The deathstone, p.3
The Deathstone, page 3
“What’s wrong?” Russell asked, appearing at Ron’s elbow.
“Damned if I know. A loose wire, I guess.”
Kristy’s gaze remained fixed as Ron moved her aside. “Excuse me, sweetheart. Let daddy have a look.” He checked the on-off switch. It was still on. He checked the plugs in the back of the unit. Okay there too. He began to trace a wire across the room as Russell followed another wire up and over the bookshelf.
“Yes. You can talk to me,” said Kristy standing again in front of the stereo. Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, masking her excitement. “Yes, now I can hear you! Oh, yes...”
Ron looked to Russell, who, he knew, was staring at Kristy. In fact, the entire room was staring at Kristy. Other guests had begun to filter in from the terrace. Expressionless as statues, they formed a double line in front of the glass doors. Irritated as much by their silence as by their damn gaping, Ron snapped: “Okay, gang, it’s party time. We’ll have the problem fixed in a minute. Kristy, please get away from the stereo.”
Kristy did not move.
Chandal rose from the couch. “Kristy, come away from there, sweetheart. Your father is trying to fix it.”
“Oh, yes!” Kristy shrilled. “Yes, I will. Sometime soon. I will!” She listened intently, gave a serious nod, then whispered: “Soon.”
“Kristy,” Chandal scolded. “I said stop that!”
“No, no, no!” Kristy screamed and stamped her feet. “Leave me alone, goddammit!” Eyes sparkling, she turned again to speak to the dead stereo. “Oh, I’m glad! Yes, I will. I promise.”
There was a momentary silence. Ron turned to stare at his guests with barely concealed astonishment. There was no sign of amusement on their faces, only a slight expression of disdain tinged with embarrassment as they glanced briefly at Kristy, then back to Chandal.
“Maybe she hears static or something,” offered Russell.
“I guess,” Ron replied and moved closer.
Kristy jumped back with a start. With shrill laughter, she began scratching herself, lifting her dress above her waist and pressing it against her breast. A murmur traveled through the room. Under her dress she was completely naked.
“Jesus,” cried Ron, rushing to his daughter. “Kristy, honey, are you all right? Here, let me help you.” He pulled her dress down, at the same time holding onto her hands.
“She’s funny, Daddy! So funny!”
“Come on, sweetheart.” Ron took Kristy by the hand and tried leading her away.
“No, Daddy—she wants to talk with me!” There was a murmur of voices in the room as she tried to break free of Ron’s grasp.
“Kristy, please...” He turned and began to apologize silently to his guests.
“Well, it’s about that time...” he heard Russell say.
“No, no, please stay,” Chandal protested, turning to face the room fully. “Ron will be back in a few minutes.”
Ron dragged Kristy into the hallway, saying: “Want to be carried?” And without waiting for an answer, he raised her in his arms until she sat upon his shoulders.
Up there, holding tightly to his neck, she whispered: “The little girl on the radio likes me.”
“Yes? Who is she?”
“Oh, just a little girl—far away. Real far. She likes me, Daddy. Isn’t that nice?”
“Who is she?” Ron asked repeatedly, but Kristy appeared not to understand and mumbled over and over again, “She likes me... she likes me,” until the murmur became lower and lower, then a whisper that died away as Ron opened her bedroom door.
CHAPTER TWO
IN THE DEAD LIGHT OF DUSK, KRISTY’S ROOM LOOKED BARREN and unreal. For some time, she had had a problem sleeping at night, convinced there were strangers in her room. But the problem had been solved with the addition of a night light and the removal of an offending coat rack. When draped with coats and hats, Ron had suddenly realized, the coat rack bore a certain human resemblance. Other things also had been removed from the room: a set of large Maurice Sendak posters, an ornate mirror over her dresser, and most of the toys from off the bookshelves. Finally the nightmares had stopped, but only after the room had been almost stripped bare. Now all that remained was a single bed, a small rocking chair, a dresser, and little else.
