Second Child (12 page)

Melissa’s hand, holding her father’s queen, hovered in the air for a moment as she looked hopefully at him once again, but when Charles shook his head, she set the piece back on the board, sighing.

Ten minutes later she was in her nightgown, propped up against the headboard, a book resting against her knees. A cool breeze blew through the open windows, and the night air was filled with the sounds of crickets chirping against the background of the cove’s gentle surf washing up the beach. Melissa snuggled comfortably into the pillows and found her place in the book. A few minutes later, though, as her door opened, she started to slip the book guiltily under the covers. She relaxed as her father came in. He settled on the edge of the bed, then glanced at the book on his daughter’s lap.

“Anne of Green Gables?”
he asked. “How many times have you read it now?”

Melissa shrugged. “I don’t know—ten, I suppose. I love it—I’m in the part now where Anne accidentally dyes her hair green.”

Charles grinned, remembering Melissa’s rapt attention when he’d first read the book to her four years ago. “Is she as mortified as ever?”

Melissa’s head bobbed eagerly. “She doesn’t think she’ll ever leave her room again.” She giggled, but then her
giggle died away. “It’s just the kind of thing that would happen to me,” she said, averting her eyes. “Every time she gets in trouble, and it’s not really her fault, I feel like I’m reading about myself. Maybe that’s why I love her so much.”

Charles leaned over and kissed his daughter. “It seems to me,” he observed, “that there’s a difference between you and Anne. For one thing, you’re not an orphan, and for another, you never had to take care of twins.”

Melissa’s giggle bubbled up again. “But I feel like her anyway,” she said. “You know—how she was always trying to do the right thing but messed it up? That’s what I do.” She sighed once more. “I wish I were more like Teri,” she said, her voice taking on a wistfulness. “She’s so pretty, and she gets along with everyone. Like today—she didn’t even know all those kids, but she could talk to them like she’s known them all her life. And I
have
known them all my life, but I never know what to say, and I always feel like they’re laughing at me.”

“Like Anne thought Gilbert Blythe was laughing at her?” her father teased.

Melissa shook her head. “I don’t have a Gilbert Blythe. And besides, at least Anne had a bosom friend. I—”

But before she could say anything else, her father silenced her with a gentle finger to her lips. “You have Teri now,” he reminded her. “And it seems like she’s going to be as good a friend as you could want.”

Melissa suddenly felt foolish. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I was feeling sorry for myself.”

“Well, just stop,” her father told her. “You’re a very, very lucky little girl, and you should count your blessings. And,” he added, winking at her, “if you count them right, they just might help you beat me at tennis tomorrow morning.” He kissed her again, then stood up and went to the door. “Do you want me to leave the light on?” he asked.

Melissa shook her head, putting the book on her night table as her father turned off the light. He closed the door, plunging the room into darkness. Then her eyes began to adjust to the silvery glow of the rising moon that shone through the window. She snuggled deeper into the pillows and watched the shadows of the immense maple outside
her window dance against the ceiling. When she’d been much smaller, the shadows had sometimes frightened her, but now she enjoyed them, trying to imagine them as small creatures that enjoyed playing in her room while she slept. Finally, she closed her eyes and was about to drift off into sleep when she heard footsteps in the hall outside her door.

Her mother’s footsteps.

She stopped breathing, silently praying that the footsteps would move on, that tonight her mother wouldn’t come into her room. When the door opened, she knew her prayers were not to be answered.

She lay still, spacing out her breaths in the slow and steady pace of sleep, but a moment later she felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder.

“Melissa, I know you’re not asleep yet.”

Melissa rolled over and opened her eyes.

Above her, her mother’s silhouette loomed against the window.

“You were a bad girl today,” her mother said. Melissa’s mind raced as she tried to remember what she’d done to make her mother angry at her.

And in her mind she silently spoke to D’Arcy.
What did I do? What did I do to make her mad at me?

“You were rude to your friends again,” Phyllis said, almost as if she’d heard the unspoken question. “They saved Teri from drowning, and all you did was walk away.”

