A Twisted Ladder (59 page)

Jasmine dropped a little red rubber ball into Madeleine’s lap. Madeleine threw it and Jasmine fetched it, and they repeated this over and over again, and all the while Madeleine was talking on the telephone and trying to block out Severin’s chatter of how she brought on her father’s death because of her magnetism for bloodshed. It was like trying to listen to the radio and the television at the same time, but somehow the act of playing fetch with Jasmine helped Madeleine to focus.

When she hung up, she forced herself into the kitchen to make dinner. Though she was not the least bit hungry, she had to do something. It seemed that keeping active kept the bramble away.

She was cutting up some chicken, her hands glistening with its carcass, when the phone rang. She wiped her hands with a paper towel as she grappled for the phone. It was Sam, calling from her cell phone to tell her she was on her way. Apparently she had found out from Vinny. Madeleine told her that it wasn’t necessary to come over, that she would be fine, but Sam was having none of it.

“Is Ethan there with you?”

“No, he was in with a patient when I called.”

“You mean he doesn’t even know yet?”

“Not yet.”

Sam said, “You shouldn’t be alone right now. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Alone. If only
.

Madeleine glanced at Severin, who was sitting in the corner of the kitchen, gouging the wood of a cabinet door with her fingernail. She sighed. Perhaps it would be a good distraction to have Sam over. She agreed and hung up.

Madeleine folded her arms and looked at Severin, who had grown tired of scratching at the wood and was now sprawled out on the kitchen floor, lolling around like a typical bored child. A triangular gouge scarred the cabinet door where she had been clawing at it. Madeleine stared at it for a moment, then leaned over and fingered the mark.

The surface was smooth, and the image of the gouge disappeared even as Madeleine moved her finger across it. She admonished herself for having fallen for the illusion.

Suddenly, Severin leapt up and dug her fingernails into Madeleine’s leg. Madeleine jumped back in a flash of pain. But in doing so, she inadvertently knocked the knife off the cutting board. The blade tumbled to the ground and she managed to sidestep it just before it would have skewered her foot. It bounced off the hard tile floor and back up again, where its tip sliced into the cabinet door.

Severin threw herself backward on the floor, giggling with delight. “Lovely, lovely!”

Madeleine smoldered. The mark in the cabinet was no longer an illusion. She saw the same little triangular gouge, exactly as Severin had formed it with her fingernail, only this time it really existed.

Madeleine stared at her. “Why would you do something like that?”

Severin stopped laughing and looked up, then began to wail.

“Oh, quiet down,” Madeleine muttered.

The child’s voice rose an octave, reverberating throughout the flat. Madeleine pressed the palm of her hand to her forehead.
My God, how am I supposed to function with this?
She wrung her hands and glanced at the door, knowing Sam would be coming over any minute.

“Stop it, Severin.” Madeleine tried to keep her voice calm.

But the tantrum only escalated, and the wailing transformed into piercing shrieks. Severin threw herself back on the floor so that her skull bounced against the tile, and began kicking at the cabinets. She beat at them with her bare, filthy feet, kicking so hard that Madeleine’s teeth chattered, and she squeezed her hands over her ears.

From the couch in the living room, Jasmine raised her head and looked over toward Madeleine. Severin continued pounding with her feet. Jasmine woofed.
Could Jasmine hear Severin on some level?
Madeleine thought suddenly. Jasmine woofed louder and leapt off the couch, trotting toward the door.

It’s not the door, Jazz. It’s in here. In the kitchen with me. Please hear it. Please see it
.

Severin’s shrieking and kicking intensified. “Stop talking to that dog! I’ll send it through! I’ll kill that dog the same way I scratched the cupboard! And I’ll kill all your friends! I’ll whisper them dead! Just like your brother! Just like your daddy! I’ll send them through to the other side!”

Madeleine’s throat clenched. Was it possible Severin had something to do with their deaths? Her fear tumbled backward and flipped into rage, so pure that it striped her vision in black and white.

