The Fall of Never (37 page)

Her mind reeled:
I came down here and picked up this sketch pad…but why? How did I even know it was here? And what does it mean? Damn it, what am I suddenly so afraid of?

But hadn’t she been afraid for some time now? There was nothing sudden about it…

Even back in the city,
that same small voice whispered.

She turned the page. Staring up at her was the drawing of a dog with one of its front paws raised in injury. A jagged lightning bolt cut had been drawn across the dog’s raised leg. And from its back rose the protrusions of a dozen knives.

We almost killed that fucking dog,
she thought, and the thought was alien to her, foreign in meaning…made no sense. Dog? Yet it was there nonetheless:
We almost killed that fucking dog!

Something was happening here—she could feel it pushing against her, driving, fighting for control of her. It was the same sense of impending doom she had felt back in Manhattan, only more prominent now, as if she’d managed to accidentally bump the source. Images flashed across her brain—images from her own childhood—yet they remained nonsensical and still somewhat elusive. Part of her was trying desperately to remember while another part of her was insisting she keep all doors locked, all accesses denied, all memories forgotten.

I was committed to an institution when I was fifteen, but for the life of me I cannot remember why. How come this hasn’t haunted me, driven me crazy after all this time? How come, until just recently, I’ve never bothered to understand what happened to me when I was a child? And why is it all coming down now?

That driving force, that power pushing her, guiding her—it was
here.
In this house. Strong.

In that instant, and for whatever reason, her mind formed a picture of old Nellie Worthridge. For a split second, Kelly could see the old woman as clear as day inside her head, lying there in a musty room on a tiny bed, the single window’s shade drawn tight against the midafternoon sun.

She sensed movement behind her and she spun around. Shocked by the silhouette of someone standing directly behind her, she dropped the sketch pad and uttered a startled cry.

The figure took a step into the light.

“Kelly.”

It was her father. Dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, his graying hair twisted into corkscrews, he looked like he’d just been involuntarily pulled from a deep sleep.

“Jesus,” she breathed, “you scared me.”

“I heard noise down here,” he said. “We’ve had rats. Big ones. I thought it might be rats.”

Still shaken, she managed to stand and brush the dust off the knees of her jeans. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was making so much noise.”

“It’s a big house. Lots of room for sound to travel, get loud.” Then, perhaps as an afterthought: “I wasn’t asleep.” There was obvious discomfort in his eyes, in his voice: resonant and nearly palpable. “I was up worrying about your sister.”

She didn’t know if she believed his words. The image of her parents standing beside Becky’s bed, their faces expressionless, their eyes noncommittal, surfaced in her head. All their years of parental absence throughout her own youth rushed back to her in one electric wave. Their coldness, their dispassion, their inability to parent. And in the end, was it fair to hate someone for such an inability?

“We’re all worried,” she said, maintaining composure.

“All these years…” He spoke now with an inference of reflection, his eyes distant and sloppy in their sockets. “Your mother and I worried about you, too, Kelly. You think we haven’t, but that’s not true.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you hate me?” His words surprised her. Partly due to the impulsiveness with which he spoke them, but also because it had never occurred to Kelly that her father might actually commit time to the consideration of such things.

And she didn’t know how to answer him.

“You don’t see everything,” he said. “I know…your mother and I know…that you’re a smart girl and a special girl—you always were—but you don’t see
everything.
And we never knew what to do with you.” His eyes left her and traced briefly around the darkness of the cellar. At one point they came to rest on the decapitated animal heads against the wall. He almost smiled, again lost in retrospection. “On occasion, the smoke clears…and we almost understand what’s going on around us, and who we are, and what we’re supposed to do. And before it all clouds over again, we try to do the right thing.” His eyes fell on her again, frighteningly sober. “I’m trying.”

“Daddy…”

One of his large hands moved…and for a moment Kelly thought he would reach out and touch her, perhaps on the arm or shoulder or even caress the side of her face. Comfort her, the way fathers do. But he didn’t. And despite the enormity of his frame, he suddenly appeared as a child to Kelly, lost and frightened and powerless to communicate beyond fragments and innuendoes. And the appearance of such unexpected innocence managed to vanquish what anger she’d previously felt toward him.

“I wasn’t there for you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry things turned out the way they did. I never claimed to be a wonderful father.”

She could only watch him speak. It was like watching a mirage through a fan of heat-waves across the landscape of some dream desert.

“This house,” he continued, “has been more than a house. In reality, it’s just walls closing the inside off from the outside. And the outside from the inside too, I suppose. It’s just…sometimes it’s difficult to see past those walls. But I try. You don’t see everything, Kelly, and you may not know it, but I try. Even now.”

Distantly aware that her eyes were welling with tears, Kelly shook her head. Though she feared her voice might crack, she spoke anyway. “You don’t owe me anything. I don’t need an explanation. I’m here for Becky.”

“You’re a good girl, Kelly. You’ve grown into a good woman, too. I just wanted to tell you that.” His eyes shifted upward and appeared to transfix on the beams in the ceiling. “Sometimes I hate this house.” Again it seemed as though he might touch her, but instead he just offered her a weary old man smile. Kelly thought his eyes looked more intelligent than she ever could remember. She thought,
My father is an old man. Who would have ever thought he’d become an old man?

“I’m going to bed,” he said. “You be careful down here.”

“Right,” she said. “The rats.”

He nodded and turned, his giant looming shadow covering the entire wall behind him.

“Yes,” he said. “Big ones.”

