"It looks spectacular," I said, then glanced past him. Something was missing. "Patrick, where's Patricia?"
He turned quickly and saw the hamster's empty cage. The screen, which should have covered the glass tank, was propped against its side. "Patricia?" he called softly.
Emily was going to have my head.
I remembered seeing Patrick replace the weighted screen after feeding his pet. Sometime after that, there had been five minutes, maybe less, when I had left him alone. "Were you playing with her after she ate?" I asked.
"No."
"You're certain of that? I'm not angry. I want to know because it makes sense to look wherever you last saw her."
I last saw her in her cage."
A hamster could hide in a million places in the playroom and schoolroom, not to mention the rest of the third floor—my room and the two large storage rooms.
"Maybe Ashley let her out," Patrick suggested.
"Don't blame her," I said shortly.
"I'm not blaming her. If Ashley did it, it was an accident. She probably just wanted to play and I wasn't here."
I bit my lip. He wasn't using his imaginary playmate as an excuse—he really believed it.
We searched the playroom, schoolroom, and my bedroom. When I opened the door to one of the storage rooms, I saw that the task was overwhelming.
Clothing, furniture, old athletic equipment, books—there was no way we could find a three-inch bit of fur unless she will ingly came out. I hated lying to Patrick; still, I wondered how hard it would be to buy an identical hamster and pretend that a hungry "Patricia" had come home while he was in school Monday.
We searched the storage room for a while, and I saw Patrick's eyes fill up several times.
"Let's go outside," I suggested. "Since Patricia ate all of her food this morning, she won't be hungry enough to come back yet."
"But she may come back because she misses me."
"Of course. Of course, she misses you, but she's having a little adventure right now. We'll check for her later."
I had hoped we could make it outside without seeing anyone—I needed time to decide how to handle this—but when we reached the kitchen, Brook was there. Patrick's concern for his pet made him desperate for help.
"Patricia is gone," he confided. "She's not in her cage. Have you seen her?"
"Patricia," Brook replied, popping open a can of Coke. "Is she a hamster? Kind of brown?"
"Yeah! Real brown!" Patrick looked hopeful.
"Brook," I warned.
I did see her. She was carrying a little backpack, heading to the orangerie."
"Cut it out, Brook."
He shrugged at me. "I'm just tell ing you what I saw," he said.
Patrick rushed toward the kitchen door.
"Brook was teasing," I called, then hurried outside after Patrick. He rounded the corner of the house and ran toward the orangerie.
The orangerie, tennis courts, outdoor pool, and docks were laid out in a line along the northern edge of the estate, which bordered the river mouth. The orangerie was a long building with a row of tall Palladian windows, more glass than brick. Citrus trees and other tropical plants grew inside.
"Do you think she went in?" Patrick asked me.
"Not unless she can reach the door handle," I replied. I knew that hamsters could burrow and slip through cracks in foundations, but I assumed Patricia was holed up in some warm, snug spot on the third floor of the house. "Brook was joking. He made up that story."
"But she might really be here," Patrick insisted.
"All right. Walk around the building and see."
He did, calling Patricia's name softly, woefully. Then he hollered suddenly from the other side, "Hey, Kate. C'mere!"
Rounding the comer, I found him standing five feet from the orange cat that had perched in the window last night. The cat dismissed my appearance with the briefest of looks, then ventured toward Patrick, rubbing against his leg.
"He likes me," Patrick announced happily, momentarily forgetting about his hamster. "I told Daddy he liked me."
The cat flicked his tail, then broke into a quick trot in the direction of the tennis courts.
"I think he knows where Patricia is," Patrick said.
I hoped not, given that this wild tabby was used to catching his own dinner. Patrick followed the cat past the screen of evergreens that shielded the house from the courts, and I hurried after him. He and I caught up with the tabby near the in-ground swimming pool. The cat crossed the concrete deck and began to pace along the pool's edge, as if he had quarried something. As we walked toward him, the cat stopped and peered into the deep end.
Curious, we did the same.
