The Sacred Knife, page 13
More than anything, it reminded Richard that Jason was, ultimately, still a little boy.
Edith turned to Richard and said, “I’m putting Jason in the room across the hall from yours, unless you have any objections.”
It was evident she was neither expecting nor accepting any objections. This might be his uncle’s house, but it was obvious to Jason that Mrs. Davies ruled. “You both must be tired after all that travelling. Dinner will be ready in about an hour.”
Jason followed his uncle to what would be his room for the foreseeable future. His uncle went ahead, pausing occasionally to allow him to catch up, as navigating stairs with crutches was still a challenge.
While his uncle went back down to collect their luggage, Jason sat on the bed and studied his new surroundings.
The room was spacious, even with his bed, a chest of drawers, and two night tables at the head of the bed, one on each side. Opposite the foot of the bed was a desk and a chair with a wall-mounted flat screen television above it. That was totally cool.
Next to the desk was a door, which stood open revealing a clothes closet. As he sat on the bed there were two windows on the wall facing him, both of which were open, allowing a gentle breeze to flow into the room. Although it was very warm outside, the room was cool.
The windows opened up to the front of the house, overlooking the garden and the beach beyond. Beyond the trees he could see the bay.
It would do, he admitted, despite the fact he really wanted to find a reason to express disapproval at every opportunity. It was very different from his London home, but it was still oddly inviting. In London, he couldn’t open the windows, and even if he were able, they would have been kept closed to keep out the traffic noises from the streets below. This was peaceful.
Still, he sensed an atmosphere of melancholy around the house—a sadness.
“The room okay?” asked his uncle, who entered and dropped two suitcases on the floor.
“Yes, sir,” he replied.
“Need help unpacking?”
“No, sir. I can manage,” said Jason.
“Okay, but call if you need help,” said his uncle. “My room is directly across the hall, and your bathroom is also down the hall, second door on the left. I plan to do more renovations, including adding an ensuite to this room, similar to the one I added to my own. That’ll be a few months from now, though, so in the meantime you’ll have to hoof it down the hall.”
“That’s fine, sir. I’ll manage,” said Jason. Then he thought for a moment. “Do you dress for dinner here, sir?” he asked.
Richard shook his head. “No, not unless we have dinner guests. We tend to be very informal.”
Jason remembered the face in the window—or maybe it was only his imagination. He decided to ask, “Is there anyone else living here? I mean, besides you and Mrs. Davies.”
“No,” replied his uncle. “Actually, there’s just you and me. Mrs. Davies lives a short distance away and prefers to go home at the end of the day. If the weather is particularly bad, she does stay over. But that’s the exception, not the rule.”
Just the two of them in this big house; at least it wouldn’t be too hard to avoid his uncle. As much as his uncle was trying to be nice, Jason just couldn’t get past feeling resentment towards him. No, he thought, I don’t want to like him.
“Does Mrs. Davies know about me?” Jason asked timidly. “I mean—does she know about my parents, and why we came here?”
Richard nodded. “Yes. She’s aware of the circumstances, and believe me, I feel sorry for anyone who gets on her bad side.”
The corner of Jason’s mouth twitched.
Lord, thought Richard, did the kid actually start to smile?
Chapter 21
A loud clap of thunder startled Jason awake.
He sat up in bed and surveyed his surroundings, wiping perspiration off his face with the sleeve of his pyjamas. The heat and humidity of the hot summer day were yielding to a colder air mass, generating the violent thunderstorm.
The room lit up in a bright bluish light, followed almost instantaneously by a loud bang as the accompanying thunder rumbled through the night sky. Heavy rain, driven by the wind, rattled against the bedroom window. Jason swung his feet out from under the bed covers and turned on the lamp sitting on the night table, flooding the room with a soft yellow glow.
“Well, at least the power is still on,” he murmured to himself. He hobbled to the window and stared out the window, both thrilled and a little terrified by nature’s tempest. He looked out the window; despite the darkness, he could make out angry whitecaps racing across the water.
He limped back to his bed, dropping onto the edge and breathing heavily. His knee had still not completely healed, and he still wore a knee brace. The doctors had told him that in time all the screws and rods would be removed and eventually he might gain full mobility.
His physiotherapy was continuing—basically following the same routine as at the hospital in London—but the leg was still weak and his knee throbbed almost constantly.
He was leaning over to turn off the light and pull himself back into bed when he heard a noise. It sounded like a low wail, and at first, he thought it was the wind. Something told him it wasn’t the wind; it didn’t have that undulating up and down sound. This was more constant—it would start and then end at the same low volume. It sounded like it was coming from the library, the room below him.
There was another flash, then more rumbling. This time there was a longer pause between the flash and the crack of the thunder, indicating that the storm was moving away.
He listened for the noise again but heard nothing. Maybe it was just the wind.
No, there it was again—a soft, plaintive wail.
Jason stood a little unsteadily and took up his crutches. Maybe a window broke in the library. He had not heard any glass shattering, but maybe that clap of thunder that woke him covered the noise. If a windowpane had broken, the library could suffer water damage.
