She scurried out of the room with mousy steps.

"I hope she will work out," Tony muttered after her. "Got her on rather quick notice from a new agency."

"She seems very nice, Tony."

"We'll see."

"I'd better be going," Drake said. "I'll come by again in a day or so, Annie. Is there anything I can bring you?"

"There are things back at Winnerow that I want, Drake. When are you going to make a trip there?"

"Not for a while, Annie, but I suppose we could send for them." He looked to Tony for confirmation.

"Of course."

"I can just call Aunt f.a.n.n.y, too. I'm sure she's going to want to come out to see me."

"I'm sure Drake can get away for a day," Tony decided. "It's important enough."

"Make a list, Annie, and Ill pick it up when I return."

"Thank you; Drake."

"See you soon." He gave me a quick peck on the cheek and hurried out of the room.

Tony stood there gazing down at me. Suddenly the expression on his face changed. His blue eyes brightened and his face lifted as though he had just come upon something he thought he had lost. There was a strange look in his eyes as he turned toward the windows.

"Well now, we can open these curtains. The sky has cleared and it's a magnificent day." He pulled open the curtains at d looked down. "Flowers are in bloom everywhere. I'm going to have that pool filled tomorrow. I know how you like to swim."

"Swim?" Who told him I liked to swim, I wondered, and how could he fill that pool tomorrow? It looked like it needed a lot of repair work.

"I'll have to see about Scuttles, too. I know as the days get warmer you're going to want to ride that pony."

"Scuttles? What a funny name for a horse. You really think the doctors will let me get on a horse, Tony?" He didn't reply. He continued to stare down. "Tony?"

He turned around as if he had just realized I was there.

"Oh. Lost myself in a daydream. So, I'll tell Mrs. Broadfield to get started," he said. He slapped his hands together and then started out of the room.

Shortly after, Mrs. Broadfield came in and took me through some therapeutic exercises and gave me a leg ma.s.sage. Even though my legs were lifted and turned this way and that, I felt nothing, no pain, no aches, just as Dr. Malisoff had predicted. There was only a slight sensation over my toes, but perhaps even that was in my imagination.

"I see your fingers there, but I don't feel them, Mrs. Broadfield." She nodded and worked on as though I were a piece of clay she was molding.

After that she helped me into the wheelchair so I could sit up and wheel about while she prepared a hot bath. When she went into the bathroom, I wheeled myself to the window and looked down as Tony had.

Flowers in bloom? The flower beds were so overrun with weeds and gra.s.s, nothing dainty could compete. Maybe he meant he would do something about them now so there would be flowers in bloom. Just as he said, he must have been daydreaming, I thought. Scuttles . . . horseback riding. I shook my head. It was strange, almost as if Tony were living in another time and thought me to be someone else.

"Let me prepare you for your bath now, Annie," Mrs. Broadfield said, coming up behind me. I was in such deep thought, her voice made me jump. She put her hand so softly on my shoulder, I quickly relaxed. She could be gentle when she wanted to be. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes, I was just thinking. Mrs. Broadfield, do you think I could go horseback riding in the near future?"

"Horseback riding." She laughed. I think it was the first time I had heard her do so. "I'm just hoping you'll be able to get yourself in and out of this chair in the near future. Whoever put such a thought in your head?"

I stared up at her.

"No one," I said.

"Well, I'm glad you're thinking positively. It helps." She wheeled me into the bathroom and helped me strip off my nightgown. Then she guided me into the hot tub. At the hospital, doctors, nurses and Mrs. Toadfield poked and explored my body and I had no selfsconsciousness about it. Modesty seemed ridiculous and out of place. Who cared who saw me naked? I was more like a dead person.

But now, stronger, more aware of myself, I did blush. Not since I was a very little girl had anyone helped me bathe. Mrs. Broadfield held me under my arms as I lowered myself into the hot water.

"It's so hot."

"It has to be that way, Annie."

When I was settled securely, she released her grip but kept her hands on my shoulders. Under the hot, bubbling water, my legs looked leaden. I still couldn't feel them at all. Her strong fingers, made muscular by hours and hours of ma.s.saging and lifting patients, kneaded my small shoulders and the back of my neck.

"Just relax," she said. "Close your eyes and relax."

