Nathaniel (23 page)

“Nothing serious. The usual. I’ve always given him dispirin, and that’s taken care of it. But these seem to be different, in a strange sort of way.”

Potter frowned. “Different? How?”

Janet shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I’m not quite sure how to say it. A while ago he had one of the headaches, and apparently he thinks he saw a ghost that night.”

Potter stopped mauling his lenses. “A ghost?” he asked, his voice betraying his skepticism.

Janet’s brows arched, and she shrugged her agreement with his doubt. “That’s what he told me. And he was quite adamant about it. Except that now he can’t quite remember what happened. But he says that while the ghost was around, the headache went away, and after the ghost left, the headache came back. But everything that happened seems to be kind of fuzzy in his mind.”

“I’ll bet,” Potter replied. Then his forehead furrowed in thought. “Where’d all this take place?”

“Near our house,” Janet told him. “He was out at the Simpsons’, and it happened on his way home.”

“Hmmm.” Potter leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his midriff. He gazed at the ceiling for a moment, then his eyes came back to Janet. “Maybe I’d better talk to him,” he said at last. “Whatever he thinks happened, I’d like to hear it firsthand. Do you mind?”

“Of course not.” Janet stood up. “Shall I call him in?”

Potter gave her a conspiratorial smile and a wink. “Why don’t you send him in, and let me talk to him alone? Sometimes kids talk more freely if their parents aren’t around.”

Michael sat stiffly on the edge of his chair, regarding Dr. Potter with suspicious eyes. The familiar throbbing was beginning to play around his temples, but Michael tried to ignore it, concentrating instead on what the doctor was saying.

“You didn’t see Abby in the field, did you? You saw something else, and you know what it was you saw. Isn’t that right?”

“No,” Michael replied. “It was Abby, and she was looking for her children, just like in the story.”

Potter shook his head. “No, Michael. There’s no such person as Abby Randolph. She died a hundred years ago, and she isn’t still here, wandering around looking for anything. So you saw something else. Now, I want you to concentrate very hard and tell me exactly what you saw and where you were.”

“I was at our house—”

“Why?” Potter interrupted. “It was the middle of the night, and no one was there. Why did you go there?”

“I
told
you. I saw a light in the field, and I wanted to see what it was.”

“And you
did
see what it was, didn’t you?” Potter leaned forward, the knuckles of his right hand white as he clutched his glasses. “Didn’t you?” he repeated.

Michael’s headache worsened, and suddenly his nostrils filled with the strange smoky odor that was becoming as familiar to him as the headaches. And then, as if from far away, he heard the voice.

“He knows.”

Michael’s eyes widened slightly, and his eyes darted to the corners of the room, even though he knew the voice had come from within his own head. Then the voice, Nathaniel’s voice, came again.

“He knows, and he’s going to make you tell.”

“What is it, Michael?” Potter asked, his voice low. “Is something wrong?”

“N-no,” Michael answered. “I just—I just thought I heard something.”

“What? What did you hear?”

Michael’s head was pounding now, and something seemed to have happened to his eyes. It was as if the office had suddenly filled with fog, except that it wasn’t quite like fog. And then he knew. Smoke. The room seemed to have killed with smoke.

“I—I can’t breathe.…”

Potter rose from his chair and moved around the desk.

“What is it, Michael? Tell me what’s happening.”

“I can’t breathe,” Michael replied. “My head hurts, and I can’t breathe.”

Again, he heard the voice.
“He knows. He’s going to make you tell. Don’t let him. Stop him, Michael. Stop him now!”

Michael’s mouth opened wide, as if he was about to scream, but all that came out was a desperate whisper. “No. Stop it. Please stop it.”

“Stop what, Michael?” Potter asked. “What do you want me to stop?”

“Not you,” Michael whispered. “Not you. Him. Make him stop talking to me.”

Potter grasped the distraught boy by the shoulders. “Who is talking to you, Michael?” he asked, his eyes fixing on the boy. “Who?”

“Nath—”

“No! Do not speak my name!”

“Leave me alone!” Michael wailed. “Please …”

Potter released Michael from his grip, and as the boy slumped in his chair, he returned to his desk. Silence hung over the room for a few minutes, and then, when Michael’s breathing had returned to normal, Potter finally spoke.

“The barn,” he said softly. “You were in Ben Findley’s barn, weren’t you?”

