John Saul - Comes the Blind Fury

“Amanda,” Corinne repeated. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” She finished her drink and held her glass out. “Am I old enough for a second drink?”

Wordlessly, Carson refilled her glass and his own. “Well,” he said abruptly. “Apparently she’s heard some stories about the Point.”

Corinne shook her head. “That’s what I thought. But June told me she named the doll as soon as she found it. The very day they arrived.”

“I see,” Carson said. “Then it was just a coincidence.”

“Was it?” Corinne said softly. “Uncle Joe, who was Amanda? I mean, was she real? Or are they just stories?”

Carson leaned back in his chair. He’d never talked about Amanda, and didn’t want to start now. But apparently the talk had already started, as he’d known it must. The thing to do was to direct it.

“She was my great-aunt, actually, or would have been if she’d lived,” he said carefully.

“And what happened to her?” Corinne asked.

“Who knows? She was blind, and she stumbled off the bluff one day. As far as anyone knows, that’s all there was to it.” But there was something in his voice — a hesitation perhaps? — that made Corinne wonder if there wasn’t something more.

“You sound as though you know more than that.” When Carson made no response, she pushed him again. “Do you?”

“You mean, do I believe in the ghost story?”

“No. Do you believe that’s all there was to it?”

“I don’t know. My grandfather, who was Amanda’s brother, believed there was more to it.”

Corinne said nothing.

Carson leaned back in his chair and turned to look out the window.

“You know,” he said slowly, “when the Carsons named this town Paradise Point, they didn’t really have the setting in mind. It was more an idea, I guess you could call it. An idea of paradise, right here on earth.” His voice was filled with an irony that Corinne couldn’t miss.

“I knew the Carsons were ministers,” she said.

Josiah nodded, “Fundamentalist. The real fire and brimstone variety. My great-grandfather, Lemuel Carson, was the last of them, though.”

“What happened?”

“Lots of things, from what Grandfather told me. It started when Amanda lost her sight. Old Lemuel decided it was an act of God, and he tried to pass Amanda off as a martyr. He always made her dress in black. Poor little girl. It must have been hard for her — what with her blindness and all. She must have been a lonely little thing.”

“And she was all alone when she fell off the bluff?”

“Apparently. Grandfather never said. He never talked about it much. I always got the idea there was something odd about it, though. Of course, he never did talk much about the family at all — too many serpents in Lemuel’s paradise.”

“Aren’t there always?” Corinne observed, but Josiah didn’t seem to hear her.

“It was Lemuel’s wife,” he went on. “It seems she had something of a wandering eye. Grandfather always thought it was a reaction to Lemuel’s constant hell and damnation sermonizing.”

“You mean your great-grandmother was having an affair?”

Carson smiled. “She must have been quite a woman. Grandfather said she was beautiful, but that she never should have married his father.”

“Louise Carson,” Corinne whispered, “ ‘Died in Sin.’ ”

“Murdered,” Josiah said softly. Corinne’s eyes widened in surprise. “It happened out in that building June Pendleton uses for a studio. Lemuel found her out there, with one of her lovers. Both of them were dead. Stabbed to death.”

“My God,” Corinne breathed. She could feel her stomach tighten, and wondered for a moment if she was going to be sick.

“Of course, everyone sort of assumed Lemuel had done it,” Josiah said, “but he had the whole town pretty much under his thumb, and in those days an unfaithful wife wasn’t particularly highly regarded. They probably thought she’d gotten what she deserved. Lemuel wouldn’t even give her a funeral.”

“I always figured the inscription on the gravestone must have meant something like that,” Corinne said. “When I was a little girl, we used to go out there, and read the headstones.”

“And look for the ghost?”

Again, Corinne nodded.

“And did you ever see her?”

Corinne pondered her answer for a long time. Finally, reluctantly, she shook her head.

Carson noted her hesitation. “Are you sure, Corinne?” His voice was very soft.

“I don’t know,” Corinne replied. Suddenly she felt foolish, but a memory was hanging in her mind, just out of her reach. “There was something,” she said. “It happened just once. I was out there in the graveyard, with a friend — I can’t even remember who — and the fog came in. Well, you know how spooky a graveyard can be in the fog. I don’t know — maybe I let my imagination run away with me, but all of a sudden I felt something. Nothing I can put my finger on, really — just a feeling that something was there, close to me. I stood perfectly still, and the longer I stood, the closer whatever it was seemed to come.” Her voice trailed off, and she shivered slightly as the memory of that foggy afternoon chilled her.

“And you think it was Amanda?” Carson asked.

“Well, it was something,” Corinne replied.

“You’re right,” Carson agreed sourly. “It was something. It was your imagination. A little girl in a graveyard, on a foggy day, and having grown up hearing all those ghost stories. I’m amazed you didn’t have a long talk with Amanda! Or did you?”

“Of course not,” Corinne said, feeling foolish now. “I didn’t even see her.”

Carson watched her. “What about your friend? Did she feel the same thing you did?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, she did!” Corinne felt herself getting angry. Not believing her was one thing — mocking her was quite another. “And, if you want to know, we weren’t the only ones. A lot of us had the same feeling. And we were all girls, and we were all twelve years old. Just like Amanda. And, in case you didn’t know, just like Michelle Pendleton.”

Carson’s eyes hardened. “Corinne,” he said slowly, “do you know what you’re saying?”

And suddenly Corinne did. “Yes. I’m saying that maybe the ghost stories are true, and the reason everyone says they aren’t is because no one ever actually saw Amanda before. The only ones who even felt her were twelve-year-old girls. And who believes what they say? Everyone knows little girls have wild imaginations, right? Uncle Joe, what if it wasn’t my imagination? What if some of us really did feel her presence? And what if Michelle not only felt her, but actually saw her?”

The expression on Josiah Carson’s face as he watched her told her she had struck a nerve.

“You believe in the ghost, don’t you?” she asked.

“Do you?” he countered, and now Corinne was sure he was growing nervous.

“I don’t know,” Corinne lied. She did know! “But it makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean, in a strange kind of way? If you can accept that there really is a ghost, and that it’s Amanda, who would be more likely to see her than a twelve-year-old girl? A girl just like her?”

“Well, she’s had over a hundred years to find someone,” Carson said. “Why now? Why Michelle Pendleton?” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “Corinne,” he said quietly, “I know you’re worried about Michelle. I know it seems odd that she’d make up an imaginary friend named Amanda. It seems like quite a coincidence — hell, it is quite a coincidence. But that’s all it is!”

Corinne stood up, truly angry now. “Uncle Joe,” she said, her voice tight, “Michelle is one of my students, and I’m worried about her. For that matter, I’m worried about everybody else in my class, too. Susan Peterson is dead, and Michelle is crippled and acting very strangely. I don’t want anything else to happen.”