Darkness

11

Kelly stepped out of Arlette Delong’s café, where she’d been sitting by herself for most of the morning, nursing three Cokes and leafing through magazines she’d picked up from the rack by the front door. Finally sensing that the woman behind the counter — a middle-aged woman with a bleached blond beehive hairdo she assumed was Arlette — was about to tell her either to purchase the magazines or put them back on the rack, she’d put some money on the counter for the Cokes and left. Outside, away from the air-conditioning, the humid heat of the morning closed around her, and she began wondering where to go next.

As she moved quickly down the street, the one thing she was certain of was that she didn’t want to go home, where she would once again have to listen to her mother’s accusations.

Except she knew they weren’t empty accusations. She had sneaked out last night, and she’d been caught.

But that wasn’t so bad — she’d been sneaking out at night since she was fourteen, and been caught lots of times. And nothing much had ever happened. Her folks had told her they wouldn’t put up with it, but in the end they always did.

The problem this morning was that she wasn’t really certain what had happened last night. What she could remember was so strange that when she had awakened this morning, she thought the whole thing must have been a dream.

She and Michael had gone into the swamp — that part she remembered clearly.

But after that things were fuzzy. There had been some kind of ceremony, almost like a religious service. And she and Michael had been part of it. They’d been led up to an altar, and a priest, all dressed in black, had spoken to them.

Then he’d laid her down on a bed and put a needle in her chest. But there had been no pain — no pain at all.

That was why, when she’d remembered it this morning, she assumed it must have been a dream. But then she looked at herself in the mirror, and there on her chest she’d seen the mark.

A red spot, in the center of which was the tiny round circle of a puncture wound. The spot had been tender to her touch.

All she’d thought about since then was finding Michael and asking him if he remembered what had happened last night.

Asking him if he, too, had a strange red mark on his chest.

Except that the whole thing was crazy. Over and over she’d told herself that the mark could have been made by a mosquito and that she must have dreamed the whole thing.

Or hallucinated it.

Was that it? Was she going crazy again, and hallucinating?

Now, as her mind whirled in confusion, she suddenly wished she hadn’t gotten into the fight with her mother. All she’d have had to do was apologize for sneaking out. And then maybe she could have talked about the dream, and how frightened she was this morning.

Except that she’d never been able to talk to her mother.

She’d never been able to talk to anyone, really. Always she’d felt like an outsider, set apart, unable to touch anyone around her.

Until yesterday, when she’d met Michael.

And last night …

An image rose up in her memory of the swamp, and the circle of children around the fire.

The circle that had opened to include her.

Her, and Michael, too.

When she’d awakened this morning, that was the first thing she remembered: the feeling that they had somehow belonged in that circle.

Michael.

She had to find him, had to talk to him.

She glanced around and saw a phone booth in front of the post office. Crossing the street, she found a thin directory sitting on a shelf below the instrument. She rifled through its pages quickly and found what she was looking for. From the address, it seemed that the Sheffields’ house couldn’t be more than a few blocks from her grandfather’s.

And it must face on one of the canals.

Leaving the booth, she started down Ponce Avenue, back the way she’d come this morning.

After turning down two wrong cul-de-sacs, she found the house. She was on the pathway that fronted the canal, less than half a mile from where she herself lived, and although she couldn’t see the street number, she recognized the boat Michael had been in last night, now tied up to a small dock at the canal’s edge. She gazed across the lawn at the house, a long, low, vaguely Mediterranean structure, with a tile roof. On a patio shaded by trellises twined with wisteria, a little girl was playing. Feeling eyes on her, the child looked up, then trotted across the lawn, coming to a stop a few yards from Kelly. Cocking her head, she stared quizzically at the older girl.

“I bet you’re looking for my brother, aren’t you?” she asked.

Kelly felt herself blushing. “Is your brother Michael Sheffield?”

Jenny nodded. “But he’s not here. He’s at work. My name’s Jenny.”

“My name’s Kelly.”

Jenny’s eyes widened. “Kelly Anderson? My daddy says—” But before she could finish, another voice called out from the house, and a woman stepped out onto the patio.

“Jenny? Where are you? Jenny …” Her words faded away as she saw her daughter, and then she, too, crossed the lawn. “Hello,” Barbara said, smiling at Kelly. “I hope Jenny isn’t bothering you. Sometimes she thinks the pathway belongs to us, too.”