The water had been removed from the pool, but leaves clotted the drains and rain had formed a half-frozen crust beneath the diving board. I thought I was seeing just another brown leaf, then Patrick started screaming, "Patricia! Patricia!"
I grabbed him by the collar as he took off for a set of metal steps. "I'll get her."
I descended the steps at the shallow end of the pool. Patrick kept wailing his pet's name.
Perhaps if she hasn't been outside too long… I thought, hoping against the odds. The first seven meters of the pool were dry, but there was a steep drop down to the diving section, and there the footing became treacherous. My feet slid out from under me. I flew down the concrete slope on my back, my feet crashing through the layer of ice and water covering the bottom of the deep end. The freezing mix sloshed over my shoes. I walked as quickly as possible toward Patricia, then scooped her up in my gloved hand.
"Is she okay?" Patrick called.
"I'll know better when I get out of the pool."
The hamster was dead, but I wanted to be close to Patrick when I told him. I had to scramble to get up the pool's slope with only one free hand. Patrick was waiting for me by the steps at the shallow end, anxiously beating his mittens together. The cat lurked a short distance behind, interested in what I was doing, staring the way cats do, as if they can see so much more than people.
I knelt down in front of Patrick, opening the hand that cradled the hamster. "I'm sorry."
He gazed down at her. "Her eyes are open," he said. "She's alive!"
"She's not. I'm really sorry."
"But her eyes are open, Kate. Look!"
I shook my head. "Animals die with their eyes open. See, she isn't moving. She isn't breathing."
"Maybe she's just frozen," Patrick said. "Let me hold her, I'll warm her up."
I laid the hamster in his cupped hands. Tears brimmed in his eyes.
"Come on, Patricia. Come on," he pleaded. "Wake up. We'll take you inside. We'll get you warm enough. We'll make you okay."
"Patrick, listen to me," I said softly. "She's frozen, and when a hamster freezes, its heart stops. Patricia is dead. There is nothing we can do."
"You're wrong!" he shouted, then lowered his eyes.
His dark lashes were wet against his cheek. He buried his chin in his chest. Tears rolled silently down his face, then he started to sob.
I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close. "I'm so sorry. If I could make her be alive for you, I would."
He cried hard. The cat watched us for a moment, then slipped away, as if he had fulfilled his mission.
At last the sobs grew quieter. Patrick rested his head against me, his hands still cradling his pet between my chest and his. I reached for some tissues in my pocket. Patrick sneaked a peak at the hamster, probably hoping that she had warmed up and come back to life.
"Would you like to bury her?" I asked, handing him the tissue.
He nodded mutely, more tears rolling down.
"There's probably a shovel in the orangerie," I said.
Patrick wanted to bury Patricia in the family cemetery. I could have called Adrian on my cell phone and asked permission to dig there, but the hole for Patricia would be small and I counted on him to understand how fragile his son was at that moment. We fetched a shovel from
the orangerie, then cut across the formal gardens to the main drive, and passed through the keyhole in the tall hedge.
Who did this? I wondered as we walked silently toward the graveyard. It seemed unlikely that the lazy Patricia would have so quickly made her way down three stories of the large house. But even if she did, I could not believe that a home-bred hamster would venture far in the cold, certainly not as far as the pool, an open area without vegetation, where no animal would seek refuge.
It was possible the orange cat had caught her close to the house and dropped her in the pool, for the cat had led us there. But why hadn't he eaten her—surely, hunting rodents was how this wild cat survived. And if he wasn't hungry, why didn't he do what a domesticated cat would—keep its prey in a cozy place where it could play with it. More curious still, how did the cat know what Patrick was searching for?
I caught myself in the middle of that wild leap of an idea. The cat was just a cat, despite what Joseph had said about the silent communication between the tabby and Ashley. People who are good with animals often seem to have an intangible connection to them. The only unnatural, abnormal thing on Mason's Choice was Patrick's heartless relatives; for, no matter what the chain of events, the crisis started when the hamster was let out of her cage.
