"Why?" asked Patrick.
Sam glanced down at the questioning face. "Because sometimes I'm a little rude. Don't do anything stupid, buddy, I don't care who dares you.
Understand?"
Patrick nodded.
"Yeah-yeah," Sam muttered, and raised his eyes to me. "Keep in touch?"
"Sure." I met his eyes for half a second, then looked away.
He reached out, resting two fingers lightly on the back of my hand. "Keep in touch, Kate."
After Sam left, Patrick and I put on dry clothes and spent the rest of the afternoon upstairs. Because he was doing poorly in his schoolwork, we used the extra time to work on spelling and math. He was unusually quiet and agreeable. Perhaps I had imagined him pulling away from me, I thought; I was getting like Emily, overreacting when he didn't want to be a cute, cuddly little kid.
Patrick and I endured another family dinner, though Trent was absent from this one-in town with the "kitchen-sink blonde" who managed the hotel. I learned from Brook that Robyn's description meant the woman colored her own hair, which meant that she was a middle-class working type who didn't have much money to spend on herself, which meant she wasn't up to the Westbrook standards.
With one less participant, I had hoped the mealtime squabbling would be less, but instead it became a cat fight between Robyn and Emily. Adrian ignored them, occasionally addressing Patrick and me. Brook assigned points to the ladies' jibes, keeping score. Patrick withdrew as soon as the quarreling began, raising his head now and then to gaze at the flickering candles.
After dinner, when we were alone, he remained withdrawn, wanting to go to bed early that evening. His behavior was beginning to worry me. I asked him if he was ill, if he was sore from his fall, if he was afraid of something, if he was sad-l posed every conceivable question about how he felt, but was told nothing.
I asked Emily to come in and read a book with him, then requested that Adrian do the same, hoping to reassure him with their love and attention.
Neither of them appeared to be concerned, for Patrick seemed like a quiet, sleepy child, the ideal seven-year-old at bedtime, but I knew something was wrong. He barely responded when I said the little rhyme he liked and kissed him good night. It was as if he had fallen deep inside himself, into a world I couldn't reach.
I slept poorly that night, awakening at every sound, checking on him at midnight, 2:15, 3:55.1 awoke again a few minutes after five, tired and cross, but there was no getting back to sleep until I checked him again. Once more, I crept downstairs.
He was gone. I couldn't quite believe it, and yet it was what some part of me had been waiting for all night. I checked the rooms on the third floor, then quickly dressed and hurried down to the kitchen. The door to the outside was locked, but the deadbolt undone, indicating that Patrick may have exited from there. I debated whether to wake the family. A search party might find him faster, but creating that kind of scene would make things worse for him. I thrust my feet in my boots. I would find him myself. I had to.
Checking my pocket for keys, I opened the door and stepped into the brittle cold. A day of March sunlight had melted the surface of the snow, but the dipping temperatures of the clear night had frozen it again, making an icy crust that glimmered in the moonlight. Hanging low in the west, the moon cast long shadows and darkened the craters of footprints, confusing the paths that converged at the back door. Had he gone to the pool? Taken the steps down to the bay? No, it was the pond that drew Patrick. I took off.
The hardened snow made it difficult to run, my feet sinking in at odd angles, my toes catching in the crust. Having circled to the front of the house, I cut across the gardens and suddenly found a fresh trail, Patrick's prints-at least prints small enough to be his. Reaching the drive that ran between the house and the main road, I saw another set of prints in the slushy, cindered snow. A cat's. November. It was as if the cat had instantly appeared and disappeared, leaving no trace of where he had come from or where he had gone on the other side of the plowed road. Then l realized that the animal was light and had probably walked on top of the frozen snow.
Patrick's tracks ran through the orchard and around the barn. I raced across the last stretch of snow toward the pond. The tall ring of evergreen trees that surrounded the pond rose up dark and silent, a forbidding circle. I entered the trees, following the short path that wound through the cedar and pine and emerged several meters from Patrick. He knelt at the pond's edge. A collection of small branches lay piled in front of him like an offering. The cat, sitting close to him, turned his head to see who had come into their circle.
My teeth chattered, not from the weather, but from the cold, otherworldliness of the scene. Shadows cast by long fingers of pine stretched across the pond's dull white ice. Near the center, the circle of dark water that never froze shone like a black moon. Patrick seemed a part of this unearthly place, as if he had stepped over the line that divided the colorful world of the living from the stark shades of death.
I walked quietly toward him. "What are you doing?"
He didn't turn his head, didn't act as if he had heard me. He was striking matches, one after another; they must have been wet, for none of them would light. I could see the thin flannel of his pajama pants beneath his snow jacket. He wore shoes rather than boots. His head and hands were bare.
I knelt next to him. "What are you doing?" I repeated.
"This will keep us warm," he said.
I touched the pile of sticks. "Are you making a fire?"
"Don't be afraid. It won't melt the ice."
His voice. sounded both strange and familiar. It wasn't the slightly high pitch Patrick used when he was trying to convince me of something, but the low, demanding tone of Ashley when she had insisted that I believe her.
"You can't believe what the grown-ups say," he went on. "They tell you things just to scare you."
The tingle started low in my spine and ran to the base of my skull. I had had this conversation before.
"They lie to you."
"Who does?" I asked.
"Everyone. They lie because they want you to do something."
"Not always," I argued.
"They want to hurt you."
"Who does?"
"They hate me, Katie!"
I pulled back. Patrick's fists were clenched with fury. He was no longer just hearing a ghost-he was speaking her words, he was feeling her emotions.
"Patrick, look at me."
He abruptly turned his back, then rose and walked over to November. "They don't know your name," he whispered to the cat. "No one knows it but me.
No one can touch you but me." His fists relaxed as he pet the animal, then he glanced in my direction. "We'll get warm, and then we'll go skating."
"No, Patrick." I said, walking toward him. "It isn't safe."
Kneeling again, I took his face in my hands and turned it toward me. His eyes were open, but I felt as if I were looking into the eyes of a plastic dollunblinking, glittering circles, eyes that did not physically see me.
I shook him lightly. His eyes rolled back in his head, then his lids closed. Panicking, I pulled them open with my fingertips. All I saw were the whites.
"Patrick!" I cried. "Wake up!"
I let go, and his eyelids closed. I shook him, terrified that I was losing him. "Come back, Patrick! Stay with me-stay awake!"
I shook him again, harder than I meant to.
He opened his eyes, gazing blankly at me for a moment. Then his eyes widened. He wrenched away from my grasp. "You can't hurt me!"
He scrambled to his feet, stepping on the cat. November squealed. Patrick rushed toward the path through the woods.
I stood up, bewildered, and glanced around the pond. "Show yourself, Ashley!" I cried out angrily. I dare you!"