Second Child Part 8

"You were a bad girl today," her mother said. Melissa's mind raced as she tried to remember what she'd done to make her mother angry at her.

And in her mind she silently spoke to D'Arcy. What did I do? What did I do to make her mad at me? What did I do? What did I do to make her mad at me?

"You were rude to your friends again," Phyllis said, almost as if she'd heard the unspoken question. "They saved Teri from drowning, and all you did was walk away."

Melissa felt a knot of fear form in her stomach. That wasn't how it had been! It wasn't how it had been at all! The kids weren't even talking to her-they were only talking to Teri! But it was like her birthday all over again-it wouldn't matter what she told her mother. Her mother had already made up her mind what had happened. She said nothing, only staring up at her mother, waiting for whatever was to come. And then, in her mother's hands, she saw the straps.

"N-No," she stammered. "P-Please, Mama, don't make me wear the straps."

Her mother stared down at her. Her voice rose and fell in a strange singsong, as if she were speaking to an infant. "But you have to wear them. You've been a bad girl, and when you're bad, you walk in your sleep. Give me your hand."

Melissa, fighting back the scream of protest that rose in her throat, tried to raise her hand in fulfillment of her mother's command, but her muscles refused to obey.

"Your hand!" Phyllis demanded, grabbing at Melissa's arm and jerking it so hard that a wrenching pain slashed through the child's shoulder. "How can you be such an idiot?" idiot?"

As the pain stabbed through her, Melissa cried out for help once again, and this time she heard D'Arcy's silent answer, whispered to her from somewhere in the shadows of the night.

Sleep, Melissa-I'm here now, and you can go to sleep.

Even as she heard the words, Melissa relinquished herself to the darkness that began closing in around her, and left D'Arcy to accept whatever punishment her mother meted out.

Phyllis, poised above the bed, drew back her hand, ready to strike her disobedient child once again, but suddenly Melissa relaxed on the mattress and her arms came up as she held out her wrists to accept the thick leather straps.

One at a time Phyllis fastened the bands around Melissa's wrists, then moved to the foot of the bed to attach the restraints to her ankles. Finally she connected the free ends of the straps to the bed frame, then covered Melissa with a thin sheet.

"It's warm tonight," she said, her voice gentle now as Melissa lay bound to the bed. "You won't need a blanket at all. Sleep well."

She leaned down and let her lips brush against Melissa's forehead, then silently slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her.

In the bed, Melissa slept, though her eyes remained open as D'Arcy watched the shadows play silently on the walls.

Teri avoided the beach as she walked back to Maplecrest, instead moving slowly along a path that wound through the patches of woods separating the estates fronting on the cove. As she came to each house, she paused, gazing up at the silhouettes that seemed to loom even larger in the moonlight. Most of them were dotted with brightly lit windows, and Teri crept across wide expanses of well-trimmed lawn to peer curiously in at the paneled walls and glowing chandeliers that seemed to fill every mansion.

Nowhere did she see anything to remind her of San Fernando and the tiny frame house in which she'd grown up.

All of it, though, had an odd familiarity about it, as if she'd come back from a long visit to a foreign land.

Here, she knew, was where she belonged.

At last she came to Maplecrest and skirted the tennis court, moving toward the large swimming pool. Suddenly, out of the darkness, she heard a low growl.

She froze for a second, her eyes searching the night around her. At last she saw a shadow that was even darker than the rest.

As she stared at it, another growl rose up from the blackness and the spot moved slightly, edging toward her.

"Blackie," she whispered to herself, feeling a twinge of annoyance at the pang of fear she'd fallen victim to a few seconds earlier. As the dog crept closer, she lashed out at it with her left foot, then felt a twinge of satisfaction as the Labrador yelped in pain and leaped away from her.

A second later, though, she heard a voice call out from a few yards away. "Blackie? Blackie!"

The dog, crouched suspiciously on the ground just far enough away to be safe from another kick, turned slightly toward the sound of the voice and uttered a sharp bark. A moment later Tag stepped out of the shadows of the pool house and strode down the path, stopping short when he recognized Teri.

Blackie, his hackles raised, pressed against Tag's legs, and once more a low growl rose from his throat. Tag reached down to soothe the dog, and Blackie yelped softly as his master's fingers touched the spot where Teri had kicked him.

"What the h.e.l.l's going on?" Tag demanded, his eyes fixing on Teri. "Did you kick him?"

"Why would I do that?" Teri countered.

"Well, something happened to him. He's got a sore spot. I can feel it swelling."

