Treasure Box (20 page)

Again Quentin found himself speaking on impulse. "It's a good thing we both know that I'm depressed and recovering from a spectacularly failed marriage, or I'd offer to take you away from all this." Quentin wondered at his own words. Was this flirtatious conversation for its own sake? Or did he unconsciously mean something by it?

Fortunately, she took it as a joke rather than a come-on. "Just don't say anything about the Virgin Islands or I'll take you up on it and you'd be stuck with a cast-iron bitch who doesn't look all that good in a bikini."

"Now you've done it. Now I'm thinking of you in a bikini."

They laughed.

Quentin was relieved that it was just a flirtation between two tired people who knew nothing would come of it. But he hadn't had many ventures into the world of flirtation, and most of what he'd seen had been while waiting to meet partners in upscale bars where all the flirters were so drunk that it didn't take much for them to think each other clever. It kind of gave him a thrill to play at it with a sober person whom he liked. But it also made him feel guilty. Even though he knew Madeleine wasn't real, he still felt married and he was a faithful husband.

"You're thinking of your wife," said Sannazzaro.

"Yeah, well, I was thinking that I still feel married."

"I'm glad to hear it. I've known too many men who never felt quite married no matter how many wives they've been through. Their own and otherwise."

Remembering again where they were, Quentin looked at Mrs. Tyler's closed and silent face. "I wonder how Mrs. Tyler felt about her husband."

"Loved him," said Sannazzaro. "But he died young. She told me that she thought the death of their first child, a boy, was too hard on him. He lost heart. Like I said—when people truly despair, they don't live long."

"She seems awfully old to have her oldest grandchild be only ten."

"I think the little girl is eleven. But yes. Mrs. Tyler married late. Maybe that was part of her husband's despair. She was forty before she started having babies."

"What was the delay?"

"What is it ever? She married Mr. Tyler only six months after she met him. He was more than ten years younger than her. She always assumed that he'd outlive her, which was fine, she didn't want to be a widow."

"Bummer," said Quentin.

"And
you
meant to be a father," said Sannazzaro. "Nobody's life ever goes according to plan."

"So why do we keep on planning?"

She thought for a moment. "Because that's how we know who we are. By what we intend to be. By what we try to become."

"And fail."

"I don't say 'fail,' Mr. Fears. I say we aim and miss. But we still hit something."

"Ouch."

She smiled. But she had been serious, and he could see that his joke disappointed her.

"Sorry," he said. "I think what you said is right. I'm just kind of caught up in the target that I missed. I haven't even looked to see what I might have hit. Maybe the arrow hasn't even landed yet. And please call me Quentin."

"Minus the 'San.' "

"That's what I'll call
you
."

"Call me Sally," she said.

"Sally, may I call you?" he said. And there it was. He wasn't content for this conversation to amount to nothing.

She looked at him for a while before saying, "When you know what's happening with your marriage, I wouldn't mind a phone call now and then."

He smiled. He liked a woman who knew how to spell out the rules. He also liked it that she had the same rules he did.

She smiled back.

He got up to leave, and so did she. He was reaching for the door when he saw words appear on it.

DON'T GO

His hand hovered over the doorknob.

"Well?" asked Sannazzaro. Sally.

He looked at her. She didn't see the words. Too bad. It would have been nice if he could tell her what was really going on. But without the evidence of her own eyes, like Bolt had had, she would never believe him. And he didn't want her to think he was crazy. He wanted very much for her to like him because he needed a friend who was good and decent and lived in the real world and didn't charge him three hundred bucks an hour.

"Sally," he said. "I want to talk to Mrs. Tyler. Alone. I know she won't hear me, but it would mean a lot to me. I'm not going to hurt her. If you want affidavits about my character, call my lawyer, his number's on my card." He handed her one. "Or call my parents and they'll tell you I was always a good boy."

"Maybe I should call your neighbors," said Sally.

"They'll just tell you I'm a loner who keeps to himself." He grinned.

She shook her head. "Quentin, I don't know why I should trust you. You're such a smooth operator. You're not telling me the truth. And you came here with slime on your shoes."

Apparently she
really
didn't like Bolt. "The way Bolt acted here tonight, I've never seen him like that. If I'd known the way things stood between you, I never would have brought him. Everything I've told you is true but you're right, I haven't told you everything because I don't want you to think I'm crazy."

"So. Convince me you're not crazy."

"Sally, I saw Mrs. Tyler in a house in Mixinack a few days ago. She slept through breakfast but in the parlor she looked me in the eye and said, 'Find me.' That's why I'm here."

"This isn't helping."

"You can see why I didn't tell you, but it's the truth. Crazy things are happening but I know I'm
not
crazy because every now and then somebody else sees the same things I see. Earlier today I saw writing magically appear on a door in that house in Mixinack—and Bolt saw it too."

