The Back Door of Midnight (18 page)

“I met up with some of your friends.”

“Not my friends,” he said.

“Okay. Erika’s. Three of them.”

He turned my hands, examining my scraped palms. “Let’s go inside.”

“I’ll go inside. You go home.”

“Did they knock you down?” He crouched to check my knees.

“Obviously.”

“Did they do anything else?” His voice sounded as thin and tight as mine.

“Just held me there while they delivered their message.”

“Which was?”

“To keep my nose out of Erika’s business.”

He stood up, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Did they have a weapon?”

“A knee in my back, and my hair—that made a nice weapon; they kept yanking on it, then pushing my face in the road.” My voice broke.

“Oh, Anna.”

I stiffened and took a step back. Zack was her friend, just like
they
were her friends.

“Where did it happen?”

“Near the fire site. On the dirt road.”

“I’ll drive you to a doctor.”

“I don’t need one.”

“You should be checked out,” he insisted, and took a step closer.

I turned sideways. “I’m just a little rattled.”

He laid his hand on my back. As gentle as it was, I winced.

He winced too. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Anna, I am so sorry.”

“Go home . . . please. I just need . . . a few minutes by myself.” That line had worked the last time.

“Not this time,” he said.

I had no energy left to argue. I turned toward the kitchen entrance, and he followed me. The weather and the trees made
it seem like twilight. He searched for the wall switch and flicked it on. “Your aunt’s car is gone,” he observed. “I guess she’s out.”

“She wanders off at different times. I don’t know where.”

“Maybe you should put on some dry clothes. I’ll help you upstairs.”

“No.” I lowered myself onto a wooden chair very gingerly.

“Could you have broken any bones?”

“Everything moves. I’m just bruised.”

He nodded, then began searching the kitchen cabinets. I watched without asking what he was looking for. I felt as if one huge sob was building in my heart.

Returning with a bowl of water and several soft cloths, he pulled a chair close to mine and began to clean the cuts on my arms. I sat still, watching his hands, the way I used to watch my mother’s when I’d had a bad day at dodgeball.

“Did you see the guys who did this to you?”

I shook my head. “Just the backs of them when they were running away. They warned me not to go to the police. They said not to tell anyone. I guess that would include you. They said they would know if I told and they wouldn’t be as friendly next time.”

I stared at his neck rather than his face and saw him swallow hard. He stood up, brought back fresh water, lukewarm, and gently washed my forehead and cheeks. He knelt on the
floor in front of me and examined my knees. “Looks as if you went down on your right one,” he said, wetting a clean cloth and touching it lightly to a large brush burn. I stiffened my leg, fighting the instinct to yank it away. He glanced up. “I’m going to pinch your calf. Just a few pinches, okay?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a guy goose me on the calf,” I replied, trying to joke my way out of the pain.

He did what he said, cleaning the cut and pinching at the same time. “This is how my dad used to do it when I’d come home banged up. The theory is that the pinch sends signals to the brain that help drown out the pain signals from the wound. I thought it was worth a try.”

Zack finished cleaning the other leg, then sat back on his heels. “How do you feel?”

“Okay.”

“Is there a first-aid kit around, something with an antibiotic ointment?”

“I have a kit in the back of my car. I’ll get it later.”

“I’ll get it for you,” he said.

“I’m not helpless.” I sounded angry.

There was a moment of tense silence, then he tapped me on the foot. “If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that
you
are not helpless.” He rose and rinsed out the rags, washed out the bowl with soap and water, and laid everything on the drain board.

“Why did you go back to the fire site?” he asked when he was done.

“I was looking for the place where my uncle was murdered.”

“The police must have already searched the area,” he replied. “The farm is large, with acres of it leased out to other growers, but I’m sure it’s been searched thoroughly. When a body is found, everyone starts looking.”

“Have you ever seen a place that has a wall with notches along the top, like the wall of a castle? There’s a door in the wall or some way to get through. There are pathways and a statue of a rabbit. Have you ever seen anything like that? Outside of Disney World,” I added, aware of how silly it sounded.

