A THORNE REMAINING

By Jo Anzalone

PART EIGHT:

Allie sat for some time staring at young Terry.  She wasn't sure where Terry had moved to after setting the picture of himself on her book, so she tried talking toward the desk chair again. "Do you know how much I wish you could tell me about that wound on your forehead? It looks like you must've been smacked by something pretty hard."

He'd been still standing beside the bed, so he sat down on the edge of it, making a nice sag in it that let her know where he was.  "It was hard," he said, "a sidewalk. Was running and tripped and slammed myself face-first into the walk."

She frowned, straining, trying to hear, but there was nothing clear at all. "Did it leave a scar?"

"Yes," he replied, "but I have a matching one on the other side from a helicopter."

"Would you do something for me, Terry?"

The sag disappeared as he stood. "Name it, luv."

"Could you get my sketch pad for me out of the closet...and a pencil?"

The closet door opened and her pad floated out, accompanied by a pencil. She didn't even blink.  When she had the pad in her hands, she flipped to a clean page and began to sketch, starting with the curve of his right cheek. "I don't know why," she said, as her pencil flew, "but I always seem to start a face right there...every time."

She looked back and forth from the old picture to her paper, taking the lines of him and trying to add a bit over 15 years, making his face just a bit broader, the jaw line a tad fuller, the eyes older. She was actually coming fairly close to the way he looked now, and she'd even included a slight trace of two scars, one near each temple.

"She hears me," he said to himself, "down inside beyond the depth words can reach, she hears me."

He walked to the French doors, standing there a while, looking out at the night. When he turned back, her head was tipped to one side on the pillow, the sketch pad about to slip off her lap. He came around the bed, squatting beside it on the blue rug, resting his elbows on the bed as he laced his fingers, his chin gradually settling atop them. He never tired of looking at her. He thought that if he were an artist and needed a model for an angel, he'd choose her. It wasn't just the way her blonde hair waved about her cheeks, but the contours of her face itself combined with her air of innocence and guilelessness.

His wife had been a more worldly woman, a British general's daughter, used her whole life to being admired, sought after, knowing how to play the game well. It was more than likely true that she had married him more to spite her father than out of love. Whatever level of love there had been between them had flamed quickly, died even more quickly. Except for Henry, the whole thing had been rather much of a bust all round.

Allison was about as different from all that as you could get. Perhaps that was why he was so attracted to her? In the years following his divorce, he'd dated many women, none seriously. There had been Alice, of course, but never any real possibilities there, not really. After that, he'd been even more constantly on the go, women of any sort few and far between. Maybe he'd been licking his wounds? He wasn't sure, he only knew he'd not seriously looked at a woman for some time now. But this one...somehow...in some fantastic, unexplainable way...this one had brought him home.

Carefully, he slid the tablet from under her hand, looking at it one last time before closing its cover and setting it on the table beside the bed. Her pencil had rolled onto the floor, and he retrieved it, putting it atop the tablet. With utmost care he settled her pillow down so that she lay more comfortably and as he pulled the covers up a bit he felt in himself a gentle tenderness that he'd never experienced before. Perhaps with life over it was easier for a man to get in touch with the things that really mattered. With no need to impress, no need to "do", he was free just to be, to be who he innately was.

As he looked at her now, he was more certain than ever that if he had come home as he'd been meant to come home, he would have married her. It would have happened. He knew it.

After a while, he walked through the French doors and around again to the porch swing. His Mom used to keep cushions on the old swing and sit there in the evenings waiting for the night jasmine to open. He thought of her as he quietly pushed the swing back and forth with the tip of one shoe. Every inch of this house, this land held memories for him.

The screen door opened and Addie stepped out onto the porch. He put his foot flat, stopping the swing's motion as quickly as he could. She looked in his direction, her eyes hooded, expression unreadable, then turned and went back in the house.

In the morning Allie stopped by the old black and white soccer team picture in the hall. Now that she'd seen Terry at 19, she could pick out which one he was in this even older picture. He was kneeling on the left side of the front row, squinting, the sun in his eyes, his hair blowing in the wind. Reaching up, she touched the picture there.

"What are you doing?" Addie was standing in the kitchen door.

"Just looking at this picture," Allie replied, not entirely able to keep a note of defensiveness out of her voice.

"Something interesting in it?"

"Just a boys' soccer team. That's all."

"You think he was one of them?"

"Who?"

"You know who I mean. The man who owned this house. Is that why you were so interested in it?"

Allison was beginning to tire of being constantly put on the spot by her older sister. "It's no big deal, Addie. Leave it alone."

"Just so long as you keep it in mind the man is dead."

"Believe me, Addie, nobody knows that better than I do."

"What the heck does that mean?"

"It means nothing. Nothing at all. What's for breakfast?"

An hour later Allison was sitting in her chair in Terry's room, thumbing through a book on South America that she'd taken off a low shelf. Terry was sitting on the window seat, his back against the right-hand wall, his legs stretched out along the cushions in front of him.

"I wish I knew where in South America you were," Allie was saying. She hadn't closed the bedroom door all the way and Addie had come down the hall and was standing just outside, intending to ask Allie if she wanted to go into Armidale with her grocery shopping. When she heard Allison's voice, as conversational as though she were speaking with someone in the room, she stopped, wondering who Allie was talking to.