"Better not use Bolt as a witness of your sanity, Quentin."

"And when a limo driver dropped me and my wife off a few days ago, he saw lights on in the house and a servant waiting to meet the car, just as I did. Only the next day I found out that the power hadn't been on in that house ever since Mrs. Tyler came here. And the only footprints in the snow were the driver's and mine."

She shuddered. "This isn't funny, Mr. Fears," she said.

"You asked for the truth," said Quentin. "But when I tell you the truth, I stop being Quentin and become Mr. Fears again."

"I don't believe in ghost stories."

"That's good," said Quentin, "because my wife's not dead and neither is Mrs. Tyler."

Sally looked at him for a long moment, her expression shifting among conflicting emotions. Then, abruptly, she reached for the knob and drew the door open.

Bolt practically fell into the room. He laughed nervously as he recovered his balance. "I was just coming in."

"You were listening at the door," said Quentin.

"I thought it was funny," said Bolt, "you trying to convince
her
of some idea that doesn't fit into her narrow little nurseview of the universe."

Quentin wanted to deck him. "Of course she doesn't believe me. It isn't believable."

"So why did you tell her? You had her eating out of your hand."

Quentin felt unutterable contempt for Bolt. Where was the man he thought he knew back in Mixinack? Did he really think that the conversation between him and Sally was nothing but manipulation? "Let's get out of here," said Quentin.

"About damn time," said Bolt. He shot Sannazzaro a triumphant glance. Quentin took his arm and almost dragged him out of the room.

"What's the rush?" said Bolt. "You were sure taking your time before."

"For a while today I thought I liked you," said Quentin. "But I was wrong."

"Ah, the rest home witch has enchanted you, has she?"

Instead of jabbing an elbow into his mouth, Quentin strode on ahead.

"Mr. Fears! Quentin! Wait!"

He stopped and turned. Sally Sannazzaro had rushed into the hall from Mrs. Tyler's room.

"Quentin, she spoke! She told me to bring you back!"

Quentin turned in surprise to look at Bolt. Bolt looked angry, even ashamed. "She's lying," he whispered. "The old lady is brain dead. She's a vegetable."

"Bolt, I know that she's not, and so do you."

"She's
dead
," muttered Bolt. And he didn't come with Quentin back up the corridor.

Quentin paused in the doorway to meet Sally's gaze. "I wasn't lying, Sally," he said.

"I trust Mrs. Tyler as a judge of character," she answered softly. "Apparently you have the gift of bringing people back from the dead."

"Wouldn't
that
be nice."

"I'll leave you alone with her, but don't let Bolt in here, Quentin."

"I won't."

Then he went inside and closed the door behind him. Mrs. Tyler turned her head and looked at him. "Thank you for coming," she whispered.

Her voice was husky from long disuse. When she gestured with her hand it seemed almost translucent in its frailty. She tried to roll over, and it looked as if her body was too heavy for anything to move it; then he helped her roll on her side, to face his chair, and he could feel how light she was, as if she had been shaped of air. Had she no bones? What was it that tied a creature so insubstantial to the earth? Gravity could not possibly hold her here.

"You've borne up well," she said.

He shook his head. "I've hardly been eating the last few days."

"Keep up your strength."

He didn't need motherly advice from this woman. He needed answers. But now that she was speaking to him, he couldn't think of what to ask.

"Why didn't you speak till now?"

"It's not safe for me to stay in my body," she said. "Eternal vigilance."

"That's the price of liberty, as I recall," said Quentin. "You don't look free to me."

"But I'm not dead."

"Who wants to kill you?"

"Rowena."

"Your own daughter?"

"We had a falling-out."

"I guess."

"
She
picked you, not me," said Mrs. Tyler.

"Picked me for what?" asked Quentin. "Why can't
she
just open the treasure box?"

"It's evil of her to call it that."

"What is it, then?"

"A coffin. A prison. The gate of hell."

"Yeah, I'm sure I would have opened it for her if she called it
that
."

"You must never, never open the box."

"Was it you that stopped me before?"

"I helped you stop."

"But I was trying to open it."

"You thought you were. But a wiser part of you was afraid to open it. A wiser part of you was already learning not to trust the succubus."

Until this moment it had not occurred to Quentin that that's what Madeleine had been all along. A succubus. An evil spirit sent to seduce a man in his sleep. He knew of the myths and legends, but he'd never heard of any stories in which the succubus stayed around long enough to marry the man.

"What's in the box?" he asked.

"Pray to God that you never have to know."

"That's not an answer."

"I didn't bring you here to answer your questions. You don't know enough to ask the questions that matter. And I can't stay long inside my body. It's too dangerous. Too much can happen while I'm not watching."

