"Yes sir."
"I"m sorry about what happened to your father," he said, looking in her eyes.
"Yes sir," Melissa said. She leaned forward and touched her shoe.
"Do you know what happened to your father?" Dr. Gowers asked.
Melissa nodded her head and continued to study her shoes.
"What happened to your father?" Dr. Gowers asked.
"The machines got him," Melissa said. She looked up at the doctor. "The real machines," she added. "The ocean ones."
"Your father drowned," Dr. Gowers said.
Melissa nodded. "Yes sir." Slowly the little girl got up and began wandering around the room. She walked past a large salt.w.a.ter aquarium next to a teak bookcase.
George thought the child must have b.u.mped against the aquarium stand although she hardly seemed close enough because water spilled from the tank as she pa.s.sed. She was humming. It was a bright, musical little tune, and he had heard it before, a children"s song, perhaps? The words? Something like by the sea, by the sea.
The girl walked and gestured with a liquid motion that was oddly sophisticated, suggesting the calculated body language of an older and s.e.xually self-a.s.sured woman.
"Melissa, would you come and sit down again so we can talk? I want to ask you some questions, and that is hard to do if you are walking around the room."
"Yes sir," Melissa said, returning to the sofa and resettling between George and his daughter.
Melissa retrieved her purse and placed it on her lap again.
She looked down at the purse and up again. She smiled with a child"s cunning. Then, very slowly, she opened the purse and showed it to Dr. Gowers.
"Yes?" he said, raising an eyebrow.
"There"s nothing in it," Melissa said. "It"s empty." She giggled.
"Well yes, it is empty," Dr. Gowers said, returning the child"s smile. "Why is that?"
Melissa snapped the purse closed. "Because my real purse isn"t here. It"s in the real place, where I keep my things."
"And where is that, Melissa?"
Melissa smiled and said, "You know, silly."
When the session ended, George phoned his wife.
"I don"t know," he said. "I guess it went fine. I don"t know. I"ve had no experience of this sort of thing. What about Mrs. Franklin?"
Mrs. Franklin was still in the hospital. She wanted to leave, but the hospital was reluctant to let her. She was still in shock, very disoriented. She seemed, indeed, to think that it was her daughter who had drowned.
"Did you talk to her?" George asked.
"Well yes, just briefly, but as I say, she made very little sense, got very excited when it became clear I wasn"t going to fetch her if her doctor wanted her to remain there."
"Can you remember anything she said?"
"Well, it was very jumbled, really. Something about a bad bargain. Something about, that Greek word, you know "hubris"."
"Hewbris?"
"Oh, back in school, you know, George. Hubris. A willful sort of pride that angers the G.o.ds. I"m sure you learned it in school yourself."
"You are not making any sense," he said, suddenly exasperated and frightened.
"Well," his wife said, "you don"t have to shout. Of course I don"t make any sense. I am trying to repeat what Mrs. Franklin said, and that poor woman made no sense at all. I tried to rea.s.sure her that Melissa was fine and she screamed. She said Melissa was not fine at all and that I was a fool. Now you are shouting me, too."
George apologized, said he had to be going, and hung up.
On the drive back from Dr. Gowers" office, Nancy sat in the back seat with Melissa. The child seemed unusually excited: her pale forehead was beaded with sweat, and she watched the ocean with great intensity.
"Did you like Dr. Gowers?" Nancy asked. "He liked you. He wants to see you again, you know."
Melissa nodded. "He is a nice one." She frowned. "But he doesn"t understand the real words either. No one here does."
George glanced over his shoulder at the girl. You are an odd ducky, he thought.
A large, midday sun brightened the air and made the ocean glitter as though scaled. They were in a stretch of sand dunes and sea oats and high, wind-driven waves and, except for an occasional lumbering trailer truck, they seemed alone in this world of sleek, eternal forms.
Then Melissa began to cough. The coughing increased in volume, developed a quick, hysterical note.
"Pull over!" Nancy shouted, clutching the child.
George swung the car off the highway and hit the brakes. Gravel pinged against metal, the car fishtailed and lurched to a stop. George was out of the car instantly, in time to catch his daughter and the child in her arms as they came hurtling from the back seat. Melissa"s face was red and her small chest heaved. Nancy had her arms around the girl"s chest. "Melissa!" Nancy was shouting. "Melissa!"
