Treasure Box Read online

  He wasn't sure that was true—she was an intimidating person. But not because she wanted to be, or tried to be. Rather she was so direct, so forthright, so clearly uninterested in making a good impression that it gave her the upper hand. Quentin liked this about her. It made him curious. "I've never heard of a nurse being in charge of a rest home. Usually isn't it a salesman type who can sucker people in?"

  "This really is a good rest home, so our residents aren't suckers," said Sannazzaro. Before Quentin could protest his innocence, she went on. "But you're right, it used to be a salesman type. Then they caught him with his hands in the till and his fly open in some of the residents' rooms—I don't know which was worse in the owners' minds. Anyway, they needed a fully trained replacement immediately. I was already here as medical officer. So I've been acting superintendent since October of '94."

  "Why don't they just make it official?" asked Quentin.

  "Because I don't want the job and I keep turning it down."

  "So why don't you quit running the place and go back to your nurse duties?"

  "Because if I do they'll bring in another salesman type to run the place, and I'd hate going back to that nightmare."

  "So you won't take the job, but you won't give it up," said Quentin.

  She laughed. "It sounds just as stupid to me, but what can I do? They're paying me at the nurse level plus a bonus, which saves them money, and in the meantime I don't have some cost-cutting moron glad-handing the public and stealing from the patients. Except that I'm tired all the time and don't have a life, things are going great."

  Again Quentin found himself speaking on impulse. "It's a good thing we both know that I'm depressed and recovering from a spectacularly failed marriage, or I'd offer to take you away from all this." Quentin wondered at his own words. Was this flirtatious conversation for its own sake? Or did he unconsciously mean something by it?

  Fortunately, she took it as a joke rather than a come-on. "Just don't say anything about the Virgin Islands or I'll take you up on it and you'd be stuck with a cast-iron bitch who doesn't look all that good in a bikini."

  "Now you've done it. Now I'm thinking of you in a bikini."

  They laughed.

  Quentin was relieved that it was just a flirtation between two tired people who knew nothing would come of it. But he hadn't had many ventures into the world of flirtation, and most of what he'd seen had been while waiting to meet partners in upscale bars where all the flirters were so drunk that it didn't take much for them to think each other clever. It kind of gave him a thrill to play at it with a sober person whom he liked. But it also made him feel guilty. Even though he knew Madeleine wasn't real, he still felt married and he was a faithful husband.

  "You're thinking of your wife," said Sannazzaro.

  "Yeah, well, I was thinking that I still feel married."

  "I'm glad to hear it. I've known too many men who never felt quite married no matter how many wives they've been through. Their own and otherwise."

  Remembering again where they were, Quentin looked at Mrs. Tyler's closed and silent face. "I wonder how Mrs. Tyler felt about her husband."

  "Loved him," said Sannazzaro. "But he died young. She told me that she thought the death of their first child, a boy, was too hard on him. He lost heart. Like I said—when people truly despair, they don't live long."

  "She seems awfully old to have her oldest grandchild be only ten."

  "I think the little girl is eleven. But yes. Mrs. Tyler married late. Maybe that was part of her husband's despair. She was forty before she started having babies."

  "What was the delay?"

  "What is it ever? She married Mr. Tyler only six months after she met him. He was more than ten years younger than her. She always assumed that he'd outlive her, which was fine, she didn't want to be a widow."

  "Bummer," said Quentin.

  "And you meant to be a father," said Sannazzaro. "Nobody's life ever goes according to plan."

  "So why do we keep on planning?"

  She thought for a moment. "Because that's how we know who we are. By what we intend to be. By what we try to become."

  "And fail."

  "I don't say 'fail,' Mr. Fears. I say we aim and miss. But we still hit something."

  "Ouch."

  She smiled. But she had been serious, and he could see that his joke disappointed her.

  "Sorry," he said. "I think what you said is right. I'm just kind of caught up in the target that I missed. I haven't even looked to see what I might have hit. Maybe the arrow hasn't even landed yet. And please call me Quentin."

  "Minus the 'San.' "

  "That's what I'll call you."

