The Mask Read online

  the consistency of vanilla pudding."

  "She won't be in your way," Carol said quickly. "She won't distract you from your writing. And now that O'Brian won't be able to present our application for the adoption until the end of the month, there's no chance we'll have two kids to take care of. In fact maybe the delay at the agency was meant to be-so we'd have a place for Jane until her folks show up. It's only temporary, Paul. Really. And we-"

  "Okay, okay," he said. "You don't have to sell me on it. I approve of the plan."

  "If you'd like to come here and meet Jane first, that's-"

  "No, no. I'm sure she's everything you've said she is. Don't forget, though, you were planning to go to the mountains in a week or so."

  "We might not even have Jane that long. And if we do, we can probably take her with us, so long as we let the court know where we're going."

  "When do we have to appear in court?"

  "I don't know. Probably Monday or Tuesday."

  "I'll be on my best behavior," Paul said.

  "Scrub behind your ears?"

  "Okay. And I'll also wear shoes."

  Grinning, Carol said, "Don't pick your nose in front of the judge."

  "Not unless he picks his first."

  She said, "I love you, Dr. Tracy."

  "I love you, Dr. Tracy."

  When she put down the receiver and turned away from the pay phone, she felt wonderful. Not even the gaudy decor of the visitors' lounge could get on her nerves now.

  ***

  That night, there was no hammering sound in the Tracy house, no evidence of the poltergeist that Mr. Alsgood had warned Paul about. There was no disturbance the following day, either, and none the day after that. The strange noise and the vibrations had ceased as inexplicably as they had begun.

  Carol stopped having nightmares, too. She slept deeply, peacefully, without interruption. She quickly forgot about the flickering, silvery blade of the ax swinging back and forth in the strange void.

  The weather improved, too. The clouds dissipated on Sunday. Monday was summery, blue.

  Tuesday afternoon, while Paul and Carol were in court trying to obtain temporary custody of Jane Doe, Grace Mitowski was cleaning her kitchen. She had just finished dusting the top of the refrigerator when the telephone rang.

  "Hello."

  No one answered her. "Hello," she said again.

  A thin, whispery, male voice said, "Grace..

  "Yes?"

  His words were muffled, and there was an echo on the line, as if he were talking into a tin can.

  "I can't understand you," she said. "Can you speak up?"

  He tried, but again the words were lost. They seemed to be coming from an enormous distance, across an unimaginably vast chasm.

  "We have a terrible connection," she said. "You'll have to speak up."

  "Grace," he said, his voice only slightly louder. "Gracie it's almost too late. You've got to . . . move fast. You've got to stop it... from happening .. again."

  It was a dry, brittle voice; it cracked repeatedly, with a sound like dead autumn leaves underfoot. "It's almost. . . too late. . . too late

  She recognized the voice, and she froze. Her hand tightened on the receiver, and she couldn't get her breath.

  "Gracie.. . it can't go on forever. You've got to put an end to it. Protect her, Gracie. Protect her

  The voice faded away.

  There was only silence. But not the silence of an open phone line. There was no hissing. No electronic beeping in the background. This was perfect silence, utterly unmarred by even the slightest click or whistle of electronic circuitry. Vast silence. Endless.

  She put the phone down.

  She started to shake.

  She went to the cupboard and got down the bottle of Scotch she kept for visitors. She poured herself a double shot and sat down at the kitchen table.

  The liquor didn't warm her. Chills still shook her.

  The voice on the phone had belonged to Leonard. Her husband. He had been dead for eighteen years.

  PART TWO

  Evil Walks Among Us...

  Evil is no faceless stranger, living in a distant neighborhood.

  Evil has a wholesome, hometown face, with many eyes and an open smile.

  Evil walks among us, wearing a mask which looks like all our faces.

  -The Book of Counted Sorrows

  7

  TUESDAY, after winning temporary custody of Jane Doe, Paul went home to work on his novel, and Carol took the girl shopping. Because Jane had no clothes except those she'd been wearing when she'd stepped in front of the Volkswagen last Thursday morning, she needed a lot of things, even for just a few days. She was embarrassed about spending Carol's money, and at first she was reluctant to admit that she liked anything she saw or that anything fit her well enough to buy it.

  At last Carol said, "Honey, you need this stuff, so please just relax and let me buy it for you. Okay? the long run, it won't be coming out of my pocket anyway. I'll most likely be reimbursed either by your parents, by the foster children program, or by some other county agency."

