Annie's Song Part 20

"I thought it for a hundred different reasons," she said shrilly. "The awful sounds she made. My uncle made sounds almost exactly like them, animallike utterances and grunts.

My aunt had to have him bound to a tree until attendants from a madhouse could come and get him!" She pressed her hands over her face. "And the kittens. Oh, G.o.d, the kittens."

"What kittens?"

"She strangled and crushed two kittens," Edie said raggedly.

After having witnessed Annie's incredible gentleness with the mice in the attic, Alex found this story difficult to believe, but he didn't interrupt the woman.

"It was horrible. Horrible! I only left her alone with the litter for a little while, never dreaming she might hurt them. She seemed to love them so! And when I came back, she'd killed two of them. Killed them!"

She looked up, pinning Alex with an agonized gaze. "I was terrified that James would find out what she'd done.

Absolutely terrified! I lied and told him a tomcat had sneaked into the house. After that, I encouraged Annie to play in the woods, as was her wont, for I reasoned that the less she was about the house where he might accidentally witness her mean streak, the better. He would have sent her away. Don't you see? To one of those nightmarish places! I realized if I didn't restrict her activities, if I wasn't very, very stern, that she'd very likely end up living out the rest of her life in a cell. I couldn't bear for that to happen. Not to my little girl.

"That's why I wouldn't allow her to be examined by a physician. That's why I was so secretive about her activities in the attic, stressing that no one else could ever know. Don't you see? She's incredibly talented at sketching. And then there were the make-believe games and her pretending to talk. That wasn't the behavior of an imbecile! And because she seemed to hear when I called to her, I didn't believe she was deaf.

What other explanation was there for her strangeness, if not that she was mad like my uncle?"

For the first time, Alex could begin to see things as Edie must have. A beautiful girl who behaved abnormally, who seemed unable to grasp the simplest concepts, whose ability to speak had steadily deteriorated. Yet in the attic, in her make-believe world, that same girl exhibited signs of keen intelligence.

"Now I realize that my fear made me blind, that if I'd only listened to Dr. Muir, we might have learned the truth years ago.

But I couldn't take that chance. I was convinced she had inherited the illness from my uncle and that it would eventually progress to a point that I could no longer keep it from James. The way I saw it, the only thing I could do was delay that from happening for as long as possible."

A burning sensation came up the back of Alex's throat.

"Which is why you stressed to me that I should enforce your rules while Annie was here," he said softly. "You thought if I didn't, that I'd soon realize the truth and tell James she was crazy."

"If you'll recall, I originally didn't want her to come here at all."

Alex remembered that all too clearly.

"It was nothing personal," she rushed to explain. "From the beginning, I could see you had a kindly nature, and that you felt sorry for Annie. I was afraid that, in a misguided attempt to make retribution for what Douglas had done, you might indulge her."

Alex smiled slightly. "Spoil her rotten, in other words?''

"Yes," she admitted. "I hoped that strangers who knew nothing of the circ.u.mstances would be more likely to follow my wishes and be regimental with her." She closed her eyes.

"All I could think about was James learning the truth and sending her away. Someplace awful, where she'd be confused and alone, possibly mistreated."

Alex tightened his hand over her shoulder, understanding all too well now what had driven the woman. After several minutes of silence, during which she grew calmer, he said, "You did what you thought was best for your daughter, Edie.

It's terrible that it happened the way it did, yes. But for all of that, I believe she was reasonably happy in her own simple way. Now that part of her life's over. We have to put the past behind us and concentrate on her future. She can have a wonderful, reasonably normal life from here on out, if we all work together to make it happen. A moment ago, you expressed a fear that I might indulge her. I'm doing my level best to live up to your worst expectations. Care to lend me a hand?"

She fastened a hopeful gaze on his. "Oh, Alex, will you allow me that? To be a part of things? I have so much to make up for. So very much."

Relinquis.h.i.+ng the last traces of his anger, Alex sighed.

"Edie, your daughter loves you. I'm sure she wants to see you.

I think it's time that all of us start paying attention to Annie's wishes for a change. Don't you?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "Oh, yes."

Drawing a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, Alex set himself to the task of cleaning up her face, a service he seemed to be providing to females frequently of late. Until now, he'd never realized the woman wore paint. A subtle amount, to be sure, but there were definite traces of kohl on her cheeks.

"May I take the liberty of giving you a bit of well-intended advice, madam?''

"Not to cry in front of my daughter again?"

"That, too," he said with a half smile. "But I was thinking more along the lines of some marital advice. After you leave here, you need to go home and have an honest discussion with your husband. He is as much to blame for this tragedy as you are, if not more so."

