Sam studied my face. "You don't want to."
I thought it might be easier without me."
Sam smiled; he didn't believe the excuse.
"Call if you need me," I said, pushing off quickly, aware of the heat in my cheeks.
For the first five laps I skated looking straight ahead, but when I thought they had forgotten about me, I stopped to watch from a distance. Patrick listened intently to Sam, taking in every word. I laughed to myself when his little-boy arms gestured the same way Sam's did, imitating even the non skating moves. How could a guy resist a child who so adored him?
Sam squatted next to Patrick and adjusted the position of his feet for the hundredth time. Patrick skated, began to turn, and took a spill. Tears started—from frustration, I thought, rather than hurt. Sam crouched down again. He talked to Patrick, holding his face in his hands. How could a girl resist a guy who was so tender with a child?
Skate, Kate, I told myself, and moved my legs faster, as if I could give my thoughts and feelings the slip. Dion, making his laps, caught my eye and flashed me a smile. I wondered about Sam's friends, who they were, what they did, what kind of girls he dated. I skated on and tried to think about other things, focusing my attention on the talk show that was being broadcast over the college's radio station.
"Is there anyone here named Kate?"
I looked quickly to the right. Sam had caught up with me. "Sorry, were you talking to me? Where's Patrick?" I asked, spinning on my skates, looking for my charge.
"He's okay. Dion's taking care of him."
I skated more slowly, checking out the situation across the rink.
Sam matched my strides. "So how's it going?"
"I think he's catching on. You're a good teacher."
Sam sighed. "I was asking about you."
"Oh. Everything is, uh, going well."
"Everything like what?" Sam asked.
I felt confused, by his presence more than his question. "Like… whatever it is you were asking about!"
He laughed, and the back of his hand brushed the back of mine.
"About Patrick," I began.
"A safe subject," he remarked, "especially given the others we share."
"Do you know where they sel hockey sticks for little boys?"
"Yes. I can go with him when he's ready to buy. But don't rush him. Let him get his confidence as a skater first."
Sam's hand brushed my hand a second time.
"In the meantime I should get him some kind of crash helmet," I said.
"Definitely."
"About your hat, the one you lent me yesterday, I'll get it back to you."
"No hurry." His hand touched mine a third time.
"Kate, when a guy skates with a girl and brushes her hand, she is supposed to take it."
"I know that."
"But you choose not to. Okay," he said, laughing. He skated ahead, then turned around quickly, skating backward, facing me.
"I really appreciate your spending the time with Patrick."
"It's fun." Sam skated closer to me, his legs matching the movement of mine like an ice dancer's.
"I can't see past you," I told him.
"You don't need to. Just follow me."
"follow a guy who is skating backward and can't see where we're going?"
I know when someone is behind me," he replied. "It's a sixth sense."
He skated closer still, as close as he could without actually touching me.
He's doing this on purpose, I thought.
"You'd skate better if you didn't look down," Sam said. "You don't have to worry, my feet will move out of the way of your feet."
"I'm not worried," I insisted.
"Look up. Keep your eyes on my eyes. Trust me," he said.
I glanced up, briefly meeting his eyes, then tried to look past his left shoulder.
"Trust me, Kate," he said softly. "I can't."
"Give it a try. It's not hard. Just skate and look me in the eye."
I did, and it wasn't hard. In fact, it was far too easy.
There was no music, but we were in perfect rhythm. We didn't touch, but his dark eyes held me, his intense gaze keeping me there, his body tantalizingly close.
Then suddenly, that sixth sense of his failed. Sam was stopped as if he'd backed into a brick wall, and I flew into him. His arms wrapped around me. We spun off the rink wall and he held me tightly against him. His face was a breath away from mine—he could have kissed me. His eyes lowered, and I thought he might, then Dion's laughter burst the moment. Patrick cackled.
Sam and I released each other slowly.
"Dion, you jerk!" Sam said, grinning at his friend, who had skated into us.