Zack shook his head no, then looked at me thoughtfully. “But you have. You see things the way a psychic does.”

“At night, when I sleep”—I hesitated, but he’d already figured out that something strange was going on inside my head—“I have these things called O.B.E.s, out-of-body experiences.”

Zack sat on the kitchen chair next to mine. “You mean like people who are resuscitated? The ones who say they have floated outside their bodies and watched a medical staff working on them?”

“According to the books I’ve been reading, some people have O.B.E.s even when they’re not dying. Last Wednesday night, I thought that I was dreaming about a fire. Kids were
there. I heard them laughing and throwing bottles. Then there were sirens and everyone ran. I heard my uncle’s voice calling to me, telling me to be careful. A few days later, when I came to Wisteria, I found out he was dead and his body had been burned in a fire that same night. When I went to the site, it was the same place I had seen while sleeping. The night I heard you and Erika talking about me, I was in bed, but somehow, I was there at the fire site, too.”

Zack’s only response was to blink.

“I’ve had three O.B.E.s, each time visiting the fire site. But during the last two, I started out in a different place, the one with the wall and the rabbit, and I’m wondering if that is where my uncle started—if somehow I’ve connected with him and am visiting the place where he was murdered.”

“Have you said anything to the sheriff?”

“No. He’d probably think I’m just a crazy O’Neill. I want to try to find the place first. Do you know anything about—”

I was about to mention Audrey’s husband when two cats raced past us and hurled themselves against the screen door.

Zack spun around. “What was that?”

“Aunt Iris is coming,” I said, getting up to let out the cats.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t; the cats do. They line up on Uncle Will’s truck and wait for her. I don’t want to tell her what has happened—there’s
no telling how she’ll construe it in her head. I’m going to run upstairs and figure out some explanation for my scrapes. You had better go now.”

Zack peered through the screen door at the cats. “Unbelievable! It’s as if they are waiting for a performance.”

“Stay clear of the driveway,” I advised. “She stops for nothing but the house.”

He reached for the door handle, then turned back. “After Iris gets inside, lock all your doors.”

I didn’t argue that securing this place was impossible.

“Is your cell phone charged?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Keep it on.” He looked around, found a pen, and wrote his number on a paper napkin. “Write down yours.”

I did so quickly. I was dangerously close to tears again.

“Anna?” He rested his hands on my shoulders.

I couldn’t look at him.

“Anna, you can trust me.”

I bit my lip to keep it from trembling.

“You can trust me,” he repeated. “But I can see you don’t.” He turned and left.

I hurried upstairs. The truth was, it was myself I couldn’t trust, my eyes from betraying my heart.

I DIDN’T STOP
in my room, but headed straight to the bathroom. Ten minutes later, stepping out of a steamy shower, I found ointment and a box of adhesive bandages in the bathroom cabinet. I took care of my cuts, then checked out a row of prescription bottles belonging to Aunt Iris. All of them contained the same prescription and were filled nearly to the top. The dates of all but one were expired; she had missed an awful lot of doses.

I wrapped myself in a towel and peeked out the door. Aunt Iris’s door was closed, with a bar of light shining beneath it. Balling up my muddy clothes, I tiptoed down the hall, waiting until I was in Uncle Will’s room to call good night to her. As soon as I entered my attic space, I shut the door behind me.

It took a minute to find the knob of the small lamp next to my bed. I turned it on, then took a step back. Stones had
been placed on my bed, smooth stones painted with black
X
s or crosses. They were laid in rows, in the same pattern as those placed on Uncle Will’s “grave.”

Was this a warning—
what happened to William can happen to you
?

I found myself reluctant to touch them.
They’re just painted rocks,
I told myself; their power exists only in the mind of the one who attributes it to them: Audrey. What a stupid prank! Having regained my common sense, I reached for a stone on the pillow. She was afraid of me—that’s all that this meant. She saw me as another O’Neill, a psychic, a tool of the devil. This was her way of “keeping” me in my place, a safe distance from her.

