Sleep No More

He blinked in confusion. “What?”

“I was looking at my dead body, Johnny. I was…in him.”

Waters sat frozen, unable to break the spell her words had cast. If she was lying, she was either a first-rate actress or a delusional schizophrenic. As he stared, she rose onto her knees and hobbled to within two feet of him.

“You know I’m telling the truth,” she said, her eyes pleading. “Don’t you?”

He swallowed. “I think you believe what you’re saying. But I don’t understand. It’s crazy. And it doesn’t explain how you could be Mallory.”

She nodded. “I don’t want to think about that part right now. I’ve waited so long for this moment.” She reached out and touched his cheek, and a current of heat went through him. “Will you do me a favor, Johnny? One favor?”

“What?”

“Kiss me.”

He pulled back slightly.

“Just one kiss,” she said, sliding her finger down to his lips. “Where’s the harm in that?”

“Why kiss you?”

“If you kiss me, you’ll know.”

“Know what?”

“That it’s all true. That it’s me.”

He pulled her fingers away from his face. “I think you’ve suffered a terrible thing, Eve. But I’m not some fairy-tale prince. I can’t magically solve your problems for you.”

“Yes, you can. And I can solve yours.”

“I don’t have any.”

Her eyes were serene in their knowledge. “Are you really so happy?”

He looked away.

“Kiss me, Johnny. Please. Just once.”

She took his hands and pulled him up to his knees. Now his face was above hers as they knelt, inches apart. Her eyes seemed to expand and deepen, drawing him into her. Those eyes knew him in a way no others on earth did, and he felt that he knew them. He wasn’t sure whether he leaned forward or she rose to him, but after a brief hesitation, their lips touched, and with the gentlest pressure they kissed. Her lips remained closed for a moment, and then he felt the soft touch of her tongue. He parted his lips, and she slipped her tongue inside, then took his lower lip between her teeth and tugged it toward her. A shock of recognition shot through him, and he almost pulled away, but with recognition came a wave of desire. He kissed her harder, slipping his tongue into her mouth to taste her. Eve did not taste like Mallory, but she responded like Mallory. Her mouth moved with perfect elasticity, yielding to the pressure of his lips, then reciprocating like a gifted dancer who senses her partner’s every move. He had no idea how long they kissed, but when he felt her breasts swelling against him, he suddenly found himself unable to breathe. He broke the kiss and pushed her away.

Eve caught her balance and stared back at him, her cheeks flushed, her lips deep red as she panted for breath. “I told you,” she said. “Oh God, I’m so happy.”

He got to his feet and wiped his mouth, meaning to put more distance between them, but he wavered. Not the passion of her kiss but the memory of it had dislocated his sense of time. How could he remember kissing a woman he had never kissed before? He feared that if he walked back toward his Land Cruiser, he would find the old Triumph he’d driven in college waiting for him.

“I’m going,” he said.

For a moment Eve looked as though she might panic, but she looked away and bit her bottom lip again. This too made him think of Mallory, of her infantile reactions to parting.

“Go on,” she said, trying not to pout.

He took a few steps toward the edge of Catholic Hill, then looked back at her. “How did you know about Danny Buckles and the little girls at school?”

“If I told you that, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“If I stay, will you tell me that? And the rest of your story?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re ready. You’re not there yet. You need time to think. And we need some more time together.” She looked up at him and forced a smile. “You know where to find me, Johnny. I’ll be waiting.”

“I’m not going to call you,” he said harshly.

She fell back on the grass as though he had not spoken, her arms outstretched again, her gaze lost in the clouds. Watching her, he was reminded of the young Natalie Wood playing Alva in Tennessee Williams’s This Property Is Condemned. He waited, but Eve did not look his way again, so he turned and walked back to the lane.

When his feet hit the asphalt, a sudden sense of urgency rose in him, and he increased his pace to a jog, then a run. How had she simply appeared behind him? He’d seen no other cars, nor heard any before she appeared. It was as though she’d materialized on Catholic Hill at the moment he read the note, like a genie conjured from the buried jar. But as he neared his Land Cruiser, an engine rumbled to life somewhere among the stones far behind him. When he turned, he saw the black Lexus he’d seen at Dunleith slide between distant graves with reptilian stealth, headed for one of the far gates.

“Jesus,” he panted, reaching for the Land Cruiser’s door. “What the hell just happened?”

chapter 6

Waters lay awake in the dark beside his sleeping wife. His watch read 3:00 A.M., and he had not slept at all. The evening had not gone well. As he left the cemetery, Lily had called his cell phone, furious because she’d already heard one rumor of molestation at the school and another that her husband had brought it to light. She was angry primarily because she had not been the first to know of these events. Waters apologized for this, but what he really felt guilty about was what he had neglected to say once he got home.

When Lily asked how he had come to get the information about “the school closet” out of Annelise, he stood silent for a few moments, thinking of Eve Sumner’s cryptic warning and all that had come after. And then he lied. He told Lily he’d simply asked Annelise about school and sensed something unusual in her answer, a feeling that she wanted to say more but was afraid to. By lying, he had entered into a tacit compact to protect Eve and her secret knowledge, whatever its source. This was a serious step, but hadn’t she used her knowledge for good, as she said in her office? And yet…how had she known the abuse was happening in the first place?

If I told you that, you wouldn’t believe me….

Waters shut his eyes and tried not to think of Eve. It required concentrated thoughts of Annelise to banish the haunting face. He and Lily had spoken to Annelise about what kind of talk she was likely to hear at school tomorrow. Kids might call her a tattletale or talk about things she didn’t yet understand. Conversing with a second- grader about child molestation was not easy, but he and Lily believed frankness was best, and Annelise didn’t seem too upset by their explanation. They agreed to watch her closely and speak to her again tomorrow night.

When they finally got into bed, Lily read two pages of a Nora Roberts novel and fell asleep. Waters lifted the paperback from her chest and put it on the night table, then lay on his back as images from that afternoon spun through his mind, merging with memories from twenty years before. Eve’s kiss remained on his lips as surely as Mallory’s was engraved in the convolutions of his brain. That was easily enough explained: their kisses were identical. How this could be so was not so easily explained, and so he raveled threads in the dark.

Foremost in his mind were the intimate details Eve had thrown at him, things only Mallory could have known. He considered getting up and making a list, but the more he thought about it, the more trouble he had separating the memories Eve had mentioned from those rising from his own subconscious. Her irrational words and actions had shattered a dam he had built in his mind, freeing a river of memory that he was powerless to resist. Yet one bedrock reality refused to yield: Mallory Candler was dead. Eve Sumner might believe she was Mallory, but that did not make it so. At the very least she wanted him to believe she believed that, and to bolster her delusion, she’d told a heart-wrenching tale of rape culminating with an outlandish fantasy of soul transmigration. As a scientist, Waters found it difficult enough to accept the existence of an immortal soul; the idea that souls could move freely between human bodies he rejected out of hand. And despite a brief flirtation with Eastern philosophy in college, he had not one iota of belief in reincarnation.