Michael said nothing and held himself perfectly still, terrified of what might happen if he so much as nodded his head.

“It was Nathaniel you saw, wasn’t it?” Potter pressed, his voice low but nonetheless insistent. “You went into Ben Findley’s barn, and you saw Nathaniel, didn’t you?”

Michael shook his head fearfully. “No,” he whispered. “He’s not real. He’s only a ghost, and I didn’t see him. I didn’t see him, and I didn’t talk to him.”

But now it was Potter who shook his head. “No, Michael. That’s not the truth, is it? Don’t lie to me. We both know what you saw and what you heard, don’t we?” When Michael made no reply, Potter pushed further. “He looked like you, and he looked like your father, didn’t he, Michael?”

Michael bit his lip and squirmed deeper into the chair. Then, as he offered an almost imperceptible nod, Nathaniel’s voice whispered to him, no longer loud, no longer threatening. Now it was soft and gentle, caressing.
“Kill him.”

And suddenly, as Michael watched Dr. Potter while Nathaniel whispered to him, he knew he could do it. If he wished it right now, with Nathaniel there inside his head, Dr. Potter would die.

“No,” he whispered. Then, again, “No.”

“But you will,”
Nathaniel whispered.
“You must, and soon. You will
.…” The voice trailed off, and Michael’s headache faded away. As his vision cleared, he frowned uncertainly at the doctor. “Can I go now?” he asked shyly.

Potter said nothing for a moment, then finally shrugged. “We both know what happened that night, don’t we, Michael?”

Michael hesitated, then nodded.

“But you won’t talk about it, will you?”

This time, Michael shook his head.

“Can you tell me why not?”

Again, Michael shook his head.

“All right,” Potter told him. “Now, listen to me carefully, know what you did, and I know what you think you saw. But you didn’t see anything. Do you understand? You didn’t see anything in Ben Findley’s barn, and you didn’t see anything in the field. It was the middle of the night, and you were tired, and all that happened was that you imagined you saw some things that weren’t there. They aren’t there, because they couldn’t have been there. Do
you
understand?”

Michael hesitated, then nodded. “I—I think so.”

“All right.” Potter stood up and moved toward the door, but before he opened it, he turned back to Michael.
and
one more thing. From now on, you stay away from Ben Findley’s barn. You stay away from his barn, and stay off his property.”

Michael gazed up at the doctor. He knows, he thought. He knows about Nathaniel, and he knows what we saw. And now we’re going to have to make him die. He turned the strange thought over in his mind, and wondered why the idea of making Dr. Potter die didn’t scare him. Then, while he half listened to the doctor talking to his mother, he began to think about something.

Was making someone die the same as killing them?

He thought it probably was, but somehow, deep inside, it didn’t feel the same. Making someone die, he was suddenly sure, was different from killing them. He could never kill anyone.

But he could make someone die.

Janet gazed questioningly at Michael as he emerged from Potter’s office, but when he said nothing, her eyes shifted to Potter.

“I don’t know,” Potter said thoughtfully. “I don’t think anything too serious is wrong, but I’d like to think about it and maybe make a couple of calls. Why don’t you bring him back tomorrow afternoon?”

A few moments later, after they’d left Potter’s house, Michael finally spoke, a fearful note in his voice. “Why did you tell him about—” He hesitated, then finished the question: “Why did you tell him about the ghost?”

“I—well, I was worried about the headaches, and I thought the doctor ought to know what happened when you got them.”

“He thinks I’m crazy.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t—”

“He does too,” Michael insisted, his face beginning to redden. “He told me there’s no such things as ghosts, and that I couldn’t have seen anything out there. Then he wanted me to tell him everything that happened.”

“Did you?”

As Michael hesitated, Janet thought she saw a furtive flicker in his eyes, but then he nodded. “What I remember.”

They walked along in silence for a few minutes, and Janet had an uneasy sense that Michael had not told Potter all of what he remembered. But before she could think of a way to draw him out on the subject without making him angrier than he already was, she heard someone calling her name. She looked around to see Ione Simpson beckoning to her from in front of the Shieldses’ general store.

