Craig gaped helplessly at his son, not sure whether to laugh or cry or vent the rage he felt at Michael for going off alone and frightening him so. Bone-tired, he’d been wandering through the swamp for hours, searching for his son, fearing the worst. But now, that didn’t matter. Michael was safe. And he’d found Kelly. Craig reached down to the dash of the Bayliner and began flashing his navigation lights. All around him the other boats turned toward him, moving quickly closer.
“They’re back,” Craig yelled as Carl Anderson’s boat came near. “Michael found Kelly!”
Carl pulled his boat alongside Craig’s and tossed a line to the other man. Michael pulled his boat up to Carl’s.
“Kelly?” Ted Anderson said, his voice shaking. “Honey, are you all right?”
Kelly looked up at her father. “Are you still mad at me?”
Ted took a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh. “How can I be mad at you? I thought you—” He cut off his words, unwilling to complete the thought. “I’m just glad you’re back. Where did you go? We’ve been hunting for hours.” He held out his hand and helped Kelly move from Michael’s boat into his father’s.
“I got lost,” Kelly told him. “I was just running at first, and then I was afraid to come out. And when I decided to come home, I didn’t know where I was. If Michael hadn’t found me …” Her voice trailed off as she remembered what her father had said about Michael only a few hours before.
But Ted looked down at her, then his arms went around her and he pulled her close.
“Maybe I was wrong,” he said. “Maybe he’s not such a bad kid, after all. The important thing is that you’re both back, and you’re both fine.”
But we’re not fine, Kelly thought silently. Michael’s not fine and I’m not fine. Then she shivered in her father’s arms as Clarey Lambert’s words echoed in her mind.
It’s time to take your souls back from thems as stole ’em.
Only then would they be truly fine again.
• • •
“Listen,” Barbara Sheffield said. “Do you hear something?”
But Mary was already on her feet, moving toward the patio door. Barbara followed her, and as Mary slid the wide glass panel open, they heard the sound of a boat coming along the canal.
“That’s the Bayliner,” Barbara said, her voice vibrant as hope washed away the fear that had been building in her as the long night had worn on. “They must have found them!”
Mary gazed anxiously at Barbara. “Are you sure?”
“It has to be,” Barbara replied. “Craig wouldn’t come back for any other reason.”
They ran across the lawn, coming to the dock just as the three boats pulled up.
“They’re safe!” Barbara cried, tears streaming down her cheeks as she ran out onto the dock. “Michael, what were you thinking of? Do you have any idea of how frightened I’ve been? You promised you’d stay within sight of your father!”
But like Craig’s, Barbara’s brief spate of anger dissolved at the sight of Michael’s grin, and she threw her arms around him, nearly toppling both of them into the water as his skiff shot away from the dock.
“Jeez, Mom! Let me get tied up before you drown both of us!”
A few minutes later they were all in the house, and Mary, seeing Kelly in the bright light of the kitchen, gasped.
Kelly’s clothes were soaked with mud, and her legs, scratched and bleeding, were covered with slime. “Darling, what happened?” she asked.
Kelly looked ruefully down at her ruined clothes, then up at her mother. “I–I guess maybe running away in the swamp in the middle of the night isn’t the best thing I’ve ever done, is it?”
Mary stared at her daughter for a moment, then the tension that had been building in her all night suddenly snapped and she began laughing. “Well, I guess it isn’t,” she said when she finally regained control of herself. “Go dump those clothes in the washer and take a shower, and I’ll get you a robe.” She hurried out of the kitchen, returning a few seconds later with her own favorite bathrobe, which she took to Kelly, who was already in the small bathroom Carl had built behind the kitchen so he wouldn’t have to track mud through the house when he returned from work each afternoon. When she came back, she sank into a chair across from Michael.
“How did you find her?” she asked.
Michael said nothing, knowing there was no way to explain the strange things that had happened to him in the swamp. Indeed, even after listening to Clarey, he. barely understood it himself.
“It don’t matter how it works,” the old woman had told him. “Alls I can tell you is I always know where the children is, and what they’s doin’. And I can call ’em, too, like I called Jonas tonight, and sent him out to get Kelly. And I was talkin’ to you, too, tellin’ you where to go, tellin’ you where to look.” She’d gazed deep into him then. “You think you know the swamp, but you don’t know half of what I know. So don’t you be thinkin’ you can always do anythin’ you want, you hear? I might not always be lookin’ out for you!”
“I–I guess I was just lucky,” he said at last, feeling the eyes of his own parents, and Kelly’s, too, on him. “I sort of pictured where she went into the swamp, and where she’d have had to go. I mean — well, there’s only so many places you can go on foot.”
Finally Kelly came out of the bathroom, her mother’s robe wrapped around her, and joined the group around the table. She tried to tell them everything that had happened, but when she came to the snake, she stopped, shuddering at the memory.
“Kelly?” Mary asked. “What is it?”
“A — A snake,” Kelly stammered. “It was a water moccasin, and it crawled right over my leg.”
Mary stifled a scream.
“What did you do?” Carl Anderson asked.
Kelly looked up at her grandfather. “I didn’t do anything,” she said softly. “I just held still. I didn’t move, and the snake went away.”
Carl’s eyes held on Kelly. She felt her flesh crawl as, just for an instant, a peculiar look came into her grandfather’s eyes. A look that somehow frightened her.
“How did you know to do that?” he asked.
Kelly hesitated for only a split second. “Michael told me,” she said. “Remember? A few days ago, when we went out into the swamp together? He told me that if I ran into a snake, I should hold still. He said it couldn’t see me if I didn’t move.”
Carl’s gaze held hers for a second longer, then he nodded. “He’s right. They can sense you, but they don’t strike at what’s not moving. If something’s not moving, they think it’s dead and they leave it alone.”
Once again Kelly felt her skin crawl, and when she glanced quickly at Michael, she was certain he was having the same feeling.
But neither of them said anything.
Finally Barbara stood up. “I have to go home,” she announced. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep, but at least I can go to bed and try to get some rest. I’ll go up and get Jenny.”
The group in the kitchen moved toward the family room and were just starting out onto the terrace when Barbara, her face ashen, appeared at the top of the stairs.
“She’s not here,” she said, her voice cracking. “Craig, Jenny’s gone!”
The chatter of conversation died as everyone in the room stared at Barbara in stunned silence.
20
“Wake up, Judd.” Warren Phillips spoke the words harshly, shaking the sleeping man’s shoulder. “Come on, Judd, it’s almost dawn.”
Judd groaned, pulling away, but when Phillips prodded him once more, his eyes opened and he groggily sat up.
The first thing he noticed was that the pain in his joints was gone. His limbs were once more as supple as they had ever been.