Cemetery of Angels (28 page)

“YOU ARE IN DANGER.”

She had taken it to mean that she, Rebecca, was in danger. Actually, she now decided, it had been meant for the children. They were the ones who had disappeared.

Rebecca gazed out the window like a madwoman, staring at San Angelo, a constellation of thoughts swirling around her. She held the view of San Angelo until she heard someone from below speak her name. .

“Mrs. Moore?”

A woman’s voice. At first she thought it was Melissa’s. But Melissa would have called her by her first name. “Mrs. Moore?”

She looked downward until she found the source. It was one of the reporters, followed quickly by the whole knot of them, drawn by her screams out the rear window of her home.

A gaggle of bemused, curious almost accusatory faces stared upward at her. Cameras clicked. Television cameras whirred softly, their lenses fixed upon her.

“Did you see something, Mrs. Moore?” a male stranger with a notepad asked.

“Did you see your children?” the first woman asked.

“Get off my property!” Rebecca screamed.

But the press didn’t move. They studied her every move and recorded it, like visitors to a zoo, until she slammed the window and drew the curtain.

Then she stood in the turret room for several minutes, alone in the silence, isolated in the madness of what she had seen. Her reaction was not so much one of fear, but one of shock.

She was again aware of the shadows passing through the backyard, and the lengthening of them, which suggested that afternoon was turning to evening. When she next consulted her watch, she realized that she had lost track of time. But she knew she had walked into Patrick’s room to work in his closet at four-thirty. But now it was five-fifteen.

Somewhere forty-five minutes had disappeared.

She couldn’t account for the lapse. It did not feel as if she had been in the turret room for anything resembling that amount of time. The only thing she could think of was that when she had entered the realm of the ghost other standards of time or voids in time existed.

She left the room in a daze and walked downstairs. She put on a light and sat down in the living room. She turned on the television for companionship, but didn’t listen to it. Instead, she waited for evening, eager for her husband to return home.

When Bill returned, she said nothing immediately. She sat in the living room of their home, mute, barely acknowledging his presence.

She forced him to come to her and speak.

“Rebecca?” he finally asked. “Becca, what’s going on? Talk to me.”

She then turned on her husband, felt a shiver of terror overtake her so violently that she felt like she was being shaken by a huge unseen hand. She screamed uncontrollably, and then her screams dissolved into sobs, sobs which she muffled on his shoulder until they had cascaded out of her and diminished into nothing.

Only then, as she gradually regained control of her emotions, was she able to describe the events of the afternoon to the man with whom she currently shared her life. And of course he believed none of it.

PART TWO
Salvation

With the blessing of her husband and the Los Angeles police, Rebecca scheduled an emergency meeting with Dr. Henry Einhorn for Friday at lunchtime. Detective Van Allen had allowed her to put off the polygraph test from Friday till Saturday.

Melissa drove Rebecca to Century City and accompanied her friend to the psychiatrist’s office. Del Morninglori greeted Rebecca at the door to Dr. Henry Einhorn’s suite. Del was solicitous and indulgent. It was obvious that he knew all about her children’s disappearance, but he asked no questions about it.

Rebecca’s session with Dr. Einhorn began at half past noon. Melissa waited in the reception room. Einhorn expressed his sympathy over what had happened involving her children. Sitting across from her in a chair in a shaded room, the psychiatrist angled her into the interview.

“When you called this morning you suggested that there was some urgency to this meeting,” Dr. Einhorn said. “I’m aware of the larger personal problems you’re having. Was there something else also?”

Rebecca held a long pause. She took a sip from a nearby glass of water to steady herself. “I saw a ghost,” she said.

Einhorn’s eyes were upon her, soft and brown, fixed and set like a terrier watching a duck.

Very slightly, he settled back in his chair.

“What sort of ghost?” he said.

“It was a man,” she said. “I saw him in my home. He was there as plain or as real as you’re here right now, Doctor.”

“Did he scare you?”

“The situation scared me,” she said.

“But the man himself, the vision, didn’t?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He had my children with him. I found that frightening.” She paused. “May I call what I saw ‘a ghost’?” she asked.

“If you want to.”

