothes, clodhopper shoes, and sunflower hats. Becky: outgoing, gentle, loved by all. Becky, who related to kids so well that parents fought over having her sit on Saturday nights for them.

Becky, a cult leader and Satanist.

"
How could anyone do this?
"
Helen said, appalled.
"
How could they?
"

"
Call the meeting, Helen.
"

"
No.
I won
'
t have Becky
'
s name dragged on stage for any reason,
"
she said vehemently.
"
She
'
d die if she knew I
'
d done that.
"

"
She
'
d die if she knew about the rumor.
"

"
It
'
s true. This is horrible,
"
Helen said, as one ugly implication after another came oozing out.

"
We
'
ve got to find out who started this thing,
"
Nat said angrily.

"
We can
'
t. That would just keep it going longer. God in heaven,
"
she said, pressing the palms of her hands over her mouth. She shook her head in disbelief.
"
This is too much; too much for one night.
"

"
I shouldn
'
t have told you, Helen,
"
he said instantly.
"
It was dumb. You didn
'
t need this.
"

"
No, no, better to have heard it from you than a parent. Oh, it explains so much. The looks
...
the contempt—even fear—in their voices
.
I couldn
'
t understand it.
"

She bit her upper lip, trying to keep her emotions under control.
"
What do I do? What
can
I do?
"

"
Helen, we
'
ll get through this. You
'
re innocent. Becky is innocent. People don
'
t willingly destroy the lives of
... the innocent.
"

But even as he said it, Nat
'
s voice faltered. He was from
Salem
, the same as Helen. They knew full well what could happen to the innocent.

He pulled up in front of her house, then got her door for her. Katie woke up and began to fuss, forcing Nat and Helen to part after a hurried embrace. He said,
"
The graffiti rumor was bad luck, but it will pass. You
'
re too well liked, too well respected. You
'
ve got the most level head of anyone I know. No one who
'
s met you can possibly doubt you.

He kissed her softly and said,
"
At the sanctuary—I
'
ve never known anything like that,
Lena
. Never. Please believe me.
"

He left and Helen went inside and directly to the shower, where she stood under the showerhead until the hot water ran out. Then she slipped into a T-shirt and jeans and went downstairs to wait for her children. She was desperate to have them in her arms again; to keep them safe from harm.

They didn
'
t deserve this. No one did. Russell was a handful, yes, but no more than that. And Becky. . . Becky was a complete innocent. Helen
'
s anxiety turned to anger and then to frustration and then to rage again. How dare someone slander them that way?

She closed her eyes, trying to control her emotions—but as soon as she did that, she was back in the sanctuary, under the tree with Nat.

Think about something else.

She opened her eyes and stared at the clock, waiting for Becky to bring Russ home—Becky, who should be having a postmovie pizza with a nice boy, but instead went to an early show in her own car so that she could be free in time to fetch her brother. Becky would be crushed by this.

Think about something else.

She closed her eyes and was back at the sanctuary.

Think about something else.

She opened her eyes and remembered the owl. That, she could think about. Somehow, in some way, there was a connection to Linda in all of this. Linda had been a mother, too. Linda had loved her firstborn child; she would
'
ve loved her second one as much. Linda would understand what Helen was going through.