“Charlotte! Stop this, and tell us where he is.”
I broke away from Press and moved toward the telephone on the table a few feet away from Terrance. He didn’t flinch, but only blinked slowly as I got closer. So still. He was always so still. Picking up the telephone’s heavy black handset with one hand, I reached to dial “0” with the other.
“I’m calling the police. Anybody could’ve come in here and taken him.” And where were you, Mrs. Bliss? Had you been drinking, Mrs. Bliss? Were you upset with your son, Mrs. Bliss?
Press strode over, but this time he had the sense not to grab at me. His voice was steady. Perhaps it could even have been called cajoling.
“Charlotte, stop. You’ll just inconvenience them. By the time they get out here, he’ll be safe in your arms. I used to disappear all the time. For hours. Then I’d turn up and find no one had even noticed I was gone. Let’s not imagine the worst. We just haven’t looked hard enough for him.”
I hesitated. The police might not even keep looking for Michael if they thought I’d done something to him. My stomach clenched when I thought of him being hurt.
Another voice spoke up. It was J.C., her usual insouciant, playgirl manner gone and replaced with a serious tone.
“Tell us what happened, Charlotte. We all want to find your sweet boy. What happened while we were gone? You were alone?”
Alone? I’d been certain Michael and I were alone. I tried to make sure I was making eye contact with Press and J.C. so they would believe me as I told them how I’d been reading a magazine in the salon, the doors to the hall open, when I heard a sound out in the hallway like something soft hitting the floor. My heart had begun pounding with the fear that Michael had tried to come downstairs and had fallen.
But there had been nothing in the hall. I’d looked up to see that the nursery door was still closed. I had locked it myself. Unnerved, I went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of hot tea, putting on the kettle to boil.
“When I got home, it was boiled dry and the whistle had come loose,” Marlene interrupted. “But it was on the lowest heat, or there might have been a fire.”
From the kitchen, I’d heard a cry somewhere in the house—I thought from the servants’ wing. God, it was a horrible, mournful sound, like something in pain. Not quite human, not quite animal. First, I’d rushed up the stairs off the dining-room hallway, to make sure Michael was all right; finding his door still closed, I’d started toward the back of the house. Then I saw the animal. At least I was sure right away it was an animal. What else might have made such a sound? (And here I did not tell them that I’d been terribly afraid it was an unnatural sound, and that I had experienced a huge sense of relief on seeing the creature’s tail and two hind legs.)
Although I had no weapon, I followed after it, searching the servants’ wing, but all the doors were closed. Was it a cat? I wasn’t sure because it seemed too big. I went downstairs and searched every room.
The cry came again, reverberating in the hallway from above. This time so loud and long that I was sure it would wake Michael. I hurried up to the third floor, but the theater and ballroom doors were closed and it wasn’t in the hallway or any other of the rooms. So I went back down to the servants’ wing, and grabbed a broom to shoo whatever it was outside. I opened every door.
“Nothing?” J.C. looked concerned.
“For God sakes, Charlotte. This isn’t helping us find Michael.” Press ran his hand through his hair. “You must have fallen asleep.”
“Of course I didn’t fall asleep! I told you I was reading a magazine.” Although I knew it was a fair assumption, it made me angry that he would accuse me.
I described how I had looked down into the hall again from the second-floor gallery to see a fox skirting the wall near the front door. As it trotted, it made a kind of hissing sound as though it were talking to itself, or calling to someone—something—else. Then it disappeared into the dining room. I started down the stairs, but I thought of Michael and I turned back. And when I reached the top, I started for the nursery.
Again, I hesitated. What I couldn’t tell them was how it had seemed that time had slipped, just as it had when I was in the forsythia looking for the rabbit. Over an hour had been lost, but I knew that I hadn’t been asleep.
“What did you see?” J.C. had come to stand very close to me. There was no skepticism on her face, as there was on Press’s. Only concern.
“It ran into his room.” Now my voice was almost a whisper. “The door was open, and it ran into his room, and when I got there, neither of them was inside.”
No one else spoke for a moment.
“Jesus Christ.” Press ran his hand down his face, covered his mouth.
J.C. touched my arm. I didn’t move but only stared at her. “There’s not time to explain, Charlotte. But I need you to trust me right now. Will you try?”