All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 20

20

Saint snapped herself from the memory as she turned and looked back at the tall house one last time. Only the low purple from her attic lava lamp kept the smother from total.

She found the clearing and moved across arid fields, a path trodden over iced winters as they made it their gateway.

A black border marked the beginnings of Thurley State Park.

The house was grand and old like most in Monta Clare.

She knew Dr. T like everyone in town did, because when she had strep throat it was his kind eyes she looked into. He was the man who came to their school and talked to the girls about menstruation, about changing hormones and bodies.

She walked lines of peach trees, plum, apple, and cherry. And in the dark breathed honeysuckle.

Saint heard a wild call and drew her slingshot, her hands already shaking as she thought of doubling back, climbing into her bed and pulling the sheet up high over her head.

She knocked on the door and waited, and as she did she willed herself to calm. She had borrowed The Peterson Davies Book of Police Detection from the library, and it told her she would have to play it clever, work around the tale he’d told and maybe find a way into his house so she could search for her friend.

At the side window she cupped her hands to the glass but saw little more than her own panicked eyes reflecting back.

Saint hammered the door harder, stood back and stared up at double- hung windows so dark she could not ever imagine such a place being a

home.

At the rear porch she climbed the steps and shone her flashlight over the fading frieze beam and the columns and through the glazed door into an oak kitchen. Saint tracked the beam along dark countertops. She saw a dresser open to pots and herbs, and on the planed top a single ashtray, a cigar stubbed and balanced on the edge.

Along the tiled floor she could not see a dog bowl or bed, or a lead hanging from the bronze hare hooks by the door.

She rattled the door and found it locked, kicked it once and cursed. She tried the windows, and though the panes were single and thin and there was play within their frames, she could not prize them open.

“Patch,” she called, though did not believe he could hear her or reply, and maybe did not believe that he was being held there at all, just that the doctor had lied and no one had called him on it.

She cast her light back across the fields, and though her heart was heavy with another failure she began to slowly cross her way toward home.

And then she heard it.

A scream.

A scream so stark and desperate and utterly terrifying that she began to cry.

She turned back toward the house, and though her tears turned to sobs of fear she walked slowly back toward the sound.

“Patch,” she cried out.

Saint ran back toward the front of the house.

And it was as she turned the corner that she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She screamed, and Dr. Tooms raised his hands, his face pale and stricken.

Saint moved back from him, keeping a good distance.

She did not move to wipe her tears or ask him to explain or lead her to her friend. Instead she raised her flashlight, and only when that blue-white beam met the crimson blood on his hands did she turn and run.

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