“Dear God,” Constance Benson muttered, sinking into a chair in her living room. “Who’s going to tell Estelle?”
“I will,” was Josiah Carson’s automatic response, though his eyes were fixed on Cal. “You didn’t bring her up?”
“I thought we’d better wait for the ambulance,” he lied, knowing he wasn’t fooling the old doctor. “Her neck’s broken and it looks like a few other things are, too.” His attention shifted to Constance Benson. “What happened? Josiah said she ran off the bluff.” He stumbled a little on the word ran, as if he still found it difficult to believe such a thing could have happened.
Constance did not answer. Instead, she looked to Josiah Carson, who nodded his head slightly. “I think you’d better tell him,” he said. Cal felt a twinge of fear go through him, and knew before Mrs. Benson began that there was going to be something more to the story, something terrible. Even so, he wasn’t prepared for what he heard.
“I was at the sink, paring some apples,” Constance Benson said. She kept her eyes fixed on a spot on the floor, as if to look at either of the doctors would make it impossible for her to repeat the story. “I was sort of looking out the window, the way you do, and I saw Susan Peterson in the graveyard. I don’t know what she was doing — I’ve told Estelle she should keep Susan away from there, just like I told your wife she should keep Michelle away, but I guess they just don’t listen to me. Well, maybe now they will.
“Anyway, I was sort of half watching my apples, and half watching Susan, not really paying much attention. Then all of a sudden Michelle came down the road. Susan must have said something to her, because she stopped, and sort of stared at Susan.”
“What did she say?” Cal asked. For the first time since she had begun her recitation, Constance glanced up from the floor.
“I couldn’t hear. The window was closed, and it’s quite a distance to the cemetery. But they were talking, all right, and Susan must have wanted to show Michelle something, because Michelle started to go into the graveyard. Climbed right over the fence, the weeds almost tripping her — how she did it with that limp of hers is beyond me, but she did. Susan waited for her, at least that’s what it looked like. Except for what happened next. That’s the part I can’t understand at all.”
She paused, shaking her head, as if she were trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together, and they just wouldn’t go.
“Well, what happened?” Cal urged her.
“It was the darnedest thing,” Constance mused. Then she fixed a cold eye on Cal. “Michelle must have said something to Susan. I couldn’t hear it, of course, but whatever it was, it must have been something pretty awful. Because all of a sudden Susan got a look on her face such as I hope I never see again. Fear, that’s what it was. Plain old outright fear.”
A picture of Susan flashed across Cal’s memory. The look Constance Benson had described tallied exactly with the expression Cal had seen on the dead child’s face.
“And then she took off running,” he heard Mrs. Benson saying. “Just took off, like she was being chased by the devil himself. She ran right over the edge of the bluff.”
The last words were whispered, barely audible, but they hung in the living room, chilling the atmosphere.
“She ran off the edge of the bluff?” Cal repeated dully, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “Was she watching where she was going? She couldn’t have been.”
“She was. She was looking straight ahead, but she didn’t even pause.”
“My God,” Cal said, his eyes closing in a futile effort to blot out the image he was seeing. Then he remembered that his own daughter had also seen what had happened. He opened his eyes again. Almost apprehensively, he faced Constance Benson.
“And what about Michelle? What did she do?”
Constance Benson’s face hardened, and she glared at him coldly. “Nothing,” she said, spitting the word at him.
“What do you mean, nothing?” Cal asked, ignoring her tone. “She must have done
“She just stood there. She just stood there, like she didn’t even see what happened. And then, when Susan screamed, she waited a minute, then started walking home.”
Cal stood rooted to the floor, unable to move, unable to absorb what the woman was saying. “I don’t believe it,” he said finally.
“You can believe it or not, as you see fit,” Constance Benson said. “But it’s God’s own truth, and that’s that. She acted like nothing had happened at all.”
Cal turned to Josiah Carson, as if to appeal to him, but Josiah was lost in thought As Cal spoke his name, he came back to reality. He reached out and squeezed Cal’s arm, but when he spoke, his voice was strange, as if he was thinking about something else. “Maybe you’d better go on home,” he said. “I can take care of things here. You’d better go see if Michelle is all right. She could be in shock, you know.”
Cal nodded mutely and started out of the room. He paused a moment, turned back as if to say something. At the chilly expression on Constance Benson’s face, he seemed to change his mind. Then he was gone.
Josiah Carson and Constance Benson waited in silence until the ambulance had arrived. Then, as Carson was about to take his leave, Constance suddenly spoke.
“I don’t like that man,” she said.
“Now, Constance, you don’t even know him.”
“And I don’t want to. I think he made a mistake, bringing his family out here.” She fixed Carson with a look that was very nearly belligerent “And I don’t think you did him any favor either, selling him that house. You should have torn that place down years ago.”
Now Carson’s own expression hardened. “You’re being silly, Constance, and you know it. That house didn’t have anything to do with what’s happened out here.”
“Didn’t it?” Constance turned away from Josiah and went to the window, where she stood staring out across the cemetery. In the distance, etched against the sky, were the ornate, Victorian lines of the Pendleton house.
“Don’t see how they can live there,” Constance muttered. “Even you couldn’t live there, after Alan Hanley. It doesn’t make sense. If I were June Pendleton, I’d pack up my clothes, take my baby, and get out while I still could.”
“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way,” Josiah said stiffly. “I happen to think you’re wrong, and I’m glad the Pendletons are here. And I hope they’ll stay, in spite of what’s happened. Now I’d better go see Estelle and Henry Peterson.” As he left her house, without saying good-bye, she was still standing at her window, staring into the distance, keeping her own counsel.
Cal ran up the steps onto the front porch, opened the door, then slammed it behind him.
“Cal? Is that you?” June’s voice from the living room sounded startled, but not as startled as Cal felt when he found her calmly sitting in a chair, working on a piece of needlepoint.
“My God,” he swore. “What are you doing? How can you just sit there? Where’s Michelle?”
June gaped at him, surprised by his strangled tone.
“I’m doing needlework,” she said uncertainly. “And why shouldn’t I be sitting here? Michelle’s upstairs in her room.”
“I don’t believe it,” Cal said.
“What don’t you believe? Cal, what’s going on?”
Cal sank into a chair, trying to put his thoughts in order. Suddenly nothing made any sense.
“When did Michelle come home?” he asked at last. “About forty-five minutes ago, maybe an hour.” June set her needlepoint aside. “Cal, has something happened?”
“I can’t believe it,” Cal muttered. “I just can’t believe it”
“Can’t believe
“Didn’t Michelle tell you what happened today?”
“She didn’t say much of anything,” June replied. “She came in, had a glass of milk, said school went ‘okay’—which I’m not sure I believe — then went upstairs.”
“Jesus!” It was crazy, like a nightmare. “Michelle must have said something. She