Most adults wouldn't believe a child who said he had put the top back on a cage. I knew if I started making accusations, that's how Patrick's family would respond. But I believed him. Someone had let Patricia out, someone enjoying a bit of cruel entertainment at Patrick's expense. Brook was the most likely suspect.
We had reached the cemetery. The large plot, surrounded by an iron fence, was barren of trees. The obelisks and statues, some standing upright, some leaning, cast long shadows in the late afternoon light. No winter birds stirred here, no squirrels scurried through. The only animals inhabiting the plot were the carved stone creatures placed around Ashley's grave.
There was quiet but no peace here—I had felt it as a child, and felt it again now.
Ashley had said that the ghosts in this graveyard spoke to her. She had said they watched me when she and I were apart, that they told her what I did.
Even now it was hard to shake off the feeling of being observed.
"Where should we bury her?" Patrick asked.
"Sorry? Oh. How about here?" I suggested, pointing to a patch of grass behind the gate that was unlikely to be used for anything else.
He knelt, solemnly watching as I dug into the hard earth. I wrapped Patricia in my scarf and laid her in the hole. Patrick helped me cover her with dirt.
"She'll rest warm and happy now," I told him, and wiped the tears from his face.
"Kate, when you're dead, do you have bad dreams?"
"No, only good ones." How I ached for him!
He glanced toward the new corner of the cemetery.
"That's where Ashley is resting," I told him. "Do you want to say a prayer for her and Patricia?"
"Ashley's not there."
"If you go over to the stone with the little animals around it, you will see her name."
"I know. But she's not there," he insisted.
"What do you mean?"
"She's in other places," he said.
A chill spread over my shoulders and the back of my neck. My feet, having been soaked in the pool's frigid water, felt like lumps of ice.
"Patrick, who is tell ing you these things about Ashley?"
Someone had to be, someone trying to frighten him. Whoever it was wouldn't dare hurt him physically and risk the wrath of Adrian. But the person knew how to do just as much damage psychologically.
"Is it Brook?"
"Ashley doesn't like Brook," he said.
"Is it Robyn? Trent?"
"Do you think Ashley let out Patricia?" Patrick asked me.
"What?" I stood up, took Patrick's hand, and quickly led him out of the graveyard. "Why won't you tell me who is talking to you about Ashley?"
"Nobody is but you," he said.
I didn't know how to reason with him. "Why do you think she would let out Patricia?"
"Because I didn't get home in time. She was mad. She wanted to play and I wasn't home and she got mad."
"Patrick, Ashley would never hurt an animal. She loved them."
"So you can see her now?" he asked.
"No! No," I repeated in a softer voice. "It's just that everyone knows she loved animals."
"But she gets mad," he pointed out. "Sometimes she really screams when I don't do what she wants."
It was eerie how similar his Ashley was to the one I had known. But these were just imaginings, I reminded myself, and if I could not reason him past them, I could, at least, shape them for him.
"Did you ever see the movie about Casper the ghost?" I asked.
"I have the video."
"Remember how he's a nice ghost? Ashley is like that. Oh, sometimes she screams and puts up a fuss, but she's just lonely. She's just looking for a friend."
Patrick gazed up at me, his face scrunched. "Are you sure?" Yes.
So, it has come to this, I thought, as we trudged toward the house. I, who hated the way adults lied to children, was tell ing tales to Patrick. I'd do anything to make his fear and hurt go away.
As soon as Patrick and I returned from the burial, I spoke to Emily. She chastised me for not coming to her immediately—at a time like that, Patrick needed his mother, she said—though I had trouble imagining her trekking out to the cemetery in her Ferragamos. Since it was Saturday night and everyone was headed out, Patrick had dinner with me in the kitchen. Happily for us, Mrs. Hopewell was off Saturday evening through Sunday, so though she was still on the premises, she wasn't breathing down our necks.
The one thing that took Patrick's mind off Patricia was talking about ice hockey. After dinner, I remembered I had seen old sports equipment in the third-floor storage rooms. We searched and found a pair of battered hockey sticks. While Patrick ran up and down the hall, pushing an imaginary puck and dodging opponents, I went on to the schoolroom computer and downloaded information about children's hockey leagues. Logging on to Chase College's Web site, I discovered that the rink where Sam played had an open skating session from 5:30 to 7:00 every weekday evening. I promised Patrick I'd take him.
