But I saw movement in another direction. Something, perhaps an animal, had just disappeared around the curve of the dome. Dropping to one knee, I tried to peer through the windows, but the angle from where I was seemed all wrong, and the windows were too dirty. Yet there was something moving. And quickly.
Press called my name again, but I had to know what I’d seen. Brushing off a bit of loose, tarry gravel from my knee, I stood up. By now, the wetness of the roof had permeated the thin leather soles of my heels. Michael had been in bed barefoot and was too young to put on his own shoes, let alone tie them. What might the coarse rooftop do to his tender feet? (In a split second, I had a sudden memory of Eva as I’d seen her in the morning room. When she’d died, she been wearing the pink playsuit I’d put her down for her nap in, but why had she come to me wearing muddy sandals as well? And the ribbon. What about the hair ribbon?)
Ignoring Press, I hurried around the dome, staying close by the windows.
I called Michael’s name. A clammy breeze picked at my hair and blew across my neck, giving me a chill; and with it came a certainty that the thing I had glimpsed was no animal, but Michael himself. Press called to me again, but the breeze carried his voice away. I heard it only as someone might hear from deep under water.
Yes! It was Michael!
Perhaps it was momentary joy that brightened the gray afternoon for me; but whatever it was, the light grew brilliant as a vast, newly stoked flame, and when my son stopped briefly and grinned back at me, naked as a cherub, he was the color of a golden peach.
I ran, but my feet were clumsy. My low heels weren’t made for running, and I stumbled a second time, this time falling, falling, my arms reaching for Michael, my cheek scraping the crumbled tar.
I screamed Michael’s name and pulled myself up onto my hands, mindless of the scrapes, to see him at the northern lip of the roof, squeezing his plump little body through the decorative iron trim. He didn’t look back again, but disappeared over the edge of the roof without a sound.
Press shouted for me, but before he could reach me I was up, running for the edge of the roof. Was I screaming? Maybe. I do remember hearing the wind in my ears as I ran. Just as I reached the edge, two firm hands tried to pull me backwards from the waist. I couldn’t see! Fighting him, holding hard to the iron trim, I strained to see the ground below.
Finally, for the briefest of seconds, the hands loosened and I collapsed over the railing so that I was staring at the ground. There, curled into a helpless crescent, was the body of a fox, the creamy-white tip of its tail stark against the stone of the patio below.
When I opened my eyes again, it was dusk, and the light of a single lamp groped pitifully in the overwhelming dark of the big room.
Oh, God. Was it happening again? It couldn’t be.
I was afraid to turn my head, lest the person I sensed nearby turn out to be Rachel. Now Michael would be dead. I squeezed my eyes shut again. It was hard to think because my brain was fogged, but I knew enough to be afraid.
“Charlotte. Charlotte, you should wake up.”
A woman’s voice. I turned my head cautiously.
J.C. had pulled a chair up beside the sofa so that her angular body threw its shadow over me. “You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t wake up. I’ve been waiting.” The gloom made it difficult to see her face clearly. What I could see was her worry.
“Have they found him? Where is he?” I tried to sit up. Jack had promised that the shot he was going to give me would help me stay calm enough to keep searching for Michael without knocking me out. Clearly he had lied.
“I told Press it wasn’t fair to you. Here’s some water.” She helped me sit up and gave me a tall glass of tepid water that I downed in just a few swallows. “Now that you’re awake, we can both search for him.”
When she took the glass back, and I thanked her, she sat back in her chair. “Does Press always treat you like this?”
My head ached. I wanted to get up and look for Michael, but I found it hard to move. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re not a stupid woman. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.”
“Is that what Press told you? That I’m crazy?”
“It doesn’t matter what he’s said to me, Charlotte. I’ve seen you with my own eyes. I’m no fool either.”
“I thought I was ‘Precious Bride’ to you.” I didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm from my voice.
“That’s just business, honey. We all play different roles, and it’s never good to be serious all the time. You’ll understand one day.” She gave me a rueful smile. “Listen. I don’t like what’s going on here. There’s too much pain.” She glanced around the room as though pain were something one could see stuck to the walls or the ceiling, something to be disguised with a throw rug or a swath of paint. “I think Jonathan is afraid to contact me.”
I stood up slowly, using the arm of the sofa for balance.