F Paul Wilson - Novel 05 (35 page)

 
          
We
forget far more than we remember.

—
Random
notes: Julia Gordon

1

 
          
Morning.
A murky sky waited beyond the thin curtains.

 
          
Julie
stretched. She still felt tired, achy, as if she'd been working out after too
long a break. She sat up in the bed and rubbed her eyes. She was hungry; she'd
kill for a cup of coffee, maybe a piece of crumb cake.

 
          
Julie
slid out of bed. She peeled off her flannel nightgown and dressed hastily in
the jeans and turtleneck she'd dumped on a chair the night before. Her clothes
felt cold and damp.

 
          
She
opened the door and headed for the first floor.

 
          
The
maid told her that Eathan had already left for
Edinburgh
. After two rolls and three
cups of coffee
—
enough caffeine to make
Julie feel nice and edgy
—
she decided to go for a
walk.

 
          
She
skipped the gardens. The strong salt wind drew her toward the sea, and she
decided to take the path that led to the cliffs.

           
Above her, the clouds steadily
darkened from pale whitish gray to a gunmetal color. The wind cut at her as she
stepped over a fallen rail of the rotten fence.

 
          
When
was the last time she'd visited the edge?

 
          
Sometime
when she was a teenager, she guessed. Maybe when she was thinking about leaving
Oakwood forever, and wanted another last look at the
North Sea
, the rocks, and the waves
crashing below.

 
          
Even
when she and Sam became teenagers, Eathan never failed to warn them: Don't go
near
the cliffs. The rock is always
crumbling.
The cliffs are falling into
the sea.

 
          
And
he'd been right, of course. Why, just a couple of years ago, only a few miles
down the coast, a hotel in
Scarborough
—
an
entire
hotel
—
had tumbled into the sea.

 
          
But
Julie was always careful, and it was such a beautiful spot. She liked standing
near the edge, looking out at the turbulent water, dreaming of all the other
shores lapped by the sea waves.

 
          
Her
right foot landed on some loose shale that gave way. In a flash she went down,
smacking her knee hard against a rock.

 
          
"Damn!"
she said. And she looked around. For a queer moment there she'd thought
someone was behind her, trailing her.

 
          
She
remembered how Liam had popped out last time. He wasn't going to leave, and as
long as Julie kept his secret, why should he?

 
          
She
looked back along the path but saw no one, just the brambles and heather and
bits of scraggly bushes hugging the rocky crevices as the wind tried to pull
them away.

 
          
Julie
got up and dusted at her banged knee. Her jeans weren't ripped but her kneecap
had taken a good shot.

 
          
Another
glance down the trail.

 
          
"Nobody
here but us ghosts," she said.

 
          
She
tried to be more careful as she neared the cliff edge.

 
          
*
m not sixteen anymore, she thought.

 
          
But
then the sea loomed ahead, a giant, dark expanse dotted with white pinpricks
of churning surf. Smugglers and free-tooters used to own these waters. And
Dracula landed a short way up the coast from here in the novel.

           
She moved closer to get the
complete, unfettered view and* lost herself in the primal, exhilarating moment
of attaining something wonderful, the whole North Sea spread out before her
like a mural, a wonder of wonders.

 
          
She
stopped a few meters from the edge. When she was a kid she'd taken small steps
closer and closer to that edge, ignoring Eathan's warning.

 
          
Of
course what Sam used to do made that seem timid.

 
          
Sam
would run right up to the edge and giggle when the sand and shale began to
crumble under her feet. She'd waved her arms back and forth like a giddy
tightrope walker who couldn't care less that there was no net
—
unless you considered a cluster of jagged boulders a net.

 
          
Julie
could almost picture Sam at the edge, daring her sensible, cautious sister,
Julie of the Measured Steps: Come to the edge. Look down at the rocks, the
surf. Hang here ... and: dare a good stiff gust to blow you off the edge.

 
          
Julie
took another step closer to that edge. The sandy soil" felt mushy.

 
          
A
sudden blast of air pushed against her chest, as if trying to keep her from the
precipice.

 
          
Why
am 1 doing this?

 
          
Then
she had an answer.

