“Miz Templeton?”
“Yes!” she said inaudibly.
“What’d you say, Miz Templeton?”
“Yes, send him up!” Janice cried, dropping the phone.
Holding onto the doorknob, Janice pulled herself painfully up to her feet. She felt dissociated from her body and swayed dizzily. She shut her eyes to steady herself for a moment, then directed her shaking hand to the chain bolt.
The elevator rose with a hum.
A panel of light and a clang of doors announced Hoover, dramatically spotlighting his exit, as he stepped out of the suspended vehicle and paused, hat in hand, staring down the long, dark hallway toward Janice. As the elevator descended behind him, plunging him into silhouette, he took a step forward and stopped again, testing the mood and temper of the enemy, probing the terrain for hidden pitfalls and booby traps before daring to advance further. Janice remained at the door, watching him, waiting for him to approach, but he didn’t move.
Suddenly, the shrieking voice pummeled at Janice’s back and spilled out into the hallway.
“DADDYDADDY DADDYDADDYDADDY!”
Hoover took a tentative step forward.
“Hurry!” Janice screamed at him.
Her senses absorbed the events of the next minutes in the abstract—fleeting images, some vague, some clear, with little continuity and no particular order of importance: the smell of wet wool as Hoover sped past her through the door; his stance as he paused on the threshold of the living room, recalling the circus lion tamer she had once seen as a child; her tripping over the telephone, still on the floor, as she hesitantly closed in on Hoover’s back; her skinned knees leaving bloodstains on the hall carpet; Hoover’s booming voice dominating her own sobs of pain and the screams of her child.
“Audrey Rose! It’s Daddy! Here, darling! I’m here!”
“Daddydaddydaddydaddy!”
“NO! HERE, AUDREY ROSE! DADDY IS HERE, DARLING!”
A delirium of sound—mad patterns of movement—approaches, denials, entreaties, rejections—a lunatic kaleidoscope of sight and sound—leading finally and inevitably to the first startled suspension of disbelief—the bright look of recognition—the heart-stabbing smile of pure joy on the blood-smeared face—the quick scamper into waiting arms and the unifying embrace, bringing with it the sudden, blessed absence of sound—the descent of calm—sweet, languorous, settling peacefully on the torn air, mending the breaks, renewing silence.
Hoover remained kneeling, cradling the child in his arms, comforting her, quieting her with gentle strokes and soft whispers. Almost immediately, her wet eyelids began to flutter and close in sleep.
Janice stood, tightly clinging to the back of a chair to keep from falling, watching through tears, as Hoover rose with the sleeping child in his arms and slowly, so as not to waken her, carried her up the stairs and into her room.
Janice was scarcely aware of following them; her bruised and aching body seemed to move under some automatic compulsion. She only knew that somehow she had arrived at the bedroom door and was silently observing Hoover as he gently removed her child’s pajamas and placed her naked and sleeping form on the bed. Then, moving rapidly between bedroom and both bathrooms, Hoover assembled his makeshift clinic of towels, Bactine, Solarcaine ointment, Band-Aids, a basin of warm, soapy water, and several washcloths.
He worked on Ivy’s wounds with a sure and practiced touch, washed the encrusted blood from her face and hands, then sterilized and bandaged the cuts. He spread ointment on the raw and blistered fingers and wrapped them loosely in two towels. Janice’s numbed brain took in each motion and gesture, accepting it all without question.
“Fresh pajamas!” He flung the words crisply over his shoulder. It was the first time he had addressed Janice that night.
She stumbled to the bureau and removed a flannel nightgown. As she turned to deliver it, she found Hoover standing behind her. His eyes probed the dazed, ravaged face with a look of great sadness, then glanced down her messy, torn dress to her blood-smeared legs. He sighed deeply and gently took the garment from her hands.
After easing Ivy’s flushed body under the covers, he turned to Janice and, taking her arm, softly whispered, “Come, let me help you now.”
The warm water felt soft and soothing against Janice’s bruised, chafed skin as Hoover cleansed her knees and legs with the soapy washcloth. She sat where he had placed her on the edge of her bed and watched him as he knelt at her feet, deftly maneuvering the wet cloth around each cut, carefully avoiding direct contact with any open wounds. It vaguely occurred to her that she should be resisting these intimate ministrations, but at the moment she had neither the energy nor the mental capacity to do anything about it.
As Hoover worked on her legs, words tumbled out of him in quick whispers which, for a long time, Janice failed to hear. Her ears received his intonations as simply another sound in the room along with the clock and the water trickling into the basin each time he wrung out the washcloth. When her fractured brain did finally begin to absorb the content of his words, she discovered that he was lecturing her in the gently condescending tone of a teacher instructing a student.
“I know you don’t take the responsibility of a child lightly. I see the guardrails on your windows. I’ve seen the way you hold Ivy’s hand when you cross the street. But we’re dealing here with something far greater than Ivy’s physical welfare. We’re dealing with something that’s indestructible. Her soul. And that’s what we must help and try to save—the soul of Audrey Rose which is in pain and torment.…”
His hands were manipulating her legs with the towel, drying the excess water with soothing, mopping motions.
“A pain and torment as real as the actual physical torment that took Audrey’s body out of this life. Ivy is experiencing the same anguish that Audrey experienced in that terrible fire, and Audrey will continue to abuse Ivy’s body until her soul is set free.”
His words throbbed dully in Janice’s head.
Dear God, what was he saying?
“She will keep pushing Ivy back to the source of the problem; she’ll be trying to get back to that moment and will be leading Ivy into dangers as tormenting and destructive as the fire that took Audrey’s life.”
The softly uttered words oscillated in and out of Janice’s blurred consciousness, chaotic, distorted, a medley of terrifying catchwords and phrases. Soul. Harmful. Ivy. Danger. Audrey Rose. What was he saying?
Shut it out!
“And now I can no longer just leave. It might have been simple once, when your husband so rightly asked, well, why if we’re doing such a good job with the child, why don’t you just go away and leave us to raise her? Fine! There was nothing I could say to that. He had the justice of man and God on his side. Why do you come here and upset our lives? Why do you come into my home and bring your turmoil with you? What can we do for you, man? We don’t know how to help you! But! Look what happened! The very first night I entered your home.…”
He was massaging her legs now with the baby oil in long, kneading, provocative strokes, replacing weariness with euphoria.
“That very first night, there was Audrey Rose! Wanting! Needing! Crying out for help! For my help! Saying, here, Daddy! I’m here. I need you, Daddy. And making her presence known to me.”
The stroking action of his hands eased off somewhat.
“You lied, Mrs. Templeton. I know you lied. Your daughter didn’t have these attacks all through her life as you told me. Isn’t that true? She never had these nightmares before I came, did she?”