With One Look (35 page)

Dressed in a blue robe, Victor entered the room and noticed that Murray had already lit the lamps and started a fire beneath the brick mantel. He had also poured a warm brandy for Victor. He looked grave and concerned.

"What is it?" Victor asked, taking the brandy, swirling the gold liquid as he sat down. "I don't know exactly where to start now that I've finally got you here."

"How about the beginning?" Victor grinned, not yet alarmed.

"The beginning, well, that would be some time ago. It would be a night Jade wore a green silk dress that set off her eyes. It was because of the color of that dress that I noticed Jade's eyes worked just fine, despite the fact that she's blind. Since then I've seen it a hundred times.

"I never told you, Vic, but her pupils dilate and constrict, which means they adjust to shifts in the light. Eyes don't adjust unless they actually see light, and Jade should—at the very least—be able to perceive changes in light."

"What are you saying?" Victor asked slowly.

Murray paused for a moment, trying to decide the best approach.

"Let me explain it to you as it happened," he decided to say. "I was suspicious then. I started through my old medical books, though I never did find the article I was looking for. I finally posted a letter to Cambridge and had someone search through the library there. I just received the answer today."

The doctor began reading a case history taken straight from a medical book, making a mistake in assuming that Victor could follow the language. It sounded as indecipherable and foreign as Hindustanis After several minutes, Victor barely grasped the subject, let alone the point.

"Spell it out, Murray, and in English. The only thing I grasped was that some young lady was mute."

"It's a case of a young lady who had abruptly lost her voice, for no apparent medical reason and with no other symptoms. She couldn't utter a sound for over ten years, and then, on the day her mother died, her voice returned. Not only did her voice return, but a memory as well. It seems the day she had lost her voice, she had opened a door and discovered her father compromising the maid. She ran downstairs and was just about to tell her mother what she saw and she lost her voice, just like that—" He snapped fingers. "And in that same instant, too, she lost all memory of the coupling. Voice and memory returned only after her mother died."

Victor stood slowly and moved to the mantel. He stared at the fire through his brandy glass, resisting any connection between the story, his bizarre night of dreams, and hope. Patiently, Murray let his words sink into his friend's mind, but several long minutes passed before Victor spoke. "God, don't give me some false hope. I couldn't take it right now," he whispered. "There must have been dissenting medical opinions as to the cause of that lady's muteness."

"Aye, there always are, Vic, but I've been over them real careful and they're sewn as loosely as fishing nets. No, Vic, that young lady lost her voice solely because she couldn't bear to hurt her mother. And if a young woman can lose her voice because she came across her father compromising a maid, a little girl could lose her sight because she saw her mother hanging from a rope and her father shot in the head."

"We aren't even absolutely certain that happened!"

"Aren't we? Vic, the pieces fit together perfectly. Jade's head injury was in the wrong place to cause blindness. Her eyes do function. We already know her seizures don't cause her blindness, but rather block her memory. There is no physical reason for her blindness."

"I can't believe that! How could she make herself blind—how could anyone look at something, no matter how horrible, and make themselves blind because of it? I just don't see how it could be possible!"

The doctor paused, knowing this was the most difficult aspect to explain. In many ways, the answer to Victor's question could never be understood completely. He'd do his best, though.

"You see, Vic. I think it probably went something like this: The moment Jade saw her mother like that, she closed her eyes and shut the horror out. Just like that it was gone, and somehow, it's as if her mind struck a bargain with her heart and said, So long as you keep your eyes shut, so long as you're blind, you won't have to see it; you won't have to remember it."

Victor greeted this phenomenal situation by first trying to deny its possibility, and yet as his mind turned it over and over, he couldn't. It was all true. They knew no reason for her blindness. She had no memory of what happened, and yet they knew something monstrous had occurred, something too horrible for a thirteen-year-old girl to ever assimilate into the sanity of her mind.

His heartbeat escalated when Murray said slowly: "I believe that it can be reversed."

