Chapter 15 #2
I waited, projecting polite disinterest as hard as I could. “And?” I said, after this pronouncement had hung in the air for a moment.
“You’re the only one who could have left it there.”
I rolled my eyes with exaggerated annoyance. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been in bed for the past few days.”
“You must have dropped it before that.”
I briefly considered arguing that it could have been Jackson or Mrs. Kent, but throwing anyone else in the path of Phelps seemed like a cruel trick. “How do you know you didn’t leave it yourself?”
“We only use lanterns.”
“Fine, then maybe a rat dragged it in. They eat candles, you know.” I shoved the offending candle in my pocket and folded my arms, calling on all of my experience as schoolteacher who is getting tired of having this conversation.
He leaned forward. He was very tall and I felt my spine trying to sway back, out of the way. I stood my ground. “Nothing goes in or out of that shed, Miss Wilson. It’s built special that way. But you’ve been inside. You saw.”
The lines on his face were pulling tight, his jaw clenched.
Adrenaline trailed cold insect feet down my spine.
I had the feeling that it no longer mattered what I said.
Phelps knew what he knew. Even if he had been wrong, it would not have mattered.
Damnation. I can’t bluff my way out of this, can I?
Those washed-out blue eyes bored into mine. “God hates a liar, Miss Wilson.”
“Then He must be quite angry at you for telling people that shed is full of gunpowder,” I snapped.
To my astonishment, he took a half step back, as if I had struck him. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I have done what I must. I am … I was … trying to protect you.” He reached up and dug his fingers into the back of his scalp.
“Why would you even care?” I asked, taking a step back of my own. I wanted to bolt and run, but if I did, like the monsters of my childhood, he was sure to chase after me. “So the doctor keeps his bugs down there. Why all the secrecy?”
Phelps’s face went momentarily slack. Once again, I had the feeling I’d startled him—no, I’d shocked him. He looked as if I’d hit him with a board.
(why would that shock him?)
That was the moment when I should have bolted. I should have screamed for Jackson and run for the house. Phelps would still have caught me, most likely, but Jackson might have heard.
But I was too used to being a schoolteacher, where your control of the class depends on never showing weakness. I still thought that if I stayed calm and kept Phelps off-balance, I could get through it.
“You’re a cold one,” said Phelps slowly, still watching me as if I’d grown horns.
(why would he say that?)
And then, in a chilly little copperhead whisper under my heart, You know why …
“Take it up with the doctor,” I said aloud, and turned toward the house.
I got three steps before his fingers closed over my arm. “I plan to,” he said. “But you’re not going anywhere, Miss Wilson.”
I looked down at the hand, the knuckles as tough and brown as walnuts, then up at his face, and said, coldly, “Take your hand off me.”
Phelps shook his head. “I don’t think so. You’re coming with me.”
He hauled me forward. I tried to dig in my heels, but only succeeded in tearing long divots through the pine needles and dead leaves.
“I cannot imagine God approves of this!”
His face might as well have been carved in stone. “I do not approve of what the doctor is doing,” he said coldly. “I never have.”
I twisted my arm back and forth, to no avail, and drew in a breath to scream.
Phelps yanked me close, into a tight embrace, face wedged against the front of his shirt. I smelled sweat and sourness, and my shout came out as a muffled yelp. “You can’t keep the Devil locked up,” he said. “I told him.”
He adjusted his grip, clamping a hand over my face. I thrashed uselessly.
“If you’d just told everyone what you saw…” Phelps said, almost plaintively, as he dragged me deeper into the woods. “If you’d just told everyone then, I would’ve been glad. It could have been over.”
I kicked violently at his shins. I might as well have been kicking a tree for all the good it did. Phelps didn’t even slow down.
When we came in sight of the shed, I thought I might be sick from sheer terror.
It was just bugs, just Halder’s bugs, that was all that was in there, the rest was a hallucination, it wasn’t real—
(Phelps thinks it’s real)
When he stopped in front of the door, he locked one arm around my neck to hold me in place and reached for the key. I clutched at his arm, feeling half strangled. “Phelps!” I hissed. “We can still tell everyone! We’ll go together—we’ll tell the sheriff—”
His sigh briefly pressed his rib cage against my shoulders and the back of my neck. “It’s too late now, Miss Wilson,” he said. “You should have said something before. They might have hanged me, yes. I accept that. But the Devil would have finally been burned.” He yanked the door open.
If he got me inside, I might never get out again. I planted my feet again, futilely. “Mister Phelps,” I said, as calmly as possible, as if we were having a conversation, “I believe the Lord never sends us more than we can handle.”
That was a lie, incidentally, but astonishingly, it seemed to work. He stopped, one hand on the door, one still around my neck. I could feel the side of his face against my forehead and the rake of stubble across my skin.
“We can handle this together,” I said, fighting to sound as if this were normal. “Just talk to me.”
It was so close. I could see him thinking about it.
But he shuddered and said, “I’ll wire the doctor,” then whipped his arm off my neck and thrust me through the door.
I tripped over the lip and staggered into the drape, hands out, trying to keep from falling down the stairs. The door slammed behind me.
“The doctor will know what to do,” he said, his voice muffled through the metal.
I beat my hands against the door. “Phelps! Phelps, listen to me! Whatever you’re afraid of—”
“There’s a beekeeper bonnet on the peg,” he said. “That kept them off before. I’ll bring you food later.” And then, almost too quietly to hear, “I’m sorry, Miss Wilson. Hanging’s one thing, but I won’t let the Devil take me. Not like this.”
What was he talking about? What did he know that I didn’t? The beekeeper’s bonnet—yes, all right, I could understand that, if there were botflies down here, that might help—but what Devil was he referring to?
I shouted the questions at him and more, pounding my fists against the door in the dark, alternately threatening and pleading, begging for him not to leave me alone, but all I heard was silence. Phelps was gone, and I was alone in the dark with the shadows of my delirium.