“This is Kelly,” Jenny interrupted. “Michael’s girlfriend!”

“Jenny!” Barbara exclaimed. “She’s not Michael’s girlfriend. She’s just a friend of his, who happens to be a girl.” She smiled with embarrassment at Kelly. “I’m afraid she just blurts things out.”

“I do not!” Jenny protested. Turning back to Kelly, she started talking again. “Last night, Daddy said—”

“That’s enough, Jenny,” Barbara said sharply, and suddenly Kelly realized she had been correct; Michael’s parents had been fighting about her last night. She felt her blush deepen.

“I–I better be going,” she murmured, but Barbara shook her head, pulling Jenny close and clamping her hands firmly over the girl’s mouth.

“No, don’t. I just made some lemonade for Jenny, and there’s plenty for you, too. Come and visit with us for a while, and I promise I won’t let Jenny say anything terrible. Please?” she added, when Kelly still seemed on the verge of hurrying away.

Kelly hesitated. “I–I was just looking for Michael. If he’s not here—”

“Then we can get acquainted without him saying ‘Oh, Mom!’ every two seconds. Now come on. It’s hot and sticky, and I can’t think of anything better to do right now than sit in the shade and sip lemonade.” She looked down at Jenny. “And if I let go of you, you’ll keep your mouth closed, won’t you?” Jenny nodded vigorously, and as Barbara released her, Jenny clamped her own hands over her mouth, giggling happily. “See?” Barbara laughed. “She’s not really awful — she just seems like it when you first meet her.”

Chattering on, sensing that if she stopped talking Kelly might still dart away like a frightened rabbit, Barbara led her to the house, taking her inside while she poured the lemonade, then leading her back to the patio. “There,” she said as she sank into one of the cushioned chairs that sat around a glass-topped table, “isn’t this nice?”

Kelly gazed up at the wisteria that hung in bright blue clumps from the trellis. Around the patio’s edge a border of pink petunias were in full bloom, and the scent of honeysuckle wafted through the air from a vine growing up a wall a few feet away. “The flowers are nice,” she said shyly. “Especially the petunias. I like pink.”

“Is that why you dyed your hair that funny color?” Jenny asked.

Barbara glared exasperatedly at her daughter. “Jenny! You promised not to say things like that.”

“But it’s true!” Jenny wailed. “Her hair is a funny color.”

“You may think it’s a funny color, but that doesn’t mean everyone thinks it is,” Barbara told her daughter. She smiled apologetically at Kelly. “I’m sorry. I guess we’re a little backward around here. Jenny’s never seen hair like yours, except on television.”

Kelly’s eyes clouded. “There’s nothing wrong with my hair. Just because it’s different doesn’t make it bad. Why does everyone have to have the same color hair?”

Barbara held up her arms in an exaggerated gesture of defense. “Hey, wait a minute! I’m on your side! I think you should have your hair any color you want it. Who cares? It’s your hair, and you shouldn’t have to please anyone but yourself!”

Kelly felt her brief flash of angry defensiveness collapse in upon itself and studied Barbara carefully. Did Michael’s mother really not care what her hair looked like? But everyone’s parents cared. “Y-You don’t think it looks weird?” she asked, suddenly uncertain.

Barbara shrugged. “I wouldn’t pick it for myself, but the only question that matters is, do you like it?”

Kelly felt confused. She’d never really thought about whether she liked her hair or not — when all the kids she’d known in Atlanta had started dyeing their hair, she had, too. And none of them had ever talked about whether they liked it. All they’d ever talked about was how mad it seemed to make everyone. The whole idea was to watch the expressions on people’s faces when they walked down the street. “I–I don’t know,” she heard herself saying. “I guess I never really thought about it before.”

Barbara chuckled. “Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s your hair, and you have a right to have it any color you want. And if people say you don’t, ignore them. They’re just plain wrong. Anyway,” Barbara said, fingering a strand of her own honey-blond hair and inspecting it with distaste, “I was thinking of changing mine. Maybe auburn? Don’t you think this color is kind of boring?”

Kelly hesitated. Did this woman really care what she thought? The way she was talking, it seemed as though she did. “Actually,” she finally said, “I like your hair the color it is. I always wished I had hair that color. And auburn wouldn’t be right with your eyes. They’re like mine — sort of blue, but not really, and with auburn hair they’d just sort of die away.”

