Frank De Felitta - For Love of Audrey Rose

“No, I suppose not.”

“Then you’ll get me a few books? I wouldn’t ask you, Janice, except that I’ve got nobody in the whole world. Nobody else in the world out there.”

Janice softened.

“I do truly understand, darling,” she said softly. “And I’m glad you’re feeling better. Get your rest and I’ll do as you ask.”

“Thanks, darling. I knew I could depend on you.”

After hanging up, Janice stared into the apartment, listening to the cold wind throwing itself at the long windows. Jainism, Hinduism, and now what? Northern Buddhism. Mountain style. It was all so sad, Janice thought. Bill was so confused, so fanatically looking for explanations, for expedients. It did not seem right to her. It had made her calm, once, after Ivy’s death, and now the same ideas were agitating Bill.

Maybe he was just having trouble getting a grip on the concepts. Maybe he was fighting it. Maybe, after roaming the world’s religions for solace, he would circle right back around and find comfort in the eternal grace and benediction of Jesus Christ. Janice sat for a very long time, listening to the wind. Poor Bill, she kept thinking, over and over again. But for the first time, she felt she was an accomplice on his road to recovery, she hoped, and not simply watching him through an invisible partition while he struggled for sanity.

She set the alarm, determined to be at the New York Public Library when it opened. If there was such a thing as Northern Buddhism, if only one hairless old monk with one tooth was still alive and practiced it, she would find out about it and bring it to Bill. It was their way of communication now. He need never know that it ripped open seams in her memory that were unendurable.

That night, during a troubled sleep, the past came back to assail her with a vengeance.

The voice suddenly rose to a shriek, reverberating, piercing all the corridors into Janice’s ears. She covered them with her hands and heard, through the screams, the rush of blood and the pounding of her own heart.

“Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddyhothothothot!!”

Rebounding, filling the hall with madness and terror, lashing out at Janice with shattering impact, Ivy rushed to the stairs. Her face was hideously distended, and deep red.

“HOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT” she sobbed, the words running together into a single blast of pain.

“Oh God! No!” Janice pleaded.

But the force of the girl was uncanny. Ivy ripped from her grasp, fell headlong down the stairs, and bolted, bleeding, across the living room.

“Ivy—!” Janice wept.

“HOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT” came the scream, further away now, as Ivy threw herself at the long, dark windows, frosted, glinting with the cold. Again and again, she beat her bandaged hands at the cold glass, looking for escape, until the blood dappled the patterns of the windows.

“Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddy—” she shrieked.

But Bill was gone, escaped to Hawaii, and the screams escalated into a single, incoherent, note of hysterical terror. From far away, as in a dream, Janice was conscious of the red light blinking on the house telephone, and without sensing her own feet, found herself picking up the receiver.

“Miz Templeton,” Dominick’s voice said. “There’s a Mr. Hoover down here in the lobby.”

“Send him up!” Janice cried, dropping the phone.

When Hoover arrived, she opened the door. Immediately he sensed the situation. He walked slowly into the apartment, unsure of his steps in the darkness. His tall, athletic body seemed to bend forward as though ready for anything. His thinning, blond hair gleamed in the light from above. Janice, fascinated, saw his pale blue eyes narrow, concentrating on the image of the whirling bundle of cloth, flesh, hair, and panic across the room.

“Audrey Rose!” he called. “It’s Daddy! I’m here!”

“DADDYDADDYDADDYDADDY!!”

“HERE, AUDREY ROSE! DADDY IS HERE, DARLING!”

Slowly, as he called her by that name, that name that was now as much a part of the apartment as anything else, Hoover stepped carefully toward the dark windows. Over and over he called to her, until she heard. Lips quivering, she looked blindly for the sound.

“Here, darling,” he whispered, “I’m here! It’s Daddy!”

Exhausted, looking for him, touching his coat as he came within reach, Ivy seemed unable to believe it. Then she scampered into his arms, sobbing against his chest. Hoover rocked her back and forth. Janice stepped slowly through the quiet apartment. All she heard was Ivy’s gentle, rhythmic breathing.

Hoover lifted Ivy’s arm and softly redressed the burnt hand. Then he washed her forehead, caressed her cheek, and carried her up to her bedroom. Janice followed in a daze. For a long time, he stood there, looking down at Ivy. The room was dark, and quiet, and Janice suddenly felt the aftershock of the violence. She sat down abruptly on the bed.

“Don’t you see what we’re dealing with here?” he asked, his eyes avoiding hers. “We’re dealing with something far greater than Ivy’s physical welfare. We’re dealing with her soul, the selfsame soul of my daughter, Audrey Rose. That’s what we must help and try to save.”

A peculiar buzz ran through Janice’s head, as though she had not slept for a week. All she wanted was for him to stop talking.

“It’s a soul in such pain and torment that it will push Ivy back to that moment of death, back to the fire and smoke, if we don’t help…”

Shut it out, her brain screamed. Don’t listen!

“I–I don’t know what you’re saying,” she managed to blurt.

He looked at her.

“I’m saying that Audrey Rose came back too soon,” he said simply. “Out of fear, horror, she returned too soon, and now seeks to escape this earth-life. This is the meaning of Ivy’s nightmares.”

“No!” she shouted. “You’re crazy. My husband says you belong in the nuthouse and he’s right!”

Hoover’s jaw clenched. Mastering himself, he swallowed and relaxed, but his eyes blinked rapidly as though humiliated that she still did not understand him.

“That’s your fear talking, Mrs. Templeton,” he whispered.

“No, damn it. It’s me talking. Now get out of here!”

Hoover came suddenly closer, leaning over her, until his face was only inches from her, his breath warm and sweet. Janice looked into the depths of his pale blue eyes and found an intolerable gentleness there.

“Will you open your heart and try at least to understand what I’ve been saying?” he entreated.

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice weak. “I don’t know what you want of me.”

Hoover sensed contact with her. He smiled. His eyes became bright. The words poured out in a silver rush.

“We must form a bond, Mrs. Templeton, you and I, so filled with love that we can mend her, so that the soul of Audrey Rose can find its rest. We’re the only ones who can help her. You and I.”

Janice felt a hypnotic power in his voice, a lulling, tugging seductiveness that weakened her. Yet she felt secure with him; his presence meant Ivy was safe.

“Don’t shut the door on me, Mrs. Templeton,” he breathed. “Allow me to come into your life. Allow me to serve you, and Ivy, and Audrey Rose. This is the meaning of my life. All those years of searching, hoping, doubting—”

He drew Janice closer to him. He saw that her eyes now darted over his face, examining him for signs, clues, some symbol of what reality had become.