“Oh no you won’t,” Madeleine said through clenched teeth. “If I find out you had anything to do with my father or my brother’s death,
I’ll
kill
you!
”

And then, somehow, Madeleine was the one screaming. “I’ll kill
you
. I’ll find a way, you disgusting little fiend, and I’ll kill you!”

She drowned out the demon girl’s shrieks with her own rage, her throat going raw, thorny branches snaking in around her.

Madeleine stopped, panting. Something behind the black tendrils caught her eye. As she stood over Severin, she saw a flicker of movement in the window. Her head snapped toward it, and she saw her own reflection. Behind it, another face. The pale face of a woman.
Oh, please, no
. Madeleine thought.
Not another one like Severin. I can’t take this
. It happened because she had lost her temper, she reasoned frantically. Her anger brought on another apparition. She had to calm herself.

But when Madeleine spun around, wheeling wild-eyed at the figure, the sight of it caused her to freeze. She recognized it. No, she knew her. And she was not an apparition. She was Samantha.

“Maddy?” Sam’s face was deathly pale, and she had Jasmine tucked under her arm.

Severin rose to a sitting position, grinning.

Madeleine stared at Sam with wariness, not able to trust what she was seeing. She took a shaky step toward her and reached out a trembling hand to touch her shoulder. Madeleine’s fingertips met the fabric of Sam’s shirt and the warmth of her skin beneath. No illusion; Sam was indeed standing there. Madeleine felt a rush of relief, but she retreated a few steps and folded her arms, looking at the floor, turning away from Sam’s bewildered gaze.

“Maddy, are you all right? Didn’t you hear me knocking?” Sam set Jasmine down on the floor and Jazz padded back to the living room couch.

Madeleine thought of Severin’s feet beating against the cabinets. The sound would have drowned out Sam’s knocking. Deliberately? A tear rolled down her face.

“I heard screaming, so I came in.” Samantha’s voice began to waver. “Maddy, who were you yelling at? I saw . . .” she trailed off. The room filled with silence.

Severin tittered.

Madeleine wrapped her arms around herself and turned nervously away from Sam, unable to look at her.

“Maddy,” Samantha whispered. “It’s me, Sam.”

“I know who you are,” Madeleine sputtered.

She stood regulating her breathing, struggling to regain composure. She racked her mind for some kind of explanation, some lie that she could offer up to Sam to deflect her from the truth of what was happening, so she would stop looking at her that way. But no such explanation existed.

Finally, Madeleine just began to speak.

“There is a person. An entity. An evil little . . .” Her words tumbled out in a halting staccato. Her throat stung from screaming. She took two more deep, slow breaths, and began to speak again, this time with complete calm and control.

“I don’t know what she is, really,” Madeleine said matter-of-factly, keeping her eyes on the floor. “I think of her as a kind of spirit or an imp. Maybe even some sort of curse. She has come to me in the form of a little girl, and she speaks to me and sometimes acts out.”

Madeleine took on the tone of a schoolteacher, and was gaining confidence. “She has a negative quality about her, and she may even be dangerous. I have reason to believe that a similar such entity had visited my brother, and possibly even my father. But the bottom line is, I’m not crazy.”

Those last words hung limp in the air, and Madeleine realized that she had somehow faltered.
I’m not crazy
. It sounded so very, very feeble. She made the mistake of stealing a glance at Sam, whose face was ashen.

“She reveals things to me.” Madeleine’s words poured out faster and with a higher pitch. “I sort of learn about things before they actually happen. Or she’ll show me something that happened to someone else, like Marc, and I know what happened. Even though I wouldn’t ordinarily know . . . what happened.”

My God, I sound so crazy!

“All right.” Madeleine forced herself to slow down. “Perhaps there have been symptoms that could possibly indicate the beginning stages of schizophrenia. A touch of confusion, difficulty in concentration. The good news is, I’m quite confident I can control that.” She waved her hand dismissively. “What you should know is that this entity has made me privy to some special information.”

Oh, for the love of God!
Madeleine heard her own words, and she was sounding crazier and crazier with every breath.

Samantha’s eyes glistened with tears, and the sight made Madeleine’s stomach turn. Sam obviously was not going for it. Madeleine was losing her.

