Crying Child (17 page)

“I’m sorry,” Will said, with an apprehensive look at Mrs. Willard. “Bertha? You all right?”

She recovered herself.

“Just wait till the next time you come around here cadging a meal,” she said ominously.

“I said I was sorry!”

“Oh, do shut up, Will,” I said. “You keep interrupting, and ignoring all the important things. Mrs. Willard, I’ve seen that woman too. Just as you did, not too clearly; she wears a long black cloak and the hood hides her face. I saw her in the cemetery in the woods—twice, in the same spot. Did you—”

“No.” She shook her head. “She was outside the house the one time I saw her, near the edge of the woods….”

Her voice trailed off. I nodded impatiently.

“Yes, I’ve seen her there too. But there’s something else that’s more important to me right now, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let myself be diverted. Maybe you won’t want to answer it, but I’ve got to ask. It’s Mary I’m asking it for. You survived this thing. How? How did you fight it?”

“Well,” Jed said. “We talked about it.”

He looked at my rebellious face and he smiled rather sadly.

“Jo, don’t you think if we had a magic cure we’d be upstairs right now giving it to Mary? All I can tell you is that, in my opinion, the two cases aren’t the same. Bertha and I didn’t know then that there wouldn’t be more children. I think too, though I can’t prove it, that some kinds of mind are more susceptible to this sort of influence. Maybe Bertha wouldn’t ever have heard it if she hadn’t been sick and weakened. I only heard a far-off echo of that sound myself; and it came to me through her. I never saw the woman she described. There’s another thing. I don’t quite know how to say it…. Mary is a Roman Catholic, isn’t she?”

“She was. For the last few years neither of us has been anything in particular. I don’t think Mary ever forgave God for taking Mother and Dad.”

“Well, that’s what I mean,” Jed said. “Your generation doesn’t have it. I’m not saying our kind of faith was a purely good thing. It can be awfully narrow and cruel. But it can also be a rock to lean on. I don’t know what it was that roused me, that night; but I got to the door in time to stop Bertha from going out, all barefoot as she was, into the snow. And when I heard what she’d been hearing…

“I was young and simple in those days. I knew my Scripture, and it seemed to me there was only
one place that sound could be coming from. So Bertha and I—well, we wrestled with Satan for the next three nights. Then it was over. You see why I can’t tell Ran about this? It probably wouldn’t work for me anymore, I’ve read too much and raised too many questions. It surely wouldn’t work for Ran and Mary. And, as I say, I think Mary’s case is a lot worse than Bertha’s.”

“It’s not a case, it’s a nightmare,” Will said, with a groan. “I’m even more confused than I was before. What is this thing, anyhow?”

“I don’t know what it is,” I said. “But its name is Kevin.”

The remark created all the sensation I could have desired.

“Mary told me that,” I went on, “the first day I was here. ‘It is a boy; his name is Kevin.’ That has to mean something, Will. All these years she’s wanted a baby, she had the names picked out. A boy would have been named after Ran.”

“Kevin is a good old Irish name,” Will said.

“But it’s not one of our family names, don’t you see? It was a Fraser name; I found it on half a dozen of the stones in the cemetery. Why would Mary come up with that name unless this business has something to do with the family or this house?”

“Now we’re getting down to it,” Jed said with satisfaction. “Didn’t Ran tell me that it was Mary’s
idea to come back here this summer? That she took a violent attachment to the house after they were here a couple of months ago?”

“That’s right,” I said. “Of course! It’s in the house—something here, that only comes to women who have lost a child. An only child. That’s why it hasn’t been heard or seen more often.”

“Shades of Charlotte Brontë,” Will muttered. “Family curses, yet…But that would explain why Mary is getting the full treatment. She is the last Fraser wife in the direct line, whereas Bertha, being only distantly related, got a milder dose…. Oh, damn. It sounds absolutely demented.”

“No,” I said. “It sounds right. The thing that bothers me is the connection between the woman and the crying. It is odd; the child has never been seen and the woman makes no sound. The two must be related, mustn’t they? They couldn’t be separate phenomena?”

The theory was beginning to get to Will. He was succumbing to its fascination as he would have done to an intellectual game…fitting the pieces together.

“I can accept one set of impossible phenomena more easily than two separate sets,” he said. “And if we agree that the two are connected, we’ve got another piece of evidence. A date and a name.”

“I’m glad you saw it all by yourself,” I said.

“I wasn’t with Jo the second time,” Will said,
half to himself, half to the Willards. “But I gather she saw the apparition in black in the same spot where it appeared the first time; and that was how we happened to find the grave. Suppose the apparition is…Miss Smith.”

“A lot of help that is,” I said. “We already agreed that it would be impossible to find out anything about her.”

“That was when we thought she was only a mysterious stranger,” Jed pointed out. “If she’s so fond of the family that she feels like she has to haunt them, there must be a closer relationship than we thought.”

“You two,” said Will, looking from Jed to me, “have a sick sense of humor.”

I ignored him.

“We also know the date,” I said. “It was 1846, wasn’t it—the year she died?”

“Yep. You know,” Will said, “that would be in Hezekiah’s time, wouldn’t it? Somehow that strikes a chord.”

“In what way?”

“Just the combination: mysterious woman, weeping child, and a man who is popularly supposed to have sold his soul to Old Nick. Suggestive, wouldn’t you say?”

“You have a lot of nerve criticizing other people’s reasoning,” I said. “I see what you’re driving at. But you haven’t got a shred of evidence.”

“The time is right, though.”

