House Of Reckoning Part 23

"Wh-What did you draw last night?" he asked, his own voice now no more than a whisper. "The voices want to know." He waited, but when Sarah didn't reply, he said, "Fire. That's what it was, wasn't it? You drew fire."

Sarah's sharp intake of breath told him all he needed to know. Once again she had drawn what he was seeing.

Or had he seen what she was drawing?

"Someone's coming up the stairs," Sarah whispered, then the phone in his hand went dead.

"Go get her," get her," one of the voices told him. one of the voices told him. "Help her!" "Help her!"

"I can't," Nick whispered, his voice breaking. "What am I supposed to do? I-"

"Something! Anything!" another voice insisted. another voice insisted. "Do something, or-" "Do something, or-"

Suddenly Nick's bedroom door opened and his father strode in without so much as a knock. The voices instantly hushed, and Nick's heart hammered in the sudden stillness. Had his father heard him arguing with the voices? If he had- "How are you feeling?"

Nick tried to a.n.a.lyze the question. Feeling how? Physically? Mentally? Nothing in his father's mien gave him even a hint. "I'm okay," he said carefully. "Sort of bruised, I guess." He touched the area of his chest that was wrapped in bandages under his shirt. "My ribs hurt. But I'm okay."

Shep sat down on the edge of the bed. "Your mom said you had another one of those-"

His father hesitated for a moment, and Nick knew why: as long as he could remember, his father had hated talking about what was wrong with him, as if not talking about it meant it wasn't real.

"Hallucinations, Dad," he said. "They're called-"

"I know know what they're called," his father cut in. "So did you have another one?" what they're called," his father cut in. "So did you have another one?"

c.r.a.p, Nick thought. What am I supposed to say? If he already knows, why is he asking me? His father's eyes were boring into him, and he knew he had to say something. "It-It was not really a hallucination," he finally said.

"What do you mean, 'not really'?" his father said, his eyes narrowing. "Either it was or it wasn't."

"It-well, it was more like a ... a vision."

"A vision?" his father repeated in a mocking voice. "You think that having a vision is better than having a hallucination?"

The voices began to mutter now. "No," Nick said quickly, hoping he could find a way to end this conversation before the voices got so loud he wouldn't be able to hear his father anymore. "I didn't say it was better. But it's different. Now I'm seeing things that mean something." He cringed the moment the words were out of his mouth; they made it sound like he was starting to believe the hallucinations were real.

"So it's getting worse," his father said, his voice as angry as the expression on his face. "And you know what? It's been getting worse since that girl came to town-the cripple you've been hanging around with."

A howl rose in Nick's mind. "No!" He stood up, glowering at his father. "That's not true. Sarah's my friend-she's the one who found me in the park! She saved my life!"

"Maybe she did," Shep said. "But maybe she's the one who got you into the park in the first place. All I know is, it looks to me like you've gotten worse since you met her."

"But-"

"So you're not going to see her anymore."

"No," Nick pleaded. "That's not the way it is at all. When I'm with her, it's better. The voices almost stop." He cast around in his mind, searching for the words that would convince his father. Then: "It's like I'm normal normal when I'm with her." when I'm with her."

It was as if his father didn't even hear him. "Let me make this simple for you, Nick," he said. "Stop seeing the Crane girl or we'll have to send you back to the hospital."

The voices began to wail, and automatically Nick crossed his arms over his chest, wrapping them as far around his body as he could, trying to keep himself from yelling at the chorus in his head to shut up, knowing that would only make things worse than they already were. He searched his father's eyes, looking for any sign that his att.i.tude might soften, but there was nothing. There would be no arguing with him, not on this point. But still, he had to try. "I'm trying to get better," he said, his voice cracking. "And I am. I really am."

"All I know is, I can't have you running around having visions with a girl whose father is in the prison I help run. So what'll it be? You want to quit hanging out with her or do you want to go back to the hospital?"

So there it was, and while the voices in his head screamed in fury, Nick gave in to his father. "I'll do whatever you want me to do," he said. "Just don't send me back to the hospital."

Finally his father smiled, though Nick felt no hint of warmth from it. "Then keep away from the girl, and we'll see what happens, okay?"

Nick could not imagine staying away from Sarah, but he nodded anyway.

