Nightmare (12 page)

“Weird,” Haley said.

“But now memories have been coming back to me. Bad memories. Horrible memories.” She told them about the nightmares and about Dr. Amelia Foxworth’s death and remembering the voices before her fall.

“What were the voices saying?” Taylor asked.

“I couldn’t make out the words. Maybe I wasn’t trying to. But I knew they were arguing. Then I saw her fall. And then there was a flash of light. For a few minutes I couldn’t see.”

“What do you mean, a flash of light?” Maxwell asked. “Like lightning?”

“No. It wasn’t raining. There was no thunder. It was just a bright flash, right in my face.” Emily shuddered and clapped her hands over her eyes. “I think Dr. Foxworth was pushed, and someone here is afraid that I’m going to tell what I know.”

Haley gasped. “Are you saying she was murdered?”

“I think so.” Emily told them about the voice calling to her, “ ‘Don’t leave! Come back here!’ ” To her amazement the rest became clear. “And it warned, ‘I’ll find you! I’ll find you!’ ” she said.

“Could you recognize the voice?” Maxwell asked.

“No,” Emily said. “It was low, like a stage whisper. I’m sure whoever it was didn’t want anyone else to hear.”

“Was it a man’s voice? Or a woman’s?”

“I have no idea.”

“This happened at the educational center?”

“I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure it did.” Emily slowly shook her head as she looked at Taylor. “I think you were hit on the head and pushed into the water. I think because from the back you looked like me, whoever did it thought they were getting rid of me.”

Wide-eyed, Taylor reached up and touched the gauze pad at the back of her head. “Who did it?” she asked.

Emily groaned and said, “I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should call the police,” Taylor said.

Emily sighed and said, “Maxwell thought we should, too, but I’ll tell you what I told him. We have no proof of anything that happened and no suspects. The police won’t pay attention to us. We have only questions without answers.”

“I have a question,” Maxwell said. “If you were only eight years old when you saw Dr. Foxworth fall, then you were too young to have gone to the center by yourself. How did you get there?”

“My mother said she had taken me with her when she went to visit a friend. The friend’s daughter was just a year or two older than I was. I must have gone to the center with her.”

“I think you should find out if that’s what happened,” Maxwell said. “Not knowing how and why you were there is like trying to put a puzzle together when some of the pieces are missing.”

“I haven’t seen the girl since then.”

“Do you remember her name?”

“Yes,” she said. “My mother talked about her friend, Patty Foswick, and her daughter Jamie.”

“Do you know the Foswicks’ address or phone number?” Maxwell asked.

“I suppose I could call my mother and ask her,” Emily said. “But I’d be afraid someone in the office would hear me make the call, and pretty soon the whole staff would know about it. They tell each other everything.”

Haley threw herself on her stomach, reached down to the floor near the foot of the bed, and rummaged through her handbag until she found what she was looking for. Sitting up, she handed Emily her cell phone. “My mother made me bring this,” she said. “I’m supposed to call her every day.”

“Do you?” Taylor asked.

“Don’t bug me,” Haley said. “We’re here to talk about Emily, not me.”

Emily checked her watch, relieved to see that it wasn’t too late to call. Her parents would be about to turn on the ten o’clock news. She dialed, and before the third ring her mother answered.

“Hi, Mom,” Emily said.

“Darling!” Mrs. Wood answered. “How are you? We’ve missed you.” Then her voice deepened. “Emily, love,” she said, “you aren’t calling to ask to come home, are you, because you know that your father and I—”

I can tell Mom all about the nightmares and what happened to Taylor and everything I suspect
, Emily thought.
My mother wouldn’t let anything terrible happen to me
. “Oh, Mom,” she began, but she stopped abruptly, realizing that her mother would tell her father, and they’d call the school to find out what was going on, and everyone on the staff would know that Emily was about to blow the whistle.

If the murderer of Dr. Foxworth was determined to keep Emily from talking, her time on earth would be numbered in minutes. There was no way she could involve her parents.

“Mom,” Emily said, “I only called to ask if you still have a phone number for your friend in Dallas, Patty Foswick.”

“Yes, I do,” Mrs. Wood told her. “But tell me why in the world you want her phone number.”

