Chris Bohjalian - The Night Strangers

“So it would seem. But, then, he doesn’t believe the captain poisoned the animal.”

“Well, Verbena does.”

“And that’s something. Nevertheless, he called me today to tell me he’s going to report me to the State Board of Medicine. He’s going to suggest that I have some… some sort of agenda… for wanting the man committed.”

“Well, you do,” John said, and he allowed himself a small smirk. As he hoped, it seemed to cheer the young woman a bit. “So, hospitalization isn’t really the recommended protocol?”

“Of course not!”

“No arguable gray area?”

“None.”

“Well, you’re the doctor. I’m merely a lawyer. But sadly, in addition to getting you in a wee bit of hot water, this could be a bit of a cause celebre, couldn’t it? Given the captain’s history and that ditching in Lake Champlain, arguing over his competency could draw more attention to us than any of us desire.”

“I know.”

“Tell me: In your opinion, would Verbena be able to convince the captain to admit himself to the hospital if Michael were no longer his physician?”

“Absolutely,” she answered. “I have no doubt.”

“So we need Michael gone.”

“Yes, but we really don’t have the time to convince him to… take care of himself.”

“Well, that doesn’t matter because I’m not much of a sorcerer. Just had the good sense to marry one. Besides: It’s not as if Anise has managed to convince the captain to take care of himself.”

“These things take time. And unfortunately, I really don’t have a lot of it.”

“Everything is so much easier once the captain is committed. Verbena is dependent upon us and enamored with us. There’s a term for that, isn’t there? A psychological term?”

She nodded. “The Stockholm syndrome. It’s when a captive or a hostage starts thinking well of his or her abductors.”

“Well, I like to believe she would think highly of us no matter what. I think most of the time we’re rather good eggs.”

“John, sometimes I just can’t tell when you’re pulling my leg or being deadly serious.”

He reached across the table and squeezed her arm. “This time? I am being deadly serious,” he answered, smiling, and his eyes had the twinkle she loved.

T hat night Emily skimmed through the local phone book. Even though it was but a fraction as thick as the one back home in Pennsylvania, there were still nearly two columns of people named Davis. Fortunately, there were only two in Bethel and only one Rebecca. Paul and Rebecca Davis. Clearly this was the woman who had buttonholed her at the diner in Littleton soon after they arrived in New Hampshire. While the girls were doing their homework she phoned her. That afternoon, Anise and Sage had each tried calling her Verbena, just as John Hardin had earlier in the week. Meanwhile, Valerian Wainscott wanted to institutionalize her husband. And so now Emily decided that she needed another opinion about these self-proclaimed herbalists. She wanted to speak with someone who, clearly, wasn’t one of them.

A man answered the phone at the Davis household, and she introduced herself to him. She said she was Emily Linton and she was hoping to speak to Becky Davis. Although she was quite sure she heard the woman in the background speaking with that high school-age son she had mentioned at the diner, Paul Davis said his wife wasn’t home. But he said that she would call Emily back in the next day or two.

“Would you like my work number?” she asked.

“We know your firm,” he said, an edge to his voice that hadn’t existed when he first answered the call.

“That’s right,” Emily said simply. “Your wife mentioned that she knew I worked with John Hardin.”

“We all do,” he told her, and then added curtly, “Good night.”

Y ou wonder: These days, does Emily ever fall into a sleep so deep that she will not remember her dreams in the morning and no mere rustle will wake her? You know what she thinks about you. You know what they all think. The women. Their husbands. You know what they all believe.

The truth is, now whenever you climb from beneath the sheets-before you have even thrown your feet over the side of the bed onto the cold wooden floor of your bedroom-Emily is awake.

Chip? she will murmur, and then she will ask you where you are going.

Oh, just getting an Advil, you will reassure her, and sometimes that has indeed been the case, because sometimes Ethan or Ashley or even Sandra has joined you in your bedroom in those smallest, darkest hours of the night. Other times you have simply gone to the bathroom. Either way, Emily will sit upright in bed and await your return. You know she is listening carefully to the sound of your footsteps along the corridor and awaiting the sound of the bathroom door closing and opening. If your toes so much as touched the steps to the third floor and Hallie and Garnet’s bedrooms, she would be out of your bed like a shot.

The result is that those same demons that have you contemplating the deaths of your own children have you contemplating her death as well. She has no idea that you have brought Tansy’s knife upstairs, none at all. Right now, you could lie on your stomach and drape your arm over the side of the mattress, dangle it casually as if you were getting a massage, and find the knife held to the inside wall of a horizontal slat with one wide piece of duct tape. Or you could simply smother Emily. The original Desdemona-Shakespeare’s, not yours-died that way. And, in fact, your Emily once played Desdemona and she was remarkable. You were able to rearrange your flight schedule that month so you could be in the audience opening night, and you may never have been more proud of her as an actress than when you witnessed her final scene with Othello. You watched her die at the hands of her husband.

You have to hope it will never come to that in real life. You have to hope you can resist. But the physical pains grow worse, as does Ethan’s incessant prodding. If you ever hurt either Emily or your girls, you know that next you would kill yourself. That has always been clear.

And so once more you contemplate the knife you have brought to your bed. Perhaps you should simply use it upon yourself first and ensure that nothing happens to Emily or Hallie or Garnet. This time, instead of plunging it into your abdomen-trying, in some way, to eradicate the pain you already are feeling-you should slash your wrists. Long cuts along your forearms, from your elbows to the wrinkles at the palms of your hands.

“Chip?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Were you having a bad dream? One of your plane dreams?”

“No. I wasn’t even asleep. I was wide awake.”

“You were?”

“I was.” You pull your legs out from under the sheets and feel her sit up in bed. You knew she would.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“Just getting an Advil.”

And then you walk to the bathroom, leaving the door open so she can hear exactly what you are doing. She can hear the mirrored cabinet door with its small squeal and she can hear the rattle of the red pills in the plastic bottle when you shake three more tablets (yes, that is how many you will take now; sometimes you even take four) into the palm of your hand. When you return to bed, her head is on her pillow, but you can tell that her eyes are open. She is alert. Vigilant. But, of course, she is not as vigilant as she thinks she is. She has no idea that on the other side of the bed-her side of the bed-Ethan Stearns is watching her. He is watching you both. And your head? It now feels like it will explode, and, despite those three Advil, you shut tight your eyes against the pain, grimacing into your pillow in the dark.