Dead Voices (17 page)

Caught with a mouthful of tuna-fish sandwich, Elizabeth could do nothing more than nod and hurriedly swallow. She took a sip of milk when the food caught in her throat, making her cough, then swiped at her mouth with her napkin.

“Good ... good,” she said as soon as the coughing stopped.

“Great, “ Frank said. “I was just on my way to work.” He eased the door open a bit more and tentatively entered the back room. “Mind if I come in?”

With so little sleep the night before and the memory of the messages from the Ouija board still working her nerves, Frank’s appearance made her feel suddenly very vulnerable and insecure. Elizabeth’s first reaction was to say, Yes I do mind! Yet she surprised herself by nodding and saying, “Sure — have a seat. I don’t think Jake will mind.”

Frank smiled as he pulled over a folding chair and sat down. There was a long stretch of silence between them as they looked at each other, both of them wondering where to start. Elizabeth thought she might start by thanking him for telling her about the job opening, but she remained silent after deciding she didn’t want him thinking she owed him anything.

“I gotta tell you,” Frank said at last, “I never thought I’d see the day when you’d be working in a place like this.” He snickered and shook his head. “You always had such big plans.”

He was embarrassed by his lame attempt to begin a conversation. The truth was, he had stopped by the store because he had to see Elizabeth again. Since talking with her at her aunts’ house yesterday and finding out that she was planning on divorcing her husband, he had begun-as foolish as he knew it was-to think they might possibly pick up their romance where they had left off almost twenty years ago.

Elizabeth knew Frank well enough to see through his rather obvious attempt. No matter what she thought might happen between them later, once she was settled, she didn’t want to say or do anything now to encourage him. Besides, the things that had split them apart were also still too clear in her mind.

“I guess a lot of things happen that we don’t expect,” Elizabeth said for want of a better response, then adding, “I mean, I was fairly certain that, once I was off to college, I’d get a phone call or a letter saying you’d been killed in Vietnam.”

Frank scowled slightly. “But you didn’t.” He looked at her, trying hard to gauge her reaction, but all he could see was her blank, steady stare as she took another mouthful of sandwich. He leaned his elbow on the work table beside him and idly fingered through the box of loose bolts and nuts.

“You know,” he said, once the silence began to get uncomfortable, “when I saw you yesterday, I couldn’t help but start thinking about — you know, some of the things we used to do. Do you remember the time we double-dated with Skip Munroe and Gail Fisher, and drove out to Bristol Pond. What was it, sometime in early spring? March or April?”

Elizabeth chuckled in spite of herself. “I sure do,” she said. “And the damned fools went skinny dipping! God, the ice was barely off the pond!”

“I thought we were going to lose Skip there for a while, too,” Frank said. “Remember how he kept complaining how cold his dick was? That he was afraid it was going to drop off?”

Chuckling, Elizabeth shook her head with feigned embarrassment and said, “And his suggestion to Gail how she could help him get it warm again?”

“ ‘For future generations,’ he kept saying,” Frank added with deep laughter.

Before long, both of them were laughing out of control. “But you know,” he sputtered, still laughing even though his face had gone hard, “it’s too bad we can’t stay like that all the time. I mean, happy-go-lucky. like we were back in high school.”

Elizabeth suddenly stiffened as dark thoughts clouded her mind. Her voice was low with a tone of deep sadness when she said, “Well, life has a way of throwing curve balls at us, that’s for sure. It’s probably the people who try to stay the way they were who get hurt the most. “

Frank saw the sorrow in her eyes; it was the same pain he had seen flitting in her glance yesterday out at her aunts’ house. A sudden coldness tightened in his chest.

“And I think we only tend to remember the good times,” Elizabeth went on, sounding almost wistful.” ... At least if we’re lucky.”

“It’s tough sometimes, I know,” Frank said, “when you start thinking about what could have happened.”

Unable to stop herself, Elizabeth asked him directly, “Like how things would have been if I hadn’t been so damned pig-headed about not wanting you to join the army?”

Caught by surprise, Frank was momentarily flustered, but then he slowly nodded and said, “Yeah — I think about that sometimes. “

Hating herself for it, Elizabeth replied, “So do I ... sometimes.”