“I don’t want her number exactly,” Emily said. “I want her daughter Jamie’s.” She fumbled for the right way to explain. “There’s somebody here who hasn’t seen her for years and wants to talk to her.”

“Oh, that’s sweet,” Mrs. Wood said. “Hang on one minute and I’ll get it for you.”

Emily jumped off the bed, leaned across Taylor, and reached into her desk for a pencil and paper. When her mother returned with the phone number she was ready and wrote it down.

“Tell me everything you’ve been doing, sweetheart,” Mrs. Wood said.

Emily said, “Mom, that would take forever, and it’s late. I’ve got to go. Okay?”

“Well … okay,” her mother said. “We miss you, Emily. We love you.”

“I love you, too,” Emily said. She could feel tears burning behind her eyes, and she took a deep breath, willing them away. If she’d only been allowed to spend the summer at home … if she hadn’t been forced to come to camp … if she lived through this summer …

“Bye, Mom,” Emily said firmly, and pressed the End button on the phone.

She held out the phone to Haley, but Haley shook her head. “Call your friend,” she said. “You need to find out as much as you can as soon as you can.”

Emily dialed the number her mother had given her.

A young voice answered, and Emily asked, “Is this Jamie?”

“Yes, it is,” Jamie said. “Is this Megan? You sound different.”

“My name isn’t Megan,” Emily answered. “I’m Emily Wood, and about eight years ago my mother and I came to spend a weekend with you and your mother. You probably don’t remember me.”

“Emily Wood?” The voice was questioning.

“The reason I’m calling is because I think you took me to the Foxworth-Isaacson Educational Center. I mean, I can remember climbing through some vines up to where I could see a swimming pool and—”

A burst of laughter cut Emily short. “Now I remember you. Snakes. You were scared to death that snakes and bugs would be in the underbrush.”

“Where was this underbrush?”

“On the hill behind the center.”

“Can you tell me more about it?”

Jamie chuckled again, then said, “I suppose I wasn’t very nice to you. It was too much fun scaring you about snakes and giant tree roaches, then daring you to climb up to the top.”

“Climb up what?”

“There were lots of trees on the slope, with honeysuckle vines growing wild through the branches, and in one place it made kind of a tunnel that some of the neighbor kids and I discovered. One at a time we’d climb up through the tunnel until we got to the top, and if we were real quiet and no one spotted us peeking out from under the leaves, we could spy on the people at the center who were swimming in the pool or sunbathing.”

“There was a tall marble staircase next to the pool area,” Emily said.

“Hey, that’s right. You’ve got a good memory. Sorry about all I said to you then about bugs and snakes.”

“It’s okay. Just help me remember. What happened when I came down from the tunnel?”

There was silence for a moment; then Jamie said, “I thought you’d brag about making it all the way to the top, but you didn’t say a word. You were kind of white and shaky. And then I said, ‘Don’t move. There’s a giant tree roach on your shoulder.’ Only there really wasn’t. I just wanted to see you jump.”

“Did I?”

“Yes, but that wasn’t all you did. You screamed. Then you ran toward our house, screaming all the way and yelling something about the cockroach, I guess—that it was going to find you. Your mom got you calmed down, and I confessed to scaring you about the make-believe roach, and my mom made me apologize.”

“Did I say anything about where I’d been or what I was doing … or what I’d seen?”

“Not a word. You didn’t rat on me, if that’s what you’re asking.” Again Jamie laughed. “Is that why you called me after all these years? Do you want another apology?”

“No,” Emily said. “I was just talking with friends about not remembering things, and I thought you could fill in some of the blanks.”

“Did I?”

“Yes, you did. Thanks.” Then Emily asked, “Did you go back to spy again?”

“Funny you should ask that. No, we didn’t. We couldn’t. Maybe
you
owe
us
an apology. The people at the center must have seen or heard you. Someone put boards across that area and ended our spying.”

“I’m sorry,” Emily said.

“Hey, just kidding.”

“Well, thanks, Jamie,” Emily said again. “Bye.”

As she handed the phone back to Haley, Emily repeated to the others everything Jamie had said.

