from the telephone, punched up the pillow, and resolutely shut his eyes.
Call her in the morning, if that’ll make you feel better. Call her right after breakfast.
That eased his mind, and very shortly he drifted off to sleep again. This time he did not dream—or if he did, these dreams never imprinted themselves on his conscious mind. And when the wake-up call came on Tuesday, he had forgotten all about the dream of the beast in the clearing. He had only the vaguest recollection of having gotten up in the middle of the night at all. Vic did not call home that day.
Charity Camber awoke that Tuesday morning on the dot of five and went through her own brief period of disorientation—yellow wallpaper instead of wood walls, colorful green print curtains instead of white chintz, a narrow single bed instead of the double that had begun to sag in the middle.
Then she knew where she was—Stratford, Connecticut—and felt a burst of pleased anticipation. She would have the whole day to talk to her sister, to hash over old times, to find out what she had been doing the last few years. And Holly had talked about going into Bridgeport to do some shopping.
She had awakened an hour and a half before her usual time, probably two hours or more before things began to stir in this household. But a person never slept well in a strange bed until the third night—that had been one of her mother’s sayings, and it was a true one.
The silence began to give up its little sounds as she lay awake and listening, looking at the thin five-o’clock light that fell between the half-drawn curtains . . . dawn’s early light, always so white and clear and fine. She heard the creak of a single board. A bluejay having its morning tantrum. The day’s first commuter train, bound for Westport, Greenwich, and New York City.
The board creaked again.
And again.
It wasn’t just the house settling. It was footsteps.
Charity sat up in bed, the blanket and sheet pooling around the waist of her sensible pink nightgown. Now the steps were going slowly downstairs. It was a light tread: bare feet or sock feet. It was Brett. When you lived with people, you got to know the sound of their walk. It was one of those mysterious things that just happen over a course of years, like the shape of a leaf sinking into a rock.
She pushed the covers back, got up, and went to the door. Her room opened on the upstairs hall, and she just saw the top of Brett’s head disappearing, his cowlick sticking up for a moment and then gone.
She went after him.
When Charity reached the top of the stairs, Brett was just disappearing down the hallway that ran the width of the house, from the front door to the kitchen. She opened her mouth to call him . . . and then shut it again. She was intimidated by the sleeping house that wasn’t her house.
Something about the way he had been walking . . . the set of his body . . . but it had been years since—
She descended the stairs quickly and quietly in her bare feet. She followed Brett into the kitchen. He was dressed only in light blue pajama bottoms, their white cotton drawstring hanging down to below the neat fork of his crotch. Although it was barely midsummer he was already very brown—he was naturally dark, like his father, and tanned easily.
Standing in the doorway she saw him in profile, that same fine, clear morning light pouring over his body as he hunted along the line of cupboards above the stove and the counter and the sink. Her heart was full of wonder and fear. He’s beautiful, she thought. Everything that’s beautiful, or ever was, in us, is in him. It was a moment she never forgot—she saw her son clad only in his pajama bottoms and for a moment dimly comprehended the mystery of his boyhood, so soon to be left behind. Her mother’s eyes loved the slim curves of his muscles, the line of his buttocks, the clean soles of his feet. He seemed . . . utterly perfect.
She saw it clearly because Brett wasn’t awake. As a child there had been episodes of sleepwalking; about two dozen of them in all, between the ages of four and eight. She had finally gotten worried enough—scared enough—to consult with Dr. Gresham (without Joe’s knowledge). She wasn’t