All for One (39 page)

Mary nodded seriously. “Of course, Willa. Anything.”

“She’s been seeing a... A psychiatrist since everything happened. Because she was having trouble at night. Trouble sleeping through.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mary said, her eyes flicking right toward a sound tickling her ears. Her heart instinctively sped up, if only a few beats. She didn’t like sounds of late, especially those that came without expectation. Even a sound as innocent as this one, a soft click, like a switch being thrown or a latch opening. And not so innocent for that very reason. There was no door, no light switch to her right.

“She’s been waking up in the middle of the night,” Willa began to explain.

Mary forced her attention back to her visitor. Her eyes moved reluctantly, and the words she was hearing stretched long as they left Will Markworth’s mouth.

idontthinkyouneedtohearthisMARYireallydont

Mary’s vision fuzzed at the edges. A foggy halo wrapped Willa Markworth’s form.

“She’s been waking up and...”

youdontneedtohearthisMARYyoudontHAVEtohearthisMARYyoudont

Stop talking to me! Stop it!

And then, in the time it takes to blink, the soft world outside winked to black and Mary saw the hot white eye of the hound open within. It glowed at her from the darkness behind her eyes, narrowing as if angry, unflinching for a time that was interminable and brief all at once.

“...screaming.”

The hound’s eye was gone without flourish and she was looking out again. At Willa Markworth’s fleeing gaze, examining the colorful bulletin boards now, the ones half covered with ‘A’ papers. Mary pulled a deep and quiet breath through her nose. All was clear before her. Elena’s pregnant mother. The empty desks behind her. The back wall and the small aquarium with bubbles trickling up from an open treasure chest. Everything was defined again. What was there, outside of her, was all there. Very crisp and very real.

And inside? Was that real?

Mary had that tenuous sensation again, as if her atoms were rebelling, fighting to spin free of the forces that bound them. That bound
her
.

I am here
, she told herself, fighting the feeling, the...whatever. Just fighting to...hold on.

On to what?

I am here, and I am real! I am talking!

youretalkingtoyourselfMARYandyouknowhowthatmakesyoulookMARYitmakesyoulook—

I’m not crazy!

theydontletcrazypeopleteachMARY

I’m not crazy! I’m not!

crazypeopletalktothemselvesMARY

“Screaming, you said?” Mary blurted out. Speaking simply to
be
speaking to someone and not to herself, though a little too loud. Willa Markworth looked back to her.

“Yes. Like she’s having a terrible nightmare.”

Mary nodded with concern.
Screaming at night? Screaming at...
“You said something about Elena’s doctor.”

“Yes. She wanted me to ask the people who deal with Elena on a daily basis about her...behavior.”

“Her behavior? She’s no trouble, Willa. She’s a perfect little girl.”
Perfect?
“She has been a bit withdrawn lately, but that doesn’t seem out of the ordinary considering what she’s been through.”

Willa Markworth nodded and stared at her knees for a moment.

“But she’s coming out of that,” Mary added, sensing her visitor’s distress and wanting to give her something positive. “Just yesterday, when I asked if anyone wanted to perform a solo number in the Autumn Pageant, Elena volunteered. She was wonderful during our first practice. And even better today. She really looked like she was enjoying it.”

Willa Markworth pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped her nose. “Elena had some tests on Saturday, and on Sunday she met with her doctor again. There was a...breakthrough.”

youdontneedtohe—

I’m not listening to you! Crazy people listen to voices in their head.

“That’s good, right?” Mary said.

Willa Markworth’s chin moved in what might have been a nod, but one that seemed embarrassed at its source. “I suppose.”

What is going on?
Mary put a hand on her visitor’s knee once again. “Willa?”

youreallydon—

Shut up!

“What is it, Willa?”

Willa Markworth blew a small, wet sniffle into the tissue and shook her head. “I can’t get into some things right now. Elena’s doctor thinks it’s best to keep certain...things private for now.”

“Of course.”

“But, like I said, she wanted me to ask about Elena’s behavior. Whether you’ve noticed anything odd.”

“Odd how?”

From her open purse Willa Markworth removed a piece of paper. She wiped her nose again and stared at the list she’d made at Dr. Voss’ direction. “Has, uh... Have you noticed Elena being sort of...lost in a daydream at anytime?”

youdont—

“No,” Mary answered, focusing on her visitor and shutting out all else. “No I haven’t.”

