‘To program their psychological matrices to include promiscuity and masochism. Yes. That’s exactly what I think.’
* * *
Melanie’s shrill scream filled the house.
Shouting her daughter’s name, Laura hurried behind Earl Benton, down the hall. Revolver in hand, the bodyguard entered the child’s room ahead of Laura and snapped on the light.
Melanie was alone. The menace that had elicited her screams was one that only she could see.
Dressed in white socks and the pair of white cotton underpants that she had been wearing during her nap, the child was crouched in a corner, hands held in front of her to ward off an invisible enemy, shrieking so fiercely that she must have been hurting her throat. She looked so fragile, so pitifully vulnerable.
Laura was briefly overwhelmed with loathing for Dylan. She almost sagged, almost went limp, almost crumpled under the weight of her anger.
Earl holstered his gun. He reached out to Melanie, but she struck his hands and scrambled away from him, along the baseboard.
‘Melanie, honey, stop! It’s all right,’ Laura said.
The girl didn’t heed her mother. She reached the next corner, sat down, drew her legs up, fisted her small hands, and held them up defensively. She was no longer screaming, but she made a strange, rhythmic, panicky sound: ‘Uh … uh … uh … uh … uh …’
Crouching in front of her, Earl said, ‘It’s okay, kid.’
‘Uh … uh … uh … uh …’
‘It’s okay now. It really is. It’s okay, Melanie. I’ll take care of you.’
‘The d-d-door,’ Melanie said. ‘The door. Don’t let it open!’
‘It’s shut,’ Laura said, hurrying to her, kneeling by her. ‘The door is shut and locked, honey.’
‘Keep it shut!’
‘Don’t you remember, baby? There’s a big, new, heavy lock on the door,’ Laura said. ‘Don’t you remember?’
Earl glanced at Laura, obviously puzzled.
‘The door is shut,’ Laura continued. ‘Locked. Sealed. Nailed shut. Nobody can open it, honey. Nobody.’
Fat tears welled in the child’s eyes, spilled down her cheeks.
‘I’ll take care of you,’ Earl said soothingly.
‘Baby, you’re safe here. No one can hurt you.’
Melanie sighed, and the fear ebbed out of her face.
‘You’re safe. Perfectly safe now.’
The girl put one pale hand to her head and began to twist a strand of hair in that absentminded way that any ordinary girl might twist her hair when preoccupied with thoughts of boys or horses or pajama parties or any of the other things that preoccupied kids her age. Indeed, after the bizarre behavior that she had displayed thus far, after alternating between extremes of hysteria and motionless catatonia, it was both moving and encouraging to see her playing with her hair, because that was such a normal act — a small thing, simple, hardly a breakthrough, not a crack in her hard autistic shield, but normal.
Seizing the moment, Laura said, ‘Would you like to go to a beauty shop with me, baby? Hmmmm? You’ve never been to a real beauty shop. We’ll go and get our hair done together. How would you like that?’
Although her eyes remained somewhat glassy, Melanie’s brow furrowed, and she seemed to be considering the proposition.
‘Lord knows, you need something done with your hair,’ Laura said, anxiously trying to preserve the moment, expand upon it, deepen and broaden this unexpected contact with the girl inside the autistic shell. ‘We’ll get it cut and styled. Maybe curled. How would you like your hair curled, honey? Oh, you’d look just great with lots of curls.’
The girl’s face softened, and a smile threatened to take possession of her mouth.
‘And after the beauty shop, we could go shopping for clothes. How about that, honey? Lots of new dresses. Dresses and sweaters. Even one of the glitzy new jackets the kids are wearing. You’d like that, I bet.’
Melanie’s unfinished smile stopped forming. Although Laura kept talking, the mood was gone as suddenly as it had come. The girl’s placid expression gave way to a look of disgust, as if she had seen something in her private world that horrified and repulsed her.
Then she did a startling and disturbing thing: She struck herself with her small fists, struck hard at her knees and thighs, with a loud smacking sound, then pounded her chest—