  "Call me Sally," she said.

  "Sally, may I call you?" he said. And there it was. He wasn't content for this conversation to amount to nothing.

  She looked at him for a while before saying, "When you know what's happening with your marriage, I wouldn't mind a phone call now and then."

  He smiled. He liked a woman who knew how to spell out the rules. He also liked it that she had the same rules he did.

  She smiled back.

  He got up to leave, and so did she. He was reaching for the door when he saw words appear on it.

  DON'T GO

  His hand hovered over the doorknob.

  "Well?" asked Sannazzaro. Sally.

  He looked at her. She didn't see the words. Too bad. It would have been nice if he could tell her what was really going on. But without the evidence of her own eyes, like Bolt had had, she would never believe him. And he didn't want her to think he was crazy. He wanted very much for her to like him because he needed a friend who was good and decent and lived in the real world and didn't charge him three hundred bucks an hour.

  "Sally," he said. "I want to talk to Mrs. Tyler. Alone. I know she won't hear me, but it would mean a lot to me. I'm not going to hurt her. If you want affidavits about my character, call my lawyer, his number's on my card." He handed her one. "Or call my parents and they'll tell you I was always a good boy."

  "Maybe I should call your neighbors," said Sally.

  "They'll just tell you I'm a loner who keeps to himself." He grinned.

  She shook her head. "Quentin, I don't know why I should trust you. You're such a smooth operator. You're not telling me the truth. And you came here with slime on your shoes."

  Apparently she really didn't like Bolt. "The way Bolt acted here tonight, I've never seen him like that. If I'd known the way things stood between you, I never would have brought him. Everything I've told you is true but you're right, I haven't told you everything because I don't want you to think I'm crazy."

  "So. Convince me you're not crazy."

  "Sally, I saw Mrs. Tyler in a house in Mixinack a few days ago. She slept through breakfast but in the parlor she looked me in the eye and said, 'Find me.' That's why I'm here."

  "This isn't helping."

  "You can see why I didn't tell you, but it's the truth. Crazy things are happening but I know I'm not crazy because every now and then somebody else sees the same things I see. Earlier today I saw writing magically appear on a door in that house in Mixinack—and Bolt saw it too."

  "Better not use Bolt as a witness of your sanity, Quentin."

  "And when a limo driver dropped me and my wife off a few days ago, he saw lights on in the house and a servant waiting to meet the car, just as I did. Only the next day I found out that the power hadn't been on in that house ever since Mrs. Tyler came here. And the only footprints in the snow were the driver's and mine."

  She shuddered. "This isn't funny, Mr. Fears," she said.

  "You asked for the truth," said Quentin. "But when I tell you the truth, I stop being Quentin and become Mr. Fears again."

  "I don't believe in ghost stories."

  "That's good," said Quentin, "because my wife's not dead and neither is Mrs. Tyler."

  Sally looked at him for a long moment, her expression shifting among conflicting emotions. Then, abruptly, she r
eached for the knob and drew the door open.

  Bolt practically fell into the room. He laughed nervously as he recovered his balance. "I was just coming in."

  "You were listening at the door," said Quentin.

  "I thought it was funny," said Bolt, "you trying to convince her of some idea that doesn't fit into her narrow little nurseview of the universe."

  Quentin wanted to deck him. "Of course she doesn't believe me. It isn't believable."

  "So why did you tell her? You had her eating out of your hand."

  Quentin felt unutterable contempt for Bolt. Where was the man he thought he knew back in Mixinack? Did he really think that the conversation between him and Sally was nothing but manipulation? "Let's get out of here," said Quentin.

  "About damn time," said Bolt. He shot Sannazzaro a triumphant glance. Quentin took his arm and almost dragged him out of the room.

  "What's the rush?" said Bolt. "You were sure taking your time before."

  "For a while today I thought I liked you," said Quentin. "But I was wrong."

  "Ah, the rest home witch has enchanted you, has she?"

  Instead of jabbing an elbow into his mouth, Quentin strode on ahead.