Melissa felt a knot of fear form in her stomach. That wasn’t how it had been! It wasn’t how it had been at all! The kids weren’t even talking to her—they were only talking to Teri! But it was like her birthday all over again—it wouldn’t matter what she told her mother. Her mother had already made up her mind what had happened. She said nothing, only staring up at her mother, waiting for whatever was to come. And then, in her mother’s hands, she saw the straps.

“N-No,” she stammered. “P-Please, Mama, don’t make me wear the straps.”

Her mother stared down at her. Her voice rose and fell in a strange singsong, as if she were speaking to an infant. “But you have to wear them. You’ve been a bad girl, and when you’re bad, you walk in your sleep. Give me your hand.”

Melissa, fighting back the scream of protest that rose in her throat, tried to raise her hand in fulfillment of her mother’s command, but her muscles refused to obey.

“Your hand!” Phyllis demanded, grabbing at Melissa’s arm and jerking it so hard that a wrenching pain slashed through the child’s shoulder. “How can you be such an
idiot?”

As the pain stabbed through her, Melissa cried out for help once again, and this time she heard D’Arcy’s silent answer, whispered to her from somewhere in the shadows of the night.

Sleep, Melissa—I’m here now, and you can go to sleep.

Even as she heard the words, Melissa relinquished herself to the darkness that began closing in around her, and left D’Arcy to accept whatever punishment her mother meted out.

Phyllis, poised above the bed, drew back her hand, ready to strike her disobedient child once again, but suddenly Melissa relaxed on the mattress and her arms came up as she held out her wrists to accept the thick leather straps.

One at a time Phyllis fastened the bands around Melissa’s wrists, then moved to the foot of the bed to attach the restraints to her ankles. Finally she connected the free ends of the straps to the bed frame, then covered Melissa with a thin sheet.

“It’s warm tonight,” she said, her voice gentle now as Melissa lay bound to the bed. “You won’t need a blanket at all. Sleep well.”

She leaned down and let her lips brush against Melissa’s forehead, then silently slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her.

In the bed, Melissa slept, though her eyes remained open as D’Arcy watched the shadows play silently on the walls.

Teri avoided the beach as she walked back to Maplecrest, instead moving slowly along a path that wound through the patches of woods separating the estates fronting on the cove. As she came to each house, she paused, gazing up at the silhouettes that seemed to loom even larger in the
moonlight. Most of them were dotted with brightly lit windows, and Teri crept across wide expanses of well-trimmed lawn to peer curiously in at the paneled walls and glowing chandeliers that seemed to fill every mansion.

Nowhere did she see anything to remind her of San Fernando and the tiny frame house in which she’d grown up.

All of it, though, had an odd familiarity about it, as if she’d come back from a long visit to a foreign land.

Here, she knew, was where she belonged.

At last she came to Maplecrest and skirted the tennis court, moving toward the large swimming pool. Suddenly, out of the darkness, she heard a low growl.

She froze for a second, her eyes searching the night around her. At last she saw a shadow that was even darker than the rest.

As she stared at it, another growl rose up from the blackness and the spot moved slightly, edging toward her.

“Blackie,” she whispered to herself, feeling a twinge of annoyance at the pang of fear she’d fallen victim to a few seconds earlier. As the dog crept closer, she lashed out at it with her left foot, then felt a twinge of satisfaction as the Labrador yelped in pain and leaped away from her.

A second later, though, she heard a voice call out from a few yards away. “Blackie? Blackie!”

The dog, crouched suspiciously on the ground just far enough away to be safe from another kick, turned slightly toward the sound of the voice and uttered a sharp bark. A moment later Tag stepped out of the shadows of the pool house and strode down the path, stopping short when he recognized Teri.

Blackie, his hackles raised, pressed against Tag’s legs, and once more a low growl rose from his throat. Tag reached down to soothe the dog, and Blackie yelped softly as his master’s fingers touched the spot where Teri had kicked him.

“What the hell’s going on?” Tag demanded, his eyes fixing on Teri. “Did you kick him?”

“Why would I do that?” Teri countered.

