The Unwanted (7 page)

Jennifer’s eyes lit with sudden excitement. “Really?”

Cassie nodded. “Why don’t you go down and tell your mother, and if she says it’s all right, we’ll just start moving your stuff back into your room, okay?”

Jennifer squealed with delight, and darted out of the room. A second later Cassie heard her pounding down the
stairs. Then, alone in the room, she let herself feel it once more.

As before, it felt right.

This house wasn’t hers, and the people she lived with weren’t hers. Not really. But this room, for some reason she couldn’t quite understand, truly felt as though it belonged to her, and she was meant to have it. Here she would feel comfortable, feel safe.

When Rosemary appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, Cassie was still by the window, sitting on its ledge.

“Cassie?” Rosemary asked. For a moment the girl didn’t move. “Cassie, is something wrong? Is there anything I can do?”

Cassie looked at her then, and fleetingly Rosemary had the impression that the girl was somewhere else, somewhere far removed from the little bedroom. Then something in Cassie’s eyes changed, and she smiled.

“No. I just think I should have this room, and Jennifer should have the other one. Is it all right?”

For a moment Rosemary was tempted to argue, tempted to point out that surely Cassie would need the extra space much more than Jennifer. But as her eyes met Cassie’s, she changed her mind. For in Cassie’s eyes she saw something that suddenly worried her.

Keith’s stubbornness, like Jennifer’s, was in his jaw, and was nothing more than a physical feature. But Cassie’s was reflected in her eyes, and that, Rosemary knew, was something else entirely. Cassie’s stubbornness was in her spirit, and Rosemary was suddenly quite certain that once this girl made up her mind about something, it would be very difficult to change it.

“If that’s what you want,” she said at last, “I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t have it.”

But as she left the room a moment later, Rosemary had the strange feeling that although Cassie’s voice had betrayed nothing, the two of them had just had their first confrontation, and Cassie had won.

That’s ridiculous
, she told herself. All she did was make a very nice gesture toward Jennifer, and I should accept it at face vlaue.

But for some reason she couldn’t. And as she went back
down the stairs, she realized why. All through their conversation she’d had the unsettling feeling that she wasn’t truly talking to Cassie at all, but to someone else, some persona Cassie had devised to present to the world. Beneath that persona, Rosemary thought, there was someone else—the real Cassie.

Of that person, she was certain, nothing at all had been exposed.

    Eric finished his yard work at six-thirty, put the tools back into the garage, swung its lopsided door shut, and started across the driveway toward the back door. At least the lawn looked all right, and he’d gotten most of the weeds out of the garden. But the Cavanaughs’ house still didn’t look nearly as nice as the Winslows’ house next door, and Eric knew exactly why: paint.

If he could only talk his father into buying a few gallons of white paint, Eric knew he could make their house look a lot better than it did. But he also knew it was hopeless, for he’d asked his father about it last year. Ed had only glowered darkly at him and told him he should keep his mind on his schoolwork and not worry about the house. “Besides,” he had added, “I don’t have money to waste just to put on a show for the neighbors. Only reason to paint a house is to sell it, and I don’t plan to sell this place.”

But there was another reason why his father wouldn’t buy paint, and Eric knew all too well what it was: most of Ed Cavanaugh’s money was spent on liquor.

It had happened again today. His father had left right after breakfast, having announced that he was going down to the pier to finish the repair job on the
Big Ed
. But when lunchtime came around and his father hadn’t come home, both Eric and his mother had known where Ed was, though neither of them had said anything. Then, half an hour ago, the truck had pulled into the driveway. When his father climbed down from the driver’s seat, Eric immediately knew that he was drunk. His step was unsteady, and his eyes held the bright glaze of anger that meant he was looking for a fight. Eric had looked away as quickly as he could, concentrating on clipping the edge of the lawn next to the sidewalk. But he hadn’t been quick enough.

“You staring at something, boy?” Ed had growled. “Well, let me tell you something—anyone works as hard as I do deserves a little relaxation, and if I stop off for a coupla beers with my friends, that’s my business. Got it?”

