Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

Clara didn’t make any move to reveal herself yet; and seeing this, Peter smiled and said, “We’ll get what we can finished while there’s light, Papa. Come on, Katie, and give me a hand.”

The pair of them went back off to the chore of mending the wire fence. They looked pretty cheerful as they did, and from this I figured that they had in fact been treated well during their years with Josiah and Ruth Weston. Once they were gone, little Clara started to appear from behind Mrs. Weston slowly, her pad of paper and doll tucked under her left arm and a bunch of pencils held tight in her left hand.

“Well!” Mr. Picton said, merrily but gently. He’d caught sight of Clara, but was glancing around as if he hadn’t. “Where is my little girl? I’d hate to think I came all the way out here only to find that she’s disappeared… no sign of her? All right, then-thank you, anyway, Ruth, but I suppose we’ll just have to head back to town.”

Mr. Picton started to walk back toward the surrey, and then Clara rushed out from her hiding place to tug at the tail of his jacket with those parts of her thumb and forefinger what weren’t engaged in holding the pencils. As she did, I got my first really good look at her (though in fact it was my second overall, since I’d seen her likeness in the group photograph hidden in the secretary at Number 39 Bethune Street); she was a skinny little thing, with light brown hair gathered into one big, wide braid at the back of her head; eyes of a color similar to the hair (though, I noted uneasily, a touch more golden); and pale skin with very rosy cheeks. Like most kids who’ve seen things at an early age that nobody should ever have to, Clara’s skittish movements were echoed by the pitiable nervousness of her silent face.

Turning around in mock surprise, Mr. Picton smiled wide. “Why, there she is! She appears out of nowhere, does this one, Doctor, and never will teach me the trick! Come and meet a friend of mine, Clara.” Still clutching the tail of Mr. Picton’s jacket, the little girl followed him over to the Doctor. “Dr. Kreizler, this is Clara. Clara, Dr. Kreizler works with hundreds and hundreds of children in New York, the city that I’ve told you I once lived in. And he’s come all this way-”

“All this way,” the Doctor interrupted, giving a meaningful smile to Mr. Picton that said he’d take it from here, “to see your drawings.” He knelt down to look her in the face. “You like to draw very much, don’t you, Clara?”

The girl nodded; but it was much more than just a nod, we could all see that. It was a kind of request, too: a wish, you might say, that the Doctor would ask her more. And the funny thing was that, though Cyrus and I were continuing to stand back, we understood the moment better than either the Westons or Mr. Picton did: for we’d seen the Doctor use the trick on many other kids at his Institute. Drawing, painting, molding clay, they were all some of the quickest ways to get a little girl or boy who’d survived something that they plain and simple couldn’t speak about to begin to communicate. That was why the Doctor kept so many kinds of artistic materials in his consulting room at the Institute.

“ Yes , I thought you might,” the Doctor went on, slowly lifting a finger to point at Clara’s clenched little fist. “Because you have so many pencils. But no colored pencils.” He put on a troubled look, then brightened. “Did you know that there are such things as colored pencils, Clara?”

The light brown eyes went very big, and Clara shook her head to make it pretty obvious that, though she hadn’t known there were such things, she’d certainly like to have some.

“Oh, yes. All the colors you can imagine,” the Doctor answered. “Tomorrow I’ll bring you some from town-because you really do need colored pencils to draw things as they actually are, don’t you?” Clara nodded. “My friends and I sometimes draw, too,” the Doctor said, indicating Cyrus and me. “Would you like to meet them?” More nods followed, and then the Doctor signaled us over. “This is my friend Stevie,” he said, pointing to me.

“Hey, Clara,” I said, smiling down at her. “Does your friend draw, too?” I pointed at her doll, to which Clara shook her head hard and thumped her pencils against her chest. “Oh, I get it-drawing’s your game. Let her find her own way to have fun.” Clara’s shoulders began to move up and down; and then a scratchy sound what could’ve passed for a small laugh got out of her throat.

Finally, it was time for the big test: the Doctor pointed at Cyrus. “And this is my friend Mr. Montrose,” he said.

For about fifteen seconds, Clara stared up at Cyrus with a face what was plain impossible to read. Something was going on in that head of hers, that much was clear-and while none of us could yet say just what said thing was, it was obvious from the way that Clara stood her ground calmly that it was not terror. But it should have been: if any piece of Libby Hatch’s complicated story was true, if anything like the infamous attack by the mysterious black man out on the Charlton road really had happened, then when that little girl looked up at Cyrus, she should’ve taken off for the hills, or at the least for the safety of her foster mother’s skirts.

But she didn’t.

Finally Cyrus smiled kindly and bowed. Hello, Clara, he said, his voice sounding especially deep and soothing. “You know, when I was a little boy, I drew a picture of a wonderful house.” He knelt down to look into her eyes. “And do you know what the strange part of it is?” Clara studied Cyrus’s face hard and then shook her head slowly. “The strange part is that I live in that house now-it’s the Doctor’s house.” Clara pondered that for a few more seconds; then she held her drawing pad up to Cyrus.

On it was scratched a rough picture of the Westons’ farmhouse. Cyrus grinned, and Clara once again let that strange little noise out of her throat. “Well, well,” Cyrus said quietly. “So it’s happened to you , too.”

None of us ever found out whether Cyrus had caught a glimpse of what was on Clara Hatch’s pad of paper before he said what he did to her, being as, in that slightly amused, slightly mischievous manner that he sometimes exhibited, he always refused to tell us. But it really didn’t matter. The important thing was that, at the moment he told Clara his little story, you could just feel trust start to flow out of the girl: sticking her pencils under her arm with her other belongings, Clara turned away from Cyrus and took the Doctor by the hand, a move what caused Ruth Weston to gasp and Josiah Weston to put a hand to his mouth in amazement. The girl then led him over to Mr. Picton, put the Doctor’s fingers to her doll’s chest very carefully, and glanced up to give Mr. Picton a questioning look.

Mr. Picton slowly started to smile. “Why, yes, he said quietly. “Yes, Clara. I’m sure that the Doctor will know how to make your little girl feel much better. That’s his job you see, to make children feel better. Perhaps you should take him inside, and show him what’s wrong.”

The girl took the Doctor’s hand again, but before going anywhere she looked up to Mrs. Weston.

“Of course,” the woman said, reading another question in the little face. “I’ll go with you. Maybe some of your other friends could use the Doctor’s help, too.”

The three of them walked toward and then into the house.

“That’s the damndest thing,” Mr. Weston said quietly, scratching his head. “Three years she’s been here, and I’ve never seen her take to a stranger that way.”

“As I told you, Josiah,” Mr. Picton answered. “Dr. Kreizler is no ordinary visitor! Alone in his field, you might say-and his field is made up of cases like Clara’s. Well, then-Stevie? Cyrus? Shall we go inside, too?”