F Paul Wilson - Novel 05 (37 page)

 
          
He
opened a closet and took out a suede fall jacket. Not his usual style. He
didn't look like Eathan in it.

 
          
Without
another word, he left the house.

 
          
Julie
stood alone in the foyer, reeling with guilt about
Alma
, feeling lost, confused ...
and lonely.

 
          
A
strange feeling, lonely. She couldn't remember being lonely before. Ever. She'd
always taken pride in being self-sufficient, self-contained. She'd joke about
it: "I'm never lonely when I'm alone
—
I'm
with me."

 
          
She
heard Eathan's car pull out of the driveway. She walked over to the window and
pushed aside the thin curtain. She saw the police cars parked to the side.
Stephens was off retracing
Alma
's steps, checking the sand for other footprints.

 
          
Alone
... and lonely. She didn't want to be alone with Julie at the moment. She
wanted company.

 
          
And
she knew whose.

 
          
Julie
walked upstairs to Sam's room. The nurse looked up police   she came
to the side.

 
          
"You
can take a break," Julie said.

 
          
The
nurse was used to her visits by now and quietly excused herself from the room.

 
          
"Hello,
Sam," she said as the computer initialized the satellite feed and ran
through the dozens of preconnect diagnostic programs. "Like it or not, your
sister's dropping by for another visit. Without Eathan and without Dr. S."
And, God, without
Alma
.
"Just you and me."

 
          
Julie
had to admit that she was a little uneasy about Sam's scape now. It seemed to
be edging out of her control, increasingly involving Julie as a participant,
not a mere observer. Dr. S.'s warnings echoed in her head.

 
          
But
the 'scape was like a siren call, with a steadily thinning line separating
Sam's fractured memories and Julie's reality now.

 
          
Even
when I'm out here, I'm never really free of it.
Which meant, she was sure,
that she wouldn't stop until shejd gone as far as she could.

 
          
She
pulled on her headgear. Nothing to see in there now, just blank video blue as
the program prepared to run.

           
The loneliness was fading. Sam's door
was opening.... A single vertical roll in the lenses of the headgear as they
darkened, and then she was back.

 
          
And
what she saw took her breath away.

 
          
1
was asked to be on a panel with a bunch of memory-recovery therapists. Normally
I keep to myself, but this time I went
—
and
gave them hell! Memory recovery therapy
—
it
drives me up the wall. Never have I heard anything so bogus. And these
therapists try to pass themselves off as scientific? They should be arrested.
They're not recovering memories
—
they're manufacturing them!

—
Random
notes: Julia Gordon

 
          
Sam's
studio is almost empty. The virtual wall space is bare. The lion in the gondola
is gone. So is the faux Mondrian. The large unfinished canvas remains, along
with a few others scattered haphazardly about.

 
          
One
catches your eye: a painting of a boardwalk under a swirling fiery sky, beside
the blue of water, a lake or the sea ...

 
          
But
no people.

 
          
A
boardwalk. Something about this entices you, but you're drawn to the door, to
see what's happened to the watery wasteland overnight.

 
          
As
you rise into the darkness you notice major changes in scape. In the moonlight
gleaming off the black water, you see that the Mondrian island is gone,
swallowed by the sea. You won't be able to search the rooms behind those other
doors. And the
Nighthawks
island
—
gone
too.

 
          
You
feel a rush of dread as you realize that only three other islands remain...
moving closer together. They almost seem to be gathering into a single
landmass.

 
          
As
you glide over the coalescing islands, you spot the boardwalk on one, a
cartoony promenade rendered in crayonlike colors. Almost a kid's drawings
—
but you
know
this picture. Something about it is so
familiar, yet some crucial identifying element is missing.

 
          
You
wonder momentarily about the thing that lurks beneath the surface, but maybe
that's still over near
Venice
.

 
          
You
land on the boardwalk. The wooden slats glow with a burnished orange.

 
          
A
boardwalk with no one on it. Strange, this doesn't look like the beaches at
Brighton
where Eathan took you and
Sam for summer vacations. Is this memory something from Sam's Cote d'Azur days?
Do they even have boardwalks on the
Riviera
?

 
          
You
turn around, searching for someone, something....

 
          
An
old fortune-telling machine sits alone, its back to the sea, its dimly lit
glass case glowing like a beacon. Inside, an old plaster gypsy stares out at
you with dark glass eyes. Eerie... but you move closer.

 
          
As
soon as you reach the gypsy, her right arm starts to move, stiffly, just like a
real arcade fortune-teller, moving as if dealing out a card.

 
          
But
no card is dealt.

 
          
Her
glass eyes blink. The plaster lips move.

 
          
You
hear nothing, but in the front of the machine, a small sign lights.

 
          
WHAT
SECRETS SHALL MADAME HANAMSAT REVEAL TO YOU?

 
          
Below
the sign, three subject areas begin to blink: LIFE . . . LOVE . . . FORTUNE.

 
          
And
below each of those, a button waits.

 
          
"Okay,"
you say. "Tell me about
—
"

 
          
You
reach out and press LOVE.

