Hear the Children Calling (9 page)

When she got to Jenny’s room, the young girl was sitting at her desk, her nose in an astronomy book. Alice stopped. It amazed her that a ten-year-old could breeze through subjects she had had trouble with in college. The child’s education was important. Alice turned and walked away, deciding to let the matter drop.

In her room, Jenny let out a long-held breath. She out down the astronomy book and picked up a mystery
story. But as she read, the words began to swim on the page, until she finally closed the book and put her head down on her desk. She could not stop thinking about what Michael had said. She wanted to see what was outside the center. More than anything, she wanted to find the brown-haired woman with the two little boys. Somehow, she knew they meant something to her.

“I know you,” she whispered, her head still tucked into the crook of her arm. “I’m sure I know you.”

Maybe, if she let herself relax, she could conjure up the woman’s image again. It was so easy to call people to her—“from another dimension, perhaps the afterlife,” the grown-ups in the clinic said. Jenny didn’t always like the people who came to her. Sometimes, she was afraid. As she rested her head on her desk, she thought back to the first “encounter” she could remember.

There had been a woman, a blonde-haired woman, standing on a boat. Jenny had never seen a real boat, but knew them from pictures. And yet somehow, in her memory, she could smell salt air and hear gulls crying.

There had been other children, too. Little children. Jenny looked up at the woman, watching the wind blow her wavy blonde hair.

“Now, class, we must all stay seated,” the woman had said. “The ferry will take us for a ride to Blair Island and we’ll have a nice picnic. Won’t that be fun?”

All the children had shouted and clapped their hands. They had been led to rows of wooden seats. Jenny had started into one, but a man had held her shoulder and guided her to the next row. She had been happy, because this meant she got to sit on the end . . .

Jenny’s mind went blank at that moment. What a strange memory, she thought. She really had no idea what it meant, because her parents insisted she had never been on a boat in her life. But it was this very
memory that had conjured up one of the first images her mind created while seated in the big green chair at the clinic.

She had seen the blonde-haired woman running every which way, crying out a name, her eyes wild with fear. Jenny had called to her, and the woman had turned to answer. Jenny had spoken aloud while in the chair, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. I’m here and I’m safe.”

Someone had spoken roughly, a woman. “Don’t let her make contact. She’s trying to make contact.”

“Who are you talking to, Jenny?”

Jenny had shaken her head. “Teacher.”

“No, you must not speak to her,” a man cried. “She will hurt you, Jenny. She has fire with her.”

And something had burned her arm, searing through the thin fabric of her sleeve.

“Put her out of your mind, Jenny. Make her stop burning you.”

Jenny had screamed and screamed . . .

She sat up straight now, staring at the pair of small pottery birds that sat on the back of her desk. She had wanted to call up the woman with the brown hair, not remember that horrible time when the blonde had tried to hurt her.

Slowly, she pushed up her sleeve and looked at the scar on her arm. It had grown faint over the years, only a hint of it remained, but the fear of being hurt like that again had kept her from calling back the blonde-haired woman. She had called her “teacher,” but did not know why. Mr. Sarth was the only teacher she had ever known.

There had been other “fire-carriers,” as Jenny had come to call the bad people who hurt her through her thoughts. There had been a policeman—Jenny only knew policemen through pictures—a great big bear of a man with sad eyes. Both times, the grown-ups at the clinic had commanded her to push them out of her mind.

“They’re going to burn you, Jenny. They have fire.”

At first Jenny had accepted all this. But in time she
began to wonder how they knew which ones had fire. She had felt no threat herself from the images and had not felt any pain until the grown-ups in the clinic actually commanded her to drive them away. Even in her young mind, Jenny sensed the grown-ups were trying to keep her from making contact with certain people.

Just the way they kept most everyone in the center from ever making contact with the Outsiders. Only a select few had gone beyond the electrified gates. Michael Colpan’s father was one. He worked in one of the center’s big buildings, designing things he was not authorized to talk about. He would take his blueprints, and those of the few other engineers, and bring them into the nearby cities.

No wonder Michael wanted to see what was on the outside, Jenny thought. His father must have some wonderful stories.

