Suffer the Children (40 page)

“I’d forgotten, I guess,” Elizabeth confessed. “You really remember that?”

“Oh, I remember practically everything now, even during that year before I went to Ocean Crest Except for the last few weeks. There are some fuzzy patches, and I can’t seem to get through the fog. And 1’m not sure I want to. I suppose Larry told you.”

“Do you call all the doctors at Ocean Crest by their first names? Or is Dr. Felding special?”

Sarah laughed. “He’s not special, except in the way all the people at Ocean Crest are special. We call all of them by their first names. Don’t forget, I didn’t even know Larry was a doctor during the first years. I just thought he was another nut.”

An expression of consternation crossed Elizabeth’s face. “How can you talk that way?” she said.

“What way?”

“Referring to yourself and everyone else at Ocean Crest as a nut?”

“Sorry,” Sarah said. “I forgot I usually don’t say that in front of outsiders. It seems to bother them, like it bothered you. But it doesn’t bother us,” she said serenely. “We think ‘nut’ is a much better word than ‘paranoid schizophrenic’ or ‘manic depressive.’ It sounds so much more human.”

“I’ll never get used to that place,” Elizabeth said. “But it seems to work, so I guess it’s all right.”

“Why don’t you check in?” Sarah suggested lightly. “Who knows? If you try real hard, maybe you can be crazy too. But it’s not easy,” she added, her voice taking on a more serious tone. “It takes a lot of energy
to be the way I was for so long. Maybe I was just too tired to talk.”

“Like Mrs. Goodrich,” Elizabeth said, feeling a sudden desire to change the subject It was a lot easier for Sarah to talk about her illness than it was for her.

“How is she?” Sarah asked.

“As well as can be expected, considering her age,” Elizabeth replied. “She might not know who you are, and she might say some strange things. I just wanted to warn you.”

“I’m used to people saying strange things,” Sarah said, her grin lighting her face. “Lead me to her.”

Elizabeth unlocked the door, and they stepped into the entry hall.

“Just the same,” Sarah said. “Just like I remember it.” She moved from room to room, taking in everything. “You haven’t changed anything, have you. Don’t you get bored with it?”

“Bored with it?” Elizabeth repeated. “Why should I?”

“I don’t know. I should think you’d want a change now and then, that’s all.”

For some reason Elizabeth suddenly felt slightly uncomfortable. “I suppose I’m my father’s daughter,” she said, a little stiffly. “He never wanted things to change either.”

“I hope you’re not completely your father’s daughter,” Sarah remarked. “If you are, I don’t think I want to go to the woods with you.”

Elizabeth felt her stomach knot, and looked at her sister with horror. “How can you say such a thing, Sarah?”

Sarah’s grin faded, and she looked into Elizabeth’s eyes. “I think we’d better have a little talk, Elizabeth,” she said. “I can wait to see Mrs. Goodrich. Where’s a good place?”

“The back study,” Elizabeth said. “I use it more than any other room in the house.” She led the way, feeling
uneasy about what Sarah might have to say to her. She decided to fix herself a drink.

“Fix me one, too?” Sarah asked her, and when Elizabeth looked at her strangely, Sarah went on, “We drink at Ocean Crest, too.”

She sat down and waited until Elizabeth handed her a glass and took a chair opposite her.

“Look, Elizabeth,” she said. “I know you thought I said a horrible thing when I made that crack. But you have to understand some things about me. I know what happened out in the woods, and I know it was a horrible thing that Dad did to me. But it’s over. I mean, it’s really over. I’ve been through it all—the pain, the anger, the resentment, everything. And yes, I joke about it now. For a long time that incident with Father was the end of my life. But it isn’t any more. It’s over with, and in the past It’s like it happened to someone else, and if I joke about it I guess it’s just one of the tools I use to deal with it. My kidding about it can’t hurt Dad; he’s dead. And there isn’t any reason that it should hurt you, either.”

“It just seems so—so—” Elizabeth groped for the right word, and couldn’t find it.

“Macabre?” Sarah suggested. “I suppose it is, but believe me, it’s better for me to joke about it than sit in silence and brood on it So let me be myself, all right?” She smiled, and Elizabeth returned the smile uncertainly.

Elizabeth and Sarah returned to the little study after dinner, where they sat sipping brandy and enjoying the fire.