I laughed, trying to act like a normal teen girl with school friends, but nothing seemed normal to me. How can it, when your heart is beating absurdly fast and you feel a person's fingers like heat under your skin?
Dion looked pleased with himself. Patrick tried to laugh with a deep voice like the older boys, which made them laugh more. I got through the moment by focusing on Patrick, playing my nanny role.
Sam reminded Dion about their pile of homework, and the two of them left. Patrick and I skated a little longer. When we emerged from the college athletic center, a soft snow was falling.
Patrick swung his skates, kicking up the thin frosting on the grass. "No school tomorrow, Kate! They'll have to close school."
I think we'll need a few more flakes than this," I said, though it was falling in the quiet, steady way that is the beginning of big snows.
At home, Patrick told his parents of his glorious night, then fell asleep almost immediately. I sat for a while by his bed, listening to his soft breathing and watching the snow. I wished the peace of that moment was mine. But everything was stirred up inside me, questions and suspicions running wild. And through it all I kept thinking about the feeling of being in Sam's arms, being there longer than necessary. Which one of us had been reluctant to let go?
Chapter 11
I sat up in bed with a start and glanced around my room, wondering what had awakened me. My sleep had been dreamless. With the heat turned back for the night, the house was cold and silent, not even the banging of old pipes to break the quiet. Shivering, I climbed out of bed and tiptoed to the window.
By the light of the garage lamps I could see that it was still snowing, a windless, silent snow.
Check Patrick, I thought; perhaps he cried out.
I donned my ski jacket, which was warmer than my dressing gown, and started toward the stairway that connected our rooms. Halfway there I turned around. Music—piano music—was coming from the schoolroom. The simple tune sounded familiar, like a nursery school song one had sung repeatedly as a child but had long since forgotten.
"Patrick?"
I hurried into the third-floor hall, then stopped. It couldn't be Patrick—he wasn't capable of playing songs on that level for another two months. My skin prickled. Each note played was like a ghostly finger touching my shoulder. A wrong note was struck, and the hair on the back of my neck rose. Ashley had delighted in playing that note incorrectly; she had played it repeatedly to frustrate Joseph.
The song ended. I held my breath, waiting for what would happen next. The music started again, the same piece. I hummed the melody, anticipating, dreading that one wrong note.
It was struck. My back grew rigid.
Fearing what I might see—fearing what I might not—I crept toward the schoolroom. I'm not crazy, I told myself; I have to be hearing it. But I couldn't imagine anyone currently living in the house playing that song. The schoolroom door was partway open. The nerves in my fingertips tingled as I laid them lightly against the wood, then pushed the door all the way.
Patrick sat on the piano bench. With no moonlight and just a pale triangle cast by the hall night-light, I could see only his silhouette and the rectangular shape of the piano. A feeling of deep uneasiness seeped into me, a sense that something hidden in the dark was watching me,
and it didn't want me there.
"Patrick?" I called softly, approaching the bench. "Patrick." I spoke it with more insistence, but he didn't turn around. "Patrick, stop playing!"
He didn't move his head, didn't show any sign of hearing me.
His failure to listen made me bolder. I placed a hand on his shoulder, then leaned over to look at him. Though his hands moved, his face was still, strange, inanimate as a molded puppet's. His eyes were partially closed, the pale irises and whites of his eyes like half-moons, his mouth slightly open.
"Can you hear me?" I asked.
He continued to play.
"Patrick, stop!" I grabbed his hands and held them still. After a moment, he raised his chin to look at me. His eyes slowly opened to full size. He didn't speak.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
He glanced down at the keyboard. "Playing."
"What song was that?"
He thought for a moment. "'Little Red Rooster.'"
I could picture the page in Ashley's songbook, for she had crayoned a waxy red rooster next to the title. How could he have learned it? What made his hands suddenly able to play the song? "Who taught you that?"
"I just know it," he said.
"I think you may have played the song incorrectly. One note was wrong."