“Hang on,” Ron said, reaching over to turn on the light.
Kristy groaned playfully, shifted herself to one side, then straightened. She leaned forward and smiled. There was no confusion, only intensity in her gaze. He hurriedly placed his hands on her waist, lifted her from his shoulders; his back ached when he released her onto the floor,
“Now, young lady,” Ron said, “just who is this girl you heard on the radio?”
Again she said the little girl far away. Ron shook his head. There was no point in continuing. He did not know why he had bothered to question her in the first place. Children have these imaginings every day. What the hell was all the fuss about?
“I’m sleepy, Daddy.”
“I know, sweetheart.” Ron touched his palm to her forehead. “Kristy, are you all right? Is something wrong?”
“No, Daddy. I’m sleepy.” Her eyes had already begun to droop.
“Then let’s get you brushed up and into bed. Okay?”
“All right,” she yawned and moved away toward the bathroom, a little girl of six with tired eyes, wearing a yellow summer dress with white lace trim. On her feet were brown patent leather shoes, scuffed in the front and worn at the heels. Childishly, she rubbed her eyes with her fists. She entered the bathroom but did not flick on the light. She turned then to stare back into the bedroom. Her face remained lost in the shadows. Only the underside of her eyes and mouth remained lighted. With lips pursed in a rigid black line, her face bore a look of grief.
“Kristy? What is it?” Ron could feel the chill of the room now. Felt the sweat roll down from the back of his neck, struck suddenly by the cold air. Still the child did not move. “Kristy,” Ron breathed, “what are you doing?”
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“When are we going on our vacation?” Her voice came as a soft murmur, a sound outward and beyond rather than something from her own body. Then she lowered her head, almost ashamed to have mentioned the unmentionable.
“Kristy,” Ron said softly, “we’ve already discussed it. We can’t take a vacation this year. Try to understand, all right?”
“But Mommy said we would.” Anxiously she stepped from the bathroom.
“She did? When?”
“Yesterday. She said—”
“No vacation this year. Now that’s final.” Ron tried to force the point with a stern look.
Kristy stood very still. Her eyes were wide. For an instant Ron thought she was going to say something. But abruptly he saw her change her mind. Secret knowledge was written plainly upon her face. Then he saw in her eyes a sudden fluttering of wings, flight.
She ran from the room. The bathroom door closed behind her with a dull thud. It only took a few minutes for her to emerge from the bathroom scrubbed and clean. At first Ron thought he had imagined it, but after a second glance he realized he hadn’t been mistaken—Kristy was smiling.
In part, he was fascinated by all this. Was Kristy manipulating him? If so, she was doing a damn good job. Her subtle change of mood had completely thrown him off balance. But also it was frightening. The three-to-seven age group Spock talked about was obviously a delusion: in Kristy’s case at any rate. A six-year-old child should not know the subtle art of persuasion. Yet, it appeared she had already graduated with honors.
Ron helped her into her pajamas, and had barely tucked her into bed, when she solemnly began discussing places such as the Grand Canyon and the cavern in the mountains where Butch Cassidy and the Hole in the Wall Gang hid out.
“And where they have flower wars and dancing jackals,” she added with eager eyes.
Ron laughed. “Dancing jackals?”
“With teeth that bite.”
“Who’s been telling you such things?”
“I’ve seen them.”
“When?”
“At night. Around my bed.”
“You were just dreaming.”
“Nooo, I wasn’t,” she said and sank further under the covers.
For a moment Ron experienced a flash of guilt and, turning away, began to chastise himself for reading her all those bedtime stories. They all seemed to be filled with horror and always ended so damn sadly. When he was a little boy, didn’t the stories have to do with love and a purer sort of adventure —even when the dragons were killed, he didn’t remember them bleeding over the pages. But maybe they had. Probably he had simply forgotten the blood letting. The Grimm Brothers had been grim for many years, after all.
“Kristy, about the vacation...’’ he said and turned to face her.