“Do I really look like Mother?” Sarah asked suddenly. Mrs. Goodrich had insisted on calling Sarah “Miz Rose” even after Elizabeth had explained that it was not Rose but Sarah, home for a visit Mrs. Goodrich had remained unconvinced.

“Quite a bit, really,” Elizabeth said. Then an idea
occurred to her. “You know, all of Mom and Dad’s old photo albums are up in the attic. Why don’t we go up there and find some pictures of Mother when she was your age? Maybe the resemblance is greater than I can see. And we can dig out all the toys we had when we were kids.”

“I detect the fine hand of Larry Felding at work,” Sarah chuckled. “But I’ll give you credit You did that very well. And I suppose I can’t put it off forever. Let’s go up. Maybe something will jog my memory.”

The two women went up to the door that blocked the stairs to the attic and found it locked.

“I hope we don’t have to break it down,” Elizabeth said. “I haven’t been up here in years, and I don’t have any idea where the key is.”

Sarah suddenly reached up and ran her fingers along the ledge above the door. A moment later she had put the key in the lock and the door was open.

“How did you know about that?” Elizabeth said curiously. “I certainly didn’t know there was a key up there.”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said with a shrug. “I suppose I must have seen someone put it up there years ago, or something. Who cares? Let’s see what’s up there.” She reached for the light switch and started up the stairs.

“Well, for heaven’s sake,” she said when they were in the attic. “Will you look at that.”

“At what?” Elizabeth said. It just looked like an attic to her, and she didn’t see anything odd about it.

“That corner,” Sarah said, pointing. “It’s so clean. Attics are supposed to be dusty.”

It was true. In one corner, where an old picture was propped facing the wall, there was no dust anywhere, not even on the floor.

“That is odd, isn’t it?” Elizabeth said. “I can’t imagine this old place is so tight There must not be any vents in that spot.”

“You don’t suppose Mrs. Goodrich comes up here to clean, do you?” Sarah said.

Elizabeth shook her head. “She hasn’t been upstairs in years. Anyway, why would she clean just one corner? Well,” she went on, shrugging the mystery away, “Let’s get to it, shall we?”

They started going through the attic, and found a box marked “Sarah.”

“Here it is,” Elizabeth said triumphantly. “Prepare to face your past.” Sarah touched the box reluctantly, as if it might be hot. Then she seemed to get a grip on herself.

“No time like the present,” she muttered, and opened the box. Inside was a jumble of clothing, children’s books, and toys. She lifted each item out, and they all seemed familiar to her. She recognized some of the clothes as having been favorites, and held others up in disgust.

“Ugh,” she said. “Remember this?” It was a brown scarf, and Sarah was holding it by two fingers. “I used to hate wearing this, it was so itchy. Why do you suppose Mother didn’t just throw it away?”

“It wasn’t Mother,” Elizabeth said. “It was Dad who insisted on keeping everything. I think the whole history of the Congers is probably up here somewhere.”

Sarah snorted. “With the history we have, you’d think they’d have wanted to bury it, not store it,” she said. “Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of curse on us or something?”

Elizabeth looked at her sister curiously. “I didn’t know you knew about that,” she said slowly.

“Oh, sure,” Sarah said. “Didn’t you know? It’s all written up in my records, first at White Oaks, then at Ocean Crest. What nonsense. Secret caves and everything.”

“Ray Norton’s still looking,” Elizabeth said.

“Ray Norton?” Sarah said, without any particular interest “Who’s he?”

“The chief of police. Every year he comes out here, searching around in the woods and the embankment.”

“Well,” Sarah said, “I wish he’d find something. Then maybe I could remember those last few weeks and get on with it.” She reached into the bottom of the box. “What’s this?”

She held up a doll, one arm of which was broken off at the shoulder. It was an odd doll, old-fashioned, and dressed in a blue dress with ruffles down the front and around the hem. On its head, framing the faded porcelain face, was a tiny bonnet.

“I don’t remember this,” Sarah said. “Where do you suppose it came from?”

Elizabeth examined it carefully, and an odd feeling came over her. Then she realized that it was the right arm that was missing. Fifteen years ago it had been a child’s right arm that Sarah had dragged across the field from the woods.

“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said, quickly putting the doll down. “I’ve never seen it before either.”

She heard the doorbell sound two floors below, and felt a strange sense of relief at being called out of the attic. She didn’t know why, but the doll had affected her more than she thought it should have.

