The eyes of darkness

Not Dead

A chill swept down her back.

Last night, after drinking the bourbon, had she come back here in some kind of fugue and...?

No.

She hadn't blacked out. She had not printed those words. She wasn't going crazy. She wasn't the sort of person who would snap over a thing like this. Not even a thing like this. She was tough. She had always prided herself on her toughness and her resiliency.

Snatching up the felt eraser, she vigorously wiped the slate clean.

Someone was playing a sick, nasty trick on her. Someone had come into the house while she was out and had printed those two words on the chalkboard again. Whoever it was, he wanted to rub her face in the tragedy that she was trying so hard to forget.

The only other person who had a right to be in the house was the cleaning woman, Vivienne Neddler. Vivienne had been scheduled to work this afternoon, but she'd canceled. Instead, she was coming in for a few hours this evening, while Tina was at the premiere.

But even if Vivienne had kept her scheduled appointment, she never would have written those words on the chalkboard. She was a sweet old woman, feisty and independent-minded but not the type to play cruel pranks.

For a moment Tina racked her mind, searching for someone to blame, and then a name occurred to her. It was the only possible suspect. Michael. Her ex-husband. There was no sign that anyone had broken into the house, no obvious evidence of forced entry, and Michael was the only other person with a key. She hadn't changed the locks after the divorce.

Shattered by the loss of his son, Michael had been irrationally vicious with Tina for months after the funeral, accusing her of being responsible for Danny's death. She had given Danny permission to go on the field trip, and as far as Michael was concerned, that had been equivalent to driving the bus off the cliff. But Danny had wanted to go to the mountains more than anything else in the world. Besides, Mr. Jaborski, the scoutmaster, had taken other groups of scouts on winter survival hikes every year for sixteen years, and no one had been even slightly injured. They didn't hike all the way into the true wilderness, just a reasonable distance off the beaten path, and they planned for every contingency. The experience was supposed to be good for a boy. Safe. Carefully managed. Everyone assured her there was no chance of trouble. She'd had no way of knowing that Jaborski's seventeenth trip would end in disaster, yet Michael blamed her. She'd thought he had regained his perspective during the last few months, but evidently not.

She stared at the chalkboard, thought of the two words that had been printed there, and anger swelled in her. Michael was behaving like a spiteful child. Didn't he realize that her grief was as difficult to bear as his? What was he trying to prove?

Furious, she went into the kitchen, picked up the telephone, and dialed Michael's number. After five rings, she realized that he was at work, and she hung up.

In her mind the two words burned, white on black: NOT DEAD.

This evening she would call Michael, when she got home from the premiere and the party afterward. She was certain to be quite late, but she wasn't going to worry about waking him.

She stood indecisively in the center of the small kitchen, trying to find the willpower to go to Danny's room and box his clothes, as she had planned. But she had lost her nerve. She couldn't go in there again. Not today. Maybe not for a few days.

Damn Michael.

In the refrigerator was a half-empty bottle of white wine. She poured a glassful and carried it into the master bath.

She was drinking too much. Bourbon last night. Wine now. Until recently, she had rarely used alcohol to calm her nerves - but now it was her cure of first resort. Once she had gotten through the premiere of Magyck! She had better start cutting back on the booze. Now she desperately needed it.

She took a long shower. She let the hot water beat down on her neck for several minutes, until the stiffness in her muscles melted and flowed away.

After the shower, the chilled wine further relaxed her body, although it did little to calm her mind and allay her anxiety. She kept thinking of the chalkboard.