Victor saw, already knew, as Murray explained the logical conclusion—if Jade was forced to remember, forced to have seizures until she remembered, if she ever did remember—she would see again. The prophecy of his dream would come true. He was being shown a way, at least a possibility, of restoring Jade's sight. It was not just that her blindness and subsequent accidents threatened their love; he believed her blindness conceivably could threaten her very life at some future point. Just as in his dream, he never hesitated. There was no choice for him.

One does not get anything in life for nothing; there is always a price. Victor knew the price was proportionate to the gain. The price he would pay to make Jade see again would be heavy, perhaps the heaviest price he had ever paid, for he would be the one to force her into that pain.

"I never told you, but that night at Marie's, I had a dream about Jade's blindness." He waved his hand as if to dismiss the very possibility, a dismissal contradicted by his next words, the very race of his thoughts. "Not only did I dream of her mother telling me this would happen, that I'd find a means to restore Jade's sight, but I dreamt ... I dreamt of her house. It was so vivid, as if I

was really there. There was something wrong with the house, a scent in the air or something, a feeling of terror about to happen."

Victor told Murray his whole dream, concluding with, "She opened the door and this blinding light exploded in my head with a hot burning pain. I can't describe it but it was ... bad, very bad. And I'm wondering if that is the pain I'm going to make her feel?"

After a long contemplative pause, Murray said simply, "You have to, Vic." "Aye, I have to."

They discussed what had to be done long into the night, examining it from every conceivable angle. The unknown variable in the equation was the number of seizures Jade would have before she remembered. They made no mistake on that point. It would not be two or three, but closer to twelve and perhaps as high as twenty. Years of darkness simply could not be undone easily. He'd have to force one seizure after another, wake her from unconsciousness with smelling salts before forcing a seizure again.

He selected the day.

*****

Jade felt a lingering warmth and a trace of the clean masculine scent she loved where he had slept, and she smiled, wishing he were still there. Dressed only in his shirt, she got up and made her way into the dressing room.

"Wolf Dog?" Where was he?

A fire crackled in the hearth, its small warmth unable to fight the morning chill. After finishing in the dressing room, she dashed back to the bed and buried herself in the covers. Just two more minutes of warmth, she told herself.

Watching her sudden flight from a chair, Victor stood and moved to the bed. Jade heard his footsteps and sat up. "Victor?" she asked as his arms came around her. "Where's Wolf Dog?"

"I took him out to give him a bone." She smiled. "You were watching me?"

He said what he always said to that. "I'm always watching you." And he was. For a long moment he lost himself to the study of the lovely upturned face, the pale soft skin, as soft and smooth as rose petals, the feminine velvet of her thin brows, the rush of color on her cheeks, and the thick mass of dark hair falling over his arm, and all the love there, as if a great beacon of light shone from within.

Forgive me, Jade. Forgive me ...

His lips came to hers, gently, tenderly at first. He had, she knew, as many ways of kissing as the sun had of shining, and as the kiss deepened and deepened more, a tremor of alarm passed through her. One sensation emerged through the sweeping onslaught of emotion: desperation, a desperation born of fear. In the next moment, the feeling dissipated, vanishing beneath the shimmering heat of this kiss. His strong hands slid under her shirt to draw her tightly against the steely strength of his body. Oh my, oh Lord, the kiss stole every last thought as her arms circled his neck, searching for a lifeline as she felt herself swooning.

He broke the kiss but kept her close as he closed his eyes. "Jade, I love you.”

She felt his fear. She stretched out a hand to find his face. "Victor," she asked in a whisper of concern, "what's wrong?"

"I am afraid, Jade. I am so afraid.”

He wrapped her in a quilt and guided her outside to the breakfast table on the balcony, lifting her to his lap. He poured her a cup of coffee. Murray, who would be waiting downstairs all day, had cautioned against allowing her to eat any breakfast.

"What's wrong?"