“Janet, look at this. Isn’t it wonderful?” Ione asked as Janet and Michael approached. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

In the store window, propped up against a galvanized milk can, was an immense Raggedy Ann doll that seemed, somewhere during its lifetime, to have suffered a minor accident. There were a few buttons missing, and one of its shoulders had a tear in it. Looking at it, Janet couldn’t help grinning: it was huge and clumsy, and its flaws appeared almost self-induced, as if it had stumbled over its own feet. It was totally irresistible. “It
is
wonderful,” she agreed. “But what on earth would you do with it?”

“Peggy,” Ione said decisively. Janet stared at her. Peggy, Eric Simpson’s two-year-old sister, was only about a third the size of the doll.

“If it fell on her, she’d suffocate,” Janet pointed out, but Ione only shook her head.

“I don’t care. She’ll grow into it. But do you suppose it’s for sale? It doesn’t look new.”

“Well, let’s go in and find out,” Janet replied. “I’ve got a whole list of things to get there anyway.” With Michael trailing along, the two women entered the cluttered store.

They were greeted by a large matronly woman with a happy face and wide blue eyes, whom Janet recognized but couldn’t put a name to.

“Well, now, don’t you worry,” the woman told them. You can’t be expected to know everybody’s name until atleast day after tomorrow. I’m Aunt Lulu—Buck’s mother? Isn’t that terrible, having a name like Lulu at my age? But what can you do? I’ve been Lulu since I was a baby, and I’ll be Lulu when I die. Now, what can I do for you?”

“I have a whole list—” Janet began, but Ione Simpson immediately interrupted.

“The doll, Lulu. The Raggedy Ann in the window.”

Aunt Lulu smiled. “Oh, I didn’t put that out there to sell it,” she explained. “But it’s been in the back room too long, and I thought it might be fun to give it some sunshine, do you know what I mean?”

“You mean it isn’t for sale?” Janet asked, feeling Ione’s disappointment as keenly as if it were her own.

“Why—well—I don’t know, really,” Lulu stammered. “It’s been here for I don’t know how long. It was ordered for little Becky—” She hesitated for just a second, her eyes bulging slightly, and then hurriedly corrected herself. “We ordered it for Ryan, but he didn’t want it. I don’t see how he could have resisted it, do you? Isn’t it wonderful? Just wonderful. And almost as big as a real child—”

“It’s bigger than the child I want it for,” Ione broke in. “I just have to have it for Peggy. Please?”

Lulu’s big eyes blinked. “Well—well, I suppose if it’s for Peggy, we’ll just have to make sure it’s for sale, won’t we? I’ll have to call Buck and find out what the price is. He’s at home, you know, taking care of Laura.” Suddenly her happy expression collapsed, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “Isn’t it a shame about Laura? So close, and then losing the baby like that.” She gazed at Janet, then reached out and took her hand. “But of course, you were there, weren’t you? While Laura worked all day in that hot sun? And everything was going along so well for a change. Well, we certainly can’t blame you, can we? I mean, if you’d known Laura better, you certainly wouldn’t have let her work so hard at your place, would you? I told her she should take it easier, but you know Laura—she won’t take anybody’s word for anything, and her so small she almost died when Ryan was-born, and now this has to happen. I just don’t know how much more she can take. I just don’t.”

As Michael began edging away from the teary woman, and Ione looked on in what appeared to be horrified embarrassment, Janet tried to understand what the woman was really saying. Though she’d denied it, was she blaming her for Laura’s miscarriage? At last though, Lulu’s tears began to abate, and her warm smile spread once more over her round face. She glanced around distractedly, then lowered her voice, even though there was no one else in the store. “I do run on, don’t I? Well, it’s just something everyone has to put up with from us older women. I was a good wife to Fred, and I never talked back to him, not once. But ever since he’s been gone, I’ve found I just love to talk. I suppose it was all those years of not saying much at all. It all just bottles up, doesn’t it?”

Janet smiled weakly, wondering if there was a graceful way to end Lulu’s ramblings, when Ione Simpson came to her rescue.

“The doll?” Ione asked. “Could we find out how much the doll is?”

“Oh, you just take it, and anything else you want. I’ll keep track of it all, and Buck can tell you some other time how much it all comes to. I don’t usually work here, you know,” she said, turning to Janet again. “Fred always thought a woman’s place was in the home, and until he died, that’s where I stayed. I’m afraid Buck thinks the same way as his father did. He only lets me in here when he absolutely can’t be here himself, and that’s only when Laura’s having one of her—”