"Okay?" his father repeated.

"Okay," Nick whispered.

"Good. Then I guess we're done here. Dinner in a few minutes."

"I'll be down."

His father left the room, not bothering to close the door behind him, and it was all Nick could do to keep from going over and slamming it shut. But that would only make things worse, and he'd already started to think of ways around his father's order.

He could still see Sarah at school, especially if they arranged to "accidentally" b.u.mp into each other. What could his father do about that? How would he even know? It wasn't like his father paid that much attention to him anyway.

Besides, even if he wanted to stop seeing Sarah, he couldn't.

The voices in his head wouldn't let him.

Chapter Twenty.

Bettina Philips waited until the last of her students left the cla.s.sroom before heading out into the crush of first period students and weaving her way through the crowded hallway to the administration office.

Enid Hogan, who had been the office secretary when Bettina herself had gone to high school-and might even have been there for her father as well, given that no one could remember Enid having changed at all over the last four decades-was doing exactly as she'd done every school day at this time: finishing entering the attendance records into the permanent files. The only thing that had changed in all the years Enid had been at her desk was that now she entered the records into a computer instead of the old ledgers she once used. It wasn't a change that came easily to Enid: pen and ink, she understood. Digits were a mystery, and a mystery she deeply distrusted, which was why, at Warwick High School, all the important records were still kept in a filing cabinet next to Enid's desk, as well as in the computer hidden away in a secure room in the bas.e.m.e.nt. "If it's there at all," Enid had once sniffed. "And even if it is, what if it breaks? Then where are the records?"

Despite the fact that Enid had managed to double her own workload by doing things both "the new way and the right way," she still looked up from her work with her usual warm smile at the sound of the door opening.

"Hi, Enid," Bettina said. "Did Sarah Crane come to school today?"

Enid shook her head. "I called Angie Garvey yesterday, and apparently Sarah has the flu. Angie said she was throwing up most of the night. Not last night," Enid quickly added in her never-ending quest to make certain her records were perfect. "Night before last. So I didn't call this morning-I had that bug three weeks ago, and it kept me out for two days. So if Sarah doesn't show up tomorrow ..."

But Bettina was no longer listening. Sarah Crane hadn't been throwing up the night before last-she'd been sound asleep on Bettina's own chaise, Cooper snuggled next to her and both of them covered with two warm blankets. Sarah wasn't sick at all.

Which meant something else was going on, and Bettina was pretty sure she knew what. She tilted her head toward the princ.i.p.al's office. "Is Joe in?"

Enid nodded. "Go right in."

Bettina tapped softly on Joe Markham's office door, then opened it and looked in.

"Bettina," the princ.i.p.al said, leaning back in his chair and looking far more tired than he should have, given how early in the day it was. "Come in."

"I'm a bit worried about Sarah Crane," the teacher said, stepping farther into the office and closing the door behind her. "She's not in school today, and she wasn't yesterday, either."

"Has Enid called?" he asked.

"Angie Garvey told Enid she has the flu, but that went around weeks ago. And if she does have it, she's the only one, which is also strange."

Markham's brows lifted slightly. "And because of that you want-what? For me to call Child Protective Services?" Then his voice turned serious. "I'm hearing some strange stories going around-I gather our Miss Crane is quite the little artist."

Bettina stiffened. "She's very talented, yes. Which is certainly one of the reasons I'm interested in her. Talent like hers needs to be encouraged, but-"

"But the Garveys don't want her to have anything to do with you. Right?" Bettina nodded. "Which is why you want me to deal with them, right?" Bettina nodded again, and Joe Markham made a notation on his desk calendar. "Tell you what-let's see if she's here tomorrow, and if she's not, I'll see what I can find out. Okay?"

"Thanks." Bettina opened the door and was halfway out when she turned back. "Do we have the records from Sarah's last school yet?"

"Ask Enid," the princ.i.p.al replied, and Bettina could tell by the tone of his voice that he'd already turned his attention away from Sarah Crane and back to whatever he'd been doing before she came in.

Bettina closed the office door and turned to see Enid Hogan holding out a file folder. "Here it is," she said. "It was already out. Because of the sickness, you know." A mischievous smile played around the corners of her lips. "You know me-everything gets written down. And they'll probably burn it all the day I retire."