"I played it the way I play it."
I let go of his hands and backed away from him. The words were the same, the intonation exact, his child's voice no deeper than Ashley's. Each time Joseph had corrected her, that had been her response.
My mind groped for explanations. Brook might have remembered the song, but it seemed unlikely, given that he had avoided the schoolroom as much as possible. Robyn had rarely come to the third floor. Perhaps Trent or Mrs. Hopewell knew the song and remembered how Ashley had played the incorrect note, but how could they have taught it so quickly to Patrick, who had shown no piano skills the previous afternoon?
And why wouldn't Patrick admit that one of them had taught him? There were so many eerie similarities between the playmate Patrick called Ashley and the little girl I had known. It was growing increasingly difficult to pretend there wasn't something haunting this house, haunting this child.
Patrick sat with his hands in his lap, shivering.
"It's cold and late," I said. "You should be in bed."
"I wasn't cold til now," he told me, then slipped off the bench.
As he did, something leaped from beneath the keyboard. I screamed, then muffled the sound with my hand.
"It's just November," Patrick said.
The feral cat stopped short of the doorway.
"November! Why is he here? Did you let him in? You know you're not supposed to go downstairs by yourself at night."
"He was outside my bedroom window."
"Patrick, there is no way a cat can leap up to a second-story windowsill."
"My window by the roof."
I remembered that one of his side windows faced the extension that joined Robyn's wing to the house. Perhaps there was a trellis or some other structure that gave the cat passage to the low roof, then up to the window.
"There was snow on his fur, so I let him in to get warm."
"I'm sure the snow made him look cold," I said, "but he's a wild cat and used to being outside. He has a thick coat of fur. He's probably happier out there."
"No, he'll freeze. He'll freeze to death like Patricia!" Patrick's voice grew panicky. "He'll die!"
"Shh! You'll wake the others. November may stay here tonight, just tonight," I said, hoping I could close the cat in the schoolroom til Roger helped me put him out. I knew better than to fool with a feral animal that hadn't had its shots. "We'll talk about it further in the morning. Now let's get you in bed."
As soon as we moved, the cat ran out the door and disappeared down the main stairs. I sighed. There was no point in my bumbling around the dark house trying to find him. Patrick and I crossed the third-floor hall to my room, then took the back steps down to his. When I turned on Patrick's small night-light, November slunk out from the shadows and leaped onto the bed. Patrick was charmed; I found it creepy. Ashley used to bring in the cat and hide it til bedtime so she could sleep with it. After a lapse of twelve years, what had suddenly drawn this wild animal back to her room?
"He can't stay with you, Patrick."
"But he likes me."
"You have allergies," I argued. "You're already starting to sniffle. Come on, November. Scoot!"
I waved my hand at the cat. He hissed. Determined to get rid of him, I moved closer. He hissed again and swung a paw, claws extended. He meant business.
"I don't think November likes you" Patrick observed.
"Can you get him off the bed—without touching him, I mean."
Patrick shooed him halfheartedly, and the cat moved down to the foot of the bed. Patrick happily climbed in at the other end.
"I'm running out of patience," I said. "Listen to me. The cat hasn't had his shots, and if he bites you, you could get rabies. You are not to touch him. Do you understand?"
"Yes, but he won't bite me."
I wouldn't admit it and encourage petting the cat, but I sensed the same thing. I decided I could leave them alone long enough to fetch some bait and get the cat out of the room. "Stay in bed and don't touch him. I'm going downstairs for a can of tuna and will be back in a minute."
The hall door had been knocked ajar by the cat. I opened it all the way.
"Someone has turned out the rose lamp," Patrick observed.
"It probably burned out."
With all the bedroom doors closed but Patrick's, and his night-light casting no more than a dim glow inside his room, the hall was black as night itself, its walls and corners invisible. Knocking over an antique rose lamp in a clumsy attempt to find and light it seemed a bad idea. Lighting the bright overheads in the hall might wake up Emily and Adrian. The more fuss there was, the harder it would be to get Patrick back to sleep, especially after Emily had strung me up for allowing the cat in his room. The best plan was to walk straight ahead til I reached the steps at the other end of the hall. There I could turn on the stairway sconces.
