Chapter XXIII

Sabine Drew woke to darkness. Mercifully, the child had ceased crying for the present, but the silence that replaced it was unnerving. It was the quiet of watchfulness, of the prey hiding from the hunter, or the abused seeking to avoid attracting the attention of the abuser. Wherever he was, he was not alone.

Sabine closed her eyes, but not to sleep. She was trying to locate the boy, to draw closer and offer comfort. A song came to her, one her mother used to sing to lull her to sleep: "The Old Oak Tree." It was only in adulthood that Sabine had been struck by the oddness of a mother crooning a tale of murder and burial as a lullaby to her daughter, but all Sabine wanted was to hear her mother's voice.

Dark was the night, cold blew the winds.

And heavy fell the rain.

Bessie left down by her mother's side,

To never return again.

By then Sabine had already become aware of the immanence of the dead, and had even spoken of it to her mother. Maybelle Drew had shown no surprise, only sadness, for this was a burden she had hoped her daughter might be spared. Only later did Sabine learn that Maybelle's mother, Grandma Hattie, had endured presentiments of the death of others throughout her life, and Maybelle herself continued to hear the voice of her younger brother for years after his passing.

"Do they talk to you?" Maybelle had asked, after Sabine opened up to her.

"Not directly," replied Sabine. "I think they talk to themselves or to the ones who are still alive, even if the living can't hear them—or choose not to."

Maybelle smoothed her daughter's hair.

"Well, don't go telling people about this, okay? Let's just keep it to ourselves."

And Sabine did, or tried to, but as time went on, she often felt that she had no choice but to engage with the bereaved when the opportunity presented, because to do so might make them a little less sad.

"She says it weren't your fault, because you'd told her time and again not to go near the water…"

"He says he's sorry, that he should have said he loved you more often, but he did love you, loved you ever since that first day on the coaster in the Palace Playland back in 1948, right before it burned down…"

"They say they miss your bedtime stories…"

If she knew the family, or trusted the individual in question, she'd approach them directly. If in doubt, she'd write an anonymous letter. She had to be circumspect, because there was always a risk people might feel they were being mocked or taken advantage of. On a few occasions, those she spoke with had become angry, while one or two grew desperate, trying to hold on to her, demanding that she open a channel of communication with the departed. Sabine grew better at handling those situations as she progressed from adolescence to adulthood, just as she learned to hold her tongue when required, because there were insights into both the living and the dead that were better kept to herself: accusations, threats. Such pain, such rage.

"You ought not to have done that to me…"

"I see now how you despised her. All those years, and I never knew…"

"I'll tear you apart, you motherfucker, fucking suck your eyes from the sockets and chew your fucking tongue from your mouth…"

In the worst cases, she'd send a letter to the police or social services, again anonymously, and she might subsequently gather through gossip, or read in the papers, that something had been done: an intervention, an arrest. But for the most part, her missives were ignored, or their contents dealt with privately.

Inevitably, word spread. The Drew girl, it was whispered, had a gift. They began coming to her: the distraught, the grief-stricken. She couldn't always tell them what they wanted to hear; her ability didn't work that way. The dead were not always capable of communicating with her, and death itself served to alter their speech, endowing them with a new language beyond the comprehension of the living. When that happened, Sabine tried to interpret feelings, the colors and textures of them. Mainly, though, the dead were absent, gone from this world. Their quietude, Sabine thought, was a blessing. They were at peace, or so she hoped.

Then she had made her big mistake, the one that had forced her into seclusion. She did not want to make the same error again.

But this child, this child…

In the stillness, Sabine began to sing, her voice crossing from the dusky regions of her bedroom to a still more shadowy realm.

Dark was the night, cold blew the winds,

And heavy fell the rain.

Through the song, she tried to offer solace to the boy. Her eye caught the newspaper by her bedside, and even in the dimness, the picture of a man exiting a police station in Portland. She set aside the song to speak directly to the little lost one.

"I know you're afraid," she said, "but I won't abandon you. I'm coming for you, do you hear? I'm coming to find you, but I won't be alone. I think I know someone who will help us, someone who will believe. So don't be frightened, because he won't be. Whatever is down there with you, that's what ought to be scared. You tell it, and you spit in its face when you do.

"You tell it that we're coming."