“Who could that be?” she said. Then, when Sarah started to rise, she spoke again. “Ill get it,” she said. “Why don’t you see if you can find the doll’s other arm? It looks terrible without it.”

Elizabeth left the attic and hurried down the stairs. She paused before she opened the door. “Who is it?” she called.

“Ray Norton,” a voice came back to her.

Elizabeth opened the door and let the police chief in. As soon as she saw his face she knew something was wrong. The blood had drained out of it, and there was a strange look in his eyes.

“What is it?” she said. “Has something happened?”

“Is Sarah with you?” Norton asked.

“She’s upstairs,” Elizabeth replied. “We’ve been poking around the attic. What’s happened?”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,” Norton said. “Can we go into the study?”

“Of course,” Elizabeth said. “Shall I call Sarah?”

“No,” Norton said. “I’d like to talk to you alone.”

“All right,” Elizabeth said. “Go ahead. I just want to run up and tell Sarah I’ll be a while. Will it take long?”

“No.” The old policeman shook his head and started down the hall.

A minute later Elizabeth joined him in the study and closed the door behind her.

“You’ve found something, haven’t you?” she said. “In the woods.”

“We found something,” Norton agreed. “But it wasn’t in the woods. The construction workers broke through the roof of the cave today.”

“The cave?” Elizabeth said blankly. “You mean the cave in the legend? But I thought—we all thought it didn’t exist.”

“I know,” Norton said gently. “But it turns out it does exist.”

“Was—was there anything in it?”

Norton nodded mutely; then, after a pause during which he seemed to be trying to decide how much to tell her, he spoke.

“I know Sarah was supposed to be here for a couple of days, but you’d better take her back to the hospital in the morning,” he said.

“Tomorrow morning?” Elizabeth said. “Why? What did you find?”

“A mess,” Norton said. “There were four skeletons in the cave, and the remains of a dead cat as well. We’ve already identified three of the skeletons. All three of the kids that disappeared fifteen years ago. And Jimmy Tyler’s skeleton was missing a right arm.”

“You said four skeletons,” Elizabeth said softly. “Who is the fourth?”

“We don’t know, Norton said. It appears to be much older than the other three. All we know so far is that it was another child, probably a girl.”

“I see,” Elizabeth said.

“Anyway,” Norton said uncomfortably, “for now we’re keeping it quiet But by tomorrow afternoon the word will be out, and this place will be crawling with people. Reporters, photographers, thrill-seekers. The whole works. And I don’t think you’d want Sarah subjected to all that.”

“No,” Elizabeth said shortly. She paused and her eyes met those of the police chief.

“Mr. Norton,” she said. “What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” Norton replied. “I’ll know better tomorrow, when I’ve had a chance to talk to the coroner and the district attorney.” He stood up nervously, wanting to leave. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t stay,” he said. “I really shouldn’t have come at all, but I knew Sarah was here, and I just wanted to …” He trailed off, unsure of what else to say.

“I know,” Elizabeth said. “And I appreciate it Thanks for coming out.”

She accompanied him to the front door and watched until she saw the taillights of his car fade away down the driveway. Then she snapped the porch light off and slowly climbed the stairs up to the attic.

As she climbed, she tried to think what she was going to tell Sarah.

Sarah slept restlessly that night, and woke several times. It didn’t seem fair that she would have to go back to Ocean Crest in the morning, but she supposed that Elizabeth was right and she shouldn’t stay in the house with only Mrs. Goodrich. Not that she thought anything would happen, but still, she wasn’t used to being on her own, and Ocean Crest had agreed to let her come only because Elizabeth would be with her all the time. And now Elizabeth had to go out of town for the day. She punched at her pillow and tried to go back to sleep.

When she first heard the noises from over her head, Sarah was sure she was imagining them. When they persisted, she began listening. Someone, she was sure, was moving around in the attic. She got out of bed and slipped into her robe, then went to Elizabeth’s room. The bed was rumpled but empty. Sarah went to the attic stairs and listened. Movement. Silence, then more movement. She started to go up to see what was going on, then changed her mind. Instead she returned to her room, but left the door slightly ajar. She sat on the edge of her bed and lit a cigarette. The cigarette was almost finished when she heard the sound of footsteps coming down. She went to her bedroom door and peeked out Elizabeth was coming out of the attic. Sarah watched her close the attic door and return the key to its place on the ledge above it. Then Elizabeth returned to her
own room and closed the door. The house was silent, and Sarah returned to her bed.