“Do you believe in such things?” she asked.

“I don’t discount the possibility of anything, Rebecca,” he said.

“So you’re not laughing at me?”

“Of course not. It’s not my place to laugh. You tell me what you think you saw.”

She felt reassured.

“Then I’ll call it a ghost,” she said.

“Why are you so sure?” he asked. “What is a ghost? What do you think it was?”

“My friend, Melissa, whom you just met?” Rebecca answered. “She says a ghost is a disembodied spirit. I think that’s a good definition.”

Dr. Einhorn glanced toward the anteroom. “Why does Melissa know so much?”

“She’s a little psycho. I guess she’s studied these things.”

“Did she suggest that you might be seeing a ghost?” the psychiatrist asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you have any previous discussions on the subject?”

Rebecca thought back to the night of the party. Melissa, now that Rebecca thought of it, had suggested the possibility. Rebecca recalled the incident and detailed it for the doctor.” But I know what I saw,” Rebecca added quickly. “I saw a ghost.”

“And does your friend’s definition work for you?” Dr. Einhorn asked, “‘A disembodied spirit’?”

Rebecca said it did.

“Have you always believed in such things?”

“Not until I saw one.”

“Tell me a little more about what happened.”

Rebecca described in detail how she had been in the turret room, the troubled yellow turret room, and had sensed something coming to see her. The house and the room had been empty. And suddenly the specter was there.

“And you said that it had your children with it?”

“Yes. He did.”

‘“He’? It was definitely a man?”

“Yes,” she said.

“A lot of people would have found this terrifying,” Dr. Einhom said at length. “But you didn’t?”

“It was much less terrifying than the incident in Connecticut. That was so much more physical.”

“Physical how?”

“The threat. It was so clear, so immediate. The incident with the ghost was, I mean, well it freaked me out. But the man almost seemed, I don’t know. Familiar, maybe.”

Einhorn’s eyes narrowed.

“Familiar how?” the psychiatrist asked.

“It’s hard to say.”

“Well,” he suggested, “familiar, as if you had seen this man on television? Or in a movie? Or familiar in the sense of knowing him personally?”

Rebecca pondered the point for a moment. “Familiar,” she said, “as if I knew him personally.”

“Knew him well?” Einhorn asked.

She thought about it. The correct answer seemed to come to her from somewhere. So Rebecca nodded. “Yes. I think so.”

“Where could you know him from?” Einhorn asked.

Rebecca opened her hands in a gesture of not knowing. “I wish I could tell you,” she said.

“Another life?” the doctor said. “Like Shirley McClain?”

“Is that a serious suggestion?”

“Not really.” The diminutive doctor tried to steer her. “Maybe he reminds you of someone else whom you know?”

“No, no,” Rebecca answered softly, shaking her head. “It was him personally. Thinking back on it, you see, that’s what I find so strange. That’s why I wasn’t scared.”

“Then maybe it is someone whom you used to know. But who is deceased now.”

Rebecca sighed.

“That explanation would work, except I don’t know who it would be,” she said. She thought about it for several seconds. “Know what it’s like? It’s like trying to think of a name. Or a certain word. It’s on the tip of your tongue. Or it feels like it’s on the front of your mind. But you can’t quite find it.”

“Yet, your husband says you were hysterical last evening. Is he exaggerating?”

“That was in the evening,” Rebecca answered. “I was… I was deeply upset about the experience. Of seeing my children with what I took to be a ghost.” She paused. “But as for fear of the man, himself? No,” she said. “I remember it with considerable calm.”

“How tactile was the experience?” Einhorn asked. “Did you touch or embrace the man?”

“No.”

“Did you touch your children?”

“No. But something touched me.”

“Did you feel as if you wanted to?”

“Wanted to what?”

“Strike him? Embrace him? Anything of the physical nature?”

“Nothing like that occurred to me.”

“Do you remember anything else? Smells? Senses of hot or cold?” he asked.

Rebecca shook her head again. Her hands were moist. She played with a paper tissue.

“And I’ll tell you what really bothers me. Both the kids used to report seeing a man in the house.” Einhorn’s head shot up from his notes.

“A prowler?”