I did what she said and leaned back. Steamy vapor filled my lungs, misted the air so Mrs. Broadfield and I seemed miles and miles away. I drifted into a dreamy land where soft music played. I felt drunk from lack of energy. I heard her dip a washcloth into the bubbling water and then felt her bring it to my arms.

"I can do that."

"Just relax. It's what Mr. Tatterton has hired me to do."

It was difficult for me to relax while someone else scrubbed my body. She moved the soft cloth slowly over and under my arms. She washed my neck and shoulders and had me lean forward so she could wash most of my back.

"Doesn't this feel good, Annie?"

I simply nodded, keeping my eyes closed. It was easier for me that way. Whenever I opened them, I saw Mrs. Broadfield bent over the hot tub, her face tight and intense, like a skilled technician worried about detail.

"You have a nice, firm young body, Annie. Strong. You're going to recuperate, if you cooperate and follow the therapy."

The hot steam drew beads of water in lines across her forehead and over her puffy cheeks. They looked like tiny pearls. Her face was very flushed, almost as red as someone who had fallen asleep in the hot sunlight.

She dipped her arms as deeply into the water as she could to reach my legs and thighs, washing and ma.s.saging. Finally she sat back, looking short of breath. She saw how I gazed quizzically at her and she quickly rose to her feet to wipe her forearms.

"Just sit there and soak for a while longer," she said, and went into the bedroom.

I did all that I could to help a.s.sist her in lifting me out of the tub. I wiped down my upper body while she wiped my feet and legs. Then she helped me into a new nightgown and brought me back to the bed. I wanted to remain in the wheelchair, even though the hot bath had tired me out.

"Just for a short while," she said. "I'll be back and help you into bed so you can take a brief nap before dinner."

I waited until she left the room and then I wheeled myself to the window. The afternoon sun had fallen far enough below the great house so that the building now cast a long, dark shadow over the grounds and the maze. Still, it looked warm outside.

I had come to the window because I wanted to look again at the Tatterton family cemetery. I hadn't been there yet, but just seeing my parents' monument would make me feel closer to them, I thought.

Suddenly I saw a man appear as if out of the air. He must have been standing off in a shadow. I leaned as close to the window as I could and gazed at the figure made small by the distance. At first I thought it might be Luke, but as my eyes focused in more accurately, I realized he was a taller, thinner man.

He stepped up to the monument and stared at it for the longest time. Then he dropped to his knees. I could see hie: lower his head, and although I was much too far away to be sure, I even thought I could see his body shudder with sobs.

Who was he? It wasn't Tony, although there was something about the frame of his body that reminded me of Tony.

Was it one of the help who remembered my mother well?

I blinked because my eyes grew tired and began to tear from staring so intently, and then I leaned back and wiped them with the back of my hand.

When I leaned forward again to look out at the cemetery and the monument, the man was gone. It was as if he popped into thin air, disappearing like a bubble.

I sat back because something that occurred to me filled me with a shudder and a chill.

Had I imagined him?

Frustrated and exhausted, I backed away from the window.

TWELVE.

Ghosts in the House.

Tony found me asleep .in my wheelchair by the window. I woke when I felt him wheeling me back to the bed.

"Oh, I didn't mean to wake you. You looked so beautiful, like a sleeping princess. I was just about to be the prince and kiss you to wake you," he said warmly, his eyes bright.

"I can't believe I fell asleep so quickly. What time is it?"

Dark, brooding clouds had slid across the sky, blocking the sun and making it hard to tell what time of day it was.

"Don't be concerned. I'm sure your fatigue is a result of the therapy and the hot bath Mrs. Broadfield gave you," he explained with a father's comforting tone. "They'll wear you out in the beginning. You must remember that you still don't have much strength. That's why the doctors are so concerned that you have a peaceful, restful time while trying to recuperate. At least at the very beginning."

I saw by the way he pressed down on his lips that this was meant as a reminder and as mild chastis.e.m.e.nt for the tantrum I threw when I discovered I had no phone.

"I know. I just get so impatient, so frustrated," I offered as an excuse. His face lightened instantly.

"Of course you feel that way. Why shouldn't you? Everyone understands. You have to come back slowly, in small increments, doing a little more each day. Broadfield says that when patients try to rush things along, they r.e.t.a.r.d their recuperation."

