John Saul - Nathaniel

They'd talked to her about Ben Findley, of course, when they came down from Mulford to investigate his death.

She hadn't told them about Nathaniel. That, too, was something she'd decided never to speak of again. So when they'd asked her if she had any idea who might have killed Ben Findley, she'd only shrugged. "A drifter, I suppose. Ben didn't have any friends, but he didn't have any enemies, either. So it must have been a drifter."

No one else in Prairie Bend had been able to offer a better idea, nor had anyone given credence to Michael's insistence that Nathaniel had killed the recluse.

The investigators went over Ben Findley's farm, but paid scant attention to the little room below the barn, dismissing the cell as nothing more than the storm cellar it appeared to be. In the end, they went back to Mulford, sure they would never find Ben Findley's killer, and equally sure that no one in Prairie Bend would care.

For Janet, the days following the deaths were increasingly difficult. She found herself watching Michael closely, guarding herself against the moment when he would suddenly be attacked by one of his headaches, then insist that Nathaniel had shown him something both hideous and impossible. Even as the days went by, and nothing happened, she did not calm down. Instead, she only grew more nervous, sure that whatever was happening to Michael had not yet ended.

Part of her certainty that things were not over involved Shadow.

Since the night Ben Findley had been found dead in his barn, the huge black dog had not been seen. Nor had Michael seemed upset by his disappearance.

"He's helping Nathaniel," Michael had said. "He'll come back. Nathaniel will bring him back."

And so Janet was waiting.

It was on the fifth day, near dusk, that Shadow returned.

Janet and Michael were in the kitchen. Michael was at the sink, doing the last of the supper dishes, while Janet sat at the kitchen table laboriously attempting to master the basic manipulations of the knitting needles that Anna had given her that afternoon. "Learn now," Anna had told her. "In the winter, it will help pass the time." And so she was trying, but it was not going well. In fact, Michael could already do it better than she could.

"I just don't get it," she said at last, dropping the work on the table. "I can't keep the same number of stitches in a row, and they just keep getting tighter and tighter." Then, when Michael made no reply, she looked up to see him staring out the window. His right hand was raised as he rubbed at his temples. "Michael?" When he still said nothing, Janet rose to her feet. "What is it, honey? Is something wrong?"

Then her eyes followed his, and in the distance, in Potter's Field, she saw the familiar black mass that was Shadow.

"He's looking for the babies," Michael said in a faraway voice. "He's looking for the babies that Grandpa killed."

Holding her emotions tightly in check, Janet slipped her arms around her son. "No, Michael. There's nothing out there…"

"There is," Michael repeated, his voice growing stronger. "Shadow's out there looking for them, helping Nathaniel find them."

"No!" Janet exclaimed.

Michael pivoted to face her, glaring at her with furious eyes. "Yes! They're out there, and Nathaniel has to find them, and I have to help him."

He began struggling in her arms, trying to wriggle free, but Janet hung on. "No!" she screamed. "There's nothing out there, and there is no Nathaniel, and you have to stop pretending there is! You have to stop it, Michael! Do you hear me? Just stop it!"

Michael was still in her arms, but suddenly his eyes, blazing with fury, gazed into hers.

"You don't know," he whispered. "You don't know, because you don't know Nathaniel."

For several long minutes the two of them stood frozen in a contest of wills. Then, at last, Janet knew what she had to do.

"All right," she said, letting go of Michael. "Let's go find out. Right now, let's go find out what the truth is."

Taking Michael by the hand she left the house and strode across the yard to the toolshed. Seconds later, Michael's arm still firmly gripped in her right hand, a shovel in her left, she started toward Potter's Field. "We'll dig them up," she told Michael as they climbed through the barbed wire. "If there are any bodies in this field, we'll dig them up right now, and look at them."

Shadow's head came up, and he watched them as they approached. Then, as he recognized them, he bounded over, his tail wagging, a happy bark ringing out over the prairie. Michael threw himself on the dog, scratching him and petting him, but Janet stood still and silent. Finally, when Michael had begun to calm down, she spoke.

"Where are they?" she asked. "Where are they buried?"

Shadow's ears suddenly dropped flat against his head, and his joyful barking faded into a wary growl.

"It's all right," Michael soothed. "It's all right, boy. We're gonna help you." Then, slowly, Michael began moving through the field with Shadow at his side.

"Here," Michael said.

Janet moved the stone at Michael's feet aside, and plunged the shovel into the earth. She worked silently, not heeding the stress she was putting on her body, caring more about proving to Michael that there was nothing in the field than about any danger to her unborn child.

And then, a moment later, the bone fragments appeared.

Janet stared at them, then reached down to pick one of them up. She studied it a moment, then handed it to Michael. "Look at it," she said. "It's old and crumbling,, and it could be anything. It might be human, and it might not. But whatever it is, it's far too old for your grandfather to have buried it here."

Michael's temples were pounding now, and he glowered at his mother with barely contained fury. "There's more," he whispered. "All over the field, there's more."

"Where?" Janet demanded. "Show me where. You keep telling me Aunt Laura's babies are buried out here, Michael. But where are they? If they're here, show them to me."

Trembling, Michael glared at her, then silently hurried away. He moved across the field, then finally stopped.

"Here," he said once more. "If you want to see it, it's right here." Wordlessly, Janet began digging once more.

Nathaniel watched for a few moments, then turned away and moved slowly through the barn, looking at it all for the last time. The little room beneath the trapdoor where he'd spent so many years; the tack room, from which he'd watched the burials on those strange nights when the children had been born and then died.

His children, the children he could reach through the powers of his mind. There hadn't been many of them, but he still thought of them as his.

There had been his brother. On the night Nathaniel was born, he had called out to his brother, and his brother had answered him. But then he'd gone to sleep, and when he woke up, his brother was gone. For a long time after that, Nathaniel had called out to his brother, called to him for help, but his brother had never come to him.

There had been two others since then, two others that he had felt, but in the end, they had brought them to the field, and buried them.

And then, a few months ago, his brother had come back. Nathaniel remembered it so well-he'd awakened one morning and sensed that he was no longer alone, that at last his brother had returned to help him avenge all the wrongs that had been done. For a long time, he and his brother had talked, and his brother had promised to come for him, to take him outside, to help him destroy their enemies.

But then his brother had died. He'd tried to warn Mark, but he couldn't. Mark was older than he and had ignored his warnings. And the old man had killed him.

And then, a few days later, Michael had come. He'd called out to Michael, too, and Michael had answered him.