Beyond Midnight (50 page)

If Nat backed away slowly and then broke into a run, could Helen blame him?

And yet, there was reason to hope. The encounter or ordeal or whatever it was that Helen had experienced in her office on Sunday seemed to have a finality to it. Maybe Helen had simply passed through a phase, an ultrasympathetic reaction to poor Katie
's loss of her mother.  After all,
Helen had been jus
t four when her own mother died
.

What else could it be? Helen hadn
't suffered a trauma to her head,
she didn
't have a brain tumor,
and as far as she knew, her family had no history of schizophrenia. Mass hysteria? But where were the masses? She was all alone in her nuttiness.

Okay—maybe not completely alone. Both Becky and Nat had sniffed
Enchantra
when they shouldn
'
t have. But that was such a small thing, compared to the profound events that Helen had experienced.

She was in a last-minute change into a denim skirt when the doorbell rang. Alone in the house for once, Helen had to answer the door herself. Russ was off at a birthday party, and Becky had graciously agreed to pick him up at ten (anything to help her mother find romance).

For tonight, only little Katie stood in the way of their falling into one another
'
s arms—and Helen was actually grateful for it.
We have time on our side,
she thought.
The longer we wait, the better for us.
Her feelings for Nat ran far too deep to squander them on some quick wild fling.

She opened the door and fell in love all over again. He was holding his daughter; they came as a pair. It was unbelievably easy to love them both.

Katie was dressed for the occasion in coveralls with an owl appliquéd on the bib.
"
We
'
re going to see some
owl
s,
"
she said, cutting right to the chase.
"
Big, big ones!
"

"
Well, that would be exciting, wouldn
'
t it,
"
Helen told her.

It was a crazy idea, expecting a three-year-old to stay awake through a twilight nature walk. They
'
d be lucky to hear an owl, much less see one. But Helen hadn
'
t been able to make Nat understand that. He
'
d given his word, he said. And the new Nat meant to keep it.

"
All set?
"
he asked Helen. His look was carnal and innocent at the same time, a tough combination for her to have to resist.

Damn you,
she thought.
You aren
'
t making this any easier for me.

"
You bet,
"
she answered.
"
Do you have mosquito repellent for Katie?
"

He groped around in his aqua-blue diaper bag.
"
Check,
"
he said.
"
And juice. And a change of pants. And a hat. A jacket. Extra shoes. We can take Everest if we want to.
"

"
Welcome to ParentWorld,
"
she said with a wry smile. She locked the door behind her and they all piled into his Porsche which, Helen had to admit, was an extraordinary vehicle. Glove-soft leather, discreet electronics, the faint hint of a fine cigar—it was a machine that Batman would be proud to own.

Helen said something to that effect and Nat astonished her by saying,
"
I
'
m thinking of maybe trading it in for a van. You can fit camping equipment in a van.
"

She turned to him and studied his clean-cut, clean-shaven profile. He was too lean, too aristocratic to qualify as a Marlboro Man; and yet she could picture him easily with a five-clay-old stubble of beard, frying a freshly caught fish over a campfire while his daughter toasted a pre
-
dinner marshmallow on a stick.

She could picture it only too well, and it made her heart ache.

To sound supportive she said,
"
I have a sea kayak—it was Hank
'
s—that I
'
ve been meaning to sell.
"

"
Maybe you won
'
t have to,
"
he answered, reaching over to stroke her cheek with the back of his fingers.

Thumpa-thumpa.

"
Daddy, I wish I could see the
ow
ls right away,
"
said Katie from the backseat.

"
Pretty soon,
"
her daddy said.

Helen turned around. The child was yawning heavily,
fighting to keep her eyes open. Helen put her hand on Nat
'
s arm, then hooked her thumb a couple of times toward the car seat.

"
All right,
"
he admitted.
"
So she finds us boring. It doesn
'
t mean anything. Katie? Tell Mrs. Evett what a nice long nap you took today.
"

"
Uh-huh.
"

"
And tell Mrs. Even how excited you were when we were getting dressed to go on our hike tonight.
"

"
Mm-hmm.
"

"
And tell Mrs. Eve
tt
what kind of owl we have in our yard. You remember—what did we see in your
Big Book of Owls?
"

Gone. Katie
'
s head was drooping forward and to one side; her mouth was a little ajar as she drew in long, deep breaths of sleep.

