F Paul Wilson - Novel 05 (30 page)

 
          
"Because
we're getting out of here."

 
          
"But
we've only just started
—
"

 
          
"It's
too dangerous. She could be back for another book or to return that one
anytime. I don't want to get caught."

 
          
Liam
said nothing as she closed the big doors again
—
this
time with Julie and him on the outside
—
and
locked them. But she pocketed the key instead of returning it to the desk. She
didn't want Liam to know where to find it.

 
          
She
turned to him. "How will you get out of the house?"

 
          
"Leave
that to me. But before I do get out, I've got a favor to ask."

 
          
"What?"

 
          
"I
want to see Sammi."

 
          
Julie
felt herself tense as she realized that for a nanosecond she'd actually
considered agreeing to it. How had she let herself fall under this man's spell?
He was a prime suspect behind Sam's condition, and here they were, acting like
co-conspirators against Eathan.

 
          
"Just
for a moment," he added when she didn't reply.

 
          
"No.
Absolutely not."

 
          
His
fair skin reddened with anger. "Why the hell not? I love her. She means
everything to me."

 
          
"Neither
you nor anybody else is getting near Sam until I find out what happened to
her."

 
          
He
started toward the door. "Then I'll find her myself."

 
          
"There's
a nurse with Sam whenever I'm not. You go anywhere near her room and I'll be
on the phone to Scotland Yard, telling them that Liam O'Donnell is in North
Yorkshire."

 
          
He
spun and faced her. "Bloody hell you will!"

 
          
"In
a New York minute," she said levelly, meeting his glare.

 
          
He
stood facing her, his jaw clenched, his hands opening and closing into fists.
For an instant Julie was afraid she'd crossed an invisible line with him. He
looked as if he were going to attack her.

 
          
But
he didn't.

 
          
"Be
damned, then," he said softly.

 
          
And
then he was striding for the door. He opened it a crack, peeked out, then was
gone.

 
          
Julie
hurried after him into the hall. Empty. Suddenly frightened, she hurried down
to Sam's room.

 
          
If
he's there, she thought, if he harms her, I'll never forgive myself.

 
          
But
only the nurse and Sam were there. Where had Liam gone?

 
          
She
turned and saw Alma walking down the hall toward her. She had her yellow pad
under her arm.

           
"Ah, Julie," she said
pleasantly. "There you are. I've been looking all over for you. Where have
you been hiding?"

 
          
"Just
killing time until I can take another look into the memoryscape." She
glanced at her watch. "Still a couple of hours to go before the States are
awake."

 
          
"I
can hardly wait. But listen, I think I've come up with something on the Venice
memory from last night. Venice isn't important. Neither is that diva
—
at least not of crucial importance. The key to the memory
is the opera itself."

 
          
"Otello?
Why?"

 
          
"I'm
not exactly sure yet. Maybe the painting is the key. If the subconscious is
trying to get a message out, it will do so using symbols. Just like in a dream.
The lion in the gondola represents Otello. He was known as 'the Lion of
Venice.' So that's the key." She laughed. "Key to what, though, I
can't say."

 
          
Julie
shrugged. "Maybe it's the other way around. Maybe the painting is just a
key to get us to the Venice memory, which just happened to take place during a
run of
Oteilo."

 
          
"Could
be," Alma said. "But I don't think so. Frightfully involved, isn't
it. But I truly believe Otello himself is the key to that memory. Samantha is
speaking to us through her own art and through the art that spoke to her during
her life. We simply need to see more. We need more pieces of the picture she
is trying to paint for us." She held a book up to Julie. "I found
this in your uncle's study: 'Stories of the Great Operas.' Might be of some
help."

 
          
Alma's
enthusiasm was contagious, but Julie felt compelled to leaven it with a dose of
reality.

 
          
"If
indeed she's really trying to communicate with us, and
if
there's
enough of her subconscious left to finish the job."

 
          
"I'm
quite sure of the first; and I'm praying for the second. Let me know the
instant you're ready to go back inside her. We must make the most of every
possible opportunity."

 
          
Julie
glanced at her watch again. Hours to go before Dr. S. would be in his office.
Why wait that long? She'd visited Sam's memoryscape without him before. Why not
do it again?

 
          
"To
hell with New York," she told Alma. "What's wrong with right
now?"