Kristy was sound asleep. Dreaming, no doubt, he reasoned, and watched his shadow pass over her lovely face. He kissed her forehead. “Kristy,” he whispered, “do you really dream of dancing jackals?” Then, smiling a little because he saw she was smiling a little, he said: “That’s right, sweetheart, sleep.” For a time he waited, listening to her soft, shallow breathing. Beside her on the same pillow was a china doll face framed in yellow curls. The doll’s eyes were open, walled back in her head. Her lips were open in a slight smile, showing two small teeth. A blond, china-faced, talking doll, Ron mused. Perhaps that was it. He reached over and flicked out the light.
Then, no color, not a tint, and no fear either. Only darkness.
CHAPTER THREE
“ARE YOU KIDDING?” CHANDAL DROPPED HER HAIRBRUSH ON the dresser.
Ron stood hunched in the doorway, smoking. “Not at all. I just don’t think it’s anything to get so excited about.”
“Oh, well, pardon me.” Chandal gazed into the mirror stormily meeting her own icy blue eyes.
“Can we talk about this rationally?”
“If you can, I can. I say we should let her see a doctor. The sooner the better.”
“Christ!”
“Look who’s being rational.” Tears welled up suddenly. Angry tears. “Ron, you saw them. The way they all looked at her. Her actions caused a mass departure. When have we ever had a party break up this early? Dwayne and Mimi left without even saying good night.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her!” Ron said fighting back his own temper. “So she hears voices,” he said in a softer tone. He was pleading now. “She’s only six years old, for Chrissakes. Come on, sweetheart. So she has an imaginary playmate. So what? Let’s forget it. All right?”
“Whatever you say,” Chandal flung back at him.
Ron watched as she began to remove her clothes. She unzipped her jeans and slithered out of them, then crossing her arms in front of her, took hold of her blouse and, yanking it over her head, slipped out of it in a single gesture. She was not wearing a bra, only a pair of thinly laced panties. Ron’s eyes lingered on her nakedness, her tight buttocks, the fullness of her breasts. Slowly he moved behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. “You smell good,” he said nuzzling her neck. “I love the smell of you.”
“Don’t, Ron.” Chandal tried to wriggle from his grasp.
“Why?”
“Kristy is...”
“Asleep.”
“Please, Ron...” She squirmed free and moved to the bed.
“Okay, okay. I hadn’t realized you were so upset about this.”
“Well, I’m not. See.” She mocked a smile. “It’s forgotten. Now let’s get some sleep. I have to be up early in the morning.” Chandal slipped into bed and wiggled deep under the covers seeming to burrow herself into a self-imposed hole of isolation.
“Hon?” He leaned over her in the bed. “Are you all right?”
She looked up at him. “Of course I’m all right.”
He smiled. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Whenever,” she said and rolled over to face the wall.
Hesitantly, almost reluctantly, Ron sat down on the edge of the bed. Forgotten, my ass, he said to himself. Then he studied his reflection in the mirror set into the back of the closet door. His eyes, bloodshot and slightly drunk, seemed more solemn than he would have imagined. He felt a sort of anxiety now as his mind struggled to put things into perspective. Kristy’s behavior tonight was no big deal, he decided conclusively. Although Chandal was making something of it.
By tomorrow or next week, whenever the next smallest incident occurred, she would insist on going the shrink route. Ron didn’t need and, certainly, couldn’t afford that particular solution. Psychiatrists, he had told himself for so long, were a thing of the past for his family and—reluctantly, he finished the thought—he would feel a very personal sense of failure if his six-year-old daughter had to begin visiting a psychiatrist who would look to Chandal and him, no doubt, for his answers. Neglect, permissiveness, oedipal complexes. Ron knew most of the words from friends who had their whole families in analysis or therapy. Not Kristy. Not now. When all the child needed was a little extra attention.
“Del?”
“Humm?”
“Have you thought about the vacation?”
“What!” she said. She was sitting up in bed now. “What?”