 
          
Too
much unreality, too much time at play in an unreal world that seemed to be
growing real and dangerous.

 
          
This
was a corrective. A good, healthy bite out of real experience.

 
          
Half
a meter to the edge.

 
          
She
had a wonderful view of the water. It felt as if she could spread her arms and
the wind would lift her off her feet, a human albatross riding the thermals.

 
          
She
inched a bit closer.

 
          
Then
she remembered her feelings from before. The sensation of being followed, that
she wasn't alone.

 
          
She
turned around. She could see the top floor of Oakwood, a thin plume of smoke
trailing from the chimney to be quickly carried off by the steady breeze. It
looked small from here, like a dollhouse
—

 
          
Kind
of what it looked like in Sam's memoryscape.

 
          
She'd
come out to the sea to think, to let the air blow on her face, to get away. But
everywhere
—
even here
—
there were reminders of Sam.

 
          
Poor,
lost Sam, stranded in her own sea of jumbled memories.

 
          
"And
who the hell knows what they mean," she said aloud.

 
          
She
turned back to the sea, and the idea of challenging the cliff lost its appeal.

 
          
The
moment had passed. That sort of stunt was more suitable to Sam. She was the
risk taker.

 
          
Still,
she gazed at the sea for a few more moments, girding herself for the work to
come, before she'd have to go back into the mine.

 
          
She
wasn't quite at the edge. Yet her eye could trail down and catch the jagged
rocks below, the waves crashing and
—

 
          
Something
among the rocks down there.

 
          
Perhaps
a bit of driftwood, or a tire that got hung up on the rocks. She saw only a bit
of color flapping about.

 
          
The
cliff overhung the beach, jutting its edge into the wind like the prow of some
great vessel. To see the rest of the rocks she'd have to go a little closer to
the edge.

 
          
She
inched forward, and even that little movement brought more of the object into
view. Didn't seem to be a tire, no, and the things moving around were
—
were
—

 
          
A
bit closer ...

 
          
The
sand squirmed under her feet.

 
          
She
saw the color, the shape; recognition came and she froze.

 
          
"Oh,
God. Oh!"

 
          
The
two things flopping around in the surf below, playfully whipped this way and
that by the waves
—
they were legs. And hung up
on a jagged V made by two massive chunks of rock, Julie saw a torso, facedown
in the water, its arms wrapped around the rocks as if embracing them.

 
          
Sickened,
she turned away. God! How awful! Some poor soul
—
a
fisherman maybe?
—
washed up from the sea.

 
          
She
lurched away from the edge. She'd have to call Bay
—
they had a crack lifeboat squad there. And then she
stopped, drawn back to the edge.

 
          
She
dropped to her knees
—
the right one was still
tender
—
and leaned over for a better
look.

           
Oh, no. That wasn't a fisherman.
That was a woman. Julie couldn't see the face, but... her fingers dug
spasmodically into the sand
—
Oh, God!
—
she recognized the color of the tweed skirt, the tan
blouse.

 
          
Moaning,
Julie crab-crawled backward and crouched with her face buried in her arms. She
retched.

 
          
Alma
. That was Alma down
there.

 
          
An
awful thought lanced through her mind like lightning.

 
          
Who
pushed her?

 
          
No
reason in the world for her to think that. The edge was treacherous and maybe
Alma
had been out here in the
fog. An accident was the most likely explanation.

 
          
So
why was her first thought of foul play, and her first suspect
—
?

 
          
Julie
bolted to sitting and turned, half expecting to see Liam standing there ready
to hurl her down on the rocks too.

 
          
But
she was alone.

 
          
She
breathed easier.

 
          
And
heard a crumbling sound. The world began to tilt backward. No, not the world,
only this little piece of it. The overhang was collapsing.

 
          
Julie
dove and rolled away from the sagging shale. Her forearm scraped along the
razorlike near edge of the crack as the overhang broke away and slid out of
sight. Seconds later she heard the splashing clatter as it hit the rocks below.

 
          
She
lay in the dry grass, breathing fast, puffing like a maniac. Had the falling
rock landed on
Alma
's body? Someone else would have to look and find out. Not
her.

 
          
She
got up on all fours and rapidly crawled away, like a frightened infant.