After all the emotion of the day, he fell asleep early. I didn't close my eyes til late that night, my mind continually sifting through events, trying to find logical answers for the questions that had been accumulating in the last few days, most of them circling around Ashley.
It was possible that Brook, who had liked to spy on Ashley and me, had overheard and remembered the secret names of Ashley's toy horses. And given that, when he got jealous, he used to let out Ashley's pets, it was reasonable to think he had taken Patrick's. But he was mature enough now to see the plan through, and if his goal was to upset Patrick, why would he leave the hamster in the pool beyond the orangerie? He couldn't have counted on us to find it there. Perhaps he had simply tossed the hamster outside, never meaning for it to be found, but the cat had caught it. Or perhaps his plan was to torment Patrick with a fruitless search, and then, a few days later, pretend to have discovered it himself.
Despite my suspicions, I decided it best not to accuse him or anyone else. After denying they had any part in it, Patrick's loving family members might use the pet's death for their own cruel pleasure, discussing it, distressing him even more.
When I finally closed my eyes, my sleep was made restless by dreams, a series of images, past and present, one melting into the next. I saw Patrick's hamster struggling to escape the ice at the bottom of the pool. I rushed toward her, trying to reach her in time. When I leaned over to scoop her up, I saw Ashley's face, Ashley trapped beneath the ice of the pond, staring up at me. Her mouth moved, but I couldn't understand her words.
I took a step back, afraid. The surface broke and Ashley rose up through the dark water, her eyes sparkling like blue ice.
"I dare you, Katie."
The edge of th
e round pond straightened and it became the pool again. I was on the diving board, walking its length slowly, my legs shaking.
"Go all the way to the end," Ashley instructed.
I did what she said. I tried not to look at the bottom of the pool far below me, but the icy crust covering the drain drew my eyes like a sore.
"Now jump up and down. Jump and land on the board again. I dare you, Katie!"
"I—I can't."
"Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat," Ashley taunted. "Jump, Katie, jump!"
But what if I missed the board coming down? What if my feet slipped off?
"Mom-my!"
I awoke shivering, sat up, and glanced around. When I went to bed, I had closed the door to the hallway; it was open now. I pulled my blanket and quilt around me, but they were useless. The cold came from within, an anxious cold crawling in my belly.
I slipped out of bed and crept toward the door, listening. A small night-light, plugged into the wall outside the third-floor bathroom, provided the only light in the hall. I glanced over my shoulder toward the steps to Patrick's room. I should check that he is there, safely asleep, I thought. Then I heard a noise from the other side of the hall, close to the main stairs, a rustling soft as cloth brushing against cloth. I reached for the light switch in my room.
My overhead light illuminated a wide swath of the rectangular hall. If anyone was there, he or she clung to the shadows. I stared into the dark corners, listening. My muscles tensed. From the other end of the hall came a thin, scratching sound. Rodents, I thought, calming myself. Then the main stairs creaked.
I moved forward silently. They creaked again—it sounded as if the noise came from the bottom of the stairs. Someone had tread on them, someone had descended from the third floor before I turned on the light. I rushed across the hall.
Reaching the top of the stairs, I stopped suddenly, surprised to see Patrick alone in the schoolroom. He was writing on the blackboard, his chalk making the scratching sound I had heard. Distracted, I lost precious seconds on the person trying to get away.
I hurried down the steps. The night lamp in the second-floor hall suddenly went out. I stumbled, caught hold of the railing, and continued on. But with the night lamp extinguished and bedroom doors closed, the darkness on the second floor was thick as velvet. I paused at the bottom of the stairs. I couldn't remember which side of the hall the lamp was on or the location of the wall switches. All I could do was listen and try to hear where the person was going. There were a number of exits from the second-floor hall: the bedrooms, the stairs down to the first floor, and the hallways to each wing.