“That means you never told anyone what you had seen,” Maxwell said. “But someone there saw you—even called after you to come back and warned they’d find you.”

“And they did.” Taylor looked solemnly at Emily.

“It might help if we knew which members of the staff here at camp were working at the center in Dallas eight years ago,” Maxwell said.

“We know who some of them were,” Emily said.

“That’s not enough. We have to know every name,” Maxwell said.

“Can’t you just ask them?” Taylor suggested.

“No,” Maxwell said. “We can’t say anything about this to anyone.”

“Then how do we find out?” Taylor asked.

“I think we’ll have to find a way to ask that won’t seem suspicious,” Emily answered. “We can’t just come right out and say, ‘Where were you eight years ago?’ ”

“The staff tell each other everything about us,” Maxwell reminded her.

“We can each try to think of an idea,” Emily said. She turned to Maxwell. “You’re a writer. What would a writer do to get information?”

Maxwell tugged his cap downward with both hands as he said, “I’m not just a writer. I’m a
playwright
. I don’t interview people, and I don’t write biographies.”

“Okay, okay,” Emily said. “But try to think about what we
can
do to get the information. Everybody think of something.”

Haley slid off the bed and stood. “All right. We’ll all try to come up with something by tomorrow morning,”
she said. “Now that we’ve got that taken care of, we’d better face facts.”

Slowly, she looked at each in turn. “This is the desperate moment Loki has been warning us about. It should be clear to everyone that Em needs protection from evil. It’s time to hold our purification rite.”

I have decided upon the place where it will happen
.

I know the time and date
.

All I need now is to work out the details. That shouldn’t be difficult
.

Haley closed the blinds, making sure they were snug and no one could see inside. Then she arranged a semicircle by placing one of the desk chairs between the two beds. Maxwell was given the chair, while Emily and Taylor sat opposite each other on the edges of the twin beds.

“We need an altar table,” Haley said. She glanced around the room for what she might find, gathered up a few books, and placed them in a stack on one of her suitcases. On top of the stack she centered a fat, stubby, yellowish candle that looked to Emily like nothing more than a glob of lard. Holding a book of matches in one hand and a small paper packet in the other, she stood facing Maxwell, completing the circle.

“Give me your vial of potion,” she told Emily, who reached into her pocket, pulled it out, and handed it to Haley.

“What’s that stuff? It looks like ink,” Taylor said.

“It’s a special potion to protect Emily,” Haley answered. “She has to keep it on her person at all times—except now, during this purification rite,” she quickly added.

“Who said so?”

“A
curandero
.”

“What’s a—”

“A healer who can foresee the future,” Haley impatiently answered. “No more questions. Pay attention.”

She closed her eyes, paused as if making sure the others would be silent, and intoned in a low voice, “The circle is a symbol of protection from harm. Our circle must not be broken.”

“Where’d you get that awful-looking candle?” Taylor whispered. “It looks like it’s going to smell terrible.”

Haley glared at Taylor. “I bought it from the
curandero
in Lampley when Emily and I were there. He blessed it himself. It has magical powers. And that’s all I’m going to say before we get back to the rite. From now on, don’t interrupt.”

“Sorry,” Taylor mumbled.

“I said, don’t interrupt!”

Taylor opened her mouth as if she was going to answer, then seemed to think better of it and closed her lips together tightly.

If Haley had tried this ceremony yesterday, Emily thought, she would have left the room in a hurry, wanting no part of any of Haley’s dramatics. But tonight, still frightened by the memories that had poured back into her mind, knowing that her nightmares had not been make-believe, Emily huddled with the others, glad they were nearby. After all that had happened, she was terrified of being alone.

Haley began to chant in a singsong voice. The words were in Spanish, and Emily had studied French in school, not Spanish, but a few of the words were familiar:
cuidado, peligro, muerte
 … caution, danger, death. Emily shivered, and Haley nodded at her approvingly.

“You’re feeling the power. It’s starting to work,” Haley whispered. She opened the packet, sprinkling a small amount of granules around the top of the candle. Then she struck a match and lit the candle.

As she turned out the light in the room, the incense granules caught, sending up both a swirl of smoke and an overpowering fragrance as sticky sweet as marshmallows.