Willa Markworth moved a finger down the list. “Has she been talking to herself as if...”

Talking to herself?
Mary’s inner ear listened for a moment, but heard nothing. “Go on, Willa.”

“As if there was someone else there? Someone imaginary. An imaginary friend, maybe?”

Mary felt the pull on her eyes. The...force that wanted them to spin away from what was real. Whatever it was was strong, so very strong. But at this moment it was not strong enough. Right now the need to be there for Willa Markworth, to possibly help one of her dear students, was stronger.

“I haven’t noticed anything like that, Willa.”

“Has she been doodling at all? Drawing things?”

“What kind of things?”

The right word eluded Willa Markworth for a moment. “Inappropriate things.”

“No, Willa.”

Willa Markworth nodded mildly, but gratefully. Her finger tracked down the list. “Has Elena acted at all disoriented? Like she doesn’t know where she is, or how she got there?”

Mary stared at Willa Markworth for a very long moment, saying nothing, not answering and not sure why she wasn’t. She had certainly not seen anything like that in Elena. That would be like she was losing time or something.

For a second Mary’s thoughts stuttered over the concept of losing time. She had no idea why, and very quickly the thought itself faded to nothingness and she simply shook her head at Willa Markworth’s semi-interesting inquiry.

Thirty Four

Two dress rehearsals were going on Wednesday afternoon. One inside the auditorium, where all the classes participating in that night’s autumn pageant were gathered, and the other in the foyer where Mrs. Gray was helping the class council from Room 18 prepare for the sale of refreshments.

Already they had a pair of long tables nosed together to fill the space between the two doors that let into the auditorium. Joey and Michael had lugged the tables in from the storage room off the foyer. Actually the dark and dust filled space was off
off
the foyer. There was a small closet in between, one that Mr. Carter used to store mops, and wheeled yellow mop buckets, and all kinds of cleaning implements that made moving the tables through a tricky endeavor. But they had managed and set up the makeshift counter a few feet from the wall, leaving enough room behind for them to serve the throngs of people sure to be there in just a few hours.

Mrs. Gray stood back from the tables, eyeing their placement and giving her approval with a nod. “Did the cups arrive?”

PJ trotted over to a stack of boxes half blocking one of the doors into the auditorium. She reached in and pulled a stack of foam cups. “Mrs. Gleason dropped them by.”

Jeff came over and looked into the box, the four stiff flaps of its top jutting out like the blades of a stubby propeller. “There’s a lot.”

“We are going to need a lot,” Mrs. Gray commented, then helped PJ move the boxes behind the counter where they began removing the cups. When they were about to put the first stack on the table Mrs. Gray’s cup-filled hands froze mid air and she grimaced at the faux-woodtone surface below. “My dear. This is filthy.” She shook her head and looked up. “Joey, Michael, go to the restrooms across from the office and get some paper towels. Mr. Carter always puts extra in the dispensers in there. Two handfuls each.”

“Yes, Mrs. Gray,” Joey answered. He and Michael headed for the side exit from the foyer. Almost through the door, Michael looked back. Bryce was standing at the far end of the counter tracing something into the cake of dust on the table with one finger.

“Bryce,” Mrs. Gray said as the side exit hissed shut.

“Yes, Mrs. Gray?”

“Mr. Carter has some spray cleaner in the closet, I believe. Would you look for it please and bring it here?”

Bryce nodded and brushed away the nonsensical doodle he’d scribbled in the dust. He went around the corner near the foyer’s drinking fountain and opened the door to Mr. Carter’s closet. It was unlocked and the light was still on from Joey and Michael’s trip through it to the storage room, the door into it not only unlocked but wide open into the dark space. The yellowed glow from the closet’s high fixture angled into the storage room, laying a path of ugly brightness on the cement floor. Bryce stepped between the high shelves that lined two of the closet’s sides and searched for the spray cleaner with his eyes. But every few seconds they would cautiously dart toward the hidden depths of the storage room that lay beyond the short carpet of light. They would try in vain to pierce the din, then move along the shelves again.
Ammonia. Wood polish. Wig-like mops heads
. A glance into the dark.
Floor wax. Window putty
. Another look.
Box of nails
. Look again, the cool, quiet splash of water arcing against the porcelain bowl of the drinking fountain outside the closet. Bryce heard this, but paid it no attention. His interest was elsewhere. Somewhere beyond the dark recesses that held him rapt. Beyond this dark place.