  That argument worked. They quickly purchased a couple of pairs of jeans, a few blouses, underwear, a good pair of sneakers, socks, a sweater, and a windbreaker.

  When they got home, Jane was impressed by the Tudor house with its leaded-glass windows, gabled roof, and stonework. She fell in love with the guest room in which she was to stay. It had a cove ceiling, a long window seat inset in a bay window, and a wall of mirrored closet doors. It was done in deep blue and pale beige, with Queen Anne furniture of lustrous cherrywood. "It's really just a guest room?" Jane asked, incredulous. "You don't use it regularly? Boy, if this were my house, I'd come in here all the time! I'd just sit and read for a little while every day-read and sit there in the window and soak up the atmosphere."

  Carol had always liked the room, but through Jane's eyes she achieved a new perception and appreciation of it. As she watched the girl inspecting things-sliding open the closet doors, checking the view from each angle of the bay window, testing the firmness of the mattress on the queen-sized bed- Carol realized that one advantage of having children was that their innocent, fresh reactions to everything could keep their parents young and open-minded, too.

  That evening, Carol, Paul, and Jane prepared dinner together. The girl fit in comfortably and immediately, in spite of the fact that she was somewhat shy. There was a lot of laughter in the kitchen and at the dinner table.

  After dinner, Jane started washing dishes while Carol and Paul cleared the table. When they were separated from the girl for a moment, alone in the dining room, Paul said quietly, "She's a terrific kid."

  "Didn't I tell you so?"

  "Funny thing, though."

  "What?"

  "Ever since I saw her this afternoon, outside the courtroom," Paul said, "I've had the feeling that I've seen her somewhere before."

  "Where?"

  He shook his head. "I'll be damned if I know. But there's something familiar about her face."

  Throughout Tuesday afternoon, Grace expected the phone to ring again.

  She dreaded having to answer it.

  She tried to work off her nervous energy by cleaning the house. She scrubbed the kitchen floor, dusted the furniture in every room, and swept all the carpets.

  But she couldn't stop thinking about the call: the paper-dry, echo-distorted voice that had sounded like Leonard; the odd things he had said; the eerie silence when he had finished speaking; the disquieting sense of vast distances, an unimaginable gulf of space and time.

  It had to be a hoax. But who could be responsible for it? And why torment her with an imitation of Leonard's voice, eighteen years after the man had died? What was the point of playing games like this now, after so much time had passed?

  She tried to get her mind off the call by baking apple dumplings. Thick, crusty dumplings-served with cinnamon, milk, and just a bit of sugar-were a suppertime favorite of hers, for she had been born
and raised in Lancaster, the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch country, where that dish was considered a meal in itself. But Tuesday evening, she had no appetite, not even for dumplings. She ate a few bites, but she couldn't even finish half of one dumpling, though she usually ate two whole ones in a single meal.

  She was still picking disinterestedly at her food when the telephone rang.

  Her head jerked up. She stared at the wall phone that was above the small, built-in desk beside the refrigerator.

  It rang again. And again.

  Trembling, she got up, went to the phone, and lifted the receiver.

  "Gracie. .

  The voice was faint but intelligible.

  "Gracie. . . it's almost too late."

  It was him. Leonard. Or someone who sounded exactly like Leonard had sounded.

  She couldn't respond to him. Her throat clutched tight.

  "Gracie.. ."

  Her legs seemed to be melting under her. She pulled out the chair that was tucked into the kneehole of the desk, and she sat down quickly.

  "Gracie. . . stop it from happening again. It mustn't. . . go on forever.. . time after time. . . the blood. . . the murder. . ."

  She closed her eyes, forced herself to speak. Her voice was weak, quavery. She didn't even recognize it as her own. It was the voice of a stranger-a weary, frightened, frail old woman. "Who is this?"

  The whispery, vibrative voice on the telephone said, "Protect her, Oracle."

  "What do you want from me?"

  "Protect her."

  "Why are you doing this?"

  "Protect her."

  "Protect who?" she demanded.

  "Willa. Protect Willa."

  She was still frightened and confused, but she was beginning to be angry, too. "I don't know anyone named Willa, dammit! Who is this?"

  "Leonard."

  "No! Do you think I'm a doddering, senile old fool? Leonard's dead. Eighteen years! You're not Leonard. What kind of game are you playing?"

  She wanted to hang up on him, and she knew that was the best thing to do with a crank like this, but she couldn't make herself put down the receiver. He sounded so much like Leonard that she was mesmerized by his voice.