Part 51 (1/2)
Harry doesn't hear. She extends both arms and her mouth moves, a black oval in the specter that is her face.
Again I shout, but no sound emerges.
She speaks again and I hear her, though her words are distant, like voices drifting across water.
”Help me. I am dying.”
”No!” I try to run, but my legs won't move.
Harry enters a pa.s.sageway I haven't noticed. Above it I see an inscription. GUARDIAN ANGEL GUARDIAN ANGEL. She becomes shadow, merges with the darkness.
I call but she won't look back. I try to go to her, but my body is frozen, nothing moves but the tears down my cheeks.
My companion transforms. Dark feathered wings sprout from her back, and her face grows pale and deeply creviced. Her eyes congeal into chunks of stone. As I stare into them the irises go clear and color drains from the brows and lashes. A white streak appears in her hair and races backward, separating a flap of scalp and throwing it high into the air. The tissue flutters to the floor and flies swarm from the window and settle on it.
”The order must not be ignored.” The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere.
The dreamscape s.h.i.+fts to the low country. Long rays of sun slant through Spanish moss, and giant shadows dance between the trees. It is hot and I am digging. I sweat as I scoop mud the color of dried blood and fling it to a mound behind me.
The blade hits something and I sc.r.a.pe the edges, carefully revealing the form. White fur clotted with brick-red clay. I follow the arch of the back. A hand with long, red nails. I work my way up the arm. Cowboy fringe. Everything s.h.i.+mmers in the intense heat.
I see Harry's face and scream.
Heart pounding and bathed in sweat, I sat upright. It took me a moment to reconnect.
Montreal. Bedroom. Ice storm.
The light still burned and the room was quiet. I checked the clock. Three forty-two.
Calm down. A dream is just a dream. It reflects fears and anxieties, not reality.
Then another thought. Ryan's call. Had I slept through it?
I threw back the quilt and moved to the living room. The answering machine was dark.
Back in the bedroom, I took off my damp clothes. As I dropped the sweatpants to the floor I could see fingernail-shaped moons in the flesh of my palms. I dressed in jeans and a heavy sweater.
More sleep did not seem likely, so I went to the kitchen and set water to boil. I felt queasy from the dream. I didn't want to bring it back, but the vision had knocked something loose in my mind, and I needed to make sense of it. I took my tea to the sofa.
My dreams as a rule are not particularly wondrous nor frightening or grotesque. They are of two types.
Most commonly, I cannot dial the phone, see the road, catch the plane. I must take an exam but have never attended the cla.s.s. Piece of cake: anxiety.
Less frequently the message is more baffling. My subconscious sifts material that my conscious mind has ama.s.sed, and weaves it into surreal tableaux. I am left to interpret what my psyche is saying.
Tonight's nightmare was clearly of the cryptic type. I closed my eyes to see what I could decode. Images flashed, like glimpses through a picket fence.
Amalie Provencher's computer face.
The dead babies.
A winged Daisy Jeannotte. I remembered my words to Ryan. Was she truly an angel of death?
The church. It resembled the convent at Lac Memphremagog. Why was my brain beaming that to me?
elisabeth Nicolet.
Harry, beckoning for help, then disappearing into a dark tunnel. Harry, dead with Birdie. Was Harry at serious risk?
A reluctant bride. What the h.e.l.l did that mean? Was elisabeth held against her will? Was that part of her saintly truth?
I had no time to sort it further, for just then the doorbell sounded. Friend or foe, I wondered as I stumbled to the security panel and picked up the handset.
Ryan's tall, lanky frame filled the screen. I buzzed him in and watched through the peephole as he trudged up the corridor. He looked like a survivor of the Trail of Tears.
”You look exhausted.”
”It's been a long one and we're still in overtime. I'm on my own, thanks to the storm.”
Ryan wiped his boots and unzipped his parka. Ice cascaded to the floor when he pulled off his tuque. He didn't question why I was dressed at four o'clock in the morning, and I didn't ask why he was dropping in at that hour.
”Baker's found Kathryn. She had a last-minute change of mind and bailed on Owens.”
”The baby?” My heart raced.
”He's there too.”
”Where?”
”Got coffee?”
”Yeah, sure.”
Ryan threw his hat on the hall table and followed me to the kitchen. He talked as I ground beans and measured water.
”She's been in hiding with some guy named Espinoza. Remember the neighbor who called Social Services about Owens?”
”I thought the neighbor was dead.”
”She is. This is her son. He's one of the faithful, but he holds a day job and lives down the road in Mama's house.”
”How did Kathryn get Carlie?”
”He was already there. Ready for this? Someone drove the vans to Charleston while the group went to ground in the Espinoza house. They were all on the island the whole time. Then, when the heat cooled they left.”
”How?”
”They split up and everybody boogied to a different tune. Some were picked up by boat, others were smuggled in pickups and car trunks. Seems Owens has quite an underground. And like schmucks, we just focused on the vans.”