to a steadier rate.
Earlier in the day she’d crammed a handful of yellow and purple pansies into a jelly glass, and now the warm pool of light from the lamp cast a velvety glow on them. On the wall just above the bedside table was an antique framed lithograph of two children walking hand in hand across a rickety bridge over a chasm; behind them an angel with flowing golden hair watched out for their safety. It had hung there for as long as she could remember. The photograph beside it had been there for years, too. It showed a skinny little boy in swimming trunks, standing on a dock and proudly holding up a trout as big as his arm.
She swayed slightly. King leaned his body solidly against her leg, his attention focused on her.
The overstuffed chair by the bed was covered in a faded maroon fabric, and there was a lump in the back where a spring had worked its way loose, but she’d read Gone With the Wind for the first time sitting in that chair. Besides, if she replaced it she’d have to throw out the small, drum-shaped maroon leather hassock that went with it so well, and she knew she’d never be able to do that.
She’d taken that hassock out of Davey’s room soon after it had happened, tugging it down the hallway with all her five-year-old might, just to have something of him close by in that frightening and confusing time. It still had the tiny rip in it from when one of his fishhooks had torn through the leather and he’d made her promise not to tell on him.
The stone was pressing into the bones of her hand, and she relaxed her grip on it slightly. The small bookcase by the easy chair, the dark green braided rug by the bed that King slept on, the leaf-patterned curtains at the window—everything was comfortingly familiar. They hadn’t changed since she was a child, and their very shabbiness was part of what she’d come back here for, two years ago.
Time stood still in this forgotten corner of upstate New York. If she got in her Jeep and drove down the rutted dirt road to town, if she took the turning just past Mason’s Corners that led to the highway, she knew that she’d find the rest of the world was spinning as erratically and as violently as she remembered. But she wasn’t going to take that drive, Julia thought with bleak determination. The outside world had come close to crushing her once, and only this sanctuary had kept her from self-destructing completely.
She was safe here. She wouldn’t allow anything to upset the fragile equilibrium she’d finally achieved. And if the nightmares were the price she had to pay, then she’d just have to deal with them one night at a time.
She slipped the stone into her robe pocket and dropped her hand onto King’s head. “No television, no newspapers, no phone. Just you and me and the lake and the woods, buddy. And that’s the way we’re going to keep it.” She absently ruffled the spot at the back of his ear that he never could quite reach himself, and he heaved a sigh of pure contentment. As she left the room he padded like a silent bodyguard behind her.
The electric clock on the kitchen wall showed almost three-thirty. In another hour she could walk down to the dock and wait for the sun to rise. Instead of reaching for a saucepan to heat milk in, Julia filled the battered tin percolator with cold water from the kitchen tap and spooned coffee grounds into the metal basket that sat inside. She switched on the stove burner and almost fell over King as she turned to sit down at the kitchen table. The brown eyes looking up at her held a hint of reproach.
“Oh—right.” She no longer worried that she sounded crazy, talking to him as if he could understand every word she said—if anything, having him as a companion had probably helped her stay sane. Besides, she wasn’t absolutely sure he didn’t understand English. “One late-night snack, coming up.” She opened the cupboard over the counter and pulled down the bag of Milk-Bones, and as she did her glance fell on the tall, square-sided bottle pushed to the back, half-hidden behind the bags of rice and macaroni. For a moment its contents caught the light and shone liquidly gold.
“Like a gentleman,” she said, holding out the biscuit. King obliged, taking the treat from her with almost ludicrous daintiness and then settling down in the corner by the door to the screened-in back porch to crunch it enthusiastically with his strong white teeth. She folded the bag closed again, put it back on the shelf and started to shut the cupboard door. Then she stopped.
She kept it there to prove to herself that she could leave it alone. Being afraid to even look at it gave it the very power over her that she was trying to deny. She raised herself on her tiptoes, reached past the bag of rice and grasped the bottle by its neck.
It was full. She’d bought it two winters ago, on one of her infrequent trips to town, and the owner of the liquor store had rung her purchase up quizzically, obviously expecting her to be back later in the week. At the time Julia was half-convinced that his cynical guess would turn out to be right. She’d unpacked her groceries when she’d gotten home, and after she’d put everything else away she’d sat down and pulled the bottle out of its brown paper bag. She’d set it in the middle of the kitchen table—for some reason, she remembered, it had been vitally important that it sat in the exact right spot—and she’d stared at it.
Later that afternoon it had begun to snow, and the wind had whistled off the frozen lake in steadily increasing gusts. King had dozed fitfully at her feet, whining uneasily in his sleep, and she had continued to sit there, staring at the bottle and knowing that all she had to do was reach out her hand, unscrew the cap and pour herself that first drink to blunt the razor-like memories that were crowding in.
Outside, the sun had put on a brief, bloody display before sinking below the horizon, and then the shadows had deepened and strengthened into night. With total darkness had come the ghosts, as they always did, but this time she had been facing them alone. She’d been aware of them, just at the corner of her vision, grouped around her silently.
She’d known who they were and what they wanted. They wanted her to remember, but remembering would be fatal. Keeping her gaze fixed on the bottle in the exact middle of her kitchen table, she had fought two battles that night—one against a false ally and one against enemies who had never meant her any harm.
When morning had come, a thin gray light edging the far side of the lake, she’d still been sitting there but the bottle was unopened.
And all the ghosts except one had faded away.
He was with her now. He’d always be with her, she thought wearily. It had been his name that she’d screamed out in her nightmare, him that she’d been calling for, and it was his ghost that she’d never been strong enough to push away completely. Sometimes she thought that if she whirled around as fast as she could, she’d catch him standing behind her, that straight black hair falling into one dark eye the way it used to, that wryly devastating smile hitching up the corner of his mouth. Sometimes just before she fell asleep she was sure she could almost hear his voice—husky and incongruously soft for such a big man, as if he’d never found a need to raise it—calling her name.
Those nights were the worst.
The percolator began to rattle and looking over at the stove, Julia saw coffee splashing up like a miniature fountain inside the glass knob of the lid. She slid the pot off the element. He was gone. She had made sure of that herself, had left him no reason to stay with her. It had been deliberate on her part, and it had worked. He was gone, and she knew that after their last confrontation he would never come back. He was probably married by now, she thought, pouring coffee into an ironware mug. She closed her eyes and took a sip. He’d been the marrying kind. He’d wanted a family of his own.
The coffee that had been boiling only seconds ago flooded her mouth with scalding heat, and she put the mug down hastily, feeling the prickle of tears behind her eyelids in reaction. He’d be married, and his wife would be strong and uncomplicated, able to take whatever life
