race was almost over. He would catch up to her at the forest’s edge, or slightly inside it.
Inside it. The thought chilled him for some reason, and then he felt an odd sensation. His system had now taken over for him, and he felt the tingling of adrenalin as it coursed suddenly through his body. He saw the woods loom up in front of him as he lunged after Sarah.
His arms closed around her legs, and he felt her fall more than he saw it. And then she was wriggling in his arms, trying to get free of him, and her screaming mounted. The two of them struggled there in the mud, and Sarah’s thrashing became stronger, as if for some reason her fears had multiplied. He almost lost his grip on her, and then, as suddenly as it had begun, it ended.
Her screams stopped, and she lay in the mud, her small chest heaving with the exertion, her throat choking on tight little sobs. Jack picked her up gently and turned toward the house.
He started across the field, his mind a blank. Then it began to come back to him. This was like another day, a day a year ago when he had carried Sarah across this field, and it had been raining, and she had been crying. That day her dress had been torn, and she had been bleeding. Reluctantly he looked down at the limp child in his arms.
Her face had gotten scratched in the struggle, and there was a thin line of blood on her left cheek. Her denim overalls were muddy, and the bib had been ripped open and flapped beneath her. Jack felt panic building in him.
He looked toward the house, and through his blurred eyes he saw them waiting for him, waiting for him to bring his child home, waiting for him to tell them what he had done. What had he done? He didn’t know what he’d done. He was bringing his child home. But they were waiting for him. Why were they waiting for him?
He no longer felt the rain on his face, or the spongy softness of the wet field under his feet It was as if he was walking through a tunnel, and he didn’t know what lay at the other end, nor did he know what lay at the end he was coming from. He felt himself getting dizzy, and he forced his eyes from the group that waited for him at the French doors. He forced himself to look up.
He saw Elizabeth. She stood at a window on the second floor, and she was watching him. She was smiling at him. It was a gentle smile, and it comforted him.
Jack felt the panic begin to recede, and he concentrated on watching Elizabeth—on watching Elizabeth as she watched him, beckoned him onward, somehow comforting him as he carried Sarah through the rain.
Elizabeth disappeared from his view as he stepped onto the porch. The panic came upon him once more.
He carried Sarah into the living room and laid her gently on the sofa. Then he gave in to the panic and the hysteria and began to sob. He backed away from Sarah, as if he never should have carried her into the house at all, and watched, strangely detached, as Rose and the Stevenses gathered around her, clucking over her and fussing. No one saw him leave the room. They were busy with Sarah. He found his way up the stairs and into the bedroom he shared with Rose. He lay down on the bed and began to cry. He was remembering. He hated it.
* * *
Downstairs, the three adults in the living room stared helplessly at the sobbing child on the sofa. All they could do, they knew, was wait till it passed. But the sobs were heart-rending, and it almost sounded as though Sarah was trying to say something.
They strained their ears and tried to make words out of the strange sounds that were being wrenched out of Sarah, as if by some unseen force.
“Secret,” she seemed to be saying. “Secret … secret.”
But they couldn’t be sure.
21
Barbara Stevens felt totally helpless as she watched Rose try to comfort Sarah. The child lay trembling on the couch, and her vacant eyes darted wildly around the room, as if searching for a way out If there were any coherent thoughts going through her mind, it was impossible to interpret what they might be.
“It’s all right, baby,” Rose crooned over