  "Mr. Fears! Quentin! Wait!"

  He stopped and turned. Sally Sannazzaro had rushed into the hall from Mrs. Tyler's room.

  "Quentin, she spoke! She told me to bring you back!"

  Quentin turned in surprise to look at Bolt. Bolt looked angry, even ashamed. "She's lying," he whispered. "The old lady is brain dead. She's a vegetable."

  "Bolt, I know that she's not, and so do you."

  "She's dead," muttered Bolt. And he didn't come with Quentin back up the corridor.

  Quentin paused in the doorway to meet Sally's gaze. "I wasn't lying, Sally," he said.

  "I trust Mrs. Tyler as a judge of character," she answered softly. "Apparently you have the gift of bringing people back from the dead."

  "Wouldn't that be nice."

  "I'll leave you alone with her, but don't let Bolt in here, Quentin."

  "I won't."

  Then he went inside and closed the door behind him. Mrs. Tyler turned her head and looked at him. "Thank you for coming," she whispered.

  14. Old Lady Tyler

  Her voice was husky from long disuse. When she gestured with her hand it seemed almost translucent in its frailty. She tried to roll over, and it looked as if her body was too heavy for anything to move it; then he helped her roll on her side, to face his chair, and he could feel how light she was, as if she had been shaped of air. Had she no bones? What was it that tied a creature so insubstantial to the earth? Gravity could not possibly hold her here.

  "You've borne up well," she said.

  He shook his head. "I've hardly been eating the last few days."

  "Keep up your strength."

  He didn't need motherly advice from this woman. He needed answers. But now that she was speaking to him, he couldn't think of what to ask.

  "Why didn't you speak till now?"

  "It's not safe for me to stay in my body," she said. "Eternal vigilance."

  "That's the price of liberty, as I recall," said Quentin. "You don't look free to me."

  "But I'm not dead."

  "Who wants to kill you?"

  "Rowena."

  "Your own daughter?"

  "We had a falling-out."

  "I guess."

  "She picked you, not me," said Mrs. Tyler.

  "Picked me for what?" asked Quentin. "Why can't she just open the treasure box?"

  "It's evil of her to call it that."

  "What is it, then?"

  "A coffin. A prison. The gate of hell."

  "Yeah, I'm sure I would have opened it for her if she called it that."

  "You must never, never open the box."

  "Was it you that stopped me before?"

  "I helped you stop."

  "But I was trying to open it."

  "You thought you were. But a wiser part of you was afraid to open it. A wiser part of you was already learning not to trust the succubus."

  Until this moment it had not occurred to Quentin that that's what Madeleine had been all along. A succubus. An evil spirit sent to seduce a man in his sleep. He knew of the myths and legends, but he'd never heard of any stories in which the succubus stayed around long enough to marry the man.

  "What's in the box?" he asked.

  "Pray to God that you never have to know."

  "That's not an answer."

  "I didn't bring you here to answer your questions. You don't know enough to ask the questions that matter. And I can't stay long inside my body. It's too dangerous. Too much can happen while I'm not watching."

  "All right, tell me what I need to know."

  "Rowena keeps my body locked down on this bed, and when I send my spirit wandering, she shadows me. Wherever I roam, there she is, blocking me from this, blocking me from that. I try to watch her closely, but I didn't even know you existed until the succubus brought you to the house and she started raising the dead."

  "Why me?" Quentin asked. "Do you know why?"

  "All I can do is guess. Everything depends on how much she knows. Rowena was such a rebellious child. She hated me as soon as she was old enough to pluck memories out of my mind. She didn't understand what happened, and she wouldn't let me explain. She told me my mind was too loathsome for her ever to want to enter it again."

  Daughters entering their mothers' minds. "What are you people?"

  "Oh, Quentin, how dim are you really? We're witches. The real ones, not the silly ignorant women who prance naked and try to turn our affliction into a mystical religion. It's not something you can choose. Most people have only the faintest touch of the power. A glimmer now and then, that's all they get of the other side. But we grow up looking at the spirit as well as the body. We can see, we can touch everyone, both spirit and body. We hear words spoken aloud, but at the same time we can also hear the thoughts behind them. We can walk on our legs, but we can also send our spark out flying. We can see the living, but we can also see the dead, and when we know where they're anchored we can call them and make them come to us."