"Oh, but I can't!" she said shrilly. "James-he doesn't know! About my uncle, I mean. When he asked me to marry him, I neglected to tell him. And, later, I couldn't find the courage." She gave her head a decisive shake. "You don't know James. If he even suspected that madness runs in my family, he'd divorce me. If he did that, I don't know what I'd do! Where would I live? How would I earn my keep?"

Alex pushed to his feet. "Edie, if the man tosses you out, you can always come to me. You are my wife's mother. I would see to it you had the necessary funds to get by."

She stared at him incredulously. "You would?"

He gave a startled laugh. "Yes, madam, I would. But I a.s.sure you, it won't come to that. For all his faults, and I could list a host of them, James cares for you. You say that I don't know him. I think it may be more accurate to say that you don't. And it's high time you do. Talk to him. Tell him everything you've told me. I think you may be surprised by what he says."

"You know something I don't."

"Let's just say that as much as I dislike the man, I understand how he thinks." With that, Alex helped her up from the chair. "Now, let's go upstairs and share in a special moment, shall we?"

She nodded.

"No more histrionics?"

"None, I a.s.sure you."

Alex could only hope.

After Edie and the dressmaker had departed, curiosity prompted Alex to bring one of the barn cats into the house.

Seeking his wife, he found her in the kitchen with Maddy, who was overseeing the preparations for supper. Looking lovely in a pink, high-waisted gown, her hair caught up in a cascade of sable curls at her crown, Annie was perched on a stool at the counter. In the crook of one arm, she held a green crockery bowl from which she was sc.r.a.ping bits of cookie dough with a long-handled spoon. When she spotted Alex, she froze, the spoon partway to her mouth, her eyes fixed on the cat.

At her obvious fascination, Alex couldn't help but grin. The girl didn't just like animals, she adored them. After seeing her with the mice, he couldn't believe, even for an instant, that she would ever inflict harm on any small creature, at least not deliberately.

"This is Mama Kitty, queen of the barnyard cats," Alex told her. "If not for her, we'd be overrun by"- catching himself just in time, he finished with-"gra.s.shoppers."

Maddy slanted him a look, then shook her head. Annie, thank goodness, didn't seem to notice his sudden change of words. She was gazing in fascination at the tabby, the cookie dough forgotten. Alex gestured with a nod. "Sit at the table, Annie love, and I'll let you hold her."

She didn't need to be told twice. Setting the crockery bowl on the counter with a resounding thunk that made everyone else in the kitchen wince, she slid off the stool and hurried to the table where she enthroned herself on a straight-backed chair. Scratching Mama Kitty behind an ear to keep her calm, Alex strode across the room. Annie reached for the cat with welcoming arms. With a smile, he relinquished his burden to her and took a seat nearby so he might observe her behavior with the animal.

Her small face aglow with pleasure, Annie immediately began stroking the cat's silken fur. Mama Kitty, unaccustomed to such loving attention, arched her back and rubbed a whiskered cheek against Annie's bodice. Then, so loudly that Alex could hear her, the tabby began to purr.

Feeling the vibration, Annie ran her hands more firmly over the cat's body. A wondrous expression entered her eyes, and she glanced up at Alex, clearly amazed.

"She's purring," he explained. "Cats usually do when they're petted."

A maid bustled by with a tray of unbaked bread, her destination the oven. "All of them usually shed as well," she commented. "If there's hair in your soup tonight, don't be blaming me."

Alex chuckled. Then he returned his attention to Annie.

What he saw made his heart catch. She hugged the tabby close to her breast, one cheek pressed against its ribs, her expression one of bedazzlement. Alex realized immediately that she was utterly captivated by the cat's purring, a sound she could feel even though she was unable to hear it.

The mystery of Annie and the suffocated kittens was solved.

Alex could almost see her as a very young child, deaf and utterly captivated by the vibrations she felt when she held the kittens, her small hands and arms squeezing too tightly, her curiosity and elation making her forget to be careful. The kittens hadn't been killed with malicious intent, but by a deaf child's unbridled affection. Older now and more in control, she was being incredibly gentle with this cat, taking care not to hug it too tightly or to touch it too roughly.

Watching her with the cat brought home to Alex just how easily this girl was seduced by any sound that she could faintly hear or from which she could detect vibrations. And it explained so much. Her love of the woods, where she felt the wind on her skin. Her fascination with the waterfall, where she no doubt could feel the vibrations made by the water plunging against the rocks. Annie and the kittens. Annie and the church organ. All along, there had been so many signs of her deafness.

His throat suddenly tight with emotion, Alex swallowed and looked away for a moment. Funny that. Before meeting Annie, he hadn't felt close to tears since early childhood. Now it seemed to him that he was blinking away suspicious moisture or gulping back a lump in his throat more often than not.