He turned and stared at her through a mist of alcohol. “About the vacation. Remember? The month of August. We decided it was time we had—”
“But I thought you said we couldn’t afford it?”
He shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
“The entire month?”
“Why not?”
“August?”
“A good month.”
Unconsciously he had already made the decision. A smile hovered on his lips. “Would you like that?”
“Seriously?” she said. She was propped on her elbows, looking at him in profile.
He was just about to say: “Of course, I’m serious,” but stopped himself. Once he had said yes—it was yes. Chandal was like that. Once something had been set, it was set. There was no changing it. He stared glumly ahead, inhaled deeply, and saw in the mirror the reflection of the glowing red tip of his cigarette. It was the dead quiet part of the night. The time when people went mad with the pull of the moon. The time when hospital corridors were empty places, echoing pain. I’m losing my mind, he thought with mirthful acceptance.
“Think about it before saying yes,” she said, moving closer. “Whatever you decide will be fine with me.”
In the dim light as soft as melted amber, Ron felt the warm length of her thigh pressed against his body. There was so much he wanted to say to her. To ask her. Did she still dream? After all these years, did she still think of the past? He gazed obliquely at her now and found it strange that he could go that far back in time and at the same time could see himself sitting next to her in a room that seemed to be growing darker. Or was it his thoughts that were growing darker?
Shadows shifted and the unnatural thud of his heart beat on as some deep part of him kept pondering an unseen world that was not beautiful, not pleasant, not warm, not large, not small, not of this earth. Yet it had been part of his life.
Now, following her gaze, he leaned back and stared up into her face. He kept his head that way for several moments, before saying: “You’re right. I really should think about it.” His remark seemed to draw no response.
He rose quickly to his feet. Taking a final, deep drag from his cigarette, he crushed it into the ashtray, then turned to look down at her. A sheaf of hair had fallen over her eye and she tossed it back with a quick movement of her head.
The sheet entangled between her leg seemed an ancient style of costume, he thought vaguely. Something Greek, possibly, or perhaps a simplistic ritual of dress. For an instant he pictured a vestal virgin filling her lamp with oil, then the image receded and he found himself utterly alone.
He suddenly wanted to reach out and hold her closely; wanted her to wrap him tightly in her arms, crush him, tell him that everything was going to be all right. That things, all things, were going to be okay. The impulse was so strong, so compelling, yet he stood motionless, his hands now fists held rigidly by his sides.
“I love you, Del,” he said and, without waiting for a reply, turned and left the room.
CHAPTER FOUR
LATER THAT NIGHT HE HAD A DREAM, OR DID HE IMAGINE IT while he was awake? He knelt at the base of a great stone. It was the core of the universe that wound upward from below, the roughness of its broad surface twisting and turning, until finally it formed the highest spire of a great cathedral.
Squat in the darkness, head hung, someone whispered: “The stone around which moving is done.” Then the clandestine sobbing. A soft sound—nothing tangible, yet it seemed the weeping of many. Ron listened with his eyes down, looking at the still smoldering ash that coated the rock-layered floor. He bit his lip and gazed upward. He prayed.
High above, through the transparent skin of the steeple, he could see the sky splattered with stars. Frozen, suspended—they hung there tossing back tiny spear-points of dazzling light; and beyond their glitter... another light. So soft, no movement at all. Then something began to happen. Something Ron could not fathom. A sudden flash, an explosion as one of the stars shot downward, huge and liquefied, like a droplet of blazing water flicked from the finger of God, and crashed into the steeple roof; the cathedral exploded in a burst of flames and began to dissolve.
People were running now, screaming, clawing to get out. Too late. Much too late. Ron knew that—that it was all too late. The flames were everywhere, licking, spitting—and as they scorched each person, one by one, the people began to dissolve. Now the heavens were filled with tiny human flesh-sparks of light, drifting into the darkness above, as if their time on earth had ended—as if God, scornful, hateful, had withdrawn their right to exist, saying, No, you have betrayed me and now you must die.
