Dark Witness (12 page)

"You shouldn't care if you work a lot. That's how you'll get healed. You tell Duncan I wasn't quiet in
Hours,
and I'll tell him you were complaining about working."

"I'm not complaining. I just have a lot to do and there isn't enough time each day."

Melody took his jacket and tried to soften her voice. She did not want Robert telling Duncan anything. She looked at the streaks of blood that had soaked into the outer shell.

"I'll have this back tonight before the meeting. Then you can wear it outside tonight."

"Are the angels going to be there? Are they coming to the meeting?" Robert asked.

"They aren't angels, Robert." Melody's shoulders slumped. He could be so stupid.

"Duncan said–”

"It was a lesson, Robert," Melody snapped. "A lesson. Treat people as if they could be angels."

"I don't think so, Melody. . ." Robert began, but she was gone, taking the steps lightly, crossing Duncan's path, and giving him a smile when she did. The smile must have been particularly beautiful because Duncan actually returned it, stopped, and put his hand to the side of her face in blessing.

"Look at you, Melody. Always keeping us pulled together. Thank you."

His hand slipped away. He was leaving and she didn't want that.

"I would like to be the first, Duncan," she blurted out. It was so wrong to be that selfish, but she couldn't help herself. This waiting was wearing on everyone. "I try so hard, and I would like to be the first to be healed."

"We'll see, Melody. We'll see how it goes. The new arrivals change things. We must figure out what God's intent is. If we have to live with our afflictions a little longer, so be it."

He continued up the stairs, book in hand. Melody was sure he was going to read to Hannah. Duncan believed the girl could hear him in her unconscious mind, but Melody thought that was nonsense. For all they knew, she was brain dead. Still, all Duncan thought about since Billy had told him that Hannah was an artist was getting her to wake up. He longed for artistic conversation. Well, it was easy for him to wait for the healing time because he was perfect. The rest of them pretty much didn't care if Hannah woke up or not.

"I don't understand how kindness toward them should mean that we can't have what was promised."

Melody clutched Robert's jacket tighter. She moved from foot to foot, leaned up against the bannister and then away from it again in her agitation. Duncan just watched her and his silence created a void she felt compelled to fill.

"Billy and Hannah will heal on their own, but we can't. And they don't believe the way we do; they haven't sacrificed the way we have."

"They are outcasts, Melody."

"They left civilization to survive. They weren't cast out," she insisted.

"True," he said. "But I'm not sure healing should be done in front of those who don't believe."

"Do the healing so that they will believe." Melody begged. "If they see a miracle, then they would be part of us, and we could call them brother and sister."

Duncan came back down the stairs slowly as they debated.

"Do you think God wants us to flaunt a miracle to impress these two people?"

Melody hung her head and shook it. She was wrong as always. "No, Duncan. I don't, but I don't think it's all about them."

"I don't either, but that isn't for me to say," he assured her. "Pea will say when we begin. Somehow these people are part of the plan, and we need to figure it out. Be patient, Melody. " Duncan looked at the jacket. He smiled and plucked at it. "It looks like you have your work cut out for you, Melody. Robert's jacket is big enough for three people."

"Yes, Duncan. But how much easier would it be to clean if I were healed?"

She turned around. For once, Melody wanted him to see her back, to feel her frustration, to think about what she had said. She was thirty-one, a virgin, a kind person, a loving person who had never been loved and that was unfair. If God couldn't be merciful, he should at least throw her a bone. Short of that, Duncan should give her hope. But what had he really said? Nothing. She was beginning to think he would never heal any of them. She was beginning to think. . .

Melody stopped herself before she blasphemed. He had provided for them. He had found this home. He had made them equal and worthwhile here; away from a world that had no use for them. Hadn't Duncan done everything he said he would?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yet he didn't heal them and that was what he had promised.