His first thought was to wake his uncle, but he was reluctant to disturb him just because he had heard a noise. That’s something a little kid would do, and he was eleven, a few months away from his twelfth birthday.
Nervously, he worked his way down the stairs. His anxiety was not just related to the storm and the noise in the library, but also because he was still not totally adept at using crutches, especially going up and down the stairs.
He reached the library without doing a face plant at the bottom of the stairs, which pleased him immensely. The door was open, and he reached in and flicked on the light switch, bathing the library with bright white light from the chandelier.
He shivered, wondering why the room was so cold when the rest of the house still retained some of the day’s heat. As the library was a corner room, there were windows on two sides. He stepped into the room and scanned the windows. There was no evidence of broken glass.
Maybe it was his imagination?
There it was again: a small wail—or was it a quiet sob? What disturbed him was that it came from the corner, where the old writing table was situated opposite the windows.
His uncle used the table as a computer desk, and Jason could see that the computer was turned off; not even a screensaver was displayed. Jason guessed his uncle, aware of the impending storm, had likely shut it down completely in order to avoid damage from possible power surges. A high-back leather chair was in front of the desk, but Jason could not see if anyone was sitting there as the chair was facing away from him.
He tentatively took a step towards the chair and then stopped, his heart hammering against his chest so hard he expected it to ram through his rib cage.
Horrified and unable to move, he watched as the chair slowly swivelled around towards him.
The lights went out. There was a flash as lightening lit up the room and Jason found himself staring into the pale face of a young boy.
He screamed. The boy screamed. Jason jerked away from the chair and tripped over his crutches, falling backward and hitting his head on the pine floor. Then everything went black.
***
The thunder woke Richard.
He squinted at the alarm clock beside his bed and groaned; 3:30 a.m. Thunderstorms were not unusual occurrences during the summer, and normally he would sleep through them. This storm, as predicted, was a little more violent than the typical thunderstorms that raced across the province.
He was going to roll over and go back to sleep but thought he should check on his nephew. While Richard was used to these storms, he wasn’t sure Jason was, and he didn’t want the boy frightened. He got up and flicked on the light and made his way out of the bedroom.
He noticed that the door to Jason’s bedroom was ajar and a light was on in the room. He knocked softly and peered around the door into the room. Jason was not in bed, and he noted that the crutches that the boy kept by his bed were missing.
Maybe he went to the bathroom, thought Richard. He went down the hall and knocked on the bathroom door. “Jason? Are you in there?” Getting no response, Richard hesitated before trying to enter, to respect the boy’s privacy. He knocked again, then turned the knob and opened the door. The boy was not there.
He turned and glanced towards the stairs and saw a glow of light that he hadn’t noticed earlier. Probably raiding the refrigerator for a late-night snack, he thought. Better go check on him, anyway. At that moment, the lights went out almost simultaneously with a flash of bluish brilliance, coupled with a loud cannon-like crack of thunder.
Then Richard heard screams. He ran.
Heedless of the risk of plunging headfirst down the stairs, Richard practically leapt to the bottom. Just as he landed in the main hall, the lights flickered back on. His breath caught in his chest when he saw his nephew sprawled on his back in the library.
“Jason!”
Feeling panic rising up inside of him, Richard fell to his knees beside the boy and put his arms under his head.
Jason awoke, gasping, with his head cradled in his uncle’s arms.
“Jason? Jason?”
Jason blinked and tried to respond, but the only sound he could make was a, “mmmph.”
“Jason?” repeated his uncle.
Jason took a breath and exhaled slowly, getting his breathing under control. “I’m okay, sir,” he said, but he could tell Richard was unconvinced. “Really.” He added, noticing the lights were back on. How long had he been out?
Supported by his uncle, Jason stood up.
“What were you doing down here at this hour?” The concern in Richard’s voice was replaced by suspicion.
“The storm woke me up,” replied Jason. “I thought I heard a noise in the library and thought maybe a window broke or something.”
He stopped talking. How much could he tell his uncle? “I came down to check. There was a loud bang, and the lights went out. I must have jumped and tripped over my crutches,” he added sheepishly.
Best not to mention what I saw in the chair, he thought. Maybe there was nothing there, and he had only imagined seeing someone. He glanced over at the writing table. The chair was positioned normally, and the computer was off, but he could see a face reflected in the screen. He started involuntarily before he realized he was looking at his own reflection.
“Jason?”
Richard placed his hands on the sides of Jason’s face and looked intently into the boy’s eyes. They seemed normal, but not being a doctor, he wasn’t sure what he should be looking for. He gently felt the back of Jason’s head but could not feel any bumps.
“I’m taking you to the hospital to get checked out.”
Jason balked at the idea of going to the hospital. “It’s not necessary, sir. I’m fine—really, I am.”
“You already had a bad concussion. I’m responsible for you, and I’m not taking any chances. Now get upstairs and get dressed. We’re going,” commanded Richard, more harshly than he intended.
Jason blinked and meekly said, “Yes, sir.”
Richard watched his nephew awkwardly climb the stairs. He didn’t mean to be so curt with the boy, but finding Jason dazed and confused on the library floor scared him more than he cared to admit.