"All right, tell me what I need to know."

"Rowena keeps my body locked down on this bed, and when I send my spirit wandering, she shadows me. Wherever I roam, there she is, blocking me from this, blocking me from that. I try to watch her closely, but I didn't even know you existed until the succubus brought you to the house and she started raising the dead."

"Why me?" Quentin asked. "Do you
know
why?"

"All I can do is guess. Everything depends on how much she knows. Rowena was such a rebellious child. She hated me as soon as she was old enough to pluck memories out of my mind. She didn't understand what happened, and she wouldn't let me explain. She told me my mind was too loathsome for her ever to want to enter it again."

Daughters entering their mothers' minds. "What
are
you people?"

"Oh, Quentin, how dim are you really? We're witches. The real ones, not the silly ignorant women who prance naked and try to turn our affliction into a mystical religion. It's not something you can choose. Most people have only the faintest touch of the power. A glimmer now and then, that's all they get of the other side. But
we
grow up looking at the spirit as well as the body. We can see, we can touch everyone, both spirit and body. We hear words spoken aloud, but at the same time we can also hear the thoughts behind them. We can walk on our legs, but we can also send our spark out flying. We can see the living, but we can also see the dead, and when we know where they're anchored we can call them and make them come to us."

Quentin thought back to Sunday school, to the one story from the Bible that had a witch in it. The witch of Endor.

"That's right," said Mrs. Tyler. "It always bothers Christians and Jews that their scripture has such a tale in it. How could a woman who had chosen evil have the power to call a great prophet back from the dead? So they say it was fakery. Or it was Satan, pretending to be Samuel. But
we
know what she did and how she did it. All the dead are within reach. Saul knew Samuel. He must have had some relic of the old prophet—some of his hair. Maybe he even dug into his grave and took a piece of him. Brought it to the witch, and she used it to call him, and Samuel spoke to Saul through her. Maybe Saul was like you—he could see a little, if he really tried. It happened then, and that's how it happens now. That's how she called Jude and poor Simon and Stephen and foolish old Minerva."

"Dug into their graves?"

"Maybe not. They were all tied to the house, so she might not have needed relics. But why do you think Christians have always made such a big deal about relics of the saints? The power to call back their spirits—it was forbidden for them to use it, but they also coveted it. If you had a genuine piece of the finger of St. Peter, you could call him to you. There's nothing silly about it."

"So how did
I
call my sister Lizzy? I didn't have any part of her."

Mrs. Tyler was astonished. "You called back your sister? You called the dead yourself? When?"

"When I was a boy. The age your granddaughter is now. My sister was on the edge of death and I wasn't letting them take her organs for transplant. I sat alone beside her hospital bed, the way I'm sitting here beside you, and she came to me. Or at least she spoke inside my head. And told me that it was all right to let her go."

"You don't have to tell me the whole story. I see it
now
. Oh, my. Oh, no."

"What?"

"She
hid
that from me, the little spider. It changes everything."

"Changes what?"

"She knows more than I thought. She's not ignorant, she's just stupider than I ever imagined."

"What is it that she knows?"

"You aren't in thrall. She doesn't own you. Oh, why didn't I see it? Of
course
she sent a succubus instead of just enthralling you."

"Trust me, I was enthralled."

"On the contrary, you were enchanted, but not enthralled. You're still free."

"I guess."

"She thinks she can control the beast through you. Because you're so strong. And free. If you're enthralled when you let the beast out, it won't pay attention to you, it will go straight for her. But if you're free when it touches you, then it will want you. She's counting on your strength to draw it to you. It flows to strength. She thinks that when it's all inside you, taking possession of your body, then she can enthrall
you
and she'll control
it
."

"Control
what?
"

"The beast that took my little boy."

Quentin remembered the story Bolt had told him. "Rowena told Chief Bolt that you murdered your child before he turned two."

"I know she thinks that's what she saw in my memory, but it was
not
my boy that I killed. She didn't understand."

"Didn't understand what?"

"
It
had taken control of little Paul before his first birthday. Paul was beautiful and brilliant. He was going to be a glorious child of light. So few boys have the power, but he was the bright and shining one. But the beast saw him and came and stole his body. It took me a while to realize it. I thought at first that maybe some witch had enthralled my child, and I tried to find the link and break it. But the link was inside him. The thing owned his body, and finally I realized that it wasn't my Paul anymore, it was the beast using his stolen body. Paul was gone and I would never get him back. When the beast takes your body, it's
his
. There's no remnant of you left."

Now Quentin understood. "So Rowena did see you kill the boy."

