She could hurt him.
But he couldn’t leave the phone ringing because his mother might hear, and then he’d have to lie; or worse, explain to her why the phone was on the windowsill to begin with. Karis had warned him against telling others of their little talks, and while Daniel was starting to wonder if that was more for her benefit than his, he was aware that the injunction contained within it an unspecified threat, one that now assumed a new potency given the reality of Karis’s physical presence in the world.
Daniel picked up the phone.
‘Hello?’
He thought that Karis’s voice sounded clearer than before. It might have been the rage in it, but Daniel also detected a faint echo, just as he did on those occasions when his mom allowed him to converse with Grandpa Owen over her cell phone when Grandpa Owen was only in the next room. Not one voice, but two: the first real and speaking from nearby, and the second transmitted through the instrument in his hand.
Just like now, because Karis was close.
i’m very upset with you how could you do what you did?
how could you put the phone in the ground?
‘I’m sorry,’ said Daniel.
sorry doesn’t cut it, mister why did you do it?
tell me
Daniel began to cry.
crying won’t help either crying is for babies, and you’re not a baby why did you bury the phone?
‘I was scared.’
scared of what?
of me?
Daniel didn’t want to say any more. He didn’t want to make Karis angrier than she already was.
i’m waiting for an answer What choice did he have?
‘Yes.’
But then suddenly Karis wasn’t angry any longer.
oh honey, i’m sorry
you mustn’t be scared of me i’d never do anything to hurt you i love you
you must understand that i love you so very— The phone went dead in Daniel’s hand. His attention moved to the yard outside, where a girl was standing on the grass, her head inclined slightly away from him so he could not see her face, her gaze seemingly fixed on the woods at the end of the property. Her hair was blond and her feet were bare; they gave the illusion of not quite touching the grass beneath. She did not move, but when she spoke her voice – smaller and softer than Karis’s, but with a tonality that was not entirely dissimilar – came from very near, as though she were in Daniel’s bedroom instead of twenty feet away on ground still cold with the memory of winter.
go back to bed
Daniel replaced the receiver. It did not occur to him to ask the girl who she was, or where she came from. He could not have said how, but he knew that neither question would have been answered in any case.
‘What should I do with the telephone?’
He hiccupped the words some, because he was still crying.
i’ll take care of it ‘I tried to get rid of it, but it made Karis mad. I don’t want to make her mad again.’
i will speak with her ‘And she won’t be mad?’
i will ask her not to be ‘I want her to go away. I want her to leave me alone.’
i know
‘But don’t tell her I said that.’
i won’t
Daniel took a last look at the phone before closing the window and pulling the drapes. Seconds later, he heard a sound from the windowsill as the phone was removed from it.
‘Don’t make her mad,’ he prayed. ‘Don’t make her mad, don’t make her mad, don’t make her mad …’
Jennifer stood at the edge of the woods, the two Weaver homes behind her, the trees before her degrading from tangible presences to shaded forms, and thence to darkness.
you must leave him be No response came from the woods, but Jennifer knew that Karis – or what was left of her, the residue that bore her name – was out there, listening. From what materials it had formed itself, Jennifer could not tell: other bones, perhaps, remains both animal and human.
you’re scaring him
A flicker, gray against the dark, moving low like an animal. Jennifer’s eyes followed it.
you’ll hurt him
Yes, there it was. Upright now. Watching her.
and i can’t let you hurt him Hating her.
Jennifer placed the telephone on the ground and stepped away. The toy began to blacken as wisps of smoke rose from it. The eyes melted, and the wire connecting the receiver to the body liquefied and dripped to the forest floor. Finally the rest of it smoldered and caught fire, the telephone burning freely now, the flames illuminating Jennifer and the surrounding trees, until at last the toy was reduced to ash that was taken by the wind and scattered over the forest floor until not a trace remained.
But by then, Karis was nowhere to be seen.
III
Thomas: Who shall have it?
Tempter: He who will come.
Thomas: What shall be the month?
Tempter: The last from the first.
Thomas: What shall we give for it?
Tempter: Pretence of priestly power.
Thomas: Why should we give it?
Tempter: For the power and the glory.
T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral
65
Anyone who still liked to believe that the United States of America was a classless society had only to set foot inside the walls of Boston’s Colonial Club to realize the error of the notion. But since anyone who believed the United States of America was a classless society was unlikely to be considered for membership of the Colonial, or admitted to its Commonwealth Avenue palazzo through any door other than the service entrance, such illusions were likely to remain intact. It boasted a grand staircase rivaled only by that of the Metropolitan Club in New York, a humidor larger than the Union’s, and a wine cellar valued in the seven figures. In a classless society, it could not have existed.
One did not ask to join the Colonial; to do so was a guarantee of lifelong exclusion. If invited to join, one handed over one’s bank details without inquiring about the cost of membership. The mention of fees would be enough to cause the sudden and irrevocable withdrawal of the invitation, as well as to suggest that one’s finances might not be as watertight as previously imagined. Share prices had been affected by the offer or withdrawal of Colonial membership, or even a failure to renew, and at least two suicides had resulted from rumors arising from such incidents.
In the Old World, blood was the indicator of class: the older the bloodline, the greater the claim to aristocracy. In the New World, money was the indicator, and the older the money, the better the class. At the Colonial, most of the money was very old indeed. The list of rules was considerable, but could be summarized thus: No Vulgar Displays of Wealth.
And No Poor.
Quayle arrived at the club shortly before noon and was immediately admitted to a dark lobby, where a functionary behind a desk recorded his name in the visitors’ book before rising to open the inner door, where a second functionary was waiting to escort Quayle to one of the smaller private dining rooms. There, the Principal Backer was already seated at the room’s only table, built for four but set for two, sipping a fino sherry before lunch.
The two men did not shake hands. They were not friends, colleagues, or business associates. They had nothing in common beyond the covenants they had signed, and even these were fulfilled with different gods.
A waiter materialized to take Quayle’s drink order. Quayle advised that he would prefer to wait for wine with his meal, but requested a large glass of cold milk in the interim. Both men chose venison for their main course, and afterward were left in unquiet communion.
‘How do you find the colonies?’ the Principal Backer asked, in a manner that suggested he would have preferred if Quayle had not found them at all.
‘Perturbing.’
‘Have you visited before?’
‘I never felt the desire. No man at all intellectual is willing to leave London.’
‘Dr Johnson.’
‘Paraphrased, but yes.’
‘They say he was a melancholic.’
‘Among other deficiencies.’
‘Then perhaps London was not so beneficial to him.’