Page 58 of The Instruments of Darkness

“Because,” said Drew, “I went looking for her.”

CHAPTER XXXV

It was odd, Sabine Drew reflected, how the extraordinary could so quickly come to seem quotidian. In the beginning, once she’d stopped being frightened of the figures that drifted through the shadow landscape of her life, she became, quite naturally, fascinated by them. It was like watching some rare, pale species of fish inhabiting, however briefly, a dark exorheic region, destined to remain in place only for as long as it took to locate the egress stream leading to the sea. Like fish, the dead had to be treated carefully, and were similarly alert to observation—though, unlike fish, they favored approaching the observer. The departed, in addition to being dull, were easily distracted.

But having them draw close was an unpleasant experience. They didn’t smell bad, or not usually, but there was an undeniable miasma about them, a fog of confusion, even despair. Sabine found extended exposure to it debilitating, as though they were draining some of the life from her to compensate for their own absence of vitality; and it was worse when they tried to touch her, because even a gentle stroke from one of them was painful, though it left no visible mark.

And they had such need: for answers, reassurance, companionship. The younger they were, the more profound it was. She learned that early on when, without thinking, she reached out to comfort a boy of three or four with burns along the entire right side of his body. His face was such a mask of misery and remembered agony that she had felt compelled to offer succor.

Five days later, he was still there. He followed her to school and church. He was the first sight to greet her in the morning and the last she took with her when she closed her eyes at night. She never even discovered his name, because he never spoke. She felt sorry for him for the first day or two, but then he grew annoying. She began to worry that he might never leave and she would be stuck with him unto the grave and beyond, because she had no doubt that he’d be waiting for her on the other side as well. Finally, in a fit of desperation, she had called out to a middle-aged woman leading two little girls by the hand. All three were wet, and the left side of the woman’s face was caved in, but none gave any sign of being troubled. The woman paused when Sabine spoke, and her one good eye drifted in confusion from the boy to Sabine before she realized what was being asked of her. The younger of the girls tried to run to Sabine and the boy, but her mother held on tight to her.

Thank goodness, thought Sabine. I already have enough problems with one lost child. I don’t need another.

The girl, recognizing that she was not about to be released, extended her hand to the burnt boy, but he would not move.

“Go on,” said Sabine. “They’ll take care of you.”

The boy raised his arms to her.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to play with you anymore.”

She didn’t feel bad about rejecting him. It was for his own good, and she really was tired of having him around. For an instant, tiny fires of rage ignited in his eyes, and Sabine could have sworn that the burn marks on his body glowed red. Then he dropped his arms, turned his back, and went to join the woman and her daughters. He took the younger girl’s hand and the quartet faded from view. The boy did not once look back.

“Well,” Sabine said aloud, as he vanished, “there’s gratitude.”

Still, it was a lesson she took to heart. She grew adept at surveying the dead, at regarding without being noticed. She aided them when and where she could, but kept her distance unless her sense of disorder, of wrongness, became too acute. In those situations, her appetite and sleep patterns would become affected. Her skin would grow dry and itchy. She might even get ulcers in her mouth. It was no surprise that she preferred not to involve herself, but the Verona Walters case was one instance where she felt she had no option but to help.

Sabine had seated herself at the kitchen table, the newspaper photograph of Verona before her, and asked her mother not to disturb her for an hour or two. The latter, by now familiar with her daughter’s ways, left her alone, even going so far as to turn off the radio in the living room and temporarily halting her never-ending cleaning of the old house. In the stillness that followed, Sabine had reached out to the dead girl.

RONNIE PASCAL SHIFTED IN his chair. He was trying to find a comfortable position, but was beginning to fear that he never would, not while he was in the company of this woman.

“You appreciate how unlikely all this sounds?” he said.

“Of course. Do you really think I wanted to come here just to have you look at me like I’m insane? I could have stayed home and kept all this to myself.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Is that a serious question?”

“No,” said Pascal, “I guess not.”

He examined again the notes he’d made and came to a decision. It went against all his beliefs, but not, oddly, against his instincts. He would treat this woman as a potential witness, and approach her testimony as he had that of the others who had come forward to help with the case. After all, what harm could it do? Pascal took off his jacket and told her to call him Ronnie. She, in turn, asked him to call her by her first name.

“Sabine, you say that Verona told you that the man who abducted her smelled,” he said. “Did she mention how? You know, was he sweaty, or unwashed?”

“She said he smelled of garbage.”

“Garbage?”

“Like the inside of a trash can.”

Something tickled Pascal unpleasantly, like a bug on his skin preparing to bite.

“What else did she notice? What about his hands?”

“He wore gloves. She saw them when he took her. He smothered her mouth to stop her from screaming.”

“What kind of gloves?”

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