The Piper

TWENTY-THREE




Olivia did not run down the hall, but she walked very fast, unable to resist looking over her shoulder for a security guard coming her way. Teddy was alone in the cubicle, and Olivia breathed deeply, grateful for the organized neglect that was the average hospital norm. She scooped her daughter up and settled her on her hip, and carried her straight to the car. Teddy was too big to be carried, and she protested all the way.

‘That’s not the way home,’ Teddy said, fidgeting with the edge of her seatbelt and staring out the window. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I don’t know where we’re going. I’m just driving right now.’

‘But why?’

‘Because the doctor told me you were afraid to go home.’

Olivia swallowed hard and kept her attention on the road. She could cry later, in private. It was not good for Teddy to see her rattled so hard. And in truth, for the first time in her life, she did not even want to look at her own little girl.

‘I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m sorry I told.’

‘Teddy, I’m not mad at you.’ A lie. She was mad. ‘It’s just – you have to understand.’

‘Understand what?’

‘Teddy, that doctor and that nurse. They thought I was the somebody that hurt you. Did you tell them that?’

Teddy gasped, and put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, Mommy, no no no. I didn’t tell them that. It was Duncan Lee. It’s just I’m not supposed to say his name.’ The tears came, sliding silently down Teddy’s cheeks. ‘I didn’t say it was you.’

‘It’s okay, Kidlet. The main thing is for you to be better and to feel safe. Look, Teddy, we need to talk about Duncan Lee. Do you really think he made you sick or is this just one of your games?’

Teddy put her hands over her face. ‘It’s not a game.’

‘You’re saying he’s real. He actually talks to you. Are you saying he’s in the house? Because I don’t see him.’

‘Of course you don’t see him, he only lets certain people know he’s around. It isn’t up to us, it’s up to him.’

‘Really? What does he look like?’

Teddy rubbed her eyes. ‘It’s hard to explain. He looks like the dark.’

‘Like a shadow?’

Teddy nodded. ‘Sometimes he stands over me, by my bed, and leans on me. And he’s behind me, in the house sometimes. He creeps up. He watches us a lot. He doesn’t like Winston. And he really doesn’t like you.’

‘Does he talk to you?’

Teddy nodded.

‘In a regular voice?’

‘It’s just a voice, Mommy, like yours or mine, only he whispers a lot. Winston hears it too, it makes his tail go down.’ Teddy turned sideways toward her mother. ‘I know what we should do. Let’s tell them there’s not a somebody. Let’s tell them I made it all up. Let’s tell them I did it so I wouldn’t have to go to school. So we could go home and live with Daddy in California.’

‘Oh, God, Teddy.’

‘Please, Mommy. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Let’s just go home, okay? I want to see Winston. Please, Mommy, please.’

‘Teddy—’

‘I need to go home with you, Mommy. If I can have you and Winston, I’ll be okay. I’m so sorry I got you in trouble at the hospital. Please don’t be mad.’

‘I’m not mad.’

‘You seem mad.’

‘I’m upset. But the person I’m upset with is me.’

‘Why?’

For dragging you two thousand miles away from your father, Olivia thought. For yet another move. ‘Teddy, did you make it all up or do you see a . . . a dark man in the house?’

Teddy bit the knuckles of her fist. ‘Which one do you want me to say?’