But if that was her intention, why not put the stones along the gate between the two properties? This arrangement seemed more personal. My bed resembled, a little too closely, a long, narrow grave. How far would Audrey go to make herself safe from the O’Neills? And what was she really afraid of—a family of “evil psychics” or people who might figure out she had killed my mother? Was she the one who had searched the house last night?

I draped my towel over a straight-back chair and pulled on my nightshirt. As ridiculous as it was, I couldn’t sleep with the stones nearby. I found a wooden crate, piled them in there, and
carried it down to Uncle Will’s den. Tomorrow I would confront Audrey with what she had done.

Returning to my bed, I stretched out, physically exhausted but far from sleep. Picking up one of the psychic books, I reread the chapter about induced O.B.E.s, then skipped to the section about how an astral traveler can shape an out-of-body experience, directing himself to certain places. It occurred to me that if I could direct mine, I might be able to pause at the wall, stop next to the rabbit, perhaps even keep myself from “going down the hole” that seemed to take me to the fire. If I could control my journey, and continue to ask to see more clearly, I might discover details that would tell me where that place was.

For the next hour I attempted to induce an O.B.E. My efforts were useless: If there was a psychic part of me, it would not let me control it. The author of the book talked about “letting go,” but the more determined and frustrated I became, the harder it was to let go. At last I gave up and turned out my lamp.

I lay back and tried to think about happy things—the games I played with Grace, Claire, and Jack, our senior class trip, Ring Day. . . . My eyes closed. Mental pictures became disjointed, floating by in fragments. My mind had almost shut off.

Suddenly, I sat up. Someone was watching the house.

There hadn’t been a sound; I didn’t know how I knew—
I just did. I rose quietly and walked to the window nearest my bed. Kneeling there, I scanned the yard. The weather was beginning to clear, but the grass and trees were soaked, their wet surfaces shimmering with moonlight. Clouds dodged the moon, creating liquid shadows.

There! In the shadow of the big tree something moved. I waited, barely breathing. The edge of the shadow separated from the tree’s darkness and became the figure of a man: Elliot Gill.

He gazed up at the house. He was too far away for me to see the expression on his face, but his head was raised, the angle of his body attentive, like that of a worshipper at a shrine—or a hunter sighting his target. My skin crept. Was he obsessed and pitiful, or obsessed and dangerous?

He started walking toward the house.
I should have listened to Zack,
I thought; at least I could have made it harder for someone to get in. If I started locking up now, Mr. Gill was sure to hear me. Did I want him to know that I saw him? If I turned on a light, would it deter him or draw him to me?

I wondered how long it would take the sheriff to respond to a call. Then I remembered: My cell phone was charged, but it was in my purse, in my car. Aunt Iris’s landline was in the downstairs hall.

Keeping the lights off, I hurried through Uncle Will’s room
to the hall. I didn’t know how Aunt Iris would react and decided that I’d wake her only as a last resort. I crept down the stairs. The front door was closed, and I quietly turned the latch to lock it. The back door of the hall was open, a rectangle of moonlight shining on the floor, nothing but an unlocked screen between me and Mr. Gill.

I found the phone and lifted the receiver. It was old and did not have a lighted pad; I felt the keys, reminding myself where the numbers 9 and 1 were—bottom right and top left corners.

I was reluctant to call the police. Aunt Iris was just paranoid enough to imagine that they had come to carry her off to “the crazy-people place.” I could call Zack. His cell phone number was . . . upstairs in the pocket of my muddy pants.

The dial tone changed to a ring, then a recorded voice, “If you would like to make a call, please hang up and—”

In the silence of the house, the voice sounded loud. I quickly put the receiver down and looked toward the screen door. My heart stopped. Elliot Gill was standing ten feet from the house, looking up at the second-floor windows, unaware of me watching him from the floor below. I pressed 9. My finger hovered over the 1.

Then he turned abruptly, looking to the right. Something had caught his eye, movement on the other side of the yard. He craned his neck, as if trying to get a better look, then took off,
moving parallel to the house, as if he intended to run around it.