Smiling, Helen said softly,
"
Maybe we should just turn around and go home?
"

"
Not a chance; she
'
d never forgive me,
"
Nat said.
"
She really has been fixated on this trip—I
'
m telling you. Anyway, Peaches said she slept almost twice as long as usual today. She
'
ll perk up.
"

"
She
'
s exhausted,
"
Helen said, but there were worse things to do than drive around in a Porsche with a handsome man and a sleeping three-year-old, so Helen sat back and enjoyed the short ride north to the Ipswich River Sanctuary. Nat, who
'
d tracked the place down through the Audubon Society, said it was the best kept secret in
Massachusetts
: 2,800 acres of wilderness—eight miles of river and forest—hidden behind rural suburbia off Route 1.

They talked of childhood pleasures and favorite vacations, staying away from the subjects of their marriages and their careers, and in a short while they were pulling into the parking area behind a modest, rustic outbuilding where the staff naturalist was in the process of briefing a small group of adults that had gathered for the hike.

Nat, carrying his droopy-eyed daughter, nudged his way up to the front of the gathering.

"
We
'
ll be taking our time, walking very slowly,
"
said the naturalist, a big man with a beard and a laid-back slouch that made him look a little owlish himself.
"
Naturally we
'
ll keep our voices to a minimum.
"

He looked at Katie and translated for her benefit.
"
We must be very, very quiet.

"
We
'
ll keep an eye out,
"
he continued,
"
for a tree covered in whitewash. With any luck, we
'
ll find owl pellets below it on the ground. Unlike eagles and vultures, the owl swallows its prey whole, so it has to get rid of the undigestible parts. It regurgitates a pellet with the bones in the center, tightly packed and surrounded by either soft fur or down feathers. That way, the owl doesn
'
t gouge itself on the sharp bones as they come back up.
"

He led the group to a small glass case and said,
"
Here
'
s an example of a pellet that
'
s been carefully pulled apart for examination. You can see the intact skull—the best way to identify the prey—which in this case belongs to a field mouse. Other prey are birds, shrews, voles—whatever
'
s on the menu that night.
"

All of it was very interesting, but not to Katie. She sighed; she plucked at her father
'
s jacket in boredom; she yawned repeatedly.

Nat and Helen exchanged glances. He grimaced. Maybe they should bag the whole thing, his look said.

The naturalist was telling the group that he
'
d be calling to the owls, who he was convinced heard the calls.
"
Some may call back,
"
he said.
"
Definitely the screech owl will, and maybe the barred owl. if we
'
re lucky, we
'
ll hear the saw-whet owl. I doubt that we
'
ll hear a great horned owl; they
'
re later in the night.
"

Perking up,
Katie interrupted him.
"
We have a short-eared
owl
. In our yard.
"

"
Really!
"
he said, genuinely interested.
"
That
'
s very uncommon. Where do you live?
"

Katie automatically looked at her father.
"
Right in the heart of
Salem
,
"
Nat said proudly. You
'
d think he was the one who
'
d given birth to the bird.

The naturalist said,
"
They prefer marshes and prairies. Is the owl hurt, do you think?
"

"
No,
"
said Katie confidently.
"
It goes like this:
keeyow,
"
she said, dipping her head in imitation of a sneeze.

Smiling, the naturalist said,
"
Well,
we
won
'
t be hearing a short-eared owl; they tend to move around in late afternoon.
"

Katie
'
s face registered massive disappointment. Her brows came down and she stuck out her lower lip.

Her father recognized the signs.
"
Do you maybe want to go home, honey?
"
he murmured.
"
Are you tired?
"

"
Yes,
"
she said, fed up with the tour, the tour leader, and the grown-ups who
'
d duped her.

Nat smiled an apology to the rest of the group and backtracked out of the room before Katie began what he clearly thought was going to be one of her fits. Helen, falling in behind him, was still listening to the group leader
'
s remarks on her way out.

"
There
'
s an old Indian legend,
"
he was saying in his quietly interesting way,
"
that says when a person dies, the soul of that person enters an owl; and if that owl happens to look you in the eye, it means that the soul has made contact with you, and you become his friend.
"

Helen stopped in her tracks. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, just as it had on the day that she
'
d first approached the Byrne mansion. On the same day—very probably, the same hour—that Linda Byrne had died, an uncommon owl had made uncommon contact with Helen by flying at her and looking her straight in the eye before it veered away, eventually to take up residence outside of Katie
'
s bedroom.

My God. That
'
s it, then. That
'
s what this is all about. Even Katie
...
Katie knows, in some subliminal way. Somehow she's connected, still, to her mother
...
and that
'
s why she wanted to come
.
Not to look for owls, but so that we could hear the legend. That was the whole point. Linda has made her daughter—made me—come here so that I would understand.