She breathed in deeply, setting her mind straight again. It kept wandering off, and she wanted to call up the brown-haired woman again. Jenny wondered, If I ever tell the grown-ups of this woman, would they say she was going to burn her? The woman seemed so kind that Jenny could never believe such a thing.

“Jennifer!”

Jenny groaned. “Yes, Mom?”

“Jenny, there’s someone here to see you,” Alice said.

Jenny was surprised to see Tommy Bivers standing in her living room. Alice shot her a look of disapproval, but left the pair of ten-year-olds alone in the living room.

“Hi, Tommy,” Jenny said, unsure of herself.

Tommy only gazed at her. “You’ve been thinking about me,” he said.

Jenny looked down at the floor, blushing. When would she learn most of the other children were able to read her thoughts?

“It’s all right,” Tommy said, “because I’ve been thinking about you, too.” He stepped closer to her,
and lowered his voice. “I know what happened to you at the clinic.”

Jenny gasped, looking up at him.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I won’t tell anyone. But your thoughts have been so loud in school I couldn’t help it. Jenny, I’m confused, too. Something’s really wrong here. I never thought it before, but now I’m certain of it. A couple of weeks ago, I was sending out thought messages, hoping someone on the outside would hear.”

“The Outsiders? Is that safe?”

Tommy shrugged. “Who knows? I don’t care. I only know I hate the clinic; I always have. I’ve hoped ever since I was a little kid that someone on the outside would make contact with me. Jenny, I never told anyone, but someone did. It was a woman. I couldn’t see her, the way you can see people, but I could hear her voice. She told me that there was danger and that these people were not what they appeared to be. Jenny, I know you’ve seen others, too.”

Jenny looked back over her shoulder. “We can’t talk here,” she said. “But my mom would be suspicious if I left with you. She knows what happened to you at the clinic.”

“Of course,” Tommy said. “She works there, with my mother. That’s why I told her I came by to ask about the homework assignment. I can’t stay any longer, Jenny. But we’ve got to talk. Just you and me.”

“And Michael Colpan.”

Tommy frowned. “That weirdo? Why?”

“Because he knows what I’ve been thinking,” Jenny said.

Tommy nodded.

At that moment, Alice came back into the living room. It was as if she did not want to leave her daughter alone with Tommy any longer than necessary. “So, have you gotten the assignment?”

“Yes, Mrs. Segal,” Tommy said. “Thanks, Jenny. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” Waving his fingers at Alice, he turned and left the house.

“I don’t like that boy,” Alice said. “He’s a troublemaker.”

Jenny did not say a word. She had come to distrust the grown-ups here in the center. Even her own mother.

13

E
AGER TO MEET WITH
C
RAIG
D
YLAN
, J
ILL HAD CALLED
in a reservation on the next available flight to Florida. She left the museum in Virginia’s care, promising she’d be back in a day or two. Because she did not want to involve her partner in what might be a dangerous venture, she made up a story about researching a laboratory equipment company’s newest experiment kits.

Jill had thought a lot about this trip, through a night of little sleep. The part of her that had thought this was a waste of her time, that accused her of being an overly hopeful mother, had diminished to almost a whisper. Craig Dylan’s fear was no illusion. And when you’re a scientist, you ask as many questions as you can until you find the answer you want.

The answer I want, Jill thought, is that Ryan is alive somewhere.

She didn’t have time to wonder what would happen if that answer wasn’t possible. Her flight number was called and she followed a group out the door to the airplane.

The autumn wind tossed her hair into her eyes as she walked up the steps. The stewardess smiled and welcomed her on board. Jill found her place and tucked the overnight bag under the seat in front of her. She watched people filing onto the plane: a man in an army
uniform, several business types, a mother with a girl of about three. Jill’s heart caught in her throat and she felt her eyes grow moist. She blinked away her tears before they could rise, and she gave the little girl a smile.

How lucky you are, she thought of the mother, you have your child with you.

“Hi, lady!” The small child had noticed her staring.

