Their cups had been refilled and on each dessert plate sat another dainty slice of strudel. Father Bolden was busy sawing through the pastry. “So what happened next, after your son was saved from drowning?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not entirely sure. Jack wasn’t the same. He became deathly afraid of going outdoors at all, just cried and screamed and threw fits anytime we tried to get him through the door, and it became nearly impossible for us to take him anywhere. The doctors attributed it to the trauma, and at first we thought he would grow out of it, but the paranoia just grew worse over time, not better. We tried everything, but he will not budge. He’s just withdrawn into the safety of the house.”
With a clatter, Miss Tiramaku dropped her cup onto the saucer. “And he won’t go out at all? So it’s just been the three of you these past few years? Must be a bit claustrophobic.”
“Well, there’s Nicholas,” she said. “Thank God for Nick.”
“I am surprised that you let them play together,” Miss Tiramaku said. “After what Nick tried to do that day.”
Holly gave her a quizzical look.
“Maybe he didn’t mean it,” Miss Tiramaku said. “But Jack told me that Nick tried to drown him that day.”
A sharp pain lanced through Holly’s forehead, followed by ticking, a sound so loud she wondered if the others could hear it, too. The room pulsed along to the beat in her mind, and everything slowed and swayed like the ship in the painting. She felt a swell of seasickness clench at her stomach.
“Don’t be absurd,” Holly said. She pressed two fingers at the center of her forehead to staunch the pain. The pounding seized her, and she raised her voice, “No, no. He wouldn’t pull him under. He wouldn’t hurt him. They’re like brothers.”
“Are you all right, my dear?” Father Bolden asked.
Holly waved him away, steadied herself, and closed her eyes.
Father Bolden interjected himself between the two women. “Perhaps you’re mistaken, Miss Tiramaku.”
“Yes,” she said. “Mistaken. I didn’t mean to upset you, Holly. Are you sure you are okay? Perhaps you would care to lie down.”
“It’s my head, can’t you hear? I’ve been having these terrible headaches lately.”
The priest rose and crossed behind her, and put his hands on the back of her chair to pull it out for her. “We’ve upset you, my dear, and perhaps you would feel better if we just stopped talking about it. We could go into my study, find you a comfy chair. Miss Tiramaku will find you an aspirin, and you can have a nice rest in the dark while you wait for your husband.”
Surrendering to the drumming in her skull, Holly allowed herself to be led into the study. The priest arranged a spot in a soft leather chair and laid a blanket across her lap. Through the leaded windows, she could see the falling snow as it lulled her. In the dark room, the priest sat in a chair across from her, the light from the hallway softening his features, and he patted her on the forearm. “How long have you been suffering these headaches?”
Behind him, the slim silhouette of Miss Tiramaku appeared in the doorway.
“Weeks now,” Holly said.
“My own dear mother suffered from migraines all of her life, and she swore she saw angels and heard all kinds of strange things.”
The shadow at the door entered the room and perched on the edge of the big black desk that dominated the space. “Is there something that’s changed lately? Some trigger where your anxieties might be heightened and causing your hallucinations?”
Holly laughed. “Everything. My son hit me. Claims there were monsters under his bed. Then the wrecked ship and the ghosts come to haunt me. My husband chasing phantoms and coming home covered in blood. Salt water on the walls. Voices in the night.”
“Too many ghost stories?” Father Bolden stole a glance at Miss Tiramaku.
“No, it’s just Jack.”
Miss Tiramaku nodded. “Jack showed me some of the pictures he’s been making.”
“Jack’s monsters? He and Nick go off on these kicks for weeks at a time. Last summer it was baseball cards, and in the fall, they spent every weekend on board games, and then as suddenly as it begins, the craze is over and they’re on to some other obsession. I never gave the little monsters a second thought.”
Father Bolden said, “Sometimes I think all children are slightly mad. They suffer, finding their way out of childhood.”
“The monsters,” Holly said. She looked out at the snow. “I wonder what’s keeping him.”