Holding one hand out in front of me, I walked slowly, slower still as I reached what I thought would be the wall next to the stairway. I finally touched it, but I must have veered slightly to the left while crossing the hall, for there were no switches there. I slid my foot to the right, feeling the wooden edge of the step. I moved farther to the right, my hand searching for the heavy wood banister and the wall with the light plates. I heard a noise behind me, a sound as light as padded feet. Something rushed against my legs.
I stifled a scream. The cat, I thought, teetering on the step. Just the cat. Relax, Kate.
The next moment something hard and flat, the size of a hand, slammed between my shoulder blades. I cried out and pitched forward. I reached out desperately for the banister—the wall—anything that could stop my fall. My bare feet slid, my arches rolling over the hard edge of the step. I began to tumble—headfirst into the darkness—and yanked myself backward. For a moment I touched nothing, then suddenly I made contact, my right shoulder and hip banging down against the steps. I could count the steps I was sliding down, each one a blow against my upper arm.
At the landing, I stopped. I couldn't move. My ski jacket had padded the fall, but the right side of my body ached, and the feeling of tumbling helplessly had taken my breath away. So simple, I thought, so simple and effective—it didn't take much effort to hurt a person.
I sat up slowly, hearing movement in the hall above me. It was Patrick's light footsteps running across it. "Stop, Patrick! Don't run. You'll fall down the steps."
Lights came on, all of the ceiling flights, flooding the hall with whiteness. The door to Adrian and Emily's room opened.
"Kate!" Adrian exclaimed as he reached the top of the stairs. "Are you all right?"
Emily grabbed Patrick's hand, and Adrian started down the steps.
"What happened? Emily,
you had better call 911."
"No," I said quickly. "I'm fine—a little shaken up, that's all."
"I'd rather be on the safe side," Adrian replied, arriving on the landing, bending over me.
"No, really, please don't. I didn't hit my head. I didn't break anything," I said, flexing my arms and legs, hoping to convince him. "I'm bruised, nothing more."
A door on the second-floor hall banged open.
"Why are the lights on, the emergency lights in my hall?" Trent asked, coming from the wing behind the stairs. He cleared the corner, looked down, and saw Adrian standing over me. "Good God! What has happened?"
"Kate fell," Patrick said.
"When we heard the noise out here, Adrian pushed the master switch," Emily explained.
A door at the opposite end of the hall opened, and quick footsteps crossed it. Robyn and Brook joined the others at the top of the steps.
"Hey, a family reunion at three a.m. What a great idea!" Brook said. "Let's open a keg."
"You're ridiculous in the middle of the day," Trent told Brook. "Don't push your luck in the middle of the night."
"No more ridiculous than you in your red silk designer robe," Robyn responded in defense of her son. I wonder who gave you that?" She gazed down the steps at Adrian and me. "What happened, Daddy?"
Adrian sat down two steps above me. "Apparently, Kate tripped and fel down the stairs."
"What was Kate doing?" It was the steely voice of Mrs. Hopewell, who had silently joined the others.
Adrian gave me a sly wink. "Meeting her sweetheart for a romp in the snow. Or perhaps, Louise, sneaking a piece of that delicious pie you made."
"Was November with you?" Patrick asked. "He left my room."
"Who's November?" Brook asked.
"The cat," I replied. "The orange tabby. Patrick said he found him outside his window, the one by the roof, and let him in. I was going downstairs to get some bait to coax him out of the room."
"Oh, wonderful," Trent observed, "we have a rabid cat in the house."
"Just lock your bedroom door, Trent," Robyn responded sarcastically, "and you'll be safe from all ten pounds of him."
"Darling," Emily said to Patrick, "that cat is dirty. It has diseases."