Barbara sighed. “I guess maybe you’re right.” She tilted her head, eyeing Kelly thoughtfully. “If you like honey blond so much, why don’t we dye your hair?”

Now Kelly gaped openly at Barbara. “Are you kidding?”

Barbara shrugged. “I’ve got plenty of dye, and nothing better to do. Maybe we’ll dye Jenny’s, too. What do you think? Hair party? Just us girls?” She glanced from Kelly to Jenny, and Kelly found herself turning uncertainly to the six-year-old.

“She’s kidding, isn’t she?” she asked.

Jenny shook her head. “Mom’ll do anything.”

Kelly thought it over. Why not? The worst that could happen would be that her mother would be mad at her again, but it seemed like her mother was always mad at her anyway.

And Kelly knew why her mother was mad at her, too. It was because she wasn’t her mother’s real daughter. She was just someone whose real parents hadn’t wanted her or loved her, and had given her away. And the people who had taken her, and called themselves her parents, didn’t love her, either.

Maybe they’d wanted to, at first, but it hadn’t lasted very long. Now she was pretty sure they didn’t really want her at all anymore.

But if she could only find her real mother, everything would be all right.

Indeed, she’d often fantasized about what her real mother would be like.

It would be someone who understood her, and didn’t always find things to criticize about her.

Someone, she suddenly realized, like Barbara Sheffield. “Okay,” she said, grinning. “Let’s do it. Let’s make my hair look just like yours.”

• • •

Tim Kitteridge leaned back in his chair, studying Jonas Cox carefully. If he had to guess, he’d figure the boy’s IQ somewhere around eighty-five. Not real bright, but not quite retarded, either. Jonas, his worn overalls still damp from the time he’d spent lying in the water, was sitting on a straight-backed chair on the other side of the table, his eyes fixed dully on the police chief. They’d been talking for almost an hour now, and Tim was about ready to give up. Jonas had continually insisted he didn’t know anything about what had happened to the man whose body had been brought out of the swamp two nights before.

“Did you like George Coulton, Jonas?” Tim asked now, taking a new tack.

Jonas’s expression remained impassive. “Didn’t hardly know ’im,” he said. “ ’Sides, way I heard it, that were an old man you found in the swamp. George ain’t much older’n me.”

“You just said you hardly knew him,” Kitteridge reminded him.

“I know who he be,” Jonas growled. “Ain’t no reason I shouldn’t. There ain’t that many folk in the swamp.”

Kitteridge decided to take a shot in the dark. “But you and George were some kind of brothers, weren’t you? Amelie Coulton says you’re both the Dark Man’s kids.”

Jonas’s eyes narrowed, his lips curling into a sneer. “Amelie don’t know nothin’! Hell, I don’t hardly even know who my folks is!”

Kitteridge took a deep breath. “Now, come on, Jonas. You must know who your parents are.”

Jonas shook his head. “Lotsa kids in the swamp don’t know who their folks is.”

“Come on, Jonas,” Tim repeated, but Judd Duval interrupted him.

“It’s true, Chief. There’s all kinds of kids out there bein’ raised by folks who ain’t their parents. Since they won’t come into town to have their babies, some of ’em just die a-birthing, and other people take the kids. After a while, you don’t hardly know who belongs to who.”

Tim shook his head. It was almost unbelievable that people could live like that at the end of the twentieth century. And yet he’d seen their houses, scattered through the swamp, seen the way they lived. Hell, it was a miracle any of them survived at all. Then he had an idea.

“Are those the kids Amelie was talking about? The ones she called the Dark Man’s kids? Is he the one who decides who gets the kids?”

Though he was speaking to Judd Duval, his eyes were on Jonas. He thought the boy stiffened at the mention of the Dark Man’s name.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked. “Those are the kids Amelie was talking about. The Dark Man’s kids, she said. And she said you’re one of them.”

Jonas’s face remained impassive. “I don’t know what you be talkin’ ’bout.”

Tim leaned forward. “Sure you do,” he said, boring into the boy with his eyes. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“No,” Jonas whispered, his own eyes flicking toward Judd Duval as if searching for help.

But Tim wouldn’t let him go. “That’s it, isn’t it, Jonas?” he pressed, his voice dropping. “Amelie told me about you and George. She told me you were dead. Not just George. You, too.”

