“We might not even have Jane that long. And if we do, we can probably take her with us, so long as we let the court know where we’re going.”
“When do we have to appear in court?”
“I don’t know. Probably Monday or Tuesday.”
“I’ll be on my best behavior,” Paul said.
“Scrub behind your ears?”
“Okay. And I’ll also wear shoes.”
Grinning, Carol said, “Don’t pick your nose in front of the judge.”
“Not unless he picks his first.”
She said, “I love you, Dr. Tracy.”
“I love you, Dr. Tracy.”
When she put down the receiver and turned away from the pay phone, she felt wonderful. Not even the gaudy decor of the visitors’ lounge could get on her nerves now.
* * *
That night, there was no hammering sound in the Tracy house, no evidence of the poltergeist that Mr. Alsgood had warned Paul about. There was no disturbance the following day, either, and none the day after that. The strange noise and the vibrations had ceased as inexplicably as they had begun.
Carol stopped having nightmares, too. She slept deeply, peacefully, without interruption. She quickly forgot about the flickering, silvery blade of the ax swinging back and forth in the strange void.
The weather improved, too. The clouds dissipated on Sunday. Monday was summery, blue.
Tuesday afternoon, while Paul and Carol were in court trying to obtain temporary custody of Jane Doe, Grace Mitowski was cleaning her kitchen. She had just finished dusting the top of the refrigerator when the telephone rang.
“Hello.”
No one answered her. “Hello,” she said again.
A thin, whispery, male voice said, “Grace…”
“Yes?”
His words were muffled, and there was an echo on the line, as if he were talking into a tin can.
“I can’t understand you,” she said. “Can you speak up?”
He tried, but again the words were lost. They seemed to be coming from an enormous distance, across an unimaginably vast chasm.
“We have a terrible connection,” she said. “You’ll have to speak up.”
“Grace,” he said, his voice only slightly louder. “Gracie it’s almost too late. You’ve got to… move fast. You’ve got to stop it… from happening… again.”
It was a dry, brittle voice; it cracked repeatedly, with a sound like dead autumn leaves underfoot. “It’s almost… too late… too late…”
She recognized the voice, and she froze. Her hand tightened on the receiver, and she couldn’t get her breath.
“Gracie… it can’t go on forever. You’ve got to put an end to it. Protect her, Gracie. Protect her ”
The voice faded away.
There was only silence. But not the silence of an open phone line. There was no hissing. No electronic beeping in the background. This was perfect silence, utterly unmarred by even the slightest click or whistle of electronic circuitry. Vast silence. Endless.
She put the phone down.
She started to shake.
She went to the cupboard and got down the bottle of Scotch she kept for visitors. She poured herself a double shot and sat down at the kitchen table.
The liquor didn’t warm her. Chills still shook her.
The voice on the phone had belonged to Leonard. Her husband. He had been dead for eighteen years.
PART TWO
Evil Walks Among Us…
Evil is no faceless stranger, living in a distant neighborhood.
Evil has a wholesome, hometown face, with many eyes and an open smile.
Evil walks among us, wearing a mask which looks like all our faces.
7
TUESDAY, after winning temporary custody of Jane Doe, Paul went home to work on his novel, and Carol took the girl shopping. Because Jane had no clothes except those she’d been wearing when she’d stepped in front of the Volkswagen last Thursday morning, she needed a lot of things, even for just a few days. She was embarrassed about spending Carol’s money, and at first she was reluctant to admit that she liked anything she saw or that anything fit her well enough to buy it.
At last Carol said, “Honey, you need this stuff, so please just relax and let me buy it for you. Okay? In the long run, it won’t be coming out of my pocket anyway. I’ll most likely be reimbursed either by your parents, by the foster children program, or by some other county agency.”