Chapter 22
“Follow the light, Jason,” said the doctor, shining a pencil of light into the boy’s eye. He pulled down the lower eyelid and then pulled up the upper lid. He repeated the process on the other eye. Then he felt the back of his head.
Jason sat patiently on the side of an examining table in a curtained part of the hospital’s emergency room. Since the accident, he had been through this countless times before; different doctor, different hospital, different country, same shit. It was getting tiresome.
“Your nephew is fine,” said the doctor, looking over to where Richard was standing.
“Told you,” growled Jason, scowling at his uncle.
“Don’t be too hard on your uncle,” said the doctor. “As you previously had a concussion, having you checked out was a very wise precaution.”
Turning to Richard he added, “I don’t think there is anything to worry about, but if he complains of a headache or dizziness, bring him back in.”
Thanking the doctor, Richard gestured for Jason to follow him out of the hospital. He walked slowly, allowing the boy to keep up with him. His nephew had grown adept at using his crutches on flat surfaces.
“You’re getting pretty good with those things,” commented Richard. He was desperately looking for something—anything—positive to say to lift the boy out of his moodiness.
“I’ll be glad when I don’t need them anymore. They suck,” Jason responded sullenly.
“Yeah, I know. Benjamin says you’re making good progress with the physiotherapy, and thinks you’ll be walking without them in a couple of weeks. You might need a cane for a while, but it’ll be easier getting around with a cane than crutches.”
The suggestion actually produced a smile. The boy rarely smiled, but when he did, he radiated a warmth that could dispel even the most melancholy of Richard’s moods.
“Then you can also get rid of the sadist,” added Jason.
Jason was referring to Benjamin Lyman, the physiotherapist Richard had hired to oversee his therapy. “No pain, no gain” was Lyman’s motto. Jason felt Lyman enjoyed the pain part a little too much.
“Don’t be too hard on poor Ben,” grinned Richard. “He thinks very highly of you and is impressed with your progress.”
When they entered the parking lot, the sun was just starting to peek over the eastern horizon. The storm had passed, and the hot humidity of the previous day was replaced with cooler temperatures.
“Are you hungry? How about we grab some breakfast on the way home?” offered Richard.
Jason shrugged and said, “Well, maybe a little.”
A few minutes later they pulled into the parking lot of a small family-run restaurant that Richard was familiar with. It was one of the few restaurants that served a full breakfast menu, and the coffee was the best in Charlottetown. Even at this early hour it was busy—an indication of its popularity with the morning crowd—but they managed to find an empty table in a quiet corner.
They placed their order and sat in silence for a few minutes before Jason tentatively asked, “Sir, how old is your house?”
“Our house,” corrected Richard. Even though Jason had been living with him in the house for almost two months, the boy still didn’t see it as his home. “I’m not sure exactly, Jason,” replied Richard. “I think it’s over 160 years old, give or take a year. Edith could probably tell you more, as her family has lived here for generations.”
The boy was avoiding eye contact, and he busied himself with rearranging his cutlery and pulling nervously at his napkin.
“Hmm . . . ah. . . Have you ever heard strange noises or anything?” he asked hesitantly.
“Strange noises? No, not really,” answered Richard. He studied the boy carefully, wondering what had brought on this line of questioning. “I’ve only owned the house for a couple of years, and I didn’t move in until after the renovations were completed about a year ago. It’s an old house, and like any old house it has its share of creaks and groans.”
“Oh, I guess that makes sense.” Jason quickly glanced up as his uncle, who was staring at him oddly, and then went back to picking apart his napkin. Stupid! Stupid! Next, he was going to ask his uncle if he had seen any strange lights or something. Hey, Uncle Rick, seen anything weird in the house, like a ghost or something? What did he expect? His uncle wasn’t going to say, “sure Jas, old boy. Place is haunted.”
Jason was struggling to figure out what he truly felt for his uncle. Deep down he knew his uncle cared about him, but he resented the fact that his uncle was here, and his father wasn’t. He knew that was not his uncle’s fault that his parents were dead, but he could not allow himself to like his uncle, could not get past that resentment, feeling that liking his uncle would somehow be disrespectful of his father’s memory.
Although confused about his feelings towards his uncle, Jason was certain that their relationship would not be helped if his uncle thought he was a nutcase.
Fortunately, Jason was spared from further probing with the timely arrival of their breakfast. Despite his earlier nonchalance, Jason was surprised at just how hungry he was.
They ate silently, but Jason could feel his uncle’s scrutiny.
Richard savoured the last of his coffee while he wondered, yet again, about his effectiveness as Jason’s guardian. The boy had built up a wall between them that defied every effort on his part to pull down. He tried to be supportive and understanding, and he tried not to meet his nephew’s sullenness with anger, reminding himself that he, after all, was the adult in the relationship.
He tried to put himself in the boy’s shoes: a few short months ago, his parents had been killed in an automobile accident that had almost claimed him, as well; he had been hunted by a homicidal maniac; he had moved to a new country; and he had been subjected to regular physiotherapy sessions for his injuries, in addition to weekly counselling sessions with a child psychologist.