 
          
Maybe
I should approach Sam's comatose memoryscape as a sort of dreamscape. During
dream states, the body is paralyzed and the doors are shut on outer reality.
Cholinergic neurons in the pontine-geniculate occipital
system
fire
erratically , sending bursts of waves throughout the higher areas of the
brain. These
PGO
waves disrupt the cognitive networks of rational,
orderly flows of information, allowing irrational, disorderly thoughts,
emotions, and
images to
swirl through the mind. At this point only the
inner reality exists, and all the rules are off.
A
dream is the result
of the poor cortex trying to make sense of the chaos.

—
Random
notes: Julia Gordon

 
          
You
enter the memoryscape where you left it
—
deeper-level
gallery. Your heart sinks as you look about and see no new paintings on the
walls. You had hoped for a change.

 
          
You
drift outside the gallery.

 
          
Still
a drowned world, a vast expanse of stagnant water broken by dark, scattered
fragments of land. Low in the sky to your left, the giant crescent moon
slouches down the eternal starless night, sinking into the horizon of the
endless black sea.

 
          
No
gondola waits at the shore this time. You guess that was a one-time-only ride.
You scan the dead waters, looking for some sign of life. You see nothing, and
your sense of hopelessness deepens.

 
          
The
night grows deeper as the far waters drown the moon. You watch it disappear,
and when it is gone you find yourself in a darkness so profound it swallows
even the wan light leaking from the gallery behind you.

 
          
The
darkness invades your soul, enveloping your will. You can see no reason to stay
here, no hope of changing this watery wasteland.

 
          
Maybe
—
you think
—
you don't have the guts for
this.

 
          
But
as you reach for the Exit button, you hear a crunch behind you. Turning, you
see the gondola, waiting. As before, no gondolier. Heartened but wary of
expecting too much, you step aboard but remain standing as it begins its
journey.

 
          
And
then, far ahead in the distance, a spark. You squint toward it. An illusion?
Wishful thinking?

 
          
No,
it's there, it's real. But so far away and so faint you would have missed it
had the moon been up.

 
          
A
long trip across the trackless sea as the spark gradually becomes a blob of
light
—
but high above the
waterline. As you near it you see an island rearing sixty or seventy feet above
the sea. You see dead trees clustered at its center and marble doorways cut
into its flanks. You've seen this place before. In a painting: Arnold
Bocklin's Isle
of the Dead.

 
          
But
now the light is a glowing rectangle atop the island. You leave the gondola and
glide toward it. Soon you realize that this light is the window of a diner. A
Phillies Cigars sign runs across its roof
—
ONLY
50
—
and its window glass turns
an impossible curve. The counterman, wearing a white paper cap, works under the
wooden counter. It should be Formica, you think, but it looks more like oak or
mahogany.

 
          
In
the corner, near the two large chrome urns, a sharp-nosed man sits next to a
woman in a red dress. They're smoking and drinking coffee. On this end of the
counter, a lone man in a hat sits with his back to you.

           
You know this scene. It's Hopper's
Nighthawks.
A
lonely painting, a city painting ... an eerie painting.

 
          
Forgetting
about Sam and why you're here, you hurry for the door. If you had feet you'd be
running. You've always wondered who this couple was, where they were coming
from or going to, what they were saying to each other. Now at last you can find
out.

 
          
You
pull on the handle but the door doesn't budge.

 
          
You
rattle the latch. The couple at the counter turn and stare at you. The
counterman leans over the counter and says something you can't hear. He points
to the door, then points to his right. You back up a step and see a
hand-printed sign taped to the glass.

 
          
ENTER THRU THEATER AROUND CORNER

 
          
You
nod, wave, and hurry around the side of the diner. It looks so warm and bright
in there and you long to come in from the dark.

 
          
But
the theater around the corner also looks closed. The marquee is dark and cluttered
with a meaningless jumble of letters. You can see the name atop the marquee:
THE PALLAS.

 
          
You
wonder: Shouldn't it be "Palace"?

 
          
But
never mind. That's not important. You approach the ticket booth. A small, naked
bulb somewhere below the counter lights the interior but it's empty. You
continue on, past torn and faded posters in their display cases, to the door.
The hinges creak in agony as you push through.

 
          
Dark
inside. But not completely. A dull glow leaks from behind the concession
stand. You smell popcorn but the popper looks empty. The glass front of the
counter is broken and the candy looted. Popcorn is strewn about. It crunches
under your feet. The light fades as you move farther inside, until it's as dark
as the moonless night outside. How are you supposed to get to the diner through
here? It doesn't make sense.

 
          
Suddenly
you see flickering light ahead, coming from the left. You move toward it,
turn....