“Well, something happened to him. He’s got a sore spot. I can feel it swelling.”

Teri shrugged impatiently. “Well, what if I did? He was growling at me.”

“Jeez, that’s what he’s supposed to do,” Tag protested. “He’s just protecting the property.”

“Well, he could have bitten me,” Teri complained. “And you should have him locked up at night anyway—we could get sued if he went after someone.”

Tag’s eyes narrowed angrily. “He’s not going after anyone. All he ever does is bark—he’s never bitten anyone in his life.”

“Well, he sure acted like he was going to bite me,” Teri shot back. “And if you don’t do something about him, I’ll tell Phyllis!”

Tag said nothing. He took Blackie’s collar and led him away toward his grandmother’s house. But his mind was seething. Ever since the minute he’d seen Teri, Blackie hadn’t liked her. That first day he’d even run away from her. And to Tag that meant something—he’d long ago learned that if dogs didn’t like someone, there was a reason.

He paused and glanced back down the path toward the spot where Teri had been standing, but she was gone. “Okay, boy,” he said to the dog, releasing his grip on its collar. “Go on and finish your business. But stay away from Teri, huh? We don’t want her telling Mrs. Holloway on you, do we?” The dog bounded away into the woods, and once more Tag turned back toward the main house. Teri was just disappearing through the back door.

Satisfied that Blackie would get in no more trouble that night, he headed home.

Teri glanced at the back stairs that led directly from the kitchen to the upper floors of the house, but then walked the other way, moving through the butler’s pantry and dining room into the large entry hall, to go up the grand staircase to the second floor. The upstairs hallways were almost pitch-black, lit only at the head of the stairs by a dim lamp that stood on a sideboard on the landing. Teri paused for a moment, listening, but the house was silent—everyone had already gone to bed. She felt a twinge of anger—couldn’t her father have waited up for her? Apparently not. But if it had been Melissa out walking on the beach … she cut the thought short and switched off the single lamp that had been left for her, then went to her
room, not turning on the light until she was inside and the door was closed. She began taking off her clothes, but paused as she heard a sound.

A soft, sobbing sound, which almost seemed to come from the attic above her head.

She hesitated, then went on undressing.

The sound came again, muffled, but clearly audible.

Frowning, Teri pulled on the bathrobe Phyllis had given her and slipped out into the hall. She hesitated there, blinded by the darkness, but then her eyes adjusted to the moonlight that streamed through the enormous fanlight above the stairs’ landing, and she started down the hall toward the door that led to the attic.

She paused once more at the attic door, then made up her mind. Turning the knob, she pulled the door open.

Above her the attic was nothing but a yawning black chasm. Unconsciously holding her breath, she started up the stairs, not breathing again until she had reached the top.

Her fingers groped in the darkness for the light switch she knew was there. Finding it, she snapped on the bare bulb that hung suspended from the rafters a few yards away.

She choked back a scream as she saw a ghostly white form hovering in the darkness at the far end of the big chamber beneath the house’s eaves.

A moment later she began breathing again as she realized what it was—an old-fashioned dressmaker’s mannequin, draped in an equally old-fashioned white dress.

She hesitated, getting her bearings, then started through the attic toward the area above her room.

There, carved out of the main part of the attic, she found a small room with a single daybed and a chest of drawers.

The room was illuminated only by the pale moonlight, but as Teri looked around it, she had a strange feeling that although no one lived here anymore, the room was not completely abandoned. Frowning in the darkness, she went to the chest and began opening its drawers.

There was an old sewing box, still containing its needles and thread, scissors and thimbles.

Other than that, the chest was empty.

And then, once again, Teri heard the soft sobbing sound.

Only this time it seemed to come from beneath her feet.

She waited where she was, and the sob came again.

As she left the little room and made her way back to the head of the attic stairs, she carefully counted her steps. Finally, glancing once more at the old mannequin with its antiquated dress, she turned off the light and returned to the second floor.

Once again she counted her steps as she walked down the long corridor. Before she had reached the area beneath the little room in the attic, her progress was blocked by a door.