Teri shrugged impatiently. "Well, what if I did? He was growling at me."

"Jeez, that's what he's supposed to do," Tag protested. "He's just protecting the property."

"Well, he could have bitten me," Teri complained. "And you should have him locked up at night anyway-we could get sued if he went after someone."

Tag's eyes narrowed angrily. "He's not going after anyone. All he ever does is bark-he's never bitten anyone in his life."

"Well, he sure acted like he was going to bite me," Teri shot back. "And if you don't do something about him, I'll tell Phyllis!"

Tag said nothing. He took Blackie's collar and led him away toward his grandmother's house. But his mind was seething. Ever since the minute he'd seen Teri, Blackie hadn't liked her. That first day he'd even run away from her. And to Tag that meant something-he'd long ago learned that if dogs didn't like someone, there was a reason.

He paused and glanced back down the path toward the spot where Teri had been standing, but she was gone. "Okay, boy," he said to the dog, releasing his grip on its collar. "Go on and finish your business. But stay away from Teri, huh? We don't want her telling Mrs. Holloway on you, do we?" The dog bounded away into the woods, and once more Tag turned back toward the main house. Teri was just disappearing through the back door.

Satisfied that Blackie would get in no more trouble that night, he headed home.

Teri glanced at the back stairs that led directly from the kitchen to the upper floors of the house, but then walked the other way, moving through the butler's pantry and dining room into the large entry hall, to go up the grand staircase to the second floor. The upstairs hallways were almost pitch-black, lit only at the head of the stairs by a dim lamp that stood on a sideboard on the landing. Teri paused for a moment, listening, but the house was silent-everyone had already gone to bed. She felt a twinge of anger-couldn't her father have waited up for her? Apparently not. But if it had been Melissa out walking on the beach...she cut the thought short and switched off the single lamp that had been left for her, then went to her room, not turning on the light until she was inside and the door was closed. She began taking off her clothes, but paused as she heard a sound.

A soft, sobbing sound, which almost seemed to come from the attic above her head.

She hesitated, then went on undressing.

The sound came again, m.u.f.fled, but clearly audible.

Frowning, Teri pulled on the bathrobe Phyllis had given her and slipped out into the hall. She hesitated there, blinded by the darkness, but then her eyes adjusted to the moonlight that streamed through the enormous fanlight above the stairs' landing, and she started down the hall toward the door that led to the attic.

She paused once more at the attic door, then made up her mind. Turning the k.n.o.b, she pulled the door open.

Above her the attic was nothing but a yawning black chasm. Unconsciously holding her breath, she started up the stairs, not breathing again until she had reached the top.

Her fingers groped in the darkness for the light switch she knew was there. Finding it, she snapped on the bare bulb that hung suspended from the rafters a few yards away.

She choked back a scream as she saw a ghostly white form hovering in the darkness at the far end of the big chamber beneath the house's eaves.

A moment later she began breathing again as she realized what it was-an old-fashioned dressmaker's mannequin, draped in an equally old-fashioned white dress.

She hesitated, getting her bearings, then started through the attic toward the area above her room.

There, carved out of the main part of the attic, she found a small room with a single daybed and a chest of drawers.

The room was illuminated only by the pale moonlight, but as Teri looked around it, she had a strange feeling that although no one lived here anymore, the room was not completely abandoned. Frowning in the darkness, she went to the chest and began opening its drawers.

There was an old sewing box, still containing its needles and thread, scissors and thimbles.

Other than that, the chest was empty.

And then, once again, Teri heard the soft sobbing sound.

Only this time it seemed to come from beneath her feet.

She waited where she was, and the sob came again.

As she left the little room and made her way back to the head of the attic stairs, she carefully counted her steps. Finally, glancing once more at the old mannequin with its antiquated dress, she turned off the light and returned to the second floor.

Once again she counted her steps as she walked down the long corridor. Before she had reached the area beneath the little room in the attic, her progress was blocked by a door.

Melissa's door.

Teri gazed at the door for a moment, then tentatively touched the k.n.o.b. Her hand closed on it and she twisted it.

The door was locked.

She returned to her own room, closing her door behind her once more, then went to the bathroom that separated her own small room from Melissa's much larger one.

She pressed her ear against the door separating the bathroom from her half sister's room, and a moment later thought she heard the sound again.

A sob, as if a child were crying but trying not to be heard.

Teri tried the door and found it unlocked. She pulled it open an inch, and whispered through the crack.

"Melissa?"

There was no response.