Melody threw Robert's jacket on the wash table and pulled at it to get it straight. All the logic in the world couldn't make her feel better, so she reveled in her ugly thoughts and the ugliest was about this jacket. God only knew who had worn it before Robert, but she couldn't imagine they were any happier than he had been in the outside world. It was a cruel place, and none of them had lived well there. Even Duncan had not, of that Melody was sure. If he had, why would he be there with them?

Melody dug in the bin next to the large tin sink. She took out a scrub brush and the lye soap. She ran the water as hot as she could but also put some on to boil in case she needed to scald this fabric. She slammed the big pot down and muttered her annoyance when the flame didn't light the first time.

Melody bit down on her lower lip and tightened her upper. She closed her eyes, took a moment, and put her mind in the proper place. It was taking longer these days to convince herself that service to God was not servitude to the congregation.

When she tasted blood, she pulled herself together. Biting a hole through her lip wasn't going to make anything better, so Melody attacked the blood and dirt stains on Robert's jacket. But the first swipe of the scrub brush caught on something in the pockets.

"Good grief," she muttered and dug into the outside pockets, sure she would find half eaten food, or lumps of sugar or something else Robert had taken one too many of. He was always so sure there wouldn't be enough for him to eat. Melody didn't think Robert should work in the store but Duncan was adamant that each of them would do work that would put them square in front of their greatest temptation. For Glenn it was the woodpile, for Melody it was to be in the presence of beautiful Pea and now Hannah. For Robert it was to stock the shelves with the food they canned, grew, hunted, and cured along with the supplies he brought back from the city. He had to do it all alongside Teresa. Teresa had to face Robert. It was all so simple, and yet so difficult.

Finding nothing in the outer pockets, Melody flipped open the jacket to see what he had stashed inside. He probably bought something in the city just for himself, with community money no less, and hidden it to eat later. His sins were so many: gluttony, impatience, anger, and stealth. Oh, he would pay for this. Melody would not tell Duncan, but God would know. Oh yes, God would know.

When she dug in the pockets, though, she found Robert hadn't been hiding food at all. She pulled out a little bottle filled with clear liquid. For a split second, she thought, perhaps, Robert had taken to drink, but these bottles were so small there wasn’t enough in them to get anyone drunk. Curious, she walked across the kitchen and held them up to the dim light. She forgot about the water she had put to boil. She forgot to rinse the lye soap off her hand. She forgot Robert's coat and squinted at the tiny writing on the labels, but her eyes weren't good and the gloom didn't help. She would have to talk to Duncan about glasses. She unscrewed the top and smelled it. It didn't smell like anything.

"Melody, are you almost done?"

Startled by Teresa's voice, Melody wrapped her hand around the little glass bottle before she turned around.

"I just started. I'm cleaning Robert's jacket," she said.

Teresa nodded. Melody's heart beat faster and harder, the vial burned in her hand. She imagined Teresa coming right across this room and prying open her fingers and calling her out in meeting for being selfish. Instead, Teresa was looking at the pot on the stove.

"Alright then, but I need to start dinner. Can you hurry?"

"I just need it hot. It doesn't have to boil," Melody answered. "As soon as it is, I'll call you."

"That's fine." Teresa took her jacket off the hook and put it on. "I'm going to get some tomatoes from the store. I hope we've canned enough to last the winter."

"I should be finished by the time you get back."

Melody let her go without showing her the bottle and now she thought that was ridiculous. Teresa wouldn't have been angry with Robert the way Duncan might have been. Later, after meeting, Melody would show it to her. Together they would decide how to tell Duncan so that he wouldn't think Robert was being dishonest when he had probably been forgetful.

Melody put the cap back on the bottle, went back to the washroom, and collected the other ones. Back in the kitchen, she put them up inside away from the regular spices and near the herbs she had dried and juices she had squeezed for her teas.

The water was boiling so she took it off the stove. She forgot all about the little bottles as she started to scrub the jacket. It was a hard job and by the time the stains on the jacket were gone, Melody was tired, Teresa was cooking, and the long night of meeting and
Hours
had begun.

By the time she fell into bed, she had forgotten about Robert's treasure.