Hours later, she awoke—or thought she awoke—in the middle of the night to find her mother standing above her bed, looking down at her without expression. Just standing there, staring at her in the darkness, the side of her body illuminated by the strip of moonlight that filtered in through the bedroom window, silent and unmoving. Was this real or was this a slice of dream that had followed her into consciousness as she turned over in bed? Dream or reality, Kelly saw the woman standing there, and if it was a dream, she recognized the peculiarity of the situation even in the depths of slumber. Her eyes closed, she thought she even felt this dream-mother touch a hand to her forehead, smooth back her hair. And in her mind, she watched as the dream-mother departed from the room, passing over the carpet like an apparition, pausing briefly in the doorway before disappearing into the darkness of the hallway.

In her sleep she dreamt of the wooded hillside that surrounded the house. And in this dream colors were much brighter and sharper, the leaves and grass impossibly green and absent of snow. Birds sang and flowers blossomed with the suddenness of tiny celestial explosions at her feet. It was storybook.

Kellllllly…

Becky called to her from somewhere deep in the woods; the girl’s voice carried out over the wooded hillside and treetops in an echo that shook the valley. And at the sound of her voice, the lush forestry blackened and withered, as if ravaged by disease.

Several times during the following day, Kelly found herself wandering out to the edge of the hillside that overlooked the spread of forest below. She did this with an unconscious need to
be
there, to go down into the forest and lose herself within the concealment of the snow-covered firs. Looking down the slope of the valley, she imagined Becky lost somewhere in that fairy tale world, struggling to overcome some unimaginable horror.
Becky almost died down there,
she thought, the notion so sharp and matter-of-fact that it nearly lost all relevance. She recalled last night’s dream and, again, her conscious mind leapt out for something it could not find, could not grasp, searching with mounting anxiety for secrets her subconscious was not yet ready to disclose. Yet some pieces filtered in nonetheless: blood in a running brook; a wounded dog; a glowing red light; the grating awareness of some inexplicable terror. And what did these things have to do with Becky? Anything? Anything at all?

Yes,
she knew,
it’s all tied together. Somehow.

“I can’t remember.” Vapor blossomed before her face.

Following a moment’s hesitation, Kelly found herself weaving down the hillside by way of a rocky path, the memory of last night’s dream growing more and more intense. Practically ignorant of her actions, she downed the snowy slope with vague absence, the way a dog driven by loyalty follows its owner. The slope was steep and twice she nearly spilled herself to the ground. Having not fully recovered from her recent fever, she could feel her body wearing itself out, tiring itself, burning too much energy. It occurred to her, as she reached the bottom of the hillside and stood on the cusp of the forest, that she did not want to proceed any further. It was cold and it was getting dark.

Also, she was scared.

There is something here.

The concept struck her with inexplicable priority.
There is something here.
She suddenly knew this, was certain of it, and felt drawn to the forest by the same sense of mysterious urgency that had ushered her into the basement the night before. Her mind generated images of hibernation, of wild things lying in wait for the arrival of something else. Again, she was struck by the image of her sister lost somewhere in these woods.

There is something here.

Warmth touched her. In her mind’s eye she saw Becky moving swiftly down the hillside in her nightgown and bare feet, her legs pumping furiously, her hair streaming behind her while sharp tracks of tears ran down her face. The girl moved with somnambulistic detachment. Kelly watched her run into the darkness of the forest, devoured by the darkness. She was suddenly terrified for Becky and tried to call out to her…only to realize she was daydreaming the moment she opened her mouth. Becky was still in the house, unconscious and in bed.

But she’s here too,
she thought.
I can feel her.

Encouraged by that same driving force, Kelly stepped into the forest.

Ancient pines loomed above her; random rays of sun bled through the treetops. Some snow had reached the ground here, but not much. Mostly, the forest floor was a dump of wet, dead leaves and fallen pine needles.

Becky was standing right here,
she thought,
right here on this spot the night she was attacked.

The air smelled charged with static. Looking around, bracing herself against the cold, she imagined Becky running through the trees, her body beaten and scraped by protruding branches, patterned with bruises and cuts. And she’d fallen too—Kelly was suddenly certain of this, knew it as if she’d been there to watch it happen. Becky had fallen just a few yards up ahead, her bare foot snagged by a rotting downfall hidden beneath the underbrush. But Becky had hardly noticed: she’d gotten quickly to her feet again and taken off deeper into the woods.

But why?

And how do I know all this?
Kelly wondered.
Why can I see it so clearly?

Not
see
it. She could
feel
it.

Something carved into the bark of a tree caught her attention and she went up to it, traced it with her fingers:

K.K. + S.S.

Closing her eyes, Kelly remained standing in front of the tree. There was a sense of peace all around her—of nature and all its appropriateness—and yet…there was something masked by this peace, something like a dark bruise, a sour spot in the middle of green health, hiding just beyond the surface…

With little surprise, Kelly found she could see the forest with her eyes closed: that the trees and the land and the sky were laid out before her. Not memory, not recollection—this was
here
and
now.
A path weaving through the underbrush…a glowing red beacon just beyond the trees, shining in the darkness, summoning…summoning…

She opened her eyes, suddenly terrified, and saw that there was nothing carved in the bark of the tree. Memories swam just beneath the surface of her mind, nearly coherent. Yet these were not her memories, she knew; these images and thoughts and sensations did not fully belong to her. At least not all of them. It was not Kelly running through the forest, not Kelly tracing a hand to the carving on the tree…

It had been
Becky.

She’s inside my head,
Kelly thought.