"Even if I knew which country, you know, Terry, and just what was meant by you doing 'rescue work.' Was that what you did all over the world, why you have so many books and maps of so many places, Terry, because you rescued people in trouble everywhere?"

My God! Her sister was pretending to talk to the dead Mr. Thorne! She had known Allie was probably fairly lonely in her life, but it had never crossed her mind she would go that far. She listened a while longer.

"Could you show me, Terry, could you show me in this book which country you were in when, well, you know."

Terry got up from the window seat, bending over the book in Allie's lap. She had it open to a section on Brazil and he flipped the pages until he came to the chapter on Colombia.

By that time Addie was peeking through the partially-open door and saw Allison's hands resting on the arms of her chair while the pages of the large book in her lap turned by themselves.

"Colombia? You were in Colombia?" Allie asked.

Addie had to clasp her hand over her mouth to keep from gasping. What in the name of God was going ON in there? Her first instinct was to charge in there, grab the wheelchair and haul her sister out. But she waited.

"Do you have a map, Terry, a map that shows where you were?"

The second drawer opened by itself and in a moment a map floated out and onto Allie's lap. She set the book on the desk and opened the map.

Addie wanted to scream. She wanted to run and scream and run some more. Something was in there with her sister, something her sister seemed to think was the dead owner of this house. She couldn't stand it any longer and flung the door wide, pushing it so hard it slammed into the wall as it opened.

"ALLISON!" she cried.

Allie turned her head. "Oh, hullo, Addie," she said as though nothing out of the ordinary had just been happening all around her. Then she saw her sister's face. "What's the matter, Sis?"

"What's the MATTER?" Addie practically roared, only entering the room because she thought she might need to save her sister from the jaws of hell. "What is going ON in here?"

"What do you mean?" Allison replied innocently, having no idea how much Addie might or might not have seen.

"I MEAN drawers opening, pages turning, maps floating! THAT'S what I mean!"

Terry had retreated across the room, his lips pressed tightly together, his eyes wary.

"Oh, that," Allie said, trying to toss it off lightly. "Don't worry. It's ok."

"OK? HOW can it be ok?"

"It just is. It's perfectly all right. What did you want?"

"I wanted to ask you if you'd like to come with me into Armidale, but even if you don't, there's no way in hell I'm going anywhere and leaving you here alone. Not now."

"I'm fine, Addie. And I'll be fine. Just go away."

"Go AWAY?"

"Well, I didn't mean it to sound like that. I'm sorry. It's all right for you to go into Armidale. I don't want to go."

"You think I'm leaving you alone with...it?"

"It?"

"Yes...it. Whatever is moving things around in this room." Suddenly she remembered the porch swing last night. "Tell me, Allison. TELL ME! Who were you talking to? TELL ME?"

"Him," Allie whispered. "I was talking with...him."

"HIM? Terry Thorne? You mean him, Terry?"

Allison nodded, her eyes down.

"He's...here?"

Allie nodded again, very slightly.

"Good God in heaven!" Addie's knees felt suddenly very weak and she sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her sister near the desk.  "Now?"

"Probably."

"You're not sure."

"He may have left when you came in.  I don't know."

Addie's eyes roamed the room, skimming over Terry near the window seat unseen. "How long?"

"Since after the rain."

Addie stood. "We have to get out of here."

"No, we don't," Allie said quietly, firmly.

But Addie had gone out the door and down the hall and was already dialing the kitchen phone. "Listen, Mr. Comack. Something's come up with my sister. She's in a wheelchair you know. Well, the house isn't going to work out for her and I need to get her back to Coffs. Now. Immediately. Yes, yes, I do want out of my lease. As soon as possible. How quickly can you arrange it? No, I'm not worried about any penalties. I just want out of it. Today if possible."

"ADDIE!" Allison cried, wheeling into the kitchen. "You can't DO that!"

"I just did," Addie said triumphantly. "Mr. Comack says that with the owner deceased and all, it'll be a snap to get out of the lease."

"I won't go," Allie stated, lifting her chin.

Terry was behind her in the hallway, listening.

"You have no choice, little sister," Addie retorted. "I'm the one who signed the lease and I'm the one who can cancel it."

"Why? Why would you do this to me?" Allie had begun to cry quietly.

"DO to you? This place is haunted. I can't believe I'm even saying that, but there is no way I'm letting you stay here."

"What if I want to stay here?"

"Why on earth would you want to do that?"

"Because...."

"Oh, God," Addie cried, sinking onto a kitchen chair. "You think...."

"I don't think, I know."

"You know nothing! Do you hear me, you inexperienced child you?"

But Allison had turned her chair and was almost back to Terry's room.

"Don't go back in there!" Addie ordered.

But Allie slammed the door and locked it.

Addie pounded on the other side. "You are not staying in there! You're NOT!"

"Go away!" Allie sobbed. "Just go away and leave us alone!"

Addie's hand paused before it touched the door. Us? Allie had used the word 'us'?" This just grew worse and worse. "Mr. Comack's on his way, Allie, and he'll have keys to all the rooms. You might as well pack your stuff while you're in there. We're leaving for Coffs this afternoon. And since your apartment's been rented to someone else, you'll be living with me. So PACK!"

"Terry?" Allison sobbed, her hands moving feebly in front of her. "Where are you, Terry?"

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