Eric had nodded mutely, not daring to challenge his father, but sure in his own mind that it had been a lot more than a couple of beers his father had shared with his friends. Maybe it started that way, but after the second beer Ed would have switched to a shot of whiskey with a beer chaser, and bought the same thing for anyone willing to listen to him talk while they drank his booze. Only when there was no one left willing to listen, would his father have finally come home. Eric kept his mouth shut and his eyes on his work, and after a few seconds which seemed to stretch out into eternity, his father had shambled down the driveway and into the house.

Now, unable to put off going inside any longer, Eric pulled the screen door open and went into the service porch. He could hear his father’s voice from the kitchen beyond. Though he couldn’t see him, Eric knew Ed was sitting in the breakfast nook, a half-empty glass of bourbon in front of him, his glazed eyes fixed dangerously on his wife.

“Some reason why supper’s late again?” Ed Cavanaugh was saying, his voice slurring slightly, his words edged with bitter sarcasm. “You been doing something useful again, like sitting on your ass watching TV all day? Seems to me if I can work all day, the least you could do is have my meals ready when I get home.”

“I’m sorry, Ed,” Laura replied, her voice barely audible. “But I’m fixing you a roast, and it’s just taking a little longer than I expected.”

Eric moved into the kitchen. The oven door was open, and his mother bent down in front of it, tapping the meat thermometer with a wooden spoon. As Eric watched, she removed the roast from the oven and set it on the counter.

“Smells good, Mom,” Eric offered, hoping to deflect his father’s anger.

“It should,” Ed growled. “The price they get for that crap, and all it is is gristle.”

“Aw, come on, Dad,” Eric protested when he saw his mother’s eyes start to flood with tears. “Mom cooks great—”

Suddenly Ed was out of the breakfast nook, his bulk
planted in front of his son, his eyes blazing with fury. “What the hell do you know about it?” he demanded. “You an expert on cooking too?” His right hand rose threateningly.

“Ed, don’t!” Laura protested. “Eric didn’t do anything.”

But it was too late. Ed’s arm flashed downward and his open palm smashed against Eric’s left cheek, twisting his head around. Eric staggered, stunned by the blow. Then, as his own eyes flooded with tears of pain, he rushed out of the kitchen and up the stairs toward his room.

“And don’t come back down till you can show some respect!” he heard his father shouting after him.

Eric lay on his bed, still seething from the blow his father had dealt him nearly three hours before. The stinging on his cheek had diminished, but in his head the rage he felt only grew stronger.

I’m going to kill him
, he thought.
Someday he’s going to hit me once too often, and I’m just going to kill him
. Staring at the shadows that played over the ceiling of his room, wishing the anger would subside so sleep would come, he found himself beginning to fantasize about how he could do it.

How he could actually kill his father.

The boat would be the easiest way. There were all kinds of things he could do to the boat, and nobody would ever know what had really happened. If it sank, no one would even think twice about it. His father took such crummy care of the
Big Ed
, it was a miracle it hadn’t sunk already.

Except that deep in his heart, Eric knew he would never do it. He might dream about it, might even figure out exactly how it could be done, but when it came to actually doing it, he knew he wouldn’t.

Because in the end his father was still his father.

He tossed restlessly on the bed and punched at the pillow. If only he could understand why his father was always mad at him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t try to please him—he did. But for some reason nothing he said or did was ever good enough.

His mother always told him it wasn’t his fault, that he should just try to ignore it when his father got drunk and
started beating up on him. But how could he when no matter how hard he tried, it always seemed to turn out wrong?

The rage and frustration grew. Eric tossed and turned, twisting the bed covers. If he didn’t do something, he was going to start ripping the bed apart.

He got up and went to the window. Outside, beyond the suddenly confining walls of the house, the night was calm and peaceful. The first of the tree frogs were beginning to chirp softly to each other, and in the distance he could just make out the sounds of a low surf washing the beach.

Maybe he should go out—just go for a walk—until he was calm enough to sleep. He started to pull on a heavy sweater, then stopped, aware that he could not leave the house.