Nancy jerked the child upwards and back. Melissa"s body convulsed. Her breathing was labored, a broken whistle fluttering in her throat.
She shuddered and began to vomit. A hot, green odor, the smell of stagnant tidal pools, a.s.saulted George. Nancy knelt beside Melissa, wiping the child"s wet hair from her forehead. "It"s gonna be okay, honey," she said. "You got something stuck in your throat. It"s all right now. You"re all right."
The child jumped up and ran down the beach.
"Melissa!" Nancy screamed, scrambling to her feet and pursuing the girl. George ran after them, fear hissing in him like some power line down in a storm, writhing and spewing sparks.
In her blue dress and knee socks shoes left behind on the beach now Melissa splashed into the ocean, arms pumping.
Out of the corner of his eye, George saw Steve come into view. He raced past George, past Nancy, moving with a frenzied pinwheeling of arms. "I got her, I got her, I got her," he chanted.
Don"t, George thought. Please don"t.
The beach was littered with debris, old, ocean-polished bottles, driftwood, seaweed, shattered conch sh.e.l.ls. It was a rough ocean, still reverberating to the recent storm.
Steve had almost reached Melissa. George could see him reach out to clutch her shoulder.
Then something rose up in the water. It towered over man and child, and as the ocean fell away from it, it revealed smooth surfaces that glittered and writhed. The world was bathed with light, and George saw it plain. And yet, he could not later recall much detail. It was as though his mind refused entry to this monstrous thing, subst.i.tuting other images maggots winking from the eye sockets of some dead animal, flesh growing on a ruined structure of rusted metal and while, in memory, those images were horrible enough and would not let him sleep, another part of his mind shrank from the knowledge that he had confronted something more hideous and ancient than his reason could acknowledge.
What happened next, happened in an instant. Steve staggered backwards and Melissa turned and ran sideways to the waves.
A greater wave, detached from the logic of the rolling ocean, sped over Steve, engulfing him, and he was gone, while Melissa continued to splash through the tide, now turning and running sh.o.r.eward. The beast-thing was gone, and the old pattern of waves rea.s.serted itself. Then Steve resurfaced, and with a lurch of understanding, as though the unnatural wave had struck at George"s mind and left him dazed, he watched the head bob in the water, roll sickeningly, bounce on the crest of a second wave, and disappear.
Melissa lay face down on the wet sand, and Nancy raced to her, grabbed her up in her arms, and turned to her father.
"Where"s Steve?" she shouted over the crash of the surf.
You didn"t see then, George thought. Thank G.o.d.
"Where"s Steve?" she shouted again.
George came up to his daughter and embraced her. His touch triggered racking sobs, and he held her tighter, the child Melissa between them.
And what if the boy"s head rolls to our feet on the crest of the next wave? George thought, and the thought moved him to action. "Let"s get Melissa back to the car," he said, taking the child from his daughter"s arms.
It was a painful march back to the car, and George was convinced that at any moment either or both of his charges would bolt. He reached the car and helped his daughter into the back seat. She was shaking violently.
"Hold Melissa," he said, pa.s.sing the child to her. "Don"t let her go, Nancy."
George pulled away from them and closed the car door. He turned then, refusing to look at the ocean as he did so. He looked down, stared for a moment at what was undoubtedly a wet clump of matted seaweed, and knew, with irrational certainty, that Melissa had choked on this same seaweed, had knelt here on the ground and painfully coughed it up.
He told the police that Melissa had run into the waves and that Steve had pursued her and drowned. This was all he could tell them someday he hoped he would truly believe that it was all there was to tell. Thank G.o.d his daughter had not seen. And he realized then, with shame, that it was not even his daughter"s feelings that were foremost in his mind but rather the relief, the immense relief, of knowing that what he had seen was not going to be corroborated and that with time and effort, he might really believe it was an illusion, the moment"s horror, the tricks light plays with water.
He took the police back to where it had happened. But he would not go down to the tide. He waited in the police car while they walked along the beach.
If they returned with Steve"s head, what would he say? Oh yes, a big wave decapitated Steve. Didn"t I mention that? Well, I meant to.
But they found nothing.
Back at the hotel, George sat at the kitchen table and drank a beer. He was not a drinker, but it seemed to help. "Where"s Nancy?" he asked.
"Upstairs," Mrs. Hume said. "She"s sleeping with the child. She wouldn"t let me take Melissa. I tried to take the child and I thought...I thought my own daughter was going to attack me, hit me. Did she think I would hurt Melissa? What did she think?"