"She saw my memory of cutting the living heart out of the
beast
. But she was a child. Of course she thought it was my little Paul. To try to stop me, the beast made his body cry and beg in Paul's little baby language. 'No, Mommy, don't hurt me, Mommy.' Rowena saw that. But
I
had seen the truth. He did things that none of
us
can do. He moved things with his mind. He destroyed things. We found them: a fly embedded in the midst of a pane of glass; locks opening without keys—ah, you've seen evidence of that? It was the beast."

"What's this beast? You mean the book of Revelation?"

"I mean the dragon. There might be many of them, but I've never heard of more than one upon the earth at the same time. It comes to a body that began human, but once the beast has it, the shape changes to whatever the beast desires. It came to Adolf Hitler when he was trying to paint in England, and it owned him from then on until it had no power left except to poison the body it dwelt in. It was in the ancient conquerors who built up piles of skulls and spread fear through the world. It loves death. It also hungers for strength. The stronger the human whose body it steals, the stronger the beast is until the human body dies."

"So it can be killed."

"How many suffer and die before it falls? Yes, it can be killed—eventually. And in this age, who is pure enough to kill it?"

"Pure? Like St. George?" Quentin couldn't help laughing. It was the cliché of romantic stories—slaying the dragon to save the maiden.

"Why do you laugh? Why do you think Rowena chose you?"

"Not because of my purity," said Quentin.

"What do
you
know about it?" said Mrs. Tyler. "You have to be pure to hold on to any of yourself in its presence. Her plan doesn't work if you're not pure."

Quentin laughed again, only bitterly this time. "She's going to be disappointed."

Mrs. Tyler ignored him. "If she had let me teach her, she would know that you can't control the beast. She must have seen my memory of the powers that Paulie seemed to have. How could she not have understood, if she saw so much?"

"Maybe she didn't believe about the beast," said Quentin.

"She knew the powers she herself had. She knew my memories were true. What other evidence did she need?"

"Maybe she thought you had gone insane, and this was a paranoid fantasy about your own son being possessed by the spirit of a dragon. If all she saw in your memory was a few special powers that he had, and then you overreact and kill him—"

"It wasn't Paul, it was the—"

"How did you
know
it was the beast? Were you really sure?"

"Of course I was sure! What kind of monster do you think I am?"

"I don't know. What kind of monster do
you
think you are?"

"What are you saying?"

"Why did you wait until he was nearly two before you did it? If you were sure?"

"Because it was my son's face. Because it was my son's voice. Because
it
was trying to hide itself from me until my son had grown stronger and I no longer would have the power to resist. And it almost worked, I almost waited too long. It almost had the power to stop me. But I got my vengeance. I didn't set it free. I locked it up."

"Inside the treasure box."

"One time it was hidden in a bottle and cast into the sea, but bottles float to shore and are found."

"A genie?"

"It doesn't grant wishes except its own," she said. "Another time it was hidden with a corpse inside a mummy case in Egypt, but thieves found their way into the secret chamber and it was free again. Killing it solves the problem for today, but then it's free to find another host. I was not going to let it do to another mother what it had done to me."

"Had you ever seen this beast before?" asked Quentin.

"Of course not. But I knew the lore. Unlike Rowena I learned everything from my mother. And from my grandmother. I knew what to look for."

"Had any of
them
seen this beast?"

"Don't you dare accuse me of what you're accusing me of."

"I'm not accusing you of anything," said Quentin. "I'm just saying that maybe the reason Rowena didn't believe it was the beast was because deep down in your heart of hearts, you weren't sure either."

"Do you think I would have cut into that precious body if I had the slightest doubt?"

"Somewhere in the back of your mind you fear that you went mad and murdered your own son."

"No!" But it was not a word, it was a wail. Somehow from that frail body there came such a cry that it must have been audible in every room in the rest home.

Then, suddenly, her body went slack. She rolled onto her back and lay there, body symmetrical, eyes closed. Her spark was gone again.

But not
far
. On the wall the word was blazoned so brightly it almost blinded him:

LIAR

"I wasn't accusing," he tried to explain again. "I was just trying to figure out why Rowena could search your memory and still believe that you murdered him."

GET OUT

"All right." He went to the door and opened it. He could hear pounding footsteps and the jammering of many voices. Of course the others in the rest home had heard Mrs. Tyler scream. There was Sally Sannazzaro, rushing toward the room, a look of horror on her face.

"Sally," said Quentin, "it's all right! I didn't hurt her; I just said something that made her angry. She's asleep again."

I HOPE YOU DIE

The words covered the corridor wall like a mural. He turned and on the other side it said:

I LOVED MY BABY

"I know you did, Mrs. Tyler," he said softly, knowing she could hear him, knowing that she wasn't listening.

Sally pushed past him into Mrs. Tyler's room. Only when she had satisfied herself that the old woman was still breathing did she come back out. He was afraid she was going to beat him up on the spot.

"All we did was talk," he insisted, holding up his hands to forestall her.