Cold feet(74)
Author: Brenda Novak

But it just rang and rang and rang….

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"SO HOW MANY TIMES have you slept with Caleb?" Holly asked.

Startled by the question, which had come out of nowhere after fifteen minutes of small talk, Madison set her cup in its saucer with a clumsy clank. She blinked several times because Holly was no longer in clear focus, and shook her head. "I’m…I’m not going to answer that," she said, but her speech seemed hopelessly slurred. She wanted to tell Holly to leave, but the words eluded her. Probably because the room was spinning, scrambling her brain.

"Have you slept with him?" Holly persisted. "Has he made you shudder in ecstasy like he does me?"

Madison grimaced. The image of Caleb with Holly, especially in the present tense, made her nauseous.

"What? Don’t you like thinking about what I’m going to do with Caleb later, when I console him over your death?" Holly said.

Her death? Was that supposed to be some kind of joke? If Madison wasn’t mistaken, Holly was smiling faintly. But her eyes seemed strangely blank. They didn’t act like windows to her soul; they were more like mirrors, reflecting Madison’s image back at her.

And Holly didn’t make sense. Nothing did. Madison could see Holly’s words shimmering in the air between them, floating in space as though she could reach out and capture them with her hands.

Summoning all her mental energy, she focused hard on the question, because it seemed important that she reply. "Why are you trying to upset me?" she asked, and tried to take another sip of tea, but the cup was too heavy to lift.

"I’m not trying to upset you. I don’t care about you at all. I’m just saying that Caleb takes making love pretty seriously. Once he goes to bed with me again, things will be different."

"Diff…differ…" Giving up on the longer word, Madison went for the more important one. "How?"

"He doesn’t sleep with just anyone, like some men I know. Sex has meaning to him. He makes you feel as though you’re the only woman in the world. It’s very erotic."

Madison knew how erotic it was. She felt flushed just remembering. Or maybe she was coming down with the flu. Certainly something was wrong….

"Madison? Are you still with me?" Holly snapped her fingers in Madison’s face.

Madison closed her eyes to stop the room from shifting. "Yes. Yes, I think so."

"Aren’t you going to finish your tea?"

"No, I–" She used her hand to prop up her head, which suddenly seemed too large for her body. "I think it’s time…for you…to go." There. She’d said it. It had taken supreme effort to remember all the words and string them together in the appropriate sequence. But she’d managed to say what needed to be said. She had to get back into bed, had to sleep until she felt better.

"To go?" Holly echoed. "That isn’t very polite of you, now is it?"

Holly’s laughter grew loud, then soft, then loud again. When her chair scraped the floor, Madison knew she’d gotten up, but she couldn’t figure out what Holly was doing.

"Are…are you leaving?" she asked, having to take several breaths to get the whole sentence out.

"Of course not. At least not yet," Holly said. "I need to get my rope before I visit your daughter’s room. But don’t worry, it’s just out in the car."

"Holly?" Madison felt disoriented, confused. Silence fell for an interminable time. Holly was gone, evidently. But then she was back and moving down the hall. Holly wanted to visit Brianna’s room. Why? Holly was no friend….

At first Madison told herself it was all right; Brianna was at her father’s. But then she heard Brianna’s frightened voice calling, "Mommy? Mommy, who is this? Where are you?"

She lurched to her feet. "Brianna? Brianna, run, hide!" Madison used the table, the refrigerator, the wall to help her reach the hallway. She would have called out to her daughter again, warned her, but blackness was closing in on her fast, rolling toward her like a sudden storm.

BRIANNA SLIPPED UNDER her covers, away from the unfamiliar image of a stranger in her doorway. Her mother had said to run, to hide, but Brianna didn’t know where to go. Her room had always been safe. What was happening? Why should she run?

She wanted to cry out for her mother again, but the blankets were thick and it was hard to breathe. She lay perfectly still, listening, trying to decide if Mommy was playing some kind of new game. But Mommy usually didn’t trick her. And it was very late to be playing a game.

"Brianna? That’s your name, isn’t it? Come here, sweetheart." It was the stranger, a woman. Or maybe it was a monster with a woman’s voice. That would be a very mean monster. Her mother had said to run and hide….

Brianna held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut as the she-monster patted the bed, searching for her among the blankets. She was drawing closer. Her hand nearly touched Brianna’s arm, but Brianna slithered away and slipped into the crack between the bed and the wall, where she sometimes liked to stuff Elizabeth. It was their little hideout.

"Damn it! Come here." The monster grabbed her arm through the covers, and Brianna screamed. Jerking hard, she twisted free because of the blankets, and scooted under the bed. She stayed there on the floor in the corner, crying now because she knew this was no game. The she-monster was pulling away the bed, and there wasn’t anywhere else to go.

BRIANNA’S SCREAM HELPED Madison force back the blackness, gave her the strength to keep fighting. She had to make her legs work, had to remain conscious long enough to be sure Brianna was all right.

Never had a hall seemed so long. Madison didn’t think she was going to make it. She could hear her daughter whimpering, "Mommy…Mommy…Mommy…" and clung to that small voice.

"Shut up!" The woman. Angry. In Brianna’s room.

Madison had to get there. And she had to do it now.

Now…now…now… The words inside her head echoed with urgency, but Madison could no longer walk. The world was spinning, tilting out of control. She was going to throw up. She wanted to sink to the floor and rest her head in her hands, let whatever lapped at her ankles suck her completely away.

Only she wouldn’t give up until she knew her daughter was safe.

Falling to her knees, she crawled closer. She heard the squeak of the bed as someone pushed it around, heard low muttering, Brianna’s crying….

Brianna, hang on. I’m coming. Mommy’s coming.

Madison was breathless by the time she dragged herself into the doorway of Brianna’s room. She could see a shape that had to be Holly down on her knees, trying to reach Brianna, who’d apparently crawled under the bed.