At the foot of the bed, Dr. Potter held the tiny form that had finally slipped free from the strictures of the womb. Its eyes were closed, and there was a bluish cast to its skin.
Potter held the baby deftly in his left hand, its head down, and with his right hand, he delivered a quick slap to its buttocks.
Potter's eyes met Amos's, and a silent message seemed to pass between the two men. Nearby, Buck Shields stood, watching the doctor, watching his father-in-law, waiting.
"Again," Amos Hall said, his impassive eyes fixed on the baby. "Try again."
Potter nodded once, then struck the baby's rump again, harder this time.
"That's it, then," Amos Hall said softly.
Laura Shields began screaming, and her husband quickly gathered her in his arms, holding her head against his chest, muffling her cries as best he could. She struggled in his arms, trying to work herself loose, trying to reach out for her baby, but it was no use. Buck held her immobile, and after a moment she made herself stop screaming, closed her eyes, and lay back on the pillow, sobbing softly.
Potter sighed. "This can't keep happening," he said quietly, as Amos Hall took the tiny body from his hands. Then he moved to the bed, and reached out, tentatively touching Laura's hair. She jerked away from him.
"Go away," she whispered in a broken voice. "Just go away and leave me alone."
"It was born dead, Laura," Dr. Potter told her. "You have to believe that. Your baby was born dead. You've had a miscarriage."
She opened her eyes and tried to reconcile his words to her memories. "Miscarried?" she asked. "It was born dead?"
Potter nodded. "It was premature, and it was born dead. You have to remember that, Laura. Can you do that?"
"I miscarried," Laura repeated in disbelieving tones. "I miscarried, and my baby was born dead."
A few minutes later, as Potter's sedative began easing her into sleep, Laura Shields repeated the words to herself once more, but she knew she didn't believe them.
The baby had been alive. She was sure it had been alive. And she was sure they had killed it. They had killed it, and they had sent it to Nathaniel.
But still, she couldn't be sure. It had all been so strange, and even as it had all been happening, and the baby was being born, she couldn't be sure of what was real and what was memory. And now, she would never really know.
Then, in her last moments of consciousness, she came to a decision. She would try to accept what the doctor had told her. From now on, when she thought of this night, she'd tell herself that all that had happened was that she'd miscarried.
She'd miscarried, and the baby was born dead;
It would be easier that way.
Eric Simpson cocked his head and stared at Michael Hall. He looked as though he was watching something, but Eric couldn't figure out what it was. "Somethin' wrong?" he finally asked.
Michael started, and then his eyes slowly focused on Eric. "I thought I saw something," he said uncertainly. "Or heard something. And I've got a headache."
Eric grinned. "That's the stuff we slopped down the floor with. It'll go away as soon as we're outside. Come on."
It was nearly midnight, and the cleanup from the foaling was finally done. But Michael couldn't quite remember finishing the job. He'd been hosing down the barn floor, and his head had begun to ache, and then he'd seen something. It had only been a flash, and it had seemed to come from inside his head, and yet he was sure he'd recognized some faces.
His grandfather, and Dr. Potter.
And Dr. Potter had been holding something, but Michael hadn't quite been able to make out what it was.
And there had been a sound, high pitched, like the shriek of the wind, or like someone screaming.
Then it was gone.
Now, outside in the cool night air, Michael couldn't even quite remember what it had been like, except for the scream.
The scream was still echoing in his head, and despite what Eric had said, his head still ached.
"It's Nathaniel," he muttered. "I bet it's Nathaniel."
Suddenly the sound of a screen door slamming jarred his reverie, and he heard Eric's mother's voice.
"You boys all done? Want something to eat?"
Michael looked up at Mrs. Simpson. She seemed to be a long way away, and he couldn't really see her very well. He shook his head. "I-I better get back to Grandpa's house."
"Would you like a ride?" Mrs. Simpson asked. "It's past midnight."
Again Michael shook his head. "I can ride my bike. I'll be okay."
His head still pounding with pain and his vision oddly blurry, Michael mounted his bike, whistled to Shadow, and rode off into the night. When he was gone, Ione Simpson put an arm around her son's shoulders and started toward the house. "Is Michael all right?" she asked. "He seemed sort of-odd, just now."
Eric frowned up at his mother. "He was weird," he said emphatically. "Out in the barn, he started acting funny, and then he said he had a headache." Michael had said something else, too, Eric thought, something about Nathaniel. He considered telling his mother that as well, then changed his mind. No point in getting his mom all riled up over that old ghost story. But it really was weird. And a little scary. Eric felt a shiver start crawling up his spine.
It was as he came around the curve between the Simpsons' farm and his mother's that Michael first became aware of the lights.
Far off to the left, dimmed by the distance, he first thought they were fireflies. He slowed, then stopped the bike, dropping one foot to the ground to maintain his balance. Shadow, his hackles slightly raised, crouched beside him. Michael squinted into the darkness, trying to determine shapes and forms, but there were none. Only a faint glow, broken every now and then as something passed between himself and the source of the lights. Frowning, the pain in his head increasing by the moment, he started the bike moving again, concentrating on the lights until the dark shape of his mother's house cut them off. And then, as he came to the driveway, they reappeared, and he suddenly knew where they were.
Potter's Field.
His mind flashed back twenty-four hours, and he saw what his grandfather had described-a woman, her back bent as she stooped over, wandering in the night, searching, constantly searching for what she would never find.
He remembered the tale, and as his headache worsened, he tried to shake it from his mind. He couldn't.
He dismounted the bicycle, and began walking it up the driveway until he stood in the shelter of the house, concealed from whatever might be lurking in the field. Still, whatever was there was too far away for him to see clearly. He stayed where he was for a moment, indecisive. Then Shadow, whimpering softly, slunk away into the darkness. Michael made up his mind, leaned the bike against the side of the house, and followed the dog.
He came to the fence that separated his mother's property from Mr. Findley's. Barely pausing, he slipped between the strands of barbed wire; then, crouching low in the dim moonlight, he scurried across to Findley's barn. His head was throbbing now, but it seemed to him he could begin to make out forms in the faint light emanating from the field.
And then, as he and Shadow slipped into the darkness next to the barn, he heard the voice, the same voice he'd heard before: flat, toneless.
"Michael."
It wasn't a question, and Michael knew it. The possessor of that voice knew who he was. He pressed closer to the barn.
"Nathaniel?" he whispered.
"Come in," the voice urged him. "Come in."
As if in a trance, Michael moved around the barn and lifted the bar from its brackets. Swinging the door open just enough to let himself through, he slipped inside, then pulled the door closed behind him.
"Over here." The voice drifted eerily out of the darkness, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere. "Over this way."