Peter Abrahams - Crying Wolf

But they had to tell her, tell her about the failure of their little scheme; and while they were at it, there was more: “We should tell her about you and me.”

“Both at the same time?” Izzie said. “How much can the poor girl take?”

Nat turned her sideways a little so he could see her face. “You’re acting funny,” he said.

“Am I?”

He looked into her eyes, saw the gold flecks, took in Izzie’s whole golden effect. “Maybe there’s no point telling her about us,” he said, “now that I’m going home.”

Did the idea upset Izzie? Nat couldn’t tell. Before, she’d said, You can’t just go. Now she said, “Let’s worry about that later.” She kissed him; then kissed him deeper. At first, he felt nothing. Then he realized this might be the last time-Albany-Chicago-Denver, there was a flight that very afternoon at three-and felt a great deal, much more than he was prepared for.

“Now?” he said.

“Why not?”

Izzie drew him toward the bed; the closest bed, which happened to be Grace’s. He steered her the other way, toward her own bed.

“What’s the difference?” she said.

They lay on Izzie’s bed. The last time, he thought: and maybe because of that knowledge, nothing went quite right. It was clumsy, awkward, quick-clumsier, more awkward, quicker, than any of the other times, even the first, on Aubrey’s Cay. He was surprised once more, then, when Izzie cried out at the end, loudly, passionately, instead of making the low moan she sometimes made, or no sound at all.

Izzie came out of the bathroom. “I’ve been thinking-it might be better if I tell her myself,” she said. “Why don’t you wait here?”

“No,” Nat said. Grace almost certainly would blame them-Izzie especially-and he wanted to shield her. “I’m coming.”

“I’d rather do it myself.”

That was Izzie. He smiled at her. “I’m coming.”

She opened her mouth as though to argue, closed it, came over. “Why not? It can’t get any crazier.” She kissed him, running her tongue over his chipped tooth. “What’s that?”

“My chipped tooth.”

“You can always get it fixed.”

Taking a flashlight, they crossed the quad, went down to the Plessey basement, shifted the panel at the back of the janitor’s closet, entered the tunnel. They walked, deep under the campus, Nat leading, their feet silent on the hard-packed dirt floor. All familiar now: the downward slope, the dampening air, the dripping sound from somewhere nearby. At the junction, they turned into the right-hand passage, no longer hung with spiderwebs because of their coming and going. The dripping sound grew louder. Suddenly Izzie screamed and dug her fingers into his shoulder, hard enough to hurt.

“What’s that?” she said.

In the flashlight’s beam, a bat hung from the valve on the steam pipe. “Just the bat,” Nat said.

“Kill it.”

“Don’t be silly. What’s wrong with you, Izzie?” But he knew: she was afraid of her sister. It made her jumpy. “Why don’t you go back? I’ll tell her myself.”

“Piss on that,” said Izzie.

They walked on, past the bat, hanging motionless. Izzie released her grip on his shoulder.

Nat raised the trapdoor, saw it was dark down in the cave, at least in the bedroom part. Grace was probably asleep. He climbed down the rope ladder, Izzie following, shone the light on the bed. Grace wasn’t in it, but something lay on the pillow. Nat went closer. Because of its color-that of putty-Nat didn’t recognize it until he was within touching distance. He didn’t touch. Lorenzo: Lorenzo lying on the pillow, dead in the open air, all his gaudy beauty faded away.

“Grace?” he called. “Grace?” And hurried, running at the end, into the big room. No candles burning in the big room either. Nat stabbed his light here and there. “Grace? Grace?” The room was a shambles-furniture overturned and broken, paintings knocked off the walls, cabinets smashed, shattered glass everywhere-and Grace was gone.

Peter Abrahams

Crying Wolf

Izzie lit a candle. Huge shadows appeared on the walls. “Where is she?”

She picked up a chair, one of those dainty gilt chairs, a leg now broken off, tossed it aside. Then something else, bang, and something else, crash, as she moved through the two rooms, faster and faster, the huge shadows in wild motion on the walls. “Where is she?” Then, much louder: “Where are you? Where are you?” No response; Nat thought he heard a distant dripping sound. She turned to him. “What’s going on?”

He didn’t know. Where was Grace? His first thought was the studded door in the big room, bricked-in on the other side. He opened it, shone his light around, then up at the grate that led to Goodrich Hall. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t under the bed, under the couches, behind what was left of the old wind-up record player. He knelt over fragments of a record: “Caro Nome,” the label still intact.

Izzie cried out. He hurried to her. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” She pulled a shard of glass from her finger. A fat drop of blood rose to the surface, quivered.

Nat shone his light on the smashed aquarium at her feet, on the chunk of coral Lorenzo had liked to hide behind, on the seaweed almost invisible on the pattern of the rug. He raised the beam up to Izzie’s face. She was sucking on her finger.

Izzie shielded her eyes; he aimed the light away. “Where are you?” she called, so loud and sudden it startled him. “Where are you?”

A painting fell from the wall, startling them both. Nat went to it: the nude bathers with the centaur spying from the bushes. He passed his light over the wall, saw a small hole where the hook must have been.

“Something bad is happening,” Izzie said.

Nat wasn’t so sure. “Suppose she was out in the hall.”

“What hall?”

“Your hall, in Lanark. When your father was in the room. What if she came up to tell us something and heard what he was saying about her?”

“What are you getting at?”

“Wouldn’t it make her angry?” Nat said. “It made you angry.”

Izzie watched him, saying nothing.

“Maybe she was angry enough to come back here and… do this.” Do this, down at the subterranean level, in the time he and Izzie had spent in bed, above.

“You don’t know her,” Izzie said. The candle she held lit her face from below, casting cheekbone shadows over her eyes, at the same time lightening her hair. “You talk about her like she’s some kind of monster.”

“Not a monster. But she can be funny. You’re the one who told me that.”

“Did I?”

“On the beach.”

“How loyal of me,” Izzie said.

He overcame the urge to shine the light on her face again, to get a better look at her. “What’s wrong with you, Izzie?”

“How can you ask a question like that? Something bad is happening. And you don’t care. You think she’s off by herself, in a sulk.”

“What other explanation is there?”

She gazed at him. “You’re starting to remind me of my father.”

An uncommon feeling stirred inside him, that same anger he’d felt when the campus security officer had implied he knew something about the theft of the HDTV from the student union.

“But here’s an explanation if you need one,” Izzie said. “Wags.”

“Wags? Wags doesn’t even know about this place.”