The Searing Read online

  “Then, don’t you worry about your friend’s book? Isn’t it going to draw attention to you and the girl?” he asked defensively.

  “No, we can protect Cindy. We’ve thought it all out; that’s one advantage of living out in Virginia. Besides, Tom’s book is important. It can help us. It can help others.”

  “Others? What do you mean?”

  “I think—we think—there are others,” Sara answered, keeping her voice down, as if sharing a secret.

  “Others? You mean, more children programmed like Cindy?”

  Sara nodded. “There is a group of us involved … Marcia Cohoe, an epigraphist from the Smithsonian, and her husband Neil, who’s at the Naval Observatory. We’ve begun to study children with autistic disorders, children with special perceptual problems. It may be that they, too, have been reached as Cindy was. It’s too early to say, but our preliminary findings look positive. The next step is to mount a full-scale investigation, but we can’t do that on our own. That’s why I’m in Boston; I’m trying to see if any of the foundations here will give us research money.”

  “You actually believe all this, Sara,” Sam whispered, shaking his head. “You really believe this autistic child was controlled by a databank from outer space?” He kept shaking his head in disbelief. “I mean, Sara, you must …”

  She let him talk, listened to his voice drone on while she concentrated on her salad. It had been a terrible mistake to tell him the story. How could he possibly understand what had happened to her and