 
          
You're
in the back of a theater. An empty theater. Something is playing on the screen,
loud, full of color and activity, but the picture is out of focus and the sound
garbled. Then you notice that the theater is not quite empty. Two people sit in
the very front row. Curious, you move down the aisle.

 
          
And
as you near the screen it shrinks, becoming progressively smaller until it's
the size of a thirteen-inch TV set. And seated before it are two little girls,
ages seven or eight.

 
          
Sam
and Julie ...

 
          
"I'm
going to kill the waaaaabbit!"

 
          
On
the TV screen, Elmer Fudd, in armor and horned helmet, chases Bugs Bunny
dressed as a golden-pigtailed Rhine-maiden across a fantastic Valhallan
landscape.

 
          
"I
don't think 1 like this show," Sam says, peeking out from behind the chair
cushion she's begun holding in front of her face. "It's stupid."

 
          
"What
—
are you scared?" Julie says, her voice dripping with
contempt. "It's only a dumb cartoon! Not like they're real people or
anything."

 
          
Siegfried
Fudd again calls out his murderous promise
—
"I'm going to kill the waaaaabbit!
'"
—
and Sam ducks behind her cushion.

 
          
That
does it for Julie. She's had it with Sammi's weirdness. One cartoon character
threatening another
—
big deal. They do it all the
time. And even if you're stupid enough to think they're real, they always
bounce back, no matter what happens. Look what that coyote lives through.

 
          
"Stop
being a baby, Sammi. Look at it."

 
          
A
muffled "No!" from behind the cushion. "And no one can make
me!"

 
          
"Oh,
no?"

 
          
Incensed
by the challenge, Julie grabs the cushion and tears it from Sammi's grasp.

 
          
Sammi
cries, "No!" and turns away, burying her face in her arms.

 
          
Julie
leaps on her and a wrestling match begins.

 
          
"No,
Julie! No! Please don't make me look!"

 
          
But
Sammi's pleas fall on deaf ears.

           
You want to grab hold of the little
girl you were and shake some sense into her. Doesn't she see that her sister is
frightened
—
truly frightened? Terrified
of that noisy cartoon. But young Julie can only see that her sister is being
silly. Who can be afraid of drawings? She'll show Sammi there's nothing to be
afraid of, whether she likes it or not.

 
          
But
you know differently.

 
          
You've
begun to see what colors and lines and pictures mean to Sam, how her
perceptions, her view of life were so different from yours that, in a very real
sense, she grew up on a different planet. A scarier planet.

 
          
And
as much as you want to stop this replay, you can't. You can only watch
helplessly as Julie steadily overpowers the sister who never had much will to
fight, even to protect herself.

 
          
Julie
manages to pull Sammi's face free of her arms. Panting, struggling, she gets
her sister's head tilted up to face the TV screen. But Sammi keeps her eyes
squeezed shut.

 
          
"Open
your eyes, Sammi!
Open
them!"

 
          
"No!
I don't want to see!"

 
          
Frustrated,
seeing no way to get Sammi's eyes open, Julie glances at the TV screen and
notices a lull in the cartoon. She tries another tack. She releases her sister
from the head-lock and rolls away from her.

 
          
"Oh,
forget it," she says. "The stupid cartoon's over anyway."

 
          
With
that, Sammi opens her eyes and looks at the screen. There, in Technicolor, Bugs
Bunny lies splayed on a rock, eyes closed, limp arms akimbo, while a lone
flower weeps over him.

 
          
Sammi
lets out an ear-piercing screech and leaps to her feet. She stands and stares
at the screen, crying, "He's dead! He's
dead!
"

 
          
And
then she runs screaming from the room.

 
          
Little
Julie stares after her, baffled.

 
          
"What's
the big deal?" she says softly. "It's only a cartoon."

 
          
On
the TV, Bugs raises his head and looks out from the

           
screen.
"Well, what did you
expect in an opera
—
a happy ending?"

 
          
You
turn away, disgusted with yourself, and wondering what
Alma
's making of all this. You
know you're not being entirely fair to the younger Julie. She couldn't
understand Sam
—
didn't have the tools even
to try. And even now you doubt the older, wiser Julie has all the necessary
tools.

 
          
Perhaps
it's just the challenge, or perhaps it's something deeper, but you're trying.
Trying like all hell.

 
          
You
hunt around for a way into the diner, but find no exit doors. No way in or out
except via the entrance. You hurry out, back to the street. But next to the
ticket booth, blocking your way, is another matrioshka doll, this one in the
shape of Bugs Bunny, rocking back and forth on its round base.