"Thanks," Bettina said, taking the file and perching on one of the chairs that were usually occupied by students waiting to answer to Joe Markham for whatever sins they'd committed. Apparently this morning had been sin-free, since all the other chairs were empty.

A glance at the clock told her she had about ninety seconds until the bell would ring and she'd have to be back downstairs in the art studio. She quickly flipped through the pages of transcripts from Sarah's last school-which had nothing to do with what she was looking for-and finally found what she wanted on the very last page: the name of the caseworker to whom Sarah Crane had been a.s.signed.

Kate Williams.

She repeated the phone number to herself half a dozen times to make sure she wouldn't forget it before she was back in her cla.s.sroom, and was about to close the file when something else caught her eye.

Sarah's birth date.

A terrible chill pa.s.sed through her, and the folder slipped from her hands and fell to the floor.

"Bettina?" Enid said. "Are you all right?"

Bettina looked down at Sarah's file, then reached down to pick it up. "I'm fine," she said, not quite succeeding in keeping a slight tremble out of her voice. "Just clumsy."

Enid eyed her suspiciously. "You look pale. Did you have a decent breakfast? Low blood sugar can do that to you. There's some doughnuts in the teacher's lounge-why don't I send someone down to monitor your cla.s.sroom while you go have one?"

Bettina shook her head. "I'll be fine," she insisted. Before Enid could object, she stood up, put the folder back on the a.s.sistant's desk, and left the office, repeating Kate Williams's phone number three times more.

There was no need to memorize Sarah's birth date though.

It was a date she'd never forget.

Chapter Twenty-one.

Bettina slammed on the brakes, her car jerking to a stop just before it would have pa.s.sed through Shutters' rusting wrought-iron gates.

Something had changed.

But what?

She sat motionless behind the steering wheel for a moment, telling herself that nothing at all had changed; that she'd simply seen Sarah Crane's birthday in the school records. Yet all through the day-a day that it seemed would never end-she'd felt a sense of some kind of shift taking place, a feeling that only grew stronger as she made her way home after school. And now, sitting in her car in front of the gates of the only home she'd ever known, she saw it.

But it was impossible, of course; the gates were no different than they'd ever been: sagging and rusty, the leaves of the original vine pattern long since fallen away as if the gates themselves knew that winter was fast approaching. Except that this afternoon the gates looked different.

Some of the rust seemed to have flaked off, and one or two of the corroding vines appeared to have sprouted tiny metal barbs. Which was ridiculous: metal-especially wrought iron-didn't do that. Once it rusted, it was gone, and no matter how real the vines may have looked a century and a half ago, they had never been anything but iron.

And yet ...

The light. That had to be it-it was nothing more than a trick of the fall light, with the sun sinking so early now that the evening shadows were hiding the worst of the grinding damage of old age.

Taking her foot off the brake, she drove on. But as she emerged from the garage a few moments later, she once again stopped short.

She gazed up at the house.

And it, too, seemed somehow different. And yet what had changed? The paint was still peeling-at least the paint that hadn't already weathered away-and the roof still lacked the slates that had fallen over the years.

And yet ...

Somehow the paint didn't look quite as bad as she'd thought when she inspected it a few months ago, and even the roof looked like it might make it through one more winter before she'd have to do something about it.

She went in through the back door just as she always did, but again found herself stopping just before stepping across the threshold. This time, though, she knew why.

She'd forgotten to turn the heat down in the kitchen, and it was the wave of heated-and expensively heated-air pouring forth that brought her to a halt. Not even bothering to shed her coat, she hurried to the electric heater and reached down to turn it off.

But it was already off. Nor was its fan blowing, nor was it any warmer than the kitchen itself.

Nor was Pyewackett curled up in front of it, warming himself while he slept the day away.

She left the kitchen, moving through the butler's pantry and pushing through the swinging door to the dining room.

It was as perfectly warm as the kitchen.

So was the great hall.

And so, she discovered as she pa.s.sed its open door, was the study. Not only was the door ajar, but heat was emanating from it, and so was the acrid smell of smoke.

Smoke?

Panic breaking over her, Bettina threw the door open, half expecting to find the room engulfed in flames. But all she found were dying embers in the fireplace.