“You are right of course,” he finally said. “It would be the simplest thing for me just to walk away. And it’s quite possible it may ultimately come to that. But put yourself in my position, Mr. Templeton.…”
He was interrupted by the sudden ring of the house telephone—a strident, continual ring that signified danger. The last time it had rung like that was when the building was thought to be on fire.
Bill jumped up and dashed down the hallway. Janice rose, as did Elliot Hoover, startled and confused by the sudden activity.
Bill snatched up the receiver and heard Dominick’s tense voice say, “go ahead, Mrs. Federico.”
“Bill?” Carole’s frantic whisper stung his ear. “Bill, get down here! Something’s happening to Ivy!”
“What is it?” Bill snapped.
“I don’t know … she’s … she’s running around the room, crying.…” Carole’s voice heightened with panic. “She’s having some kind of nightmare.…”
“Coming!” Bill said, slamming down the receiver and turning to Janice, standing white-faced behind him. “It’s Ivy! Get Kaplan’s number!”
The fleeting look between them raised the shroud on a memory shared, yet abhorred. Janice felt a chill sweep through her veins as she pulled the leather-bound telephone book from the kitchen drawer, then found herself floating featherlike, through the service door and down the fire stairs in pursuit of Bill. She was unaware of her feet as they sped her down the iron and concrete steps to the floor below, transporting her to the Federicos’ door, where Bill stood, knocking lightly and quietly calling, “Carole! It’s Bill!” An anxious heart pounded in Janice’s ear merging with the noise of the chain as it slipped off its track and the door opened inward. Carole stood on the threshold, her tense face white as a sheet.
“Upstairs,” she cried faintly and hurried after Bill, who pushed past her through the archway into their small living room and up the short flight of stairs.
“Everything was fine,” she panted frenziedly. “She had dinner … went to bed on time … then I heard these noises … I was in the kitchen … I went up … and … you’ll see … it’s … it’s frightening … I mean … she’s sleepwalking or something … and crying … I tried to wake her up … but I couldn’t.…”
The door to the spare bedroom was partially ajar. Bill waited before entering, listening to the terrified little sounds emerging from the room; the scampering of bare feet on the carpeted floor; the light impact of a body crashing into object; the soft, mouselike weeping of infantile anguish, desperately repeating the same pleading litany of strung-together words, “Mommydaddy mommydaddy mom-mydaddy mommy hothothothot mommydaddy…,” they had heard on certain other nights more than seven years before.
As Janice quietly entered the room behind Bill, the bizarre, incredible memory of that distant time, sapped of reality for seven long years, sprang back to sudden and pulsating life.
Totally oblivious to their presence, Ivy’s eyes shone wildly; her feverish face was swept with a thousand nighttime terrors as she fled about the small, cluttered room this way and that in random disorder, knocking into furniture, chairs, sewing machine, desk, climbing over the larger pieces in order to gain some unknown, desperately sought objective. As before, the tiny, babylike, fretting sounds, “mommydaddy mommydaddy hothothot mommydaddy…,” underscored her tortured necessity to succeed.
Each time she’d get by an obstacle and seem to approach the door or window—her flailing, groping, reaching toward the glass—she would draw back suddenly in pain and plunge back into the helter-skelter circle of confusion, weeping, crying, mewling her plaintive lament, “Mommydaddy mommydaddy hothothothot mommydaddy mommydaddy.…”
Janice’s hand grasped Bill’s tightly as they stood rooted, just inside the room, helplessly watching the macabre spectacle, knowing, from past experience, how ineffective they both were during these crises.
“Ivy, it’s Daddy,” Bill pleaded, stretching out his arms to embrace her as she passed him, her eyes blazing lights projecting out of a feverish face, as she drew away from him and fled to a far corner of the room.
“Call Dr. Kaplan, Janice,” he whispered huskily.
WAIT!”
The voice was Elliot Hoover’s, speaking from the doorway directly behind them. Janice turned and saw him looking intently at Ivy, rushing about the room at a quickened pace, totally driven by the acute urgency of her nightmare. Hoover’s eyes were fixed on the tormented child, critically observing every movement and gesture she made, listening tot eh rasping, thoroughly exhausted voice repeating, “Mommydaddy mommydaddy hothothot mommydaddy mommydaddy.…”
Janice felt Bill’s hand stiffen in hers as he, too, turned and planted a stern, warning look on the interloper.
But Hoover ignored them both, his eyes and mind wholly devoted to their daughter, trying to define the meaning of the terrible hallucination in which she was caught. And then a look of inexpressible sadness swept across his face; his eyes grew large and haunted as he uttered, “My God,” in a barely audible breath.
He quickly stepped past them into the room and worked his way closer to Ivy, who was reeling about dizzily, near the window, her hands seeking the glass, reaching for it, gropingly, each time pulling back in pain and fear, as if it were molten lava.
“Audrey!” The word burst out of Hoover like a shot: “Audrey Rose! It’s Daddy.” And he took another step toward the agonized child fretting at the window, waving her thin arms at the glass despairingly, pleading with the demons without in the high-pitched, sorrowing voice of a child half her age, “Mommydaddy mommydaddy hothothothot mommydaddy mommydaddy.…”
“Audrey Rose! I’m here, Audrey! Here!”
Janice’s knuckles turned white in Bill’s hand as she watched Hoover take still another step toward Ivy, who gave no indication that she heard him or was aware of his presence.
“Over here, Audrey! It’s Daddy! I’ve come!”
Bill’s hand sought release from Janice’s grip, and she knew he was about to move, about to seize Hoover and throw him out of the room. She saw the murderous intent in Bill’s eyes and flashed him a look entreating patience.
“Audrey! This way, darling! Audrey Rose! It’s Daddy!”
Suddenly, Ivy swung about from the window and turned her flushed, fear-ravaged face to Hoover, gazing up at him like a suppliant asking for mercy, the beseeching babble of words shifting to “Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddy.…”
“Yes, Audrey! It’s Daddy! It’s Daddy! This way, Darling!” he desperately urged in a breathless voice. “This way, Audrey Rose! This Way! Come!” And taking a step backwards, he extended his hands to the startled child, offering direction, inviting trust. “This way, darling! This way!”
Slowly, the anguish and panic seemed to drain from their daughter’s face; the rapid, feverish intensity of the words seemed to relax, to space out and become more defined, “Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy.…”
“Yes darling, this way,” Hoover coaxed, bending down and extending his two arms fully to her. “Come, Audrey, come!”
“Daddy … daddy?” Her eyes remained fastened on a point just beyond the image of Hoover, squinting hard to penetrate the opaque veil of the all-engulfing nightmare.