CHAPTER 10

I'm awake in a strange place. I don't know how I got here. I only know that the color of my world has changed. In Hermosa Beach, the color of the world was Cerulean blue: blindingly bright and seamless. When I was with Billy Zuni the color surrounding me was Mars black: dense, deep, and unending. Once after that, I saw gunmetal grey: cold, flat, a neither here nor there color. Now my eyes are wide open and the dark surrounding me is the deepest indigo. I've seen this color in the early morning and I've seen it in the night sky, so it could be one or the other.

I check my body, and it is seriously out of whack. The only things working are my hands and eyes, so I use my fingers to see. They work their way across a worn sheet and a coarse blanket. I can move my head a little, and when I do something bites me. I pull at it and find it's the nub of a feather in the pillow. I let the feather go, and it floats into the indigo.

That pretty much takes all I've got in me.

My hand falls to my side, my head lolls the other way. Pain shatters through the top of my skull like there's a rave going on inside it. I raise my hand again. This time I touch stitches angling down from the top of my forehead toward my eye. The skin around them is hot and swollen. The really strange thought I have is that I must be healthy if I hurt so much. When I was sick in my heart about my life and a little crazy in my head, it didn't hurt when I cut myself. Now I feel every bruise, and scrape, and cut, and stitch.

I clear my throat just to see if I can talk, but all I hear is a moan; all I feel is a golf ball size lump at the side of my mouth. I panic even though I tell myself not to.

I breathe hard to rally all that strength everybody is so sure I have but it's bled right out of me. When no one comes through the door my heart beats like a friggin' jackhammer in my ears; my stitches pulse; sweat falls from my brow and it stings where the needle went in.

With every thing I have, I push myself up onto my elbows, pause, pant and then walk myself back. I collapse. I regroup. Finally, I'm propped up at an awkward angle on the pillow.

One, two, three.

I throw my arm out hoping to find some light, a switch, something, anything to calm my terror.

I hate the dark.

I think I sob. I think I sob for Billy.

I hit a glass and it falls to the floor. It shatters. There is no carpet beneath me. Everything that happens is a clue, not an answer.

Where am I? In a room with a hard floor.

Who put me here? Someone who cares enough to stitch me up.

Where is this place? It's not Hermosa. It's cold.

I collapse. My body is bent, my neck is crooked, my ear is folded, and I have no strength left to undo what I have done. My eyes roll. I see faint outlines of things: a chair, a table, a door.

"Somebody! Somebody!"

No one comes. Not even Billy. He must be dead because he would never leave me alone in the dark for any other reason. My throat is thick and lumpy, and I am going to cry. If I cry I will hurt everywhere. I am already in too much pain, so I don't cry.

I fall deeper into the pillow all the while wishing I were dead, too, if he is. I grieve and grieve and feed my anger and when it is hot enough I forge it into determination. I want to know how badly I failed Billy. With one more huge effort, I get myself up on one elbow. My arm shivers and shakes. I strain and grab at the things on the table but miss them. My heart tries to beat itself to death under the fabric of the nightgown like a bird trapped in a glass house banging itself against the false sky.

"Somebody?" I cry.

With the last push of hysteria, the fingers of my right hand scrabble over the top of the table next to me. I lunge, I'm on fire, but I touch something slick and grab for it. I fall back and in my hand is a bottle. I hold it to my chest. My face is covered with sweat. My eyes burn hot holes behind my closed lids.

With a scream, I hurl the bottle as best I can. It hits something – the wall, a chair, the floor – and the shattering glass sounds like an explosion. But it was nothing more than shattering glass. Still, someone has heard this time. I think it's a girl. I think the door has opened and she is looking at me.

I hyperventilate, my head is about to split open, my eyes feel like pinballs whacking around the sides of my skull, and, then, strangely, a great calm comes over me. It doesn't matter who this is. It matters that I am not alone. I hear a click and trill that sound like the throaty call of a bird. I think she must have spoken, but I'm too sick to understand.