Frank shifted in his chair and made a move to come over her. He was filled with a desire, almost a need, to hold her, hug her, kiss her, tell her that even after all these years he still loved her ... but he just couldn’t do it. Too much had happened between then and now, and no matter what he felt, he couldn’t expect her to still feel anything for him. It wouldn’t be fair ... to either of them.

“So does that mean you’ve forgiven me?” Frank said. “For joining the army and going to ‘Nam?”

Elizabeth slouched back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment. “You don’t need my forgiveness,” she said softly. “I mean-yeah, sure I was probably pretty irrational about it at the time, but I thought if you really loved me — I mean really loved me — you would have respected my feelings about how wrong the war was and not volunteered!”

Frank clapped his hands together. “And I felt just the same that you should have respected my feelings — and I felt that I had an obligation to my country.”

“Even after it was so clear that the war was wrong?” Elizabeth said, feeling the twenty-year-old anger swell up inside her.

Frank nodded and said, “Yeah — even then, if you really loved me.”

Elizabeth burst out with a laugh and said, “And what did either of us know, about love or life or anything back then?” Frank didn’t answer her, so she continued. “I mean, both of us, and all the kids we used to hang around with-who the hell did we think we were, acting like the world was our oyster?”

“It was, at the time,” Frank replied. “And to tell you the truth, when I saw you yesterday, I didn’t like what I saw —”

“And just what the hell is
that
supposed to mean?” Elizabeth snapped.

Frank held up his hands as though defending himself. “I remember you as a happy-go-lucky girl with a pretty good head on her shoulders and, as far as I could see, one hell of a future.”

“And now ... ?”

Frank shifted uneasily in his seat, almost regretting that he had stopped by the store; but he knew he couldn’t back off now.

“I see someone who has been cheated — by life, by the world, circumstances, or whatever else you want to blame. I see someone I used to love, someone I still care about, getting the shit end of the stick and, worse than that, I see that person
letting
it happen!”

“Oh, is that so?” Elizabeth snapped. Putting her sandwich down, she glared at Frank. “And just who the hell are you to sit in judgment of me? What gives you the right —” She lowered her voice to an intense growl. “What gives you the right to say what I should or shouldn’t do? Is that why you arranged with Jake for me to get this job? So I can start rebuilding my life the way you think it should be?”

“I never ‘arranged’ for you to get this job,” Frank said. “And I just thought that —”

“You just thought that maybe if you got me a job I might feel — what — obliged to you? Is that what you were thinking?” Flushing with anger, Elizabeth had to restrain’ herself from slapping him across the face.

“You don’t know
shit
!” she said, her voice crackling with pain and rage as tears sprang from her eyes. “And you don’t have
any
Goddamned right to sit here telling me how I should be living my life.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” Frank said, forcing calmness into his voice. “Look, I just stopped by for a friendly visit, okay? I didn’t mean for us to get all worked up.” He kicked back on his chair and stood up, preparing to leave, but he didn’t really want to until Elizabeth had calmed down enough to see that he truly had meant no harm.

“Oh, yeah — yeah, sure!” Elizabeth said. Her voice was trembling, and her face had gone pale. “That’s all I seem to hear from everyone — from Doug, from my parents, from you, and no doubt I’ll be hearing it from Roland Graydon and everyone else I meet here in town. I’ve got to get back to being the lighthearted, lovable girl I used to be! Maybe I should grow pigtails again, and tell everyone to start calling me Betsy!” She snorted and stared at Frank, her eyes glistening with tears. “But that just isn’t the way it’s going to be! I’ve seen too much of what life can do to bring you down, to trample anything good right into the mud!”

“Elizabeth,” Frank said, feeling helpless and fighting the impulse to embrace her. “Please ... understand, I just want to be —”

“Look, Frank!” Elizabeth snapped as she slapped the table with the flat of her hand. It echoed like a gunshot. “I’ve already taken longer for lunch than I was supposed to, so why don’t you just leave and let me get back to work, okay?”