Watching her ... coming to understand what her life had been like ... Alex supposed that it would take someone with a heart of stone not to be affected, and when it came to this girl, his heart was definitely not made of stone.

In that moment, Alex accepted intellectually what his heart had been telling him for over two weeks. He was in love with her. Impossibly, hopelessly in love. He found her too incredibly sweet and precious to resist. If that was lecherous ...

if it was an unforgivable sin ... well, then, he guessed he was doomed.

Contrary to the old saying, he wasn't entirely sure he'd go to h.e.l.l with a smile on his face. Given Annie's effect on him, there was every possibility he'd have tears in his eyes when the moment of reckoning came. His only consolation was that they would definitely be tears of joy, not sorrow.

Seventeen.

Time. . . For Annie, time, at least as it was interpreted by others, was a concept she didn't understand. For her, there were no clocks, no schedules, no calendars by which she could mark off the days, the weeks, the months. She only knew that the long, lazy days of b.u.t.terfly season had grown shorter, that the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn color, and that the air had become cooler.

Rainy season was coming; she felt it in her bones. But for the first time in her memory, the thought didn't depress her.

Alex's house, unlike that of her parents, was a place of excitement and discovery. She spent hours sitting on her bed each day, blowing on her flute. When she grew bored with that, she could sketch to her heart's content, for Alex had discovered her penchant for drawing and supplied her with charcoal pencils and sketchpads. In addition to that, her mother visited every few days, usually of an afternoon. She was trying to learn how to lip-read, and for the first time in years, Annie could actually communicate with her a little.

With so much to occupy her time, she didn't dread being confined indoors as she once had.

Not that she would be confined. In addition to drawing supplies, Alex had also given her an odd-looking contraption he called an umbrella, which Annie likened to a roof with a handle. According to him, when it rained, one opened the umbrella and held it over one's head, the result being that it rained all around a person but not on him. With the umbrella, she would be free to go walking in the rain whenever she wished without becoming wet.

If she was still able to walk by the time the rainy season arrived. Her stomach was growing so enormous she already felt as if she waddled like a duck. Going down the stairs worried her the most. Being front heavy as she was, she had to lean slightly backward to keep from losing her balance on the steps. It was ever so troublesome.

It was also becoming worrisome. Because of what Alex had told her-about babies being born in a different way than chicks-she no longer believed she might lay an egg. But, even so, there was no question in her mind that there was a baby growing inside her. Sometimes she could even feel it wiggling around, as though it were becoming anxious to get out. Given its size, Annie was beginning to wonder how it would ever manage. Not through her bellyb.u.t.ton, that was a certainty.

She wished she could ask someone how human babies were born, but for the life of her, she couldn't think how. Her mother was only just beginning to lip-read. Alex was much more accomplished at it, but not so much that he could grasp everything she said yet. Those few times when she had tried to act out her questions about babies for him, he didn't seem to understand. In fact, sometimes Annie got the feeling he didn't want to understand. That troubled her and gave her cause to wonder if having a baby wasn't a rather awful experience for the mother. Not that it mattered. She wanted a baby, and if she had to go through a bit of unpleasantness to get one, she was prepared to do whatever was necessary.

Late one afternoon, a time that Annie usually spent with Alex, he received a message requesting his immediate presence down at the stable. Shortly after he left the house, Annie grew bored and, since she'd been allowed more freedom of late to venture outside alone, she decided to take a stroll around the property. In her wandering, she ended up at the stable.

Immediately upon entering, she came to an abrupt stop and tipped her head, held in thrall by a faint sound that broke through the silence that always surrounded her. Since she was so seldom able to detect noise, this was not only a novelty but also a curiosity. It was a shrill sound, unlike anything she could recall ever having heard. Drawn to it, she moved hesitantly through the stable, her footsteps picking up pace slightly as it became louder and easier to follow.

Halfway down the shadowy alleyway that ran through the stable, Annie came to an intersecting corridor. To her left, she saw a bright dome of lantern light, men milling about in its nimbus. Fascinated, she moved toward them. As she drew close enough to see, she realized they were gathered outside a horse stall. Craning her neck to look past them, she saw Alex kneeling beside a prostrate mare inside the enclosure.

The shrill, piercing noise was coming from the horse. The poor animal was screaming, throwing its head, and trying frantically to gain her feet. Alex, face contorted and neck veins bulging, was straining to help the mare stand. During those intervals when the horse fell limp with exhaustion, he stroked her swollen belly and said, over and over, "It'll be okay, girl.

It'll be okay."