Jonas’s eyes widened. “No,” he breathed again, but now his voice was shaking.

“And you are, aren’t you, Jonas? You’ve got no mama, and you’ve got no papa, and you never did have. Isn’t that what the Dark Man tells you? That you’re dead, because you’ve got no folks?”

Jonas’s eyes took on the look of a cornered rat. “Who told you that?” he demanded.

Tim ignored the question. “It’s true, isn’t it? It’s not just George Coulton. It’s you, too! You’re dead!”

Jonas shrank back, and Tim knew he’d struck a nerve. But it was crazy, all of it! Jonas wasn’t dead — he was sitting right there. Was it possible that there really was something going on out there in the swamp? That somehow, for some reason, someone calling himself the Dark Man had convinced a bunch of kids that they were dead?

But why?

And what about the others? The adults? Could they really be so superstitious that they believed in something so crazy?

And then he remembered the voodoo cults of the bayous in Louisiana, and the zombie cults of the Caribbean. There were still people who believed in all of it, and there was no reason for him to think that some of those people might not live right here in the swamp outside Villejeune.

But it still didn’t solve the problem of what had happened to George Coulton.

He didn’t believe that Jonas had killed Coulton — hell, he didn’t really have any proof that the corpse in the cemetery was Coulton. And even if he could prove the identity of the corpse, how could he connect it to the slack-jawed, ferret-faced, empty-eyed boy who sat across from him now? Nowhere, he was sure, would he be able to find out anything about Jonas Cox. From what he’d learned the past couple of days, anyone in the swamp could be related to anyone else, in ways that would form family trees more tangled than the vines that hung from the cypresses these people lived among.

And no one in the swamp, he was quite certain, would talk to him about any of it.

He was beginning to regret having gotten involved at all. After the little investigating he’d already done, he now understood much more clearly what went on around Villejeune. Orrin Hatfield and Warren Phillips, both men who had spent most of their lives in the area, had known perfectly well what he would run up against in the swamp.

Hostility.

Secretiveness.

Superstition.

A tangle of myths that he would never be able to sort out.

And for what?

Even Amelie Coulton didn’t care if her husband was dead — assuming the corpse was her husband at all.

No one else had even asked about what had happened. Indeed, what had happened to the old man in the swamp apparently wasn’t even that unusual.

So why not let it go? If no one else cared, why should he?

And no matter what he thought, no matter what confusion and myth he might eventually be able to sort out, he was absolutely certain he would never be able to prove a thing.

“All right, Jonas,” he said, eyeing the boy once more. “I guess that’s it.” He glanced up at Judd Duval. “Take him back to his boat.”

As if he feared the police chief might change his mind, Jonas darted out of the little room where the interrogation had taken place.

When he was gone, Judd Duval eyed his boss questioningly. “Well?” he drawled. “What do you think?”

Kitteridge shook his head tiredly. “I think we just wasted most of a day on a wild-goose chase. That boy may not be crazy, but he’s about the closest thing to it I’ve seen in a long time. You think he really believes he’s dead?”

Duval shrugged. “That’s swamp rats for you. Believe anything anyone tells ’em, no matter how dumb it is.” He turned and left the room. In the hall, he signaled Jonas to follow him, but said nothing more until both of them were back in the squad car and he was on his way down to the dock where the boats were tied up. Finally he glanced over at Jonas. “It’s okay,” he said. “He thinks you’re nuts.”

Jonas glared at him. “You in big trouble, Judd,” he growled. “When the Dark Man finds out you helped him find me—”

“He ain’t gonna find out, less’n you tell him,” Judd snarled. “You understand me, boy?”

Jonas sank into a sullen silence, not speaking until they were back at the dock. But as he got into his boat, Jonas’s eyes fixed on Judd once more and his pale, empty gaze made Judd shudder.

His words chilled Judd’s very soul.

“Mebbe he’ll turn me on you, Judd,” he said. “Mebbe he’ll turn me on you, just like he turned me on George.”

Getting into his boat, he untied it, then looked up at Judd once more as he grasped the oars in his strong, callused hands.

“I’m gonna rip it out of you, Judd,” he said softly. “I’m gonna reach inside’a you, and rip your life out. See if I don’t.”

Judd, frozen by the ice-cold words, stood where he was long after Jonas had disappeared back into the swamp.