Curse of Black Tor (10 page)

“I could easily get lost,” Martha said.

“No, you couldn't,” Sarah told her. “You can always see the tower, so you don't have to worry. They came out at last onto a promontory where rock pushed through the ground. Geraniums grew in the soil between the rocky outcrops and tumbled in colorful fountains over the cliff edge. Sarah ran and peered over, while Martha caught her breath in alarm.

“Sarah—be careful!” she called after her.

“Oh, I won't fall. I'm a—I'm an ibex. That's a mountain goat.” She grinned widely, then scampered back the way they'd come. “I saw some blackberries,” she said. “I'm going to pick them.”

Josephine dropped the blanket she'd been carrying, then bent to spread it out, and Martha set down the basket.

“We're not—are we going to eat right on the cliff?” Martha asked.

“Why not? There's a wonderful view. Look.” Josephine threw out her hand in a gesture that took in the water, the sky, the islands and the mainland of Canada and the United States.

Martha wondered at her own uneasiness. Heights had never bothered her. She approached the verge and looked down. High enough that a fall might well be fatal—especially with the boulders at the bottom. If not, one could drown in the water lapping at the base. She glanced back and was disconcerted to find Josephine directly behind her, her hands half raised.

“Were you thinking of how lucky I was?” Josephine asked. “I haven't been back here since the day someone pushed me over.”

Chapter Nine

Martha looked behind Josephine, but Sarah was nowhere in sight. A tingle of
f
ear ran along her spine.

“Of course I wouldn’t push you over,” Josephine said.

Was there a tinge of mockery in her voice? Martha took a step toward her and Josephine turned aside to let her pass. Surely she’d imagined the implied threat. Why would Josephine want to harm her?

“The insane have their own logic.” Who’d told her that? One of the doctors at Camarillo, most likely. “Don’t think they can’t reason--it’s just that they reason from their own reality, instead of the one we recognize.”

Was Josephine’s reality so different that it didn’t fit into the real world?

Despite the sun glittering on the water and warm on her shoulders, Martha felt cold. A fresh breeze blew across the promontory. An unlikely place to choose for a picnic.

Why had Josephine brought her here?

“How--what were you doing when you fell?” Martha asked.

“I didn’t fall. I’d been sitting on a blanket reading, and the next thing I knew I was home in bed.”

“I found her.” Sarah’s voice startled Martha.

She turned and saw the girl standing beside her, mouth stained by blackberries.

“I was sort of following Jo--she used to yell at me when she caught me, but I did anyway. When she started to read, I went to see if I could find any chestnuts, and I heard something—I don't know, a kind of noise like word Ahlmakoh would make--and I was a little scared so I ran out of the woods toward the cliff, but no one was here. Only the book and the blanket and the basket. At first I though
t
maybe he really had gotten Jo and I wanted to run but I looked over the edge in case…”

“There's a rock about ten feet down,” Josephine said. “I'd gotten lodged there, somehow. I don't know how they ever got me back up.”

“Bill Wong climbed down with a rope,” Sarah said. “Henry helped him. It was real exciting.”

“This is the first time I've been back,” Josephine said.

“Who did you think you heard in the woods?” Martha asked Sarah.

“Oh, that's those Indian legends Matthew tells her,” Josephine said. “Ahlmakoh is sort of a—a woods demon, I guess you might say.”

“Do you believe he's real?” Martha asked Sarah.

“Not exactly,” Sarah said. “Mostly I'm not afraid in the woods. But it was a funny noise.”

Sarah walked over and opened the basket lid. The cook had fixed egg and salmon-salad sandwiches. There was a thermos of coffee, as well as one of hot chocolate, and apples, cheese and peanut butter cookies for dessert. The food was well prepared, and Martha enjoyed her salmon-salad sandwich, but she found the coffee so bitter it was almost undrinkable and swallowed only enough to wash down the bread and later a cookie.

“Do you want to pick blackberries?” Sarah asked. “I know where they are.”

They were sitting on the blanket, and the breeze had lessened, making the spot more pleasant. Martha looked at the green islands against the blue water and thought she'd never seen anything quite so beautiful. The clear sharpness of the colors was different from the tropical lushness of the Hawaiian Islands, although, come to think of it, she felt some of the same languor.

“I'm going to read,” Josephine said.

“I think I'll just sit here and relax,” Martha told Sarah. She watched the little girl walk away from the cliff, then stretched out alongside Josephine, who was lying on her stomach, the book open in front of her.

“I’m so sleepy
”
Martha said. “I can hardly keep my eyes open.” She saw Josephine glance at her, and then that was all she remembered until she heard a child screaming somewhere.

Why couldn't she open her eyes? Martha wondered. That child, whoever it was, needed help. She was a nurse, she could help… But the soft darkness held her suspended.

Too much effort to wake up. Best to forget, to sleep…

“Martha!” Her name, the girl was calling her name—shrieking, rather. Was it Sarah?

Martha opened her eyes. All she could see was water, dark blue water swirling into white foam over the black rocks below her. She blinked, trying to clear her head.

“Martha! Please wake up and move—you're going to fall.”

It was Sarah's voice. Martha tried to raise her head and realized with a sudden jolt of terror that she was lying on the very edge of the cliff. She scrabbled backward as best she could, sending a shower of dirt and broken geraniums down the cliffside.

“Oh, Martha, I thought you'd never hear me!” Sarah said.

Martha crawled away from the cliff, unable to trust herself to stand. She felt dizzy and uncoordinated. The blanket surely hadn't been that close when she'd gone to sleep…

Sarah grasped the corner of the blanket and pulled it away from the cliff edge. “Why did you move the blanket over?” she asked Martha. “You almost fell like Jo.”

Josephine! Where was she? Martha looked around, her head spinning. She caught her breath—had Josephine gone over the edge?

