Comes the Blind Fury

“If I were you, I’d be careful with this baby,” she said. She was still staring at Michelle. “It doesn’t take much of a fall to kill a child this age.”

June’s mouth dropped open in astonishment as she realized the implication of what Constance Benson had said. She searched for a suitable reply. When no words came, she simply handed Jenny to Michelle.

“Take her out to the car, will you, darling?” she asked.

Michelle carefully took the baby in one arm while she used the other to balance herself with the cane. June kept her eyes on Constance Benson, as if challenging her to say anything further. Michelle, cradling the baby in her left arm, started shakily toward the door.

“Will you go with her?” June asked Cal. “I don’t see how she’ll be able to get the car door open, too. But I imagine she could do it if she had to.”

Cal, sensing the tension between the two women, quickly followed Michelle out to the porch. Left alone with Constance Benson, June struggled to control her voice.

“Thank you for looking after Jennifer,” she said at last. “Now that I’ve said that, I have to tell you that I think you’re the most cruel and ignorant person it has ever been my misfortune to meet. In the future, neither I nor my family will bother you again. I’ll find someone else to sit with Jenny, or do it myself. Good-bye.”

She started toward the door but was stopped cold by Constance Benson’s voice.

“I won’t hold that against you, Mrs. Pendleton,” Constance said. “You don’t know what’s happening. You just don’t know.”

Michelle started down the steps, holding Jenny tight against her chest while she used the cane to find her footing. She stayed close to the bannister, so that if she slipped she could lean against it. When she got to the bottom she stopped, and slowly released the breath she had been holding as she made her way down from the Bensons’ porch. “We made it,” she whispered, smiling down at Jenny’s little face. Seeming to understand her, Jenny looked up at her, gurgling happily. A tiny trickle of spittle dribbled from one corner of her mouth. Michelle dabbed it away with a corner of the blanket.

And then, suddenly, the fog started closing around her. She glanced up quickly, seeing the mists coming fast, and hearing the first faint whispers of Amanda’s voice. She saw her father, standing next to the car, watching her.

“Daddy?”

Cal took a tentative step toward her, but the fog closed in on her then, and he disappeared.

“Daddy! Quick!” Michelle cried.

She was going to drop Jennifer.

She could feel Amanda, next to her, prodding her, whispering to her, telling her to let go of the baby, to let Jennifer — Jennifer, who had taken her parents away from her — fall to the ground.

As Amanda’s voice grew more insistent, Michelle felt herself giving in, felt herself obeying her friend’s voice. She wanted to hurt Jenny, wanted to see her fall.

Slowly, she began relaxing her left arm.

“It’s all right,” she heard her father say. “I’ve got her now. You can let go.”

She felt Jennifer being lifted out of her arms. The fog dispersed as quickly as it had come. Next to her, her father stood holding the baby, watching her.

“What happened?” she heard him ask.

“I–I got tired,” Michelle stammered. “I just couldn’t hold her any longer. I thought I was going to drop her, Daddy!”

“But you didn’t, did you?” Cal said. “It’s just like I told your mother. You’re just fine. You didn’t want to hurt Jenny, did you? You didn’t want to drop her.” There was desperation in Cal’s voice, the sound of a man trying to convince himself of the truth of his own words. Michelle, however, was too lost in her own confusion to hear the pleading in her father’s words. When she replied, her own voice was uncertain.

“No. I–I just got tired, that’s all,” Michelle said. But as she got into the backseat of the car, she thought she could hear Amanda’s voice, far away, shouting at her.

Then her mother was in the car, too, and they were driving home. But all the way, Michelle could hear Amanda’s voice.

Amanda was angry with her.

She could tell by the way Amanda was shouting at her.

She didn’t want Amanda angry at her.

Amanda was the only friend she had.

Whatever happened, she couldn’t let Amanda stay angry.

CHAPTER 24

It wasn’t until Tim suggested that perhaps Michelle should be institutionalized, if only for observation, that Corinne lost her temper.

“How can you say that?” she demanded. She tucked her feet up under her in an unconsciously defensive gesture and clutched her coffee cup in both hands. Tim poked at the fire and shrugged helplessly.

“There was something in her eyes,” he said. How many times had he tried to explain it? “I don’t know exactly what it was, but she wasn’t telling me everything. I’m sorry, Corinne, but I don’t believe that Billy Evans fell off that backstop accidentally.”

“You mean you think Michelle Pendleton tried to kill him.” Corinne’s voice was cold. “You might as well say what you mean.”

“I did. You seem to want me to say that I think Michelle Pendleton is a murderer, but I won’t. I’m not sure she is. But I am sure she had something to do with Billy’s fall. And Susan Peterson’s, too, for that matter.”

“You don’t think she’s a murderer, but you think she killed Susan? Is that what you’re saying?” Without waiting for him to reply, she went right on. “My God, Tim, if you’d talked to her just a few weeks ago, you’d know that couldn’t be true. She was the sweetest, nicest child. Things just don’t change that fast.”

“Don’t they? All you have to do is look at her.” Tim ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to keep his brown curls from tumbling over his forehead, but it did no good. “Look, Corinne, you have to face the facts. Whatever she is, Michelle isn’t the same girl who came to Paradise Point in August. She’s changed.”

“So you want to lock her up? You just want to put her away where nobody will have to look at her? You sound just like the kids in my class!”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Corinne, you have to face up to what’s happened. Whatever’s causing it, Susan is dead, and Billy might as well be. And both times, Michelle was there. And we know that something’s happened to her,” Tim said tiredly. They’d been going around and around the subject for hours, ever since dinner, and they hadn’t gotten anywhere. If only, Tim thought, Michelle had given that damned doll some other name. Any other name. It was as if Corinne read his mind.

“You still haven’t explained Amanda,” she said.

“I’ve explained it five hundred times.”

“Oh, sure! You keep telling me that she only exists in Michelle’s imagination. Except you still haven’t explained one thing — how come everyone around here has been talking about Amanda for so many years? If she’s only Michelle’s imaginary friend, why has she been around so much longer than Michelle?”

“Everybody hasn’t been talking about Amanda. Only a few impressionable schoolgirls have.”

Corinne’s eyes narrowed angrily, but before she could begin her argument, Tim held up his hand as if to fend her off.

“Let’s not talk about it anymore, all right? Can’t we just forget about it for tonight?”

“I don’t see how,” Corinne replied. “It’s like a cloud hanging over us.”

The ringing of the telephone interrupted her. Corinne automatically rose to answer it before she remembered that it wasn’t her phone. Tim, using the diversion to try to change the mood of the evening, grinned at her. “If you’d just marry me, you could answer the phone here any time you wanted to.”