 
          
The
gypsy's arm moves and a card falls into the slot. You, pick it up and read:
How
can you ask about love when you have none?

 
          
The
card disappears.

 
          
The
lights flash again: Ask another question. You realize you're annoyed at this
glass-eyed gypsy.

 
          
You
press LIFE.

 
          
The
arm moves. Another card falls.

 
          
Life
before . . . or after?

 
          
Before
or after
what
¹
.
This machine could have been programmed by
Liam: It answers every question with another question.

 
          
And
now two new words blink, two new buttons wait: BEFORE and AFTER.

 
          
You
press the button beneath BEFORE.

 
          
Again
the arm moves, again a card falls.

 
          
This
one says
The moon, the house, or the mask?

 
          
Great.
You've stumbled onto the Zen monk of fortune-telling machines. But at least
it's given you some more choices. The moon, the house, the mask...

 
          
Three
choices, three buttons.

 
          
Of
all the things you've seen in Sam's 'scape, this machine most convinces you
that she's trying to make contact.

 
          
You
reach out and press the button under the word MASK.

 
          
The
plaster gypsy looks up. And for the first time she smiles, a knowing leer, a
death grimace, while the glassy eyes retain the same expression.

 
          
The
head cracks open.

 
          
And
Nathan is there, sitting at a table facing you, and you're four years old__

 
          
Daddy
wants to play the game again, always the same game every day. And it's fun...
most times.

 
          
"Julia,
are you ready?"

 
          
She
nods. "Yes, Daddy."

 
          
He
brings out the cards.

 
          
Multiplication
and division. Easy stuff. So simple. 3 X 3, 8 X
⁸
' 7 X 6 ... except
he goes fast, then faster.

 
          
"Come
on, come on, Julia. You're hesitating. Come on. You
know
these"

           
Julie curls her legs around each
other, locking them together. She snaps off the answers as fast as she can.

 
          
"Twenty-four...
fifty-one... sixty-three ..."

 
          
But
Daddy shakes his head, and only seems to go faster.

 
          
"Come
on, come on.... This is rote stuff, only memory, Julia. That's all. No thinking
here, none at all."

 
          
Faster
and faster, until Julie feels as if she's riding a pony, holding on to its
mane, galloping over the number cards like they're hurdles.

 
          
She
sees him smile. She's doing well. Riding that pony well.

 
          
Until
he gets to the end and she feels disappointed. Maybe he has other problems for
her to do, like arranging the blocks, or looking at the triangles and counting
them ... all the triangles, so many different sizes.

 
          
That's
all for today, Julia. I have an important meeting."

 
          
He
stands up. He's so big. He slips the cards into his pocket. He takes a step
away from the simple wooden table

 
          
"Daddy..."

 
          
He
stops.

 
          
"Can't
I do one? To you?"

 
          
"I'm
really very
—
"

 
          
"You
always let me do one. Just one problem."

 
          
He
smiles, and it's a good smile, a nice smile. He loves hen-she's sure of that.

 
          
"Okay.
Fire away, missy."

 
          
"Okay,
okay
—
" Now she has to search
for a problem, something hard. She's supposed to know the answer... that's the
way the game is played. But he's never, ever checked. Never.

 
          
"Ninety-nine
times"
—
she tightens the curl of her
legs even more
—
"sixteen."

 
          
His
eyes narrow. He has to
think
about this. Then, he answers.

 
          
"One
thousand five hundred and eighty-four." He isn't smiling anymore.
"Is that the answer, Julia? Is that it?"

 
          
"I...
I..."

 
          
She
doesn't know, but now the game isn't fun. What's happening here? The game is
always fun but now
—

 
          
"Is
that the
answer,
Julia?"

           
"I... I... don't
—
"

 
          
And
then it happens. You see a thin line appear on Daddy's head, a line that runs
right down the middle of his face, from his hair down to his nose, onto his
mouth, his chin. Such a thin line. She wants to say something to him, when
—

 
          
The
line begins to widen ... a cracking, peeling sound as the line
opens.

 
          
"Is
that the answer, Julia?"

 
          
"Daddy,
Daddy, I don't know
—
" She's crying,
watching this line widen, the face crack open, like one of those nuts at
Christmastime, opening up
—

 
          
And
suddenly it's Uncle Eathan in there, his dark beard not so full, his eyes
glistening, repeating the same words, with the same tone, the same voice... as
Daddy.

 
          
"Don't
ever ask me a problem ... unless you know the answer."

 
          
Julie
nods. The cracked outer head has curled away, like a shed snakeskin. Uncle
Eathan turns and walks away.

 
          
Then
the girl is gone.

 
          
Your
first thought: That isn't Sam's memory. It's yours. God, you've just seen one
of
your
memories in here. And not only that, you barely remember the
number game you used to play with your father. You knew he drilled you, did
puzzles and problems with you.

 
          
But
what you just saw didn't seem like a game.

 
          
Then
you're aware of where you are
—
on that boardwalk
 stretches to the horizon. You see a white dot at the impossibly far end.
You didn't notice it before, and perhaps you should investigate, but you're too
rattled to do anything more.

 
          
You
turn around__