In another dark place.

An old, dark place.

His eyes flared as another time Before Guy came back to him. Long before Guy. Before Windhaven. Before Bartlett. Before he was a Hool.

Bryce Redmond, get in there!

He looks through the door and into the room. There is no light, no window.

Now!

His frightened eyes shift up to Miss Greenleaf and she swings a hand across his face, snapping his head to one side, his little cheek afire. He is not quite five. But he remembers.

NOW!

He steps into the closet, the one right next to Miss Greenleaf’s office. The floor is bare and tingles under his feet. He turns back to face her from the darkness, naked below the waist.

None of the other children wet their beds, and this will be the last time you wet yours, Bryce Redmond.

She closes the door and his world is nothing but night.

“All right, Hool.”

The daydream spun away like the last skim of water gasping down a drain and Bryce turned toward the voice. Toward Jeff’s close voice.

And when Bryce was facing him, one corner of Jeff’s mouth rose into a sneer and he lifted his cast out of its sling and ran it at his classmate, driving him backwards into the dark storage room. Bryce backpedaled until he slammed into a solid stack of boxes. His slight weight hardly moved them, but when Jeff forced his cast into the vulnerable space between Bryce’s chin and chest, the cardboard groaned and bent.

Bryce reached up and tried to push Jeff’s cast from his throat, his nails scratching at the plaster, but to no avail. He and Jeff were about the same size, but Jeff had the added weight of the cast, and he had something else. Something that showed in his eyes. The same thing he’d seen in Miss Greenleaf’s eyes every time she’d put him in the closet for wetting the bed. Disdain. Revulsion. Part of each. Some new alloy of hate’s offspring.

He couldn’t get away from it then, and he couldn’t get away from Jeff now.

“Let me go.”

Jeff pushed harder against Bryce, leaning his weight into it. “What’s going on, Hool? Huh? With you and that cop? Huh? What?”

Bryce tried to shake his head but his chin was locked against the plaster covering his friend’s—
friend?
—forearm. He sucked a breath past the crush on his neck and said, “Get off of me.”

“We all went into this together,” Jeff said angrily, a little shove punctuating the statement. “You, me, Joey, Mike, PJ, Elena. Together, Hool. And it only works if we stay together.” Bryce struggled a little and Jeff stopped the resistance with a hard shove that drew a wince from his prisoner of the moment. “Do you understand that? Huh? Do you? If you tell, then it’s over. Guy wins. Everything is ruined. Huh? Do you get that? Huh? Do—”

“Let him go.”

The command was quiet but firm, and Jeff knew who it was before he turned to see Michael standing in the half light between the closet and the storage room.

“Let him go, Jeff,” Michael said again and stepped forward, his form in full silhouette now, each hand fisting folds of paper towels.

Jeff backed off and Bryce stepped away from the box wall that he’d been pinned against, one hand rubbing his throat.

“Get out, Jeff,” Michael told his friend.

“But—”

“Get out.”

Jeff gave Bryce a hateful look that was not returned. He pushed his cast back into the blue sling and moved past Michael. The water fountain hissed again once he was out of sight.

“Are you okay?” Michael asked his best friend.

Bryce nodded, but he did not look at Michael.

The fists loosened around the paper towels, flexing twice until they were simply holding the stacks. “Bryce, talk to me. Please.”

Bryce swallowed hard and glanced very briefly at the shadow that was his friend’s face. “I’ve gotta get the cleaner for Mrs. Gray.”

“C’mon, man, it’s me...”

Bryce moved very quickly, pushing past his friend, the friend who’d just saved his neck. “I can’t.”

Michael spun back toward the light as Bryce hurried into the closet and grabbed a bottle from one of the shelves. Bryce stared at the thing in his hand, breaths rooting in and out of his nose in spurts, his eyes fixed but confused. Wanting to look. Wanting his friend, his best friend, to be able to look into them and to understand.