Victor stared out over the garden. The rain had stopped, though the sky was still washed with gray. The land held a moist dew in the storm's aftermath, sparkling with colors of green, crimson and gold. How beautiful the world was! He wanted to share it with her. He wanted it more than anything in the world.

"What if I found a way to restore your sight, but in order to do so I had to hurt you, perhaps even badly. Would you want me to do it?"

"What?" she whispered. "You heard me."

The next breath brought a wave of alarm and in its wake was dread. Here it was again.

Again. So soon. This was a nightmare. Now he had fantasies about making her see.

"Victor," she said with soft yet vicious seriousness, "I am blind. I will always be blind. You can't seem to accept it—"

"Answer my question."

It was the first show of the monster born of her resistance. She refused to cooperate. "I will not answer this—"

She started to get up, but he stopped her. Alarm changed to panic as emotions welled inside her, threatening, rising—

"I won't answer you! I don't understand—"

"You don't have to understand. Answer the question, yes or no." "Victor, I—"

"Answer me."

"Yes, yes, of course I would want to see again, but—" "Even if I hurt you by causing your seizures?"

She went very still, alerted to something she didn't understand. "Seizures? You would want me to have a seizure? You don't really think you could make me see again? You're just saying all this—"

go!”

"I do think I can make you see again."

"Nooo!" She tried to get up and away from him, but he held her effortlessly. "No! Let me

"Not until you remember what happened when a thirteen-year-old girl opened the door to

her parents' bedroom and saw something—dear Lord—something so terrible..."

She never heard the rest. The images started in her mind as she stared vacantly into space.

Her face abruptly drained of color. He released her arms just as she grabbed her head to brace against the blinding burst of pain.

A scream sounded in the still morning air. Tessie was on her way to Jade. "Oh, Lord!" Murray caught her halfway up. "Tessie! Stop!" She paused and turned.

"You're not going in there today!"

"But ... Jade!" she cried. "A seizure! She's having a seizure!" "Come back down, Tessie, and I'll explain it to you."

Tessie hesitated, turning from him to the door, obviously confused by his order. “Come on, Tessie. Vic's in there with her. I’ll explain what's going on."

After setting Jade gently to the bed, Victor stood over her with smelling salts, still startled by the ferocity of the seizure. It took over half an hour with the salts before her eyes opened. She sat up, looking confused and disoriented. He reached a hand to her, which she quickly grasped. "Oh my," she said, holding her head. "I had a seizure in my sleep. It's been so long now, I—"

"No, Jade," he said, lowering his voice as he leaned closer. "You didn't have a seizure in your sleep. We were out at the breakfast table when I told you I was going to make you see again by forcing you to remember the accident. The real accident." And he repeated his exact words: "What happened when a thirteen-year-old girl opened the door to her parents' bedroom and—"

Four more seizures followed. Each was the same as the one before: he never even let her out of the bed before he threw the words at her, watched the same progression that led to the burst of white light, the violent jolt of pain, and her collapse into unconsciousness. When she regained consciousness, confused and disoriented, she thought she had just wakened, that the seizure had occurred during sleep.

After the seventh time, he woke her after just five minutes. She opened her eyes. "My God, you're weakening!"

Fear changed her features. Before he touched her, she scurried to the far end of the bed.

Before he said anything, she covered her ears with her hands and shut her eyes tight.

Seizures! He was making her have seizures! How? Why? The pain, oh Lord, the pain.

She'd not survive a single time more!

Victor stepped around the side of the bed, but as he reached for her, she scrambled away. "Don't touch me!" She covered her ears again and said, "You're s-scaring me, you're

making me—"

Victor leaned over the bed, effortlessly lifting her from it. He brought her backside against him, holding her arms tight. He felt her tremble and he closed his eyes.

Her fear was his own pain.

"Do you know why I'm scaring you?" Breathing fast, she squirmed desperately, and he held her with a firm gentleness that allowed no escape. "Do you, Jade?"

"Nooo ... No. I—'"

"Because I'm going to make you see again. All you have to do is remember seeing your mother dead. Remember opening the bedroom door—"