“That’s true. And I know what I’m going to do this morning.” I got up. “Jed, you mentioned a trunkful of papers. Where is it?”

“Up in one of the attics. I’ll fetch it down, you don’t want to sit up there in the dust. Where do you want it, your room?”

“That would be fine. Thanks.”

“Saturday morning,” Will said. “Hey, this is my day off. It says here. I think I’ll go home and take a nap.”

I glanced out the window.

“I think you won’t,” I said.

“If I’m not entitled to a nap—”

“You may be entitled, but you aren’t going to get one.” I pointed. “You’re going to be entertaining your long-lost sister.”

I thought for a minute that he was going to fall out the window.

It might have been the car that affected him. I don’t know much about cars, but I soon learned that this was a Maserati, because people kept mentioning the name with the same kind of reverence they might have displayed toward Saint Peter. All I saw that first day was that it was a convertible, azure blue and low-slung. And the girl who got out of it was the kind of girl you automatically associate with a car like that—the girls
that appear in TV commercials, long and slim and golden-haired.

She wasn’t a girl, though; she was a woman, and when you were close to her you could see the telltale lines around the mouth and neck which makeup can never quite conceal. At least I could see them. Most men probably never looked.

She wore a white linen pants suit, but because it was warm she had the jacket slung over her shoulder. A red-and-white-striped shirt molded the upper part of her body like a second skin. I knew who she was, but it didn’t seem fair—that kind of looks, and that many brains, in the same woman.

She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to come into the house, so I decided I’d better go out to greet her. I knew she must have seen the faces gaping at her from the window. I glanced at Will. It would be an exaggeration to claim that his eyes were really bulging.

Will followed me out. The woman met us halfway, with a pleasant smile and a brisk professional handclasp. But her manner didn’t fool me; I saw the way she eyed Will’s face and his impressive height. She was even taller than I, five feet ten or eleven; a woman as tall as that doesn’t often meet attractive men who are taller.

“You must be tired after such a long drive, Doc
tor,” I said. “Wouldn’t you like some coffee? Have you had breakfast?”

“Not ‘Doctor,’ please,” she said competently. “Unless Mr. Fraser has changed his mind about letting his wife know who I am. Anne would be better, don’t you think? I’ll skip the coffee, if you don’t mind. This is a good opportunity for me to clear up a few points about the patient before I meet her as my hostess. I had hoped to have an early opportunity of speaking with you, Doctor—there, I’m doing the same thing! I must say ‘Will,’ mustn’t I?”

“There’s a bench under the rose arbor,” Will said. “Maybe it would be a good idea if I briefed you on a couple of things.”

It was pretty obvious that I wasn’t invited to the conference, but I wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stop me. I was very curious to hear what Will was going to tell the lady. That was why I trailed along—no other reason—and though Anne didn’t look pleased, she didn’t quite have the nerve to tell me to get lost. As for Will, I don’t think he noticed I was there.

The bench wasn’t big enough for three of us, so I sat on the grass. I could see their faces more easily from that position. And there were still violets there, in the shady dampness under the arbor—big fat purple violets and white ones with delicate purple streaks shading out from an amethyst heart.

Anne had apparently been told about the general situation by Ran. She kept nodding as Will talked. Only one detail surprised her. It surprised me too; I hadn’t been sure that Will was going to tell her about the crying.

“Is this specific delusion a recent development?” she asked. “Mr. Fraser hinted that his wife refused to accept the loss of the fetus, but he didn’t mention actual auditory hallucinations.”

Under any other circumstances it would have been funny to watch Will squirm. He hadn’t had time to figure out a sensible story, and he wasn’t a good enough liar to overcome that handicap. When you lie, or avoid the whole truth, you often fail to see the corner you’re talking yourself into until it’s too late to get out of it.

“I didn’t—er—learn of them myself until last night,” he mumbled. “But I believe they have been—um—occurring for some time. In fact, Mr. Fraser has—uh—heard sounds also.”

Anne didn’t seem to notice his embarrassment. Maybe she was accustomed to having men get red and start stammering when she was around. She nodded.

“Collective illusion. Not surprising, considering the amount of emotional strain.”

“Count me in,” I said cheerfully. “I’ve had a collective illusion too.”

Anne glanced at Will. The look finished Will; it
was a sidelong, significant look, as meaningful as a wink. It linked the two of them, the pros, against the nuts. After that look only a saint would have had the guts to admit that he was one of the nuts.

“That’s very interesting,” Anne said. “What was it, Jo?”

“It sounded like a child crying,” I said.

“I see.” She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I’m theorizing without sufficient data, which is unforgivable; but have you considered the possibility that there may be actual sounds, auditory illusion rather than a genuine sensory hallucination? Not a child, of course; but some—oh, some animal or other cause—that might sound like a child to someone with Mrs. Fraser’s particular problem. If that is so, this may not be a very healthy environment for her. I shouldn’t stick my professional neck out this way—I may be completely off base—but you might want to consider taking her away from here.”

My jaw dropped. It was such an obvious solution, and yet it hadn’t occurred to any of us. I hated to admit it, but the lady was not stupid.

Will was so impressed he was practically inarticulate.

“My God, Doctor—Anne—why the hell didn’t I—”

She interrupted him with a deprecatory little laugh.

“I may be all wrong, Will. It’s easy for me to jump to these conclusions. And of course I’m emotionally detached from all this. You say you only learned of the auditory hallucination last night? You haven’t really had time to assimilate it. And—I have a feeling that the information came to you as something of a shock.”