John Saul - Nathaniel

"No," he whispered. Then, again, "No."

" But you will ," Nathaniel whispered. " You must, and soon. You will …" The voice trailed off, and Michael's headache faded away. As his vision cleared, he frowned uncertainly at the doctor. "Can I go now?" he asked shyly.

Potter said nothing for a moment, then finally shrugged. "We both know what happened that night, don't we, Michael?"

Michael hesitated, then nodded.

"But you won't talk about it, will you?"

This time, Michael shook his head.

"Can you tell me why not?"

Again, Michael shook his head.

"All right," Potter told him. "Now, listen to me carefully. I know what you did, and I know what you think you saw. But you didn't see anything. Do you understand? You didn't see anything in Ben Findley's barn, and you didn't see anything in the field. It was the middle of the night, and you were tired, and all that happened was that you imagined you saw some things that weren't there. They weren't there, because they couldn't have been there. Do you understand?"

Michael hesitated, then nodded. "I-I think so."

"All right." Potter stood up and moved toward the door, but before he opened it, he turned back to Michael. "And one more thing. From now on, you stay away from Ben Findley's barn. You stay away from his barn, and stay off his property."

Michael gazed up at the doctor. He knows, he thought. He knows about Nathaniel, and he knows what we saw. And now we're going to have to make him die. He turned the strange thought over in his mind, and wondered why the idea of making Dr. Potter die didn't scare him. Then, while he half listened to the doctor talking to his mother, he began to think about something.

Was making someone die the same as killing them?

He thought it probably was, but somehow, deep inside, it didn't feel the same. Making someone die, he was suddenly sure, was different from killing them. He could never kill anyone.

But he could make someone die.

Janet gazed questioningly at Michael as he emerged from Potter's office, but when he said nothing, her eyes shifted to Potter.

"I don't know," Potter said thoughtfully. "I don't think anything too serious is wrong, but I'd like to think about it and maybe make a couple of calls. Why don't you bring him back tomorrow afternoon?"

A few moments later, after they'd left Potter's house, Michael finally spoke, a fearful note in his voice. "Why did you tell him about-" He hesitated, then finished the question: "Why did you tell him about the ghost?"

"I-well, I was worried about the headaches, and I thought the doctor ought to know what happened when you got them."

"He thinks I'm crazy."

"I'm sure he doesn't-"

"He does too," Michael insisted, his face beginning to redden. "He told me there's no such things as ghosts, and that I couldn't have seen anything out there. Then he wanted me to tell him everything that happened."

"Did you?"

As Michael hesitated, Janet thought she saw a furtive flicker in his eyes, but then he nodded. "What I remember."

They walked along in silence for a few minutes, and Janet had an uneasy sense that Michael had not told Potter all of what he remembered. But before she could think of a way to draw him out on the subject without making him angrier than he already was, she heard someone calling her name. She looked around to see Ione Simpson beckoning to her from in front of the Shieldses' general store.

"Janet, look at this. Isn't it wonderful?" Ione asked as Janet and Michael approached. "Have you ever seen anything like it?"

In the store window, propped up against a galvanized milk can, was an immense Raggedy Ann doll that seemed, somewhere during its lifetime, to have suffered a minor accident. There were a few buttons missing, and one of its shoulders had a tear in it. Looking at it, Janet couldn't help grinning: it was huge and clumsy, and its flaws appeared almost self-induced, as if it had stumbled over its own feet. It was totally irresistible. "It is wonderful," she agreed. "But what on earth would you do with it?"

"Peggy," Ione said decisively. Janet stared at her. Peggy, Eric Simpson's two-year-old sister, was only about a third the size of the doll.

"If it fell on her, she'd suffocate," Janet pointed out, but Ione only shook her head.

"I don't care. She'll grow into it. But do you suppose it's for sale? It doesn't look new."

"Well, let's go in and find out," Janet replied. "I've got a whole list of things to get there anyway." With Michael trailing along, the two women entered the cluttered store.

They were greeted by a large matronly woman with a happy face and wide blue eyes, whom Janet recognized but couldn't put a name to.

"Well, now, don't you worry," the woman told them. "You can't be expected to know everybody's name until at least day after tomorrow. I'm Aunt Lulu-Buck's mother? Isn't that terrible, having a name like Lulu at my age? But what can you do? I've been Lulu since I was a baby, and I'll be Lulu when I die. Now, what can I do for you?"

"I have a whole list-" Janet began, but Ione Simpson immediately interrupted.

"The doll, Lulu. The Raggedy Ann in the window."

Aunt Lulu smiled. "Oh, I didn't put that out there to sell it," she explained. "But it's been in the back room too long, and I thought it might be fun to give it some sunshine, do you know what I mean?"

"You mean it isn't for sale?" Janet asked, feeling Ione's disappointment as keenly as if it were her own.

"Why-well-I don't know, really," Lulu stammered. "It's been here for I don't know how long. It was ordered for little Becky-" She hesitated for just a second, her eyes bulging slightly, and then hurriedly corrected herself. "We ordered it for Ryan, but he didn't want it. I don't see how he could have resisted it, do you? Isn't it wonderful? Just wonderful. And almost as big as a real child-"

"It's bigger than the child I want it for," Ione broke in. "I just have to have it for Peggy. Please?"

Lulu's big eyes blinked. "Well-well, I suppose if it's for Peggy, we'll just have to make sure it's for sale, won't we? I'll have to call Buck and find out what the price is. He's at home, you know, taking care of Laura." Suddenly her happy expression collapsed, and her eyes brimmed with tears. "Isn't it a shame about Laura? So close, and then losing the baby like that." She gazed at Janet, then reached out and took her hand. "But of course, you were there, weren't you? While Laura worked all day in that hot sun? And everything was going along so well for a change. Well, we certainly can't blame you, can we? I mean, if you'd known Laura better, you certainly wouldn't have let her work so hard at your place, would you? I told her she should take it easier, but you know Laura-she won't take anybody's word for anything, and her so small she almost died when Ryan was born, and now this has to happen. I just don't know how much more she can take. I just don't."

As Michael began edging away from the teary woman, and Ione looked on in what appeared to be horrified embarrassment, Janet tried to understand what the woman was really saying. Though she'd denied it, was she blaming her for Laura's miscarriage? At last though, Lulu's tears began to abate, and her warm smile spread once more over her round face. She glanced around distractedly, then lowered her voice, even though there was no one else in the store. "I do run on, don't I? Well, it's just something everyone has to put up with from us older women. I was a good wife to Fred, and I never talked back to him, not once. But ever since he's been gone, I've found I just love to talk. I suppose it was all those years of not saying much at all. It all just bottles up, doesn't it?"

Janet smiled weakly, wondering if there was a graceful way to end Lulu's ramblings, when Ione Simpson came to her rescue.