She pushed the door farther open and stepped into Melissa's room. Moonlight flooding through the open windows cast a silver sheen across the bed. From the doorway Teri could see her half sister lying on her back, her eyes open.

"Melissa? Are you all right?"

Again there was no answer. Her brows knit into a slight frown, Teri crept into the room and slowly approached the bed. At last she stood next to it and gazed down at her half sister's face.

In the moonlight Melissa's skin took on a deathly pallor, her features were expressionless as her eyes gazed steadily up at the ceiling. A chill pa.s.sed through Teri. For a moment she had the feeling that Melissa had died.

Then she saw the steady movement of Melissa's chest as it rose and fell with her gentle but steady breathing.

Teri reached out and touched Melissa, prodding her shoulder.

"Melissa, wake up," she whispered.

Her half sister didn't move.

Teri took a step backward, wondering if she should go and get her father. But then, as her eyes scanned the bed once more, she saw something.

It looked like a strap, emerging from beneath the sheet that covered Melissa, its end securely fastened to the bed frame.

Teri stared at the strap for a moment. Then, her hands shaking slightly, she reached out and drew the sheet away from Melissa's body.

She gasped slightly as she saw the cuffs that were bound around Melissa's wrists and her ankles.

For a moment she felt an urge to undo the straps, to release her half sister from the bonds that held her to the bed, but she changed her mind as the words of the kids on the beach that afternoon echoed in her mind. "Everyone thinks she's crazy..."

Was that it? Was that why Melissa was tied to her bed?

Was she crazy? she crazy?

Carefully pulling the sheet back up so it covered Melissa's shoulders again, Teri backed away from the bed, then turned and hurried into the little bathroom, closing Melissa's door behind her.

And when she returned to her own room, she made sure she locked her own door to the bathroom behind her.

She lay awake in bed for a long time that night, thinking about what she'd seen.

And as she thought, an idea began to form in her mind.

Teri's dream had the perfect crystalline clarity of an autumn afternoon. In it she awoke just before dawn, far from Maplecrest. Indeed, she was back in the small house in San Fernando, the house in which she'd spent all but the first few years of her life.

The soft chime of her never-before-used travel alarm barely disturbed the quiet of the night, but she turned it off quickly, then listened for a few minutes.

The house was silent, her stepfather's soft snoring the only disturbance to the predawn silence. She got out of bed, slipped into her bathrobe, and glanced around the little bedroom. At last, slipping her hand into the pocket of her robe to make sure the strand of pearls her father had sent her last Christmas was still there, she left the room and made her way silently down the stairs, carefully stepping over the fourth one from the bottom, the one that always creaked, no matter how careful you were.

At the foot of the stairs she paused again, listening, but the silence of the house was still undisturbed. From here, indeed, she couldn't even hear Tom MacIver's snoring.

She turned through the dining room, then into the kitchen and out onto the service porch, where the washer and dryer stood side by side above the stairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Moving quickly even in the darkness, she went down the cellar stairs, into her stepfather's workshop. There was wood everywhere-some of it ready to be put together into a bookcase he was building, other pieces just sc.r.a.ps, piled here and there against the concrete walls of the subterranean chamber.

At last she came to the furnace, and, groping in the darkness, found what she was looking for.

A pile of rags, rags she'd made sure were well-soaked with linseed oil only that afternoon. She placed the rags on the floor next to a pile of wood.

Then she took a match from the box that always sat on her stepfather's workbench and struck it.

She held the match to the rags. A second later the oil that had been absorbed in the cotton fibers ignited, bursting into flames with a speed that made Teri lurch backward. She stared at the fire for a moment, as if fascinated by it, then shook the match out, tossing it away.

As the flames grew and spread to the wood around them, Teri moved to the foot of the stairs. After one more look at the spreading fire, she hurried up the stairs, back into the service porch. But instead of moving on, going out the back door into the yard, she went into the kitchen instead, then the dining room.

Then she waited at the foot of the main stairs, waited for the fire to take hold, waited for the flames to begin engulfing the house.

It seemed to take forever, but finally she could hear a faint crackling in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and then she began to sniff the first faint wisps of smoke creeping through the floor beneath her feet.

Still she lingered.

At last the floor of the dining room itself began to glow, and then the fire burst through, spreading quickly. The crackling grew to a roar, and then, as more flames began to eat through the living room floor, Teri bolted to the front door. A moment later she was in the front yard, her bathrobe clutched tightly around her neck. She turned to watch as the flames rampaged through the first floor and began to creep upward.