That, too, was one of the things she was going to have to face. The doctors had told her so—indeed, they had urged her to come back to Amberton years ago to come to grips with the things that had been erased from her memory. Only when she understood exactly what had happened, they said, would she be all right.
She wandered through the house.
Nothing much had changed—the furniture, more threadbare than ever, seemed on the verge of collapse, and everywhere Christie looked Miss Edna’s presence seemed to loom. It was strange—there was nothing that reminded Christie of Diana; nothing at all. It was as if it were Miss Edna’s house, and Diana, though she had lived there all her life, had left no mark.
Christie heard feet pounding down the stairs, and then Carole appeared.
“Mommy, there’s a room in the attic, and it’s nailed shut. What is it?”
Following her daughter to the third floor, Christie had a feeling of foreboding.
She stopped at the door to the nursery and stared at the nail heads embedded in its surface.
“The nursery,” she whispered. “What on earth—?”
“Let’s open it, Mommy!”
Christie found a hammer in the pantry, then went back upstairs and began prying the nails loose. They resisted her efforts, screeching as she pulled them out, but eventually all of them gave way.
She opened the door.
Except for the rocking chair, the cradle, and a crib standing in one corner, the room was empty. The wallpaper had finally fallen away. Cobwebs dangled in the corners, and dust coated the floor.
“You lived here?” Carole asked, her blue eyes like saucers.
“For a few weeks,” Christie replied, her mind reeling.
Here, in this room, she was finding Diana.
She could feel Diana’s presence, almost hear her voice, calling to her, reaching out to her.
“Let’s go downstairs,” she said. “I don’t like this room. I never did.”
She hurried out of the nursery and went down to the kitchen. She found some coffee in the pantry and made a pot.
A few minutes later Carole joined her, carrying a box.
“I found this in one of the closets,” she said. Inside the box was a pile of album pages, torn to shreds. As she pieced them together Christie recognized her mother, then her father.
“They’re mine,” she said, her voice filled with wonder. “After all these years. Look, honey, these are your grandmother and grandfather.”
Carole looked curiously at the pictures. “What happened to them?” she asked.
“They died,” Christie told her. “When I was a little girl, they died.”
“Were they sick?”
“My mother was,” Christie said. “And after that, Father died in the mine.”
At mention of the mine Carole’s eyes lit up. “Can we go up there?” she asked.
“I suppose so,” Christie told her. “There’s not much to see, though.”
Carole frowned. “Why did Mrs. Amber blow it up?”
“She was an old woman, and she had funny ideas. She thought the mine was evil.”
“How can a mine be evil?” Carole wanted to know. “It’s only a hole in the ground, isn’t it?”
Christie took a deep breath and wondered how to explain what had happened up there. Even she still wasn’t sure.
“Of course it is,” she said. “It’s just a hole, and we’re going to dig it out again.”
“Are we going to be rich?”
Christie laughed and hugged her daughter. “Well, if it all works out, we’re not going to starve. But I don’t know if we’re going to be rich.”
There was a knock at the back door, and a young man with black hair and brooding brown eyes stuck his head in. He smiled tentatively, then more broadly. “Christie! It’s really you, isn’t it?”
“Eddie? Eddie Whitefawn?” Christie stood up and ran to Eddie, throwing her arms around him.
Eddie hugged her, then winked at Carole. “Hi! I used to know your mother when we were just about your age.”
Christie felt a rush of pleasure at seeing Eddie. Though they hadn’t been good friends, the two of them had survived that last night at the mine.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked.
“I’m going to work on the mine,” he said. “I’ve got a degree in mining engineering.”
“Just like my father,” Christie said. For some reason she suddenly felt uneasy, but didn’t know why. She picked up one of the pictures and offered it to Eddie. “Do you remember him?” she asked.
Eddie nodded.
“Mr. Crowley always thought a lot of him. Said he was the best mine man he ever worked with. In fact, he could never understand what happened to your father.”
Christie’s eyes clouded over, and Eddie wondered if he shouldn’t have mentioned it. He glanced at his watch, then up toward the mountains. “Look, why don’t we have dinner tonight? Catch up on things, okay? I’ve gotta get up to the mine and do a couple of things, and it looks like the wind’s going to blow.”
“Don’t you work when it’s windy?” Carole asked. She’d never heard of such a thing—in Los Angeles everybody ignored the wind.
Eddie looked at the little girl, and the smile faded from his lips.
“Not if I can help it,” he said. “I guess I’m still a believer in my Indian superstitions.”
“About what?” Though Carole asked the question, Christie, too, listened to the answer.
“The children,” Eddie said. “When the wind blows, you can hear the children up there. They’re crying.”
That night, as Christie lay in Edna Amber’s bed, trying to fall asleep, she listened to the wind. It was howling tonight, battering at the old house, and she could feel the house tremble under its fury.
And mixed with the wind she thought she heard something else.
A child, crying for its mother.
She got out of bed and went across the hall to Diana’s room, where Carole was sleeping.
But Carole wasn’t sleeping.
She was curled up, her knees against her chest, her thumb in her mouth. She was crying softly. When Christie knelt beside her, the child looked at her, her eyes wide with fear.
“It’s all right, baby,” Christie whispered. “Mommy’s here. Mommy will always be here.”
But in her heart she was terrified, for she remembered what Eddie had told her over dinner that evening.
“It’s not just the sound of them crying,” he had said. “Ever since we were little, something’s been happening in Amberton. It started right after you went away.”
“What?” Christie had asked. Eddie had been silent for a moment, but then his eyes met hers.
“Our babies die,” he had said softly. “When the wind blows, all our babies die.”
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John Saul, When the Wind Blows
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