“Sure,” Frank said, as he backed up, feeling behind him for the door. “I’m sorry if I —”

“Forget it, all right?” Elizabeth said. She tore off a paper towel from the dispenser beside the sink and used it to wipe her eyes.

“Sure — okay. No sweat,” Frank said. “Catch yah later.”

He turned and, without another word, left the supply room, the door whooshing shut behind him. He felt like a fool, twisting with guilt and shame for having blown it so badly with Elizabeth. If —

Big
“
if
,” he told himself ...

— he had entertained thoughts of rekindling their romance, he knew he had pretty much put an end to that.

It wasn’t until later that afternoon that something else struck him, and once it was in his mind, he couldn’t shake it. All through their shift he never mentioned it to Norton, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it, and as tired as he was by the end of his shift, he was determined not to sleep until he found out one thing — who that man was that Elizabeth had mentioned.

What was his name? ... Roland Graydon? Frank had never heard of him around town, but he sure as hell was going to find out!

SIX

The Old Crone

1.

“Are you feeling comfortable?”

“Sure, why shouldn’t I?” Elizabeth replied. She let her gaze shift from the sky outside the office window to the man sitting directly across from her. “I mean ... no-not really.”

She had come to Graydon’s office directly from work, but the rush to get there on time wasn’t bothering her half as much as the anger left over from her lunchtime talk with Frank. She was still seething with hostility toward him, and it bothered her that she let anything he said get to her so much. It wasn’t as though he had any control over her, or that she still loved him or anything.

Graydon leaned over the coffee table that separated them and patted her gently on her shoulder.

“I think it’s safe to assume that’s to be expected,” he said, “but if at any time you start feeling
really
uncomfortable, just shift gears. Of course, you must realize that discomfort is often an indication that you’re getting close to what’s truly bothering you.”

Elizabeth nodded agreement but said, “Dr. Gavreau used to tell me that, and that I wasn’t going to work things through until I brought all of my pain up to the surface. “

Graydon sniffed. “That may be,” he said. “That may very well be, but at least for the first few sessions, I simply want you to talk about whatever you feel like talking about. I understand you were doing some dream work with Dr. Gavreau. Perhaps you’d like to tell me something about any dreams you’ve had recently.”

Elizabeth’s discomfort spiked as she leaned back, closed her eyes, and tried like hell to clear her mind. The image of the purple-edged letters of the Ouija board sprang into sharp relief. She recalled the harsh rasping sound the pointer made as it scraped across the board. In spite of the warm office and comfortable chair, goose bumps rose on her arms when she recalled the spelled-out messages-

“
You should help her ...”

“
She’s been trying to get in touch with you ...”

And the last, most frightening message, when she had asked who was trying to communicate with her:

“
Caroline ... Help ... Mommy ... Help!”

Elizabeth’s hands were tingling, and, for an unnerving instant, she had the sensation that her fingers were still gently resting on the Ouija pointer, being dragged against her will by pale, skeletal hands as the pointer spelled out a new message ...

What’s the message this time? she wondered.

“Well ... “ she said, after taking a long, sucking breath. “Just recently I’ve been having this recurring dream about a room in a house ... “

She opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, allowing her vision to go unfocused as she tried to reconstruct the imaginary room, only dimly aware of Graydon sitting across from her as she searched for the words to describe the dream.

“Do you recognize the room?” Graydon asked.

Elizabeth shook her head. “No-not really. I mean, it seems kind of familiar, but when I wake up. I couldn’t say it was exactly this or that particular room.”

“But you do have a sense that this room is ... familiar,” Graydon said.

“I think so,” Elizabeth replied. “but what’s unusual about the room is-” She wondered in a frantic rush of fear if she could
really
trust him.

“Yes-s-s?” he said, regarding her with a steady, reassuring expression.

“What’s strange is how many doors there are leading into the same room. It’s like, no matter where I go in this house, I keep coming back to that room. As if I can’t ever escape from it.”

“Do you ever go into the room?” Graydon asked mildly.

Elizabeth nodded, even as she winced with the memory. “It’s as if I can’t avoid it ... like I’m trying to get out of the house, but I always find myself back in that room. “