Jodie Picoult - Salem Falls

That single word stilled the court. “Wait a second.” Jordan shook his head. “You’re telling us you stumbled upon a bunch of naked girls?”

“I know. That’s exactly what I thought, too. That I’d had so much to drink I was hallucinating.”

“I can imagine. What else do you remember?”

Jack shook his head. “It looked . . . well, like nothing I’d ever seen. There were candles. And ribbons, hanging from the trees.”

Jordan crossed to the evidence table and lifted one. “Ribbons like these?”

“Yes. But longer.”

“Can you recall anything else?”

Jack closed his eyes, struggling. “Only bits and pieces. Like I’ll close my eyes and see the bonfire. Or I’ll wake up in the morning and there’s a sweetness on my tongue, a taste I can place from that night.” He shook his head, frustrated. “But there’s so much of it that’s just empty space, and the things that do come to me make no sense.”

Jordan began to walk toward his client. “Do you remember any particular items laying around that night?”

“Objection,” Matt called lazily. “If the witness is drawing a blank, Mr. McAfee isn’t allowed to fill in the picture with his own crayon.”

“Sustained.”

Undeterred, Jordan caught Jack’s eye. “Is it annoying to be unable to remember what happened that night?”

“You have no idea.” Jack reached deep for the words. “I know I didn’t do what they say. I just know it. But I can’t see it clearly.”

“What do you think it would take to jog your memory?”

“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “God knows I’ve tried everything.”

“Me, I have to hold some souvenir in my hands, and boom, I’m back there.” Jordan grinned. “I have a foul ball I caught during game seven of the 1986 American League championships, the one when Henderson hit a three-run blast off Donnie Moore of the California Angels. Every time I pick it up, I think of the Sox pulling ahead from behind and making it into the World Series.”

“Once again, Your Honor, objection. As much as I love getting Mr. McAfee’s life history, it’s beside the point.”

“But Judge, it’s not. I’d like to enter into evidence this notebook and let the witness use it to refresh his recollection.” Reaching behind the defense table, Jordan took the black-and-white composition book from Selena, then brought it toward the evidence table.

“Approach!” Matt yelled, coming to his feet.

“All right, Mr. McAfee, what’s up your sleeve now?” Judge Justice asked.

“Your Honor, the rules of evidence say I can refresh my witness’s memory with any document at my disposal. This is a book of shadows-a witches’ log, if you will, that documents the Pagan ritual that took place the night of the alleged crime.”

Judge Justice turned it over in her hands, flipping through it, then handed it to Matt to examine. “This is inappropriate, Your Honor,” Matt insisted. “The witness didn’t write a single page of this book . . . he has no original knowledge of what’s in it. His memory isn’t going to be refreshed by reading it-it’s going to be created new.” He narrowed his eyes at Jordan. “Mr. McAfee is finding a way to put words into his client’s mouth.”

“Even if the witness was not a party to its creation, Mr. Houlihan, the defense is welcome to use this item to spark a memory.” The judge turned to Jordan. “I myself saved a souvenir cup from the 1975 World Series, game six, when Carlton Fisk’s fly stayed inside the foul line by inches, and as long as I have that godawful plastic mug, I’ll never forget the magic of that moment. Objection overruled.”

As soon as Jordan handed the composition notebook to his client, Jack’s hand began to shake. “That night,” he murmured. “She was writing in this, under the dogwood tree.”

“And then?”

“She stood up,” Jack said slowly. “She stood up, and she said my name.”

A more sober man would have turned and walked away, but Jack could not hold that thought in his mind. It was too full with other things-ribbons hanging where they did not belong; a knife set perpendicular to a white candle; the scent of cinnamon; the simple fact that she was asking for him. “You’re just in time,” Gillian said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Clearly, he was asleep and this was a dream. A bad dream. The car follow ing him, his run-in with Wes, and now, these half-dressed girls. Yes, it all made sense now. This was a trick of the mind. He felt safer now, knowing it was not real.

When Gillian took Jack’s hand, his entire body jerked. “Oh,” she said sooth ingly, running her fingers through his hair. “Poor Jack.” She touched the cuts on his brow and cheek, then lifted her discarded shirt and dabbed at the blood.

Her beautiful breasts were an inch from his mouth, and they looked as real as anything he’d ever seen. From the far corners of his mind, Jack began to struggle. “I can’t . . . I need to . . .”

“Stay here.”

Gillian finished for him. She smiled at her friends. “What’s the one thing we haven’t done tonight?”

The short, plump girl’s mouth rounded. “You wouldn’t, Gilly.”

Jack could suddenly see the scene as if from a great height. This girl, his hand in hers, the ribbons fluttering behind them. You cannot be here, he warned himself, because . . . but he could not finish the sentence. He willed his feet to move, but he was too drunk. Get away, he thought, and did not realize he’d spoken aloud until Gillian turned to him. “Don’t you like us?”

“I have to go,” he said, his voice breaking.

“But you’ll help me first, won’t you? I need a man for this.”

Jack made himself a deal: He would reach something up high or open a pickle jar and then he’d be on his way. But to his surprise, Gillian laced his fingers with hers and tugged him toward the fire. She began to run, until he had no choice but to do what she did, to leap it.

They fell to the ground. Gillian’s face was flushed. “Now you’re tied to me, for a year.”

Jack didn’t understand, but then he didn’t understand much of anything. The forest was spinning around him. He watched the girls pour drinks from a thermos, pass out biscuits. “For you,” Gillian said, and maybe he would have even drunk it if one of the other girls hadn’t lost her balance and fallen on top of him.

“Steady.” He looked at her-Meg, that was her name, and she was related to a detective in town-but in that moment, she might well have been Catherine Marsh. That was how pure the need was in her eyes. Jack’s heart began to pound, and he turned to the other girl, the taller one, and to Gillian-and they all looked that way. They all wore that expression. That want, that incredible one- sided want that had nearly ruined him before.

Jack staggered upright and crashed through the woods, finding the path he had come in on. He stumbled forward for nearly a minute, and then Gillian came running up from behind. She was near tears, her hair wild around her face. “The fire-we can’t get it out. We’re going to burn the whole forest down. Please,” she begged. “You have to come.”

He followed her to the clearing, where there was no fire . . . and no one else. Before he could ask her what was going on, she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his. He choked on the whole of her; he backed up along the edge of the glowing fire, unsure which was the greater danger. Gillian writhed against him, aiming to slip under his skin. And then she took his hand and brought it up to her breast, holding his gaze the whole time, so that he knew this was an offering.

“No,” Jack whispered. “No.” He put his hands on Gillian’s forearms and set her away, fireflies sparking around their bodies. “I said no,” he answered more firmly. No. The pine needles quivered, the stars slipped from their perches, history looped back on itself. This was not Gillian Duncan; this was Catherine Marsh. And Jack was being given the chance to defend himself, in a way h never had last year. “You get away from me,” he said, his chest heaving, “and you stay away.”