“Hello,” Jill said. She closed her eyes, settling herself for a nap. Ryan had been like that when he was little, chattering away to everyone. As sleep wrapped around her, an image of Ryan at age two came to her dreams.

He was sitting in front of the couch, his legs tucked beneath the coffee table, walking his toy elephant across the table.

“Look what I can do, Mommy!”

The elephant’s trunk began to grow. It snaked across the room, but even when she felt its plush tickling her neck, Jill could not move. Even when the trunk wrapped around her throat, she stood frozen.

“No, Ryan.”

“Elep’ant loves you, Mommy!”

Choking, choking
. . .

Jill gagged and blood stained the front of her sweat-shirt.

The gag had become a gasp as she sat up with a jerk. The stewardess had wheeled a cart next to her seat. Shakily, Jill bought herself a white wine. She sat back with the plastic tumbler and let the alcohol steady her nerves. Combined with the steady hum of the airplane’s engines, it lulled her, and she let it wash away the remains of the dream. She wouldn’t let herself analyze its possible meaning.

She busied herself with her inflight magazine for the rest of the trip; the articles that should have been trivial fluff to her scientist’s mind became no more than a jumble of words. When at last the plane touched down
in Fort Lauderdale, Jill was one of the first out of her seat, eager to disembark.

She found the car-rental desk and chose a Ford Tempo. Half an hour after landing in Florida, she was checking into the hotel. After checking in, she went to the gift shop and bought a local map. It was lunch-time, but she only stopped in the coffeeshop long enough to drink an iced tea while mapping out the route to the Craigs’ place.

September had tempered Florida’s heat to a comfortable warm, and she drove with one elbow propped on an open window. In her mind, Jill conjured up an image of Craig Dylan.

He had been in his mid-thirties back then, with brown hair he wore parted down the middle and blown back from his boyish face. Jill recalled that he stood a few inches taller than her, with good posture. It was the confident way he had carried himself, along with brown eyes that seemed full of caring, that had made Jill trust him when the others had let her down. He had worked hard for her, and she hoped he would do the same now.

Jill found his street. It was a fairly new development of attractive brick-and-fieldstone ranches, with lawns trimmed just so and brilliant flowers surrounding mailboxes. Many of the homes had ornaments, such as birdbaths or the ubiquitous pink flamingo.

There were no decorations on the Dylans’ lawn.

Jill pulled into the driveway. As she got out of the car and walked toward the front door, all the doubts she had been fighting these past few days began to rise again. She pushed them back down, firmly reminding herself that Dylan had indicated he knew something about Ryan.

She took a deep breath and knocked at the door. Moments later, a frail, dark-skinned woman answered. She was attractive, but Jill immediately saw the tense way she held fast to the doorknob.

“Yes?”

“Is Mr. Dylan home?” Jill asked a little nervously. “I . . . My name is Jill Sheldon. I called yes—”

The sentence was never completed. The woman gasped, her eyes growing wide, and backed away a step.

“Go away,” she commanded. “Leave us alone.” She tried to slam the door shut, but Jill’s hand shot out and grabbed the frame.

“Please, don’t be afraid,” Jill begged. “I really do need to talk to your husband. It’s my little boy, don’t you see?”

There was a squeaking noise from somewhere behind the woman.

“Let her in, April.”

April looked back over her shoulder. Then, with a shake of her head, she pulled the door open and beckoned Jill to come in. Whatever greeting Jill had planned caught in her throat when she saw Craig Dylan. The squeaking noise had been a wheelchair. Craig reached out a hand to take hers, smiling warmly. The hand was shaking slightly. His hair was more gray than brown now, and the full cheeks that had made him seem so boyish were sunken in. His eyes still had a glint of caring about them, but they had a dull cast now.

He had aged twenty years in less than a decade.

“M-Mr. Dylan?” Jill stammered.

“It’s me,” Craig said. “I knew you’d be coming.” He swung the wheelchair around and wheeled himself into another room. Jill followed him. Shaking her head, mumbling, April took off in another direction.

“I apologize for my wife,” Craig said. “She’s afraid.”

They had entered a solarium, bright sunlight pouring in through glass walls that curved up across the ceiling.