“No. An imaginary friend. They called him ‘Ronny.’”

“Ronny?” the doctor repeated.

“I think Ronny was the ghost,” Rebecca said. “I think they were seeing the same thing I saw. And this Ronny? The night before the kids disappeared, he said that he was going to take them with him.” Einhorn was fascinated.

“This is a chat you had with your children?” he asked.

“My husband will verify that part,” she said. “He was included in the discussion.”

“I see,” Einhorn said, thinking. “Where does this ‘Ronny’ name come from?”

“I have no idea,” she said.

“Please think hard on this: Did you or your husband ever suggest the presence of an invisible friend. A ‘Ronny?’”

“No.”

“Keep thinking. As hard as you’ve ever thought, Rebecca.”

“No,” she repeated.

“Do you know anyone who has ever had that name?”

“No!”

“Friend? Relative? Enemy? An old boyfriend?” the doctor pressed.

“No one,” she said. “No one whom I can consciously remember. And yet…”

“And yet, what?” Einhorn asked.

“And yet, it all seemed so familiar. Even more now today while I’m trying to concentrate on it. His face, his mannerisms, his hands. The way he held his arms.”

“How did he hold them?” Rebecca made a gesture of the way she first saw the ghost, arms akimbo, before he held the hands of her children.

“It was so… I don’t know,” she said, the stress rising in her voice. “There was something that I’d seen somewhere before.”

“You’re probably right,” Einhorn said, easing back slightly. “There probably was. The question for us now is finding what that something was. And where it came from.”

He glanced at the clock and led Rebecca through another quarter hour’s worth of discussion. Then Dr. Einhorn fell silent for several minutes, organizing his notes. At one point he stood and walked behind his desk to a bookshelf. Rebecca watched him as he went to a reference book of some sort, looking something up. He pursed his lips when he found it, and then returned to his chair. He wrote for another minute. Then he went to the window, adjusted the shades to increase the light in the room, and gave Rebecca a smile.

“If it’s time to analyze,” Rebecca said, “can Melissa come into the room?”

“If those are your wishes,” Einhorn said, “I have no objection.” Einhorn hit the buzzer and asked Del to bring Melissa in. Melissa sat down in an extra chair on Rebecca’s side of the chamber. “I’m going to tell you what I think,” Dr. Einhorn finally began. “With everything that’s been going on in your life, your case borders on the unique. So I think we should treat it in a unique and aggressive manner. Okay?”

“Okay so far,” Rebecca said.

“Let me sum up a few things first. You are still dealing with the trauma from last February,” he began, “and now there’s all the stress and anxiety surrounding this horrible disappearance of your children.” He paused. “From the stand point of the mind, it’s as if your body is attacked by a virus, and then medical complications set in.”

He adjusted the pad on his lap and continued.

“If you wanted to do a pop psych analysis of the vision you saw,” Einhorn explained, “I think the conclusions that would be drawn are clear. Ghosts come from the land of the dead. Your children were with a ghost, albeit a benevolent one. Some therapists would suggest that you entertained this vision because your inner self is attempting to adjust to the idea that your children are, God forbid, already dead. And you want to believe they are with a responsible adult figure who will protect them.”

Rebecca cringed slightly,

“I expect to see my children again alive,” she said. “I’m not making any such concessions.”

“No,” he answered gently. “Not consciously, you’re not.” She waited a moment. “Why a man and not a woman?” Rebecca asked.

“The paternal figure in this instance is perhaps more reassuring to you,” Dr. Einhorn said. “Many women would find the idea of their children with a substitute mother to be more of an adversarial situation. I know this isn’t politically correct, so don’t take me to task for it: but many women find the idea of a male protector to be comforting.”

Rebecca sighed and nodded. Melissa smirked.

“You may consider everything I just said,” Einhorn continued. “You can accept it or dismiss it. Whichever, because I have some further thoughts on the incident. You see, I might be proved wrong here, but I want to venture out onto a limb. I think there’s something else going on here, too. Something even more significant. And I’m not sure that it doesn’t lie at the heart of everything.”

“You’re losing me, Doctor,” she said. “Something else of what sort?”