A Lady Under Siege(22)

“I hit it!” she exclaimed proudly.

“Good for you. Now you’re hooked. Are you holding the club properly?”

“Why is it called a club? It looks like a stick.”

“Just a minute.” From a tangle of junk in the back corner of his yard he extricated an old kitchen chair, the kind with a vinyl seat and chrome legs. He carried it to the fence and stood on it so he could look over the top and watch her. She had retrieved the ball and was preparing to whack it again, aiming at the fence, directly at him.

“Wait wait wait. I’m in the line of fire here,” he told her. “Turn so I can see you from the side. That’s the best way to advise you on your form. Aim toward your house.”

“I might hit a window.”

“Ha! I don’t think you have the biceps to do damage. Keep your hands close together. Choke up a little on the grip.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Never mind, just swing away.”

She gave it her best. Putting aside apprehension and doubt, and drawing on all the strength her girlish arms could muster, she spanked the little white sphere as hard as she could. To her surprise she connected cleanly, solidly—the ball rocketed out of the grass toward the house, and with a delicate crack it struck and splintered one of the dozen small panes of glass in the back door. Shards tinkled onto the deck floor.

“Holy shit! Lookit! I broke it,” she screamed. “Thanks to you I broke it!” She rushed up onto the deck to check the damage.

“Not thanks to me,” Derek said. “I didn’t break it, the ball broke it. Who knew you had such power? You’re a natural. Don’t worry about the glass. I’ll fix it, I promise. I’ll get right on it.”

Betsy looked anxiously at the jagged splinters that radiated from where the ball had struck the glass. One splinter hung like a loose tooth. She gingerly took hold and tugged on it. It came loose in her hand. She dropped it carefully to the floor.

“Don’t be messing around,” Derek warned. “You’ll slice your finger off—those things are razor sharp.”

“I’m being careful,” she replied. She pulled another shark’s tooth shard loose, then another, driven by an impulse to hide the damage from her mother by tidying up the mess. If all the splinters are removed then the broken pane won’t look broken, it’ll look clear, like all the others, she thought. She extracted two more splinters, then tugged on a smaller one that refused to budge. Her grip slipped and she felt a sharp pain. She held her hand up and saw blood dripping down into the V between her fingers. She turned to Derek and showed it to him, like a helpless, frightened toddler.

To Derek at the fence it looked like a bloody peace symbol, a crimson V for victory. A thin rivulet of blood trickled down to her elbow and dripped onto the deck. He muttered, “Jesus Christ,” then said firmly, “Go get your mother.”

“She’s not home.”

“You told me she was home.”

Betsy shook her head.

“Go run that thing under cold water in the kitchen sink. I’m coming over.”

She stood frozen by panic, too shocked by the sight of blood to move.

“Do it now!” he shouted. That reached her. He watched her disappear into the house, then placed his hands on the cross beam of the fence, and vaulted up to balance one foot atop it. He swung his other foot up and over, but miscalculated and felt the momentum of his body pitching him forward, then downward, head first. Like a rider thrown from a horse he felt the fence give out under him, an eight-foot panel of slats ripping from its poles and collapsing in a clatter of planks onto Betsy’s garden. He came down on top of it, and rolled onto the lawn, unhurt, picked himself up and headed toward the open back door. He found her at the kitchen sink, shaking. He called out, “Betsy! Do you have bandages?” and realized he was yelling.





13





“So what I’m hearing you say is, you don’t believe you’re dreaming. Instead, in your sleep, you’re observing this young woman, this Sylvanne, as she goes about her real, actual life in some other time and place.”

“That’s it, exactly.”

Jan had proved as good as her word—she had phoned Anne Billings and begged her to investigate the curious case of the Lady under siege, who came each night to Meghan in an unbidden, relentless, haunting dream. The psychologist had been intrigued enough to suggest a meeting, and by chance had a cancellation for the next day, a Saturday afternoon. Meghan had jumped at the offer, even though it meant leaving Betsy alone at home again. Now the two women sat in comfortable high-backed armchairs in a book-lined office.