The Cat, The Devil And Lee Fontana

19

On the night of Becky and Morgan’s tenth anniversary, their little girl experienced a nightmare so violent yet so very real, a shocking prediction of a change in their lives that was beyond comprehension. If such a vision were to come true, nothing for the Blake family would ever again be the same, their very lives would be shattered.

It was heavy dusk when Sammie and her parents returned home with their empty picnic basket after a day in the woods celebrating “their” anniversary. Morgan and Becky were laughing, holding hands, Sammie running ahead in the darkening evening past their neighbors’ lighted windows, beneath the reaching arms of the maple and oak trees that shadowed the sidewalks of the small Georgia town.

Arriving home, they gave Sammie a quick bath and a bowl of soup and tucked her into bed, then Morgan put some records on: Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw, the music that had been theirs when they were courting. They rolled back the hooked rug, danced to the music that had made Becky so lonely during the war when Morgan was at sea. But now the war was history, the world was at peace or nearly so. Morgan had done his time, now there was nothing to part them. They danced with their arms around each other, held in a nest of security and love. He had come home safe, they had Sammie and were hoping for more children; the business he had built from nothing was growing; they were a solid family now and would not be parted again. It was near to midnight, they were dancing slowly, touching each other, mellowing into rising passion when Sammie’s scream tore them apart, racing for her room, scream after scream, shock waves of terror.

Afraid to wake her suddenly, to jerk her from sleep, Becky flicked on the hall light, leaving Sammie’s room in the half dark. The little girl was sound asleep but kneeling on her bed in a tangle of covers, hitting and fighting at the air, screaming, “No! No! Leave my daddy alone! Let my daddy go!” Fists clenched, she jerked and pulled at the empty air. “No! You can’t take my daddy! No!” Her high, terrified cries shook her small body. Hugging her between them, they spoke softly to her.

“It’s all right,” Morgan whispered. “I’m here, I’m all right, I’m right here beside you, I’m not going anywhere. It’s all right, baby, I’m right here with you.”

They had no comprehension of what she was seeing, or of where such nightmares came from. No one on either side of the family had ever had anything remotely like Sammie’s visions, which so often turned out to be true, and there was nothing in their family life to create this kind of disturbance, no fighting, no cruelty, not even any overly frightening stories read to her. Long after the child woke, Morgan continued to hold her. “It’s all right, honey. No one has hurt Daddy, no one is going to hurt your daddy.”

“Those men wanted to hurt you, they tried to hurt you.”

Puzzled and deeply uneasy, Morgan held her and talked and sang to her, trying to make her understand that he was safe, that they were all three safe, but Sammie couldn’t stop shivering. Her pajamas were soaked with sweat, her long pale hair clung damply to her cheeks and forehead. She burrowed into his shoulder, her face white, and when he tilted her chin up, looking into her brown eyes that were so like Becky’s eyes, they were nearly black with terror.

“Policemen,” she whispered, pressing harder against him. “Policemen we know, pushing you into a cage. Don’t go there, Daddy. Don’t ever go there again to the police station, don’t let them put you in the cage. Fight them, Daddy, and don’t go there!”

“Not policemen? Not Jimson? Not Trevis or Leonard?”

Silently, she nodded.

“Sammie, I went to school with those guys, I’ve known them all my life. What kind of cage, honey?” Neither Becky nor Morgan made light of Sammie’s dreams, but this one was beyond understanding. “What kind of cage did you dream?”

“Bars. A room with bars.” She pulled away, looking helplessly up at him, then clutched him again, digging her fingers into his shoulders, holding on to him as if he would vanish.

It took Morgan and Becky nearly two hours to calm her sufficiently to get her back to sleep. When Sammie wouldn’t let go of her daddy, they took her into bed with them, and Becky brought her Ovaltine and half an aspirin. But even in the double bed cuddled between them, the child remained rigid, unable to escape her fear. She slept only when she was totally exhausted, Becky and Morgan holding hands across her, remembering too sharply her previous dreams that had, in real life, turned out to be accurate and powerful predictions.

Morgan slept at last, still cuddling Sammie and holding Becky’s hand, but Becky couldn’t sleep. What had Sammie seen, tonight, what terrible threat? What were these visions, where did they come from? She couldn’t understand the dreams’ source, she had ceased long ago to wonder how their little girl could see a future that no one should be able to know. She only knew that Sammie saw truly, her earlier dreams had proven that.

Becky and Morgan hadn’t made too much of Sammie’s visions in front of the child, but the dreams terrified them both. They had hoped that as Sammie grew older, the crippling experiences would fade and disappear, that she would outgrow them. Yet it seemed, recently, that just the opposite was happening. Becky had to believe there was more in the world than they could know. Sammie had proven that, somehow their daughter was able to touch an element of the future that was hidden to most people. She lay hugging Sammie and holding Morgan’s hand, believing their child’s prediction, and terrified for Morgan. He woke once, whispered, “Probably in her dream I was going into the jail to see about fixing Jimson’s old Ford. It’s always breaking down. You can see the cell bars from the office.”

Becky didn’t say, Then who was shoving you behind the bars? Who was forcing you into a cell? She couldn’t rid herself of the vision, it burned in her mind as clearly as if she had seen it happen, she lay awake all night trying to think of logical explanations and finding none at all, she lay holding on to her husband and their child, on to the life they shared, and though she was strong on faith and love and prayed that would keep them steady, she was equally certain that soon their life would be cruelly torn apart.

In the days that followed, Becky tried to counteract the dream and to reassure Sammie, she spent more time with Sammie after school, she invented fun things to do in the evenings, she cooked special meals. She told herself it was stupid to think this nightmare would come true, to keep dwelling on that barred room, to keep hearing Sammie’s screams.

But what about the courthouse steeple struck by lightning, the bricks falling exactly as Sammie had seen? What about the kittens? The broken car?

She knew no way to shelter Sammie. She wanted Sammie to live her life with vigor, not in fear. When Sammie got that preoccupied, worried look, Becky tried to think of a new adventure to divert her, and some afternoons after school she would send Sammie off the two blocks to the shop, to be with her daddy. This afternoon, Becky hugged Sammie and watched her run down the steps hurrying toward town to the shop, wearing old, frayed jeans and carrying her small cotton work gloves and her cap. Sammie had only one side street to cross and she was a careful child. In a little over two hours Morgan would close up shop and bring her home again, a hungry little girl tired and dirty and deeply satisfied.

Sammie glanced back once at Mama then hurried on pretending to watch the birds and trees but thinking about her daddy and still afraid for him. No matter what else she dreamed, her thoughts always returned to the barred cage, to Daddy being pushed in there, and the men pushing him were policemen. But she had dreamed of another man too, the one who tried to hurt Mama, and who killed Misto. Now as she stepped over the sidewalk cracks and into the deepest shade, the shop was half a block ahead. Her gaze was fixed on its white roof shining in the sunlight when a black car came around the corner and slowed beside her.

Mama said to stay away from strange cars so she ran into a backyard but she would have run anyway when she saw the man driving, that same man with the close-together eyes. She stayed behind the tall gray house in the bushes until she heard the car drive away, then she ran as fast as she could all the way to the shop, and when Daddy picked her up she hugged him so hard he looked surprised, then hugged her back, harder.

“You all right? Something frightened you?”

“Fine,” she said. “A dog . . . The Lewises’ dog barked at me.”

Morgan looked hard at her. “Is that all?” He looked like he didn’t believe her.

“That’s all,” she lied, and grinned at him, then slipped down out of his arms and got to work beside him, handing him his tools from the black bag, and after a while the fear went away, as she worked close to her daddy, and she felt better.