  Quentin thought back to Sunday school, to the one story from the Bible that had a witch in it. The witch of Endor.

  "That's right," said Mrs. Tyler. "It always bothers Christians and Jews that their scripture has such a tale in it. How could a woman who had chosen evil have the power to call a great prophet back from the dead? So they say it was fakery. Or it was Satan, pretending to be Samuel. But we know what she did and how she did it. All the dead are within reach. Saul knew Samuel. He must have had some relic of the old prophet—some of his hair. Maybe he even dug into his grave and took a piece of him. Brought it to the witch, and she used it to call him, and Samuel spoke to Saul through her. Maybe Saul was like you—he could see a little, if he really tried. It happened then, and that's how it happens now. That's how she called Jude and poor Simon and Stephen and foolish old Minerva."

  "Dug into their graves?"

  "Maybe not. They were all tied to the house, so she might not have needed relics. But why do you think Christians have always made such a big deal about relics of the saints? The power to call back their spirits—it was forbidden for them to use it, but they also coveted it. If you had a genuine piece of the finger of St. Peter, you could call him to you. There's nothing silly about it."

  "So how did I call my sister Lizzy? I didn't have any part of her."

  Mrs. Tyler was astonished. "You called back your sister? You called the dead yourself? When?"

  "When I was a boy. The age your granddaughter is now. My sister was on the edge of death and I wasn't letting them take her organs for transplant. I sat alone beside her hospital bed, the way I'm sitting here beside you, and she came to me. Or at least she spoke inside my head. And told me that it was all right to let her go."

  "You don't have to tell me the whole story. I see it now. Oh, my. Oh, no."

  "What?"


  "She hid that from me, the little spider. It changes everything."

  "Changes what?"

  "She knows more than I thought. She's not ignorant, she's just stupider than I ever imagined."

  "What is it that she knows?"

  "You aren't in thrall. She doesn't own you. Oh, why didn't I see it? Of course she sent a succubus instead of just enthralling you."

  "Trust me, I was enthralled."

  "On the contrary, you were enchanted, but not enthralled. You're still free."

  "I guess."

  "She thinks she can control the beast through you. Because you're so strong. And free. If you're enthralled when you let the beast out, it won't pay attention to you, it will go straight for her. But if you're free when it touches you, then it will want you. She's counting on your strength to draw it to you. It flows to strength. She thinks that when it's all inside you, taking possession of your body, then she can enthrall you and she'll control it."

  "Control what?"

  "The beast that took my little boy."

  Quentin remembered the story Bolt had told him. "Rowena told Chief Bolt that you murdered your child before he turned two."

  "I know she thinks that's what she saw in my memory, but it was not my boy that I killed. She didn't understand."

  "Didn't understand what?"

  "It had taken control of little Paul before his first birthday. Paul was beautiful and brilliant. He was going to be a glorious child of light. So few boys have the power, but he was the bright and shining one. But the beast saw him and came and stole his body. It took me a while to realize it. I thought at first that maybe some witch had enthralled my child, and I tried to find the link and break it. But the link was inside him. The thing owned his body, and finally I realized that it wasn't my Paul anymore, it was the beast using his stolen body. Paul was gone and I would never get him back. When the beast takes your body, it's his. There's no remnant of you left."

  Now Quentin understood. "So Rowena did see you kill the boy."

  "She saw my memory of cutting the living heart out of the beast. But she was a child. Of course she thought it was my little Paul. To try to stop me, the beast made his body cry and beg in Paul's little baby language. 'No, Mommy, don't hurt me, Mommy.' Rowena saw that. But I had seen the truth. He did things that none of us can do. He moved things with his mind. He destroyed things. We found them: a fly embedded in the midst of a pane of glass; locks opening without keys—ah, you've seen evidence of that? It was the beast."