The Reach

window, the crust of ice on the inside so that when she'd dragged a nail across the pane it had come back flaked with snow.

'I've tried to keep this as quiet as possible. I like my privacy. I assume you'll respect my confidence.'

'Of course.'

'Anyway, enough of all that. You didn't come to talk about my life. You're here to talk about Sarah.' Shelley turned to look at her, and for a moment the pain was so naked, so obvious, Jess had to keep herself from flinching.

'I always knew it would come to this,' Shelley said. 'That's one reason I fought Evan so hard to bring you into our confidence. I needed someone to uncover everything, bring it into the light, and you were the perfect choice, for a number of reasons. But I hope you don't blame me too much for letting you in slowly. You had to do it on your own terms, in your own way. Do you understand what I mean? When you're faced with the fact that something you've believed all your life is a fiction, a silly superstition ... the belief dies hard. It did for me.'

'I deserve to know the whole truth. You owe me that.'

'And you'll get it.'

'If you knew that what her family said was true, why did you let Dr. Wasserman lock her up? Drug her? Treat her for a disability that didn't exist?'

'It wasn't that simple. Remember that there is a history of mental illness in her family, she did show many of the classic indications--'

'With all due respect, that's bullshit. And you know it.'

Shelley stared out over gently rustling leaves. 'There are other factors involved here. I truly wanted to help her. I thought maybe we could help each other. But there are things you can't know, things that make it all but impossible. Especially now.'

'Then tell me.'

But Shelley was no longer listening. 'I've spent ten years trying to forget that night, the night she was born. I was the first thing she saw, coming into this world.. . . Can you imagine what a doctor looks like to a child coming into the light for the first time? Hooded and gowned, mask covering her face? What a human being looks like to someone who has never seen one before? I know because she let me see. I saw through her eyes.'

'I don't think I understand.'

'I don't know how she did it, how it happened. But I can't ever forget that. It isn't easy seeing yourself as a freak. Huge. Misshapen. All those features you look at in the mirror each day, turned into something alien. The next thing I remember was the firemen pulling me out, the hospital coming down, and I kept asking them where was the monster, where was that thing''

They had gone all that way to New York, they had spoken with the family, they had listened to the stories that seemed too fantastic for belief, and never once had Shelley said a word about any of this. All Jess could think of now was Maria's voice on the phone; Sarah, inside her head. Embrujado. Haunted.

Betrayal stung her like a slap to the face. 'Sarah's not the devil. She's just a little girl.'

'Let's assume she's the product of some random genetic mutation. But do you think it's a coincidence that my cancer began nearly ten years ago? I had no family history, no previous symptoms. I contracted what is almost exclusively a childhood disease, caused by changes in the cells of the bone marrow, changes that have been linked to high doses of radiation or exposure to toxins. Somehow she lashed out at me-- I felt it--and she did something to me. She changed me. At the cellular level.

'When she was barely a minute old, I saw her tear a building apart. What do you think she's capable of now?'

Jess had no idea what to say. During the taxi ride she had gone over and over in her head how she would present her case, and again and again she had come up against the same problem. Shelley was a pragmatist. She would never believe it.

And now here she was, saying that she believed every word. Worse, she had known about Sarah's talents from the beginning.

'My God, listen to me,' Shelley said. 'I'm a doctor, for God's sake. But it happened. It happened.'

'I don't know what she's done to you, or what she's capable of doing. I can't answer to any of that. But we're responsible for her, as a human being. She deserves a chance to live her life. I want to take her to see someone who has experience with this sort of thing, a parapsychologist--'

'Evan's under a tremendous amount of pressure, more than you can imagine. He'll never go for something like that. And he'll never let you take her out of the hospital alone.'

'Then you'll have to help me.'

'Impossible.'

'You brought me into this for a reason. You wanted me to reach her, and I have. I can't believe you would stop now. Imagine if she were your child. She's just a little girl, no matter what you say she's capable of, what she's done. She scared, and she's alone. We owe her this. You owe her this.'

'I don't owe her anything.'

'How can you say that? She's spent most of her life behind the bars of that place. She's been drugged and restrained to keep her docile. You put her there. You sentenced her to that prison. And if you don't help me right now, if you don't give me the chance to get her out, I will go to the authorities for child abuse charges. Then it will all be out in the open. This will be over, one way or the other.'

'It will kill her if you do it that way. You know that, don't you? The media pressure, the people falling over themselves to get at her. She'll be destroyed, just as if you'd held a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.'

Jess had gained her feet. She found that she was breathing hard, and her throat felt tight. She fought to regain control of herself. 'Then help me now,' she said. 'Help me do what's right for her.'

For a moment she thought Shelley wasn't going to answer her at all. Various emotions passed across her face like ghosts. And then something seemed to move like a shudder through the professor's body, and she nodded.

'This isn't because of any threat of exposure. I'm beyond that now, understand? But you're right, I did bring you into this for a reason. It's time to force the issue, one way or the other. Evan's gone too far with her and it has to end.

'I'll call him to set up a private meeting off-premises for Sunday afternoon. They'll be at minimum staff then. Do you know Jeffrey? I helped place him there, nearly ten years ago now. He's an old patient of mine, in fact. He trusts me, and he'll do what I say. He'll help you get past the guard.'

She stood with effort, pain etched across her face. 'I can't go with you. I hope you understand. From then on, you're on your own.'

--25--

'Okay, Sarah,' Patrick said. 'We're all friends here. I want you to try to relax.'

They were huddled around the table in the tiny observation room of the church basement: Patrick, Gee, Jess, Sarah, and Connor the stuffed bear. It hadn't taken them long to get there. Jeffrey had seemed more than willing to cover for them, and he was good at it. In fact, he had done much more than that, getting Sarah upstairs and into the back of Charlie's car without drawing suspicion, and providing a distraction for the man at the gate so that they could get out without anyone noticing a thing.

But Jess was already looking at her watch. She couldn't be sure how long Wasserman would be gone, and what would she have accomplished if they were caught?

What she hadn't counted on was Sarah's resistance. The girl had been willing to go with her, eager to see the outside again. But when she explained what they were going to do, Sarah grew upset. No, Jess thought, it had been more than that; she had become frantic. It took everything Jess had to convince her that she would be all right, that these were friends who wanted to help her. Even now, she looked ready to bolt at any moment.

The empty worship hall hung like an expectant audience above their heads. Already she was regretting the decision to come. She was trying to reason, to find alternatives. Shelley had simply buckled under the terrible pressure of her disease, and was spending the rest of her life trying to deny the fact that her body had forsaken her. As for Sarah's grandmother, she was crazy as a shit-house rat; and what about all those strange things Jess herself had witnessed? There were explanations, there had to be. Perfectly reasonable solutions. If only she could find