"The strange thing is, I don't feel that weak," I cried. "It's almost as if I could walk again immediately if I were forced to do it. At least, that's the feeling I get every once in a while."

He nodded with understanding. "Your feelings deceive you. Dr. Malisoff told me that might happen. It's expected. The mind doesn't want to face up to the limits of the body."

I wanted to show him that he and Mrs. Broadfield and the doctors were wrong, so I didn't ask him to help me up and out of the chair and into the bed. My hands wobbled on the arms of the chair as I tried to raise myself. But even putting all my weight on only my upper body, my lower body now just a bail and chain, I was unable to lift myself very high and fell back into the chair, my heart pounding from the effort. I felt a sharp pain across the middle of my brow and moaned.

"As I said. It seems like you can do everything you used to do for yourself, but you can't. It's the mind's way of trying to deny what happened." He looked away for a moment. "And sometimes, sometimes even the best minds, the strongest minds, refuse to believe what their bodies . . . what reality tells them is true. They invent, pretend, fantasize, do anything to avoid hearing the words they dread," he explained, his voice dropping to a whisper.

I stared up at him. He had spoken so pa.s.sionately, so vehemently, that I felt overwhelmed. All I could do was nod. Then he turned back to me, his face changed again, a look of loving compa.s.sion in his eyes. He leaned down over me, his face so close to mine, our lips nearly touched, and he hooked his hands under my arms to lift my body out of the chair and onto the bed. For a long moment he held me, embracing me, his cheek pressed against mine. I thought he whispered Mommy's name, but then he swung me gently to the bed and I fell back against the pillow.

"I'm not too rough, I hope," he said, still leaning over me, his face still very close to mine.

"No, Tony." I knew it was unfair and even silly to think it, but I hated my body for betraying me and leaving me dependent upon the mercy and kindness of other people.

"Perhaps you should take a nap before dinner," he said. I didn't need the suggestion. My eyelids felt so heavy it was hard to keep them open. Everytime I did look up, it seemed as if Tony were leaning closer and closer over me. I know I wasn't supposed to be able to feel anyone touch me from the waist down, but I thought his hands were over my legs, caressing them. I fought to keep myself awake in order to confirm or deny what I was seeing, but I dropped off quickly, like one under sedation, my last thought being Tony's lips were moving down my cheek toward my lips.

I next awoke to the sound of Millie Thomas setting my supper tray on the bed table beside me. Apparently I had slept through a summer thunderstorm, for I could smell the fresh, wet scent of rain, even though the sky was now only partly cloudy.

When I recalled Tony helping me to bed and thought about the image of his hands on my legs and his lips close to mine, I considered it some kind of dreary. It seemed too ethereal, too misty a memory, anyway.

"Didn't mean to wake you, Miss Annie," she said timidly.

I blinked and blinked and focused in on her. With her arms pressed tightly against her body and her hands overlapping at her waist, she looked penitent, like one of the people from the w.i.l.l.i.e.s who had just been lectured by old Reverend Wise. He was always harder on them than he was on the people from Winnerrow proper.

"That's all right, Millie. I should be awake. It rained, didn't it?"

"Oh, like the d.i.c.kens, Miss Annie!"

"Please, don't call me Miss Annie. Just call me Annie." She nodded slightly. "Where are you from, Millie?"

"Oh, from Boston."

"Do you know where Harvard is?"

"Of course, Miss . . of course, Annie."

"My uncle Drake goes there, and I have a . . a cousin going there now, too. His name is Luke."

She smiled more warmly and fixed my sitting pillow behind me. I pulled myself up into position to eat and she wheeled the table to the bed.

"I don't know anyone who went to Harvard." "How long have you been working as a maid, Millie?"

"Five years. Before that I worked as a stock girl at Filene's, but I didn't like the work as much as I like working as a maid."

"Why do you like working as a maid?"

"You get to work in such nice houses. All not as big as this one, of course; but nice ones. And you meet people of better breeding. That's the way my mother put it. She was a maid, too, for years and years. Now she's in a rest home."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"That's okay. She's happy. I'm sorry for you, Annie. I know your tragedy. All the servants were talking about your mother this morning, the ones who remembered her, that is."

"You mean like Rye Whiskey?"

She laughed.