George studied his beer, shook his head sadly to indicate the absence of all conjecture.
Mrs. Hume dried her hands on the dish towel and, ducking her head, removed her ap.r.o.n. "Romner Psychiatric called. A Doctor Melrose."
George looked up. "Is he releasing Mrs. Franklin?" Please come and get your daughter, George thought. I have a daughter of my own. Oh how he wanted to see the last of them.
"Not just yet. No. But he wanted to know about the family"s visits every year. Dr. Melrose thought there might have been something different about that first year. He feels there is some sort of trauma a.s.sociated with it."
George Hume shrugged. "Nothing out of the ordinary as I recall."
Mrs. Hume put a hand to her cheek. "Oh, but it was different. Don"t you remember, George? They came earlier, with all the crowds, and they left abruptly. They had paid for two weeks, but they were gone on the third day. I remember being surprised when they returned the next year and I thought then that it must have been the crowds they hated and that"s why they came so late from then on."
"Well..." Her husband closed his eyes. "I can"t say that I actually remember the first time."
His wife shook her head. "What can I expect from a man who can"t remember his own wedding anniversary? That Melissa was just a tot back then, a little mite in a red bathing suit. Now that I think of it, she hasn"t worn a bathing suit since."
Before going to bed, George stopped at the door to his daughter"s room. He pushed the door open carefully and peered in. She slept as she always slept, sprawled on her back, mouth open. She had always fallen asleep abruptly, in disarray, gunned down by the sandman. Tonight she was aided by the doctor"s sedatives. The child Melissa snuggled next to her, and for one brief moment the small form seemed sinister and parasitic, as though attached to his daughter, drawing sustenance there.
"Come to bed," his wife said, and George joined her under the covers.
"It"s just that she wants to protect the girl," George said. "All she has, you know. She"s just seen her boyfriend drown, and this...I think it gives her purpose."
Mrs. Hume understood that this was in answer to the earlier question and she nodded her head. "Yes, I know dear. But is it healthy? I"ve a bad feeling about it."
"I know," George said.
The shrill ringing of the phone woke him. "Who is it?" his wife was asking as he fumbled in the dark for the receiver.
The night ward clerk was calling from Romner Psychiatric. She apologized for calling at such a late hour, but there might be cause for concern. Better safe than sorry, etc. Mrs. Franklin had apparently well, had definitely left the hospital. Should she return to the hotel, the hospital should be notified immediately.
George Hume thanked her, hung up the phone, and got out of bed. He pulled on his trousers, tugged a sweatshirt over his head.
"Where are you going?" his wife called after him.
"I won"t be but a minute," he said, closing the door behind him.
The floor was cold, the boards groaning under his bare feet. Slowly, with a certainty born of dread, expecting the empty bed, expecting the worst, he pushed open the door.
Nancy lay sleeping soundly.
The child was gone. Nancy lay as though still sheltering that small, mysterious form.
George pulled his head back and closed the door. He turned and hurried down the hall. He stopped on the stairs, willed his heart to silence, slowed his breathing. "Melissa," he whispered. No answer.
He ran down the stairs. The front doors were wide open. He ran out into the moonlight and down to the beach.
The beach itself was empty and chill; an unrelenting wind blew in from the ocean. The moon shone overhead as though carved from milky ice.
He saw them then, standing far out on the pier, mother and daughter, black shadows against the moon-gray clouds that bloomed on the horizon.
Dear G.o.d, George thought. What does she intend to do?
"Melissa!" George shouted, and began to run.
He was out of breath when he reached them. Mother and daughter regarded him coolly, having turned to watch his progress down the pier.
"Melissa," George gasped. "Are you all right?"
Melissa was wearing a pink nightgown and holding her mother"s hand. It was her mother who spoke: "We are beyond your concern. Mr. Hume. My husband is dead, and without him the contract cannot be renewed."
Mrs. Franklin"s eyes were lit with some extraordinary emotion and the wind, rougher and threatening to unbalance them all, made her hair quiver like a dark flame.
"You have your own daughter, Mr. Hume. That is a fine and wonderful thing. You have never watched your daughter die, watched her fade to utter stillness, dying on her back in the sand, sand on her lips, her eyelids; children are so untidy, even dying. It is an unholy and terrible thing to witness."