John Saul - Nathaniel

"He found out. He found out, so he killed your father."

Michael's eyes darted around, searching for the familiar face of Nathaniel, but there was nothing in the room, nothing but the coolness and gloom. "What did Dad find out?" he whispered.

"The children. He found out about the children. I told him, and showed him, and he believed. But he was afraid."

"He wasn't!" Michael protested. "My dad wasn't afraid of anything!"

"He was afraid to act, Michael," the strange voice replied. "He was afraid to punish them, even after he saw what they did."

"Y-you mean he wouldn't fight?" Michael's voice quavered as he asked the question, for slowly he was beginning to understand what was going to be asked of him.

"He wouldn't make them die, Michael." Nathaniel's voice took on a strangely compelling quality, and even though Michael was sure he ought to resist the voice, he knew he wouldn't. "Will you, Michael? When the time comes, will you be with me and help me make them die?"

"I-I don't-"

"You do know, Michael," Nathaniel's voice insisted. "You know what you must do. You told us so."

"Told you? Told you what?"

There was a long silence, and then, from inside his head, Michael heard his own words-the words he'd spoken to Shadow that very morning-repeated to him in the voice of Nathaniel: "Next time, maybe you can make him die."

Deep down inside, far down in the depths of his subconscious, Michael understood what was expected of him.

He was to avenge his father's death.

He was to kill his grandfather.

His head pounding with the throbbing pain, Michael tried to drive the voice of Nathaniel out of his mind. His arms dropped away from Shadow, and he hurled himself toward the cellar door, scrambling up the steep steps, bursting out into the morning sunlight. But even then, Nathaniel's face lingered inside him.

"You will, Michael. When the time comes, you will help me. You will make them die, Michael. You will…"

Ryan Shields was working on his bicycle, adjusting the seat and the handlebars, when he heard the back door slam. He looked up, then watched curiously as his mother brought a bundle of clothes down the back steps and made her way across the yard to the graveled area where the incinerator stood. "Whatcha doing?"

"Cleaning out the attic," Laura told him. "It's gotten too full, and your father wants me to burn some things."

"Want me to help?" Ryan asked, eagerly abandoning the bike in favor of the prospect of a bonfire. But Laura shook her head.

"I can do it." Carefully, she set the bundle on the gravel, stared at it a moment, then returned to the house. A few minutes later she appeared once again, struggling to maneuver a crib through the back door. Immediately, Ryan recognized the crib.

"You're going to burn that?" he asked. "But that's-"

"I know what it is," Laura said, and there was something in her voice that made Ryan fall silent. "I know what all of this stuff is, and I don't want to talk about it, Ryan." She glared at him for a second. Then: "Don't you have anything to do? Do you have to hang around here all the time? Why don't you go out and see Michael?"

Abashed, Ryan scuffed at the ground for a moment.

"Well?" Laura demanded with a severity that startled her son. "You haven't seen Michael for a long time. Did you two have a fight?"

"Not exactly-"

"Then go," Laura told him.

"But Dad told me not to go anywhere," Ryan protested. "He told me to stay around here in case you needed anything."

"Well, I don't need anything," Laura declared. "And I'm getting tired of having you underfoot all the time." Then, as she saw her son's chin begin to quiver, she suddenly relented. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry. It's just that I'm upset right now, and I have to do something I really don't want to do. It'll be easier if I'm by myself. Do you understand?"

Even though he didn't understand at all, Ryan nodded his head. "But if you don't want to burn that stuff, how come you're going to?"

"Because your father says I have to. I've put it off as long as I can, and I have to do it by myself. All right?"

Reluctantly, Ryan got to his feet. "Okay. Maybe I'll go out and see what Eric's doing. Maybe we can go fishing."

"Why don't you go see Michael? Are you mad at him?" she asked again.

Ryan hesitated, and dug at the ground with the toe of his sneaker. "He's always got his dog with him," he finally said.

"Shadow? Don't you like him?"

"He doesn't like me. He only likes Michael, and whenever anyone else is around, he starts growling. He scares me."

"He's just being protective-he wouldn't hurt you. Now run on along."

When Ryan was gone, she finished bringing Becky's things down from the attic.

She went over them once more-the clothes Becky had never worn, the crib Becky had never used, the mobiles Laura had never been able to hang over Becky's bassinet, and the toys she had never been able to see Becky touch for the first time. Finally there was nothing left except the album, the album which should have eventually filled with pictures of Becky's first years.

The captions were all there: "Her first meal."

"Sunning in the backyard."

"First step-wobbly, but she did it!"

She turned the pages slowly, as if studying for the last time the pictures that weren't there-had never been there.

She'd nearly lost herself over Becky. She could remember some of it so well, and yet so much of it was a blank.

She could recall the days of waking up and listening for the cries of the baby, only to remember that there would be no cries, for there was no baby. Other days-the worst days-she'd known from the moment she awoke that Becky had died, and those days had been desolate ones.

The best days had been the days-sometimes two or three of them in a row-when she truly believed that Becky was still there in the house, sleeping, perhaps, and would soon wake up and call for her. It was during one of those times that she'd ordered the Raggedy Ann doll, a gift for Becky to make up for her own neglect.

No one had known she'd done it until the doll arrived, and when Buck had asked her about it, she'd blurted out the truth without thinking. "It's for Becky-I've left her alone so much."

That's when they'd sent her away for a while-not very long, really, only a few weeks. And when she'd come back, she'd been all right. Except that every now and then, she still crept up to the attic to go through Becky's things, to pretend, if only for a few minutes, that Becky was all right, that Becky had survived the birth, that Ryan-despite all the love she felt for him-was not her only child.

But she knew Buck was right, she knew she had to get rid of the last of Becky's things and put the child out of her mind, finally and forever. If she didn't, she would destroy herself.

She placed the empty album on top of the heap, then doused the whole thing with kerosene. Finally she stood back and tossed a match onto the pyre. A moment later all that was left of her memories of her daughter began to go up in flames.

For a long time Laura watched the blaze, standing perfectly still, her attention focused totally on the conflagration. When the touch on her shoulder came, she jerked spasmodically, then whirled around to see Janet standing behind her.

"I'm sorry," Janet said. "Are you all right? I spoke to you, but you didn't answer me."

"I-I-" Laura floundered, then fell silent and turned back to gaze once more at the fire which was fast diminishing to nothing more than a bed of glowing coals. "I was just burning some trash," she whispered at last, her eyes filling with the tears she had been doing her best to control.

"Some trash," Janet repeated softly. "It's the stuff from the attic, isn't it? Ione Simpson's stuff?" Laura hesitated, then nodded mutely, "Ione didn't want it back?"