Madeleine whirled on Severin, who sat hugging her stained legs to her naked body.

“Give me something! Tell me something about Samantha.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t think to do that. You never do what
I
say. Let her suppose you’re crazy. It amuses.”

Madeleine moaned with frustration, pulling at her hair. She grabbed a knife from the wooden block on the counter, wishing for a way she could plunge the thing into the demon child’s black, shriveled heart.

“Is this what you want?” Madeleine raged at her. “Is this what you crave? Blood?”

She drew the blade down the center of her hand and let the blood run to the floor.

Sam screamed.

Severin giggled.

“Is that what turns you on, Severin? Give me something, damn it!”

“Maddy stop! Please!” Sam cried, moving toward her with her arms outstretched.

“Stay away,” Madeleine pleaded, waving her off, and Sam recoiled. Madeleine realized it must have looked like she was threatening her with the knife.

She turned back to Severin. “Please, Severin. Please. Just help me.”

Severin’s face was pinched into a nasty little pout. Finally, she said, “Her first pet then, see. The first pet she had when she was a little girl. It was a kitten.”

Her first pet was a kitten. So what? “Come on, Severin. Give me something better than that.”

The child scowled, but remained silent.

Samantha watched fearfully with her fingers pressed to her mouth and sparkles of moisture dotting her lashes. Madeleine’s blood throbbed at her temples. Severin was toying with her, and she knew Sam thought she had completely escaped her senses.

“You had a kitten,” she finally said, resigned. “Your first pet when you were a child was a kitten.”

Sam did not move, but her tears brimmed over and spilled down her cheeks.

“Well?” Madeleine’s voice rose. “Am I right?”

With her fingers still covering her mouth, Sam slowly shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “No, honey. My first pet was a dog. A puppy, when I was about ten years old.” She reached out to her. “Maddy . . .”

The blood boiled in Madeleine’s head. She wheeled on Severin, who was laughing.

“Ha, ha, ha! Maddy is a daft old frog!”

“Damn you!” Madeleine shrieked. “You evil little beast! Damn you to hell!”

She sank to her knees, her entire body quaking with rage.

Sam was immediately at Madeleine’s side, arms encircling her and tears streaming. “It’s OK. Maddy, it’s OK. It’s all right. It doesn’t matter.”

Sam smoothed back her hair. The knife clattered to the floor, and Madeleine cradled her wounded hand, now slick with blood.

The room went dark.

Madeleine looked up.

The kitchenette was choked with bramble but for a pool of light in the living room beyond. In the haloed glow, a small girl played with a tiny gray kitten. Madeleine watched.

Still crouched in the center of the kitchen, Madeleine sat back heavily on the tile. She gave Severin an icy look.

That was very ugly
, she thought.

“I gave you what you wished on!” Severin said.

Madeleine reached out with her good hand and held Samantha’s, her arm resting on her knee where she sat on the floor.

“You were very young, Sam. Two or three years old. You had a little gray kitten that you loved, and you hugged it. You squeezed it . . .”

Sam’s face froze.

“It was an accident,” Madeleine continued softly. “The kitten died.”

Now Samantha sat back on the floor, her hand still gripping Madeleine’s. Her eyes were unfocused, gazing into the distance. Madeleine’s glanced back to the vision in the living room, where a young Samantha now sat sobbing over the little cat. Mercifully, the scene faded away and the kitchen was once more bathed in natural light.

“Now don’t you feel bad for being mean to me?” Severin whined.

Madeleine shot her a look, and she lowered her head in a silent pout.

“I’d forgotten.” Sam stopped, then swallowed. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

She looked at Madeleine, eyes confused, and then her gaze wandered back to the vague distance.

“My mother and I had gone to the grocery store,” Sam said. “Where they were giving away free kittens. She let me pick one out. I felt so bad when it happened, I cried all night. And we never talked about it again. I . . .” She swallowed. “I guess I somehow purged it from my memory.”

“I’m sorry, Sam.”

Samantha looked at her fully, searching her face as though she were a stranger. “Tell me exactly what’s going on. What’s this—person?”