Often on nights like this when his father was drunk and angry, he came into Eric’s room late, his fury still not expended. If Eric wasn’t there, it would enrage Ed more, and he’d turn on the only other person in the house.

His mother.

Better to take the beatings himself than have to watch his mother’s silent suffering as she nursed her bruises in the morning.

Trapped in his room, he stared out across the driveway to the Winslows’ house, where the window to Jennifer’s room stood open.

That, too, was sometimes the subject of his fantasies. Some nights he lay awake for hours, wondering what it would be like to live there, where no angry words ever erupted in the night and everyone seemed to love each other.

Suddenly there was a flicker of movement in the window across the driveway, and a face appeared. But it wasn’t Jennifer’s face.

It was Cassie’s.

His eyes met hers, and for a long moment they simply looked at each other. As the moment stretched on, Eric slowly began to feel his anger draining away. It was as if in the look that passed between them, Cassie had somehow understood the feelings he was experiencing, had let him know that she understood.

At last Cassie smiled slightly and nodded, then disappeared from the window.

Long after she was gone, Eric stayed at the window, trying to figure out what had happened. After several minutes had passed, he felt something else.

Somewhere in the night something was watching him.

His gaze shifted then, to scan the little graveyard that lay behind his yard as well as the Winslows’. At first he could see nothing but the shadows of the trees and the tombstones, but then, slowly emerging from the night, a shape took form. It was indistinct at first, but as he concentrated on it, he suddenly knew what it was.

Miranda.

The strange woman who lived alone outside the village. But what was she doing here in the middle of the night, watching his house?

And then, as the dark figure moved slightly and became clearer, he realized that it wasn’t his house Miranda was watching.

It was the house next door.

Like himself, Miranda was watching the room in which Cassie Winslow now lived.

Cassie awoke in the blackness of the hours before dawn, her heart thumping, her skin damp with a cold sweat that made her shiver. For a moment she didn’t know where she was. Then, as she listened to the unfamiliar sound of surf pounding in the distance, the dream began to fade away, and she remembered where she was.

She was in False Harbor, and this was where she lived now. In the room next to her, her stepsister was asleep, and down the hall her father was in bed with her stepmother.

Then why did she feel so alone?

It was the dream, of course.

It had come to her again in the night. Again she had seen the strange woman who should have been her mother but was not.

Again, as Cassie watched in horror, the car burst into flames, and Cassie, vaguely aware that she was in a dream, had expected to wake up, as she had each time the nightmare had come to her.

This time, though she wanted to turn and run, she stood where she was, watching the car burn.

This time there had been no laughter shrieking from the woman’s lips, no sound of screams, no noise at all. The flames had risen from the car in an eerie silence, and then, just as Cassie was about to turn away, the stranger had suddenly emerged from the car.

Clad in black, the figure had stood perfectly still, untouched by the flames that raged around her. Slowly, she raised one hand. Her lips moved and a single word drifted over the crowded freeway, came directly to Cassie’s ears over the faceless mass of people streaming by in their cars.

“Cassandra …”

The word hung in the air for a moment. Then the woman turned, and as soundlessly as she had emerged, stepped back into the flames.

Instinctively Cassie had started toward her, wanting to pull her back from the flames, wanting to save her.

The silence of the dream was shattered then by the blaring of a horn and the screaming of tires skidding on pavement.

Cassie looked up just in time to see a truck bearing down on her, the enormous grill of its radiator only inches from her face.

As the truck smashed into her she woke up, her own scream of terror choked in her throat.

Her heartbeat began to slow, and her shivering stopped. Now the room seemed to close in on her, and she found it hard to breathe. Slipping out of bed, she crossed to the window at the far end of the narrow room and lifted it open. As she was about to go back to bed, a movement in the darkness outside caught her eye.

She looked down into the cemetery on the other side of the back fence. At first she saw nothing. Then she sensed the movement again, and a dark figure came into view. Clad in black, perfectly silent, a woman stood in the shadows cast by the headstones.