Following the movements of his hands, Annie noticed that his arms were smeared with blood to his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, which had been shoved back to his elbows. Concern etched the chiseled lines of his dark face, and when she caught a glimpse of his eyes, she saw they were filled with sorrow. Her gaze moved to the horse. Something was terribly wrong with the poor thing, Annie realized. Judging by the blood, she guessed that the mare had been injured somehow.

"Easy, girl. Easy."

Behind Alex, Deiter, the stable master, was wrestling frantically with some sort of pulley contraption that had been attached to the rafters. Annie guessed, by the mechanism's design, that the canvas straps would be fitted around the mare's body so she could be hoisted to her feet.

Her heart aching for the poor mare, Annie drew closer so she could see better. The mare chose that moment to give a powerful lunge, throwing Alex aside as she pushed to her knees. At a shout from Alex-Annie knew he shouted by the way the muscles along his throat grew distended-Deiter abandoned what he was doing and ran to help. With the a.s.sistance of both men, the horse staggered to her feet.

Frantic-probably with pain-the mare seemed not to appreciate the help of the men and wheeled about, throwing her head and las.h.i.+ng out at Alex with a forehoof. The stable master, trying to dodge her feet, grabbed for her harness but missed. The animal, in her frenzy to escape, came about yet again, this time turning her hindquarters toward the open stall door.

Annie nearly fainted. The mare's backside was dilated and streaming blood, and from it protruded miniature horse legs, the hooves of which were covered with white stuff that resembled clumps of clabbered milk. A baby ... The mare was giving birth.

Annie stood paralyzed, her gaze riveted. The mare's sides were heaving and lathered in sweat. Alex grabbed one of the straps hanging from the ceiling and quickly looped it around her girth. When he got the band fastened, he ran to the wall, unhooked a pulley rope, and, leaping high into the air, pulled on it with his entire weight.

As he tied off the hoist, he glanced over his shoulder at Deiter. "Get the foal turned! Hurry, Deiter, or we're going to lose her, G.o.dd.a.m.n it!"

Provided with a perfect view of the mare's backside, Annie watched in horror as Deiter shoved his arm, clear to the elbow, up inside the mare. Inside of her! Black spots swam before Annie's eyes. An awful, rubbery feeling attacked her legs. A baby, the mare was having a baby. A baby that had been growing inside her in a special place. Only it wasn't wonderful, as Alex had told her. It was horrible. More horrible than anything Annie might have imagined. The mare was suffering, suffering terribly. And if Alex and Deiter couldn't do something to help her, she was obviously going to die.

A strong hand clamped over Annie's elbow. Blinking to see through the spots that swam in her vision, she looked up into the concerned face of a man she'd never seen. He said something to her, but she was in such a state, she couldn't focus on his mouth.

All she wanted was to get away. From the man. From the stable. From Alex, who had lied to her. Away to someplace safe-someplace where she could hide- someplace where the screams welling within her could be released without anyone hearing.

She whirled and ran, blindly and in a panic, the thought going through her head that maybe, if she ran fast enough, she could escape the fate that nature held in store for her. As she exited the stables, however, all thought of running fled her mind. Her legs felt like melted rubber, wobbly and incapable of bearing her weight. The world around her seemed to be doing a slow, undulating turn, vertically one minute, then s.h.i.+fting on its axis, making her feel as if she were being flipped upside down and then sideways.

And she felt sick, so awfully sick. In the blur of her vision, she saw the house, and she broke into a staggering run toward it. There was a hiding place there. A safe place.

Alex had just finished was.h.i.+ng up and was drying his arms when Maddy came tearing into the stable, her green eyes bugged, her face blanched. As she skidded to a stop before him, she began working her mouth, but several seconds pa.s.sed before any sound came out.

"Annie," she finally managed to cry. "Up in the attic! She's screamin' and carry in' on somethin' awful. Come, Master Alex. Come quick!"

One of the hands, who had washed up just before Alex and stood nearby reb.u.t.toning his s.h.i.+rt, said, "Oh, d.a.m.n."

Both Maddy and Alex whirled toward him. At their questioning stares, he shrugged. "The missus was in here a little bit ago," he explained, looking shamefaced. "She seemed purty upset when she ran out."

"In here?" Alex barked. "What d'you mean, in here, Parkins? You mean she saw the mare?" At the man's nod, Alex nearly snarled. "Why in G.o.d's name didn't you tell me?"

"Well, you was busy. With the mare and all. If I'd've bothered you, we would've lost her for sure."

Alex had an unholy urge to knock the man's teeth down his throat. "My wife is far more important to me than a d.a.m.ned horse, Parkins. She shouldn't have been in here. The minute you saw her, you should have-"

Alex broke off, realizing how futile it was to jump all over the fellow. The damage had already been done. Tossing down the towel he'd been using, he pushed by Maddy and broke into a run for the house.