She stared at the little girl, with her blackberry-stained hands and mouth. Obviously Sarah had been in the woods again. “Did you see anyone?” she asked. “Where's Josephine?”

“Jo's gone somewhere. She was gone when I came back.”

Involuntarily Martha stared at the cliff.

“Jo's not down there,” Sarah said with an unbelievable calmness. “I looked. She must have gone for a walk.”

Martha tried to organize her thoughts. First of all, she'd been drugged. It wasn't hard to connect that with the bitter coffee. Thank God she hadn't had much of it. Barbiturates? If so, the coffee must have been really supersaturated for her to be so affected from the small amount she'd drunk.

She remembered telling Josephine the day before that she'd rather have coffee than hot chocolate. Had Josephine drugged the coffee to get her out of the way for a while? Out of the way permanently? Why? Operating on her own logic?

“We've got to find Josephine,” Martha said to Sarah. “Where do you think she went?”

Sarah shook her head and shrugged.

Martha got slowly to her feet, clutching at the girl's shoulder for support.

“Don't you feel good?” Sarah asked.

“I'll be all right.” But she swayed, unable to walk. As her legs gave way under her, she saw a man come out of the woods. Jules. She was helpless, falling forward, the blackness closing in....

Martha roused to voices: “Couldn't wake her up. I knew something was wrong so I...”

She opened her eyes and saw Josephine’s concerned face above hers. Jules was kneeling beside her. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“Groggy. The coffee--”

“Oh, of course,” Josephine said. “Sarah and I didn’t drink any coffee.”

“Can you walk if we help you?” Jules asked. “I’ll try,” Martha said. “Exercise may help clear my head.” Jules assisted her to her feet. “I had to pull her blanket back from the edge of the cliff--it was right there,” Sarah said. She pointed. “I made Martha wake up so she wouldn’t fall.”

Josephine clutched at Martha’s arm, eyes wide with what looked like genuine panic. “Did you move that close to the edge, Martha?”

“No. But I--I don’t know what happened.”

When they arrived back at the house and Martha got up to her room, she fell asleep almost immediately, not rousing until she became aware of an insistent tapping. The room was dark. Martha sat up in bed, the coverlet falling away from her. In confusion, she realized she was dressed, even though it seemed to be night.

Someone was rapping at her door. She flicked on the bedside light and saw that it was almost ten o’clock. Her mouth tasted stale and her head throbbed. She made her way to the door and opened it.

Jules stood in the hall with a tray, “I watched Elsa fix this food,” he said. “I can vouch for it.” She wanted to trust him, but right now it was hard to trust anyone. Could Jules be trusted? She stood aside and Jules entered her room. She tried to smooth her hair and was conscious of her rumpled clothes.

“I'm sorry to have to wake you, but we must talk,” Jules said.

Martha excused herself and went to the bathroom, where she washed her face, donned a clean shirt and brushed her hair quickly.

When she reentered the bedroom, Jules had taken the cover from the tray, which he'd set on a small table. He pulled a second chair near the table. “I’ll have tea with you, if you'll be so kind as to pour,” he said.

She was glad it wasn't coffee.

“Elsa knows nothing about what was in the coffee,” he said. “I tasted what was left in the thermos. Bitter as hell. I asked her what she'd done with the picnic basket when she had it filled. Apparently it sat on a table in the foyer until the three of you were ready.” Jules watched her for a moment. “Eat your soup,” he said. “If you want me to have some just in case—”

“No, I'm—sure the soup isn't drugged,” Martha said, picking up a spoon. The soup was a delicious fish chowder and she ate it all.

“I imagine you won't be staying on,” Jules said as she spooned up the last mouthful.

Martha glanced at him. She'd been too foggy to feel very frightened over what had happened to her. “Do you want me to leave?” she asked quietly.

“I don't want anything to happen to you. I may as well be honest with you now. Josephine's last nurse, Miss Eccles, had a bad fall here in the house. She tripped coming down the main staircase one night. She—refused to call it an accident.”

Martha stared at him. His face was pale, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. Why was he so upset about the nurse?

“Is she—has she recovered?”

“She's still at St. Joseph's. It was a bad break—the femur shattered and she needed surgery. We hope she'll be able to walk eventually.”

“Was she—pushed?” Martha asked.

“I had myself convinced she was confused,” Jules said. “But now you....”

“I don't really remember much,” Martha said. “I was lying at the cliff edge when Sarah roused me enough that I could crawl back to safety. I don't know how I got there. The last I recall is watching Josephine pick up her book to read and feeling sleepy.”

“Josephine says she thought you were asleep at first, but when she couldn't wake you, she became frightened and ran to the house for help. Apparently Sarah had wandered off to pick berries?”

“Yes. Sarah wasn't there when I fell asleep.” Jules shook his head. “I didn't want to think Josephine had anything to do with Miss Eccles's accident. And I don’t want to blame her now. But...”

“Why do you?”

He glanced at her sharply. “She's not—normal. I've fought against the idea that she's deranged, but now I'm not so sure.”

“But why does it have to be Josephine who pushed the other nurse and drugged me?”

“The alternative is to imagine some outsider creeping around Black Tor—”

“With a grudge against nurses?” she interrupted tartly.

“No one in the house could be responsible for such things,” Jules said. “All the servants except Simon have been with us for years. And he's with my father.”

“Josephine's been involved in three accidents herself,” Martha reminded him. “Have you ever once considered them as anything other than suicide attempts?”

Jules stared at her. “Miss Eccles mentioned something similar,” he said. “She wondered about the last drug over-dose, when Josephine broke a window. Miss Eccles wasn't sure Josephine had taken the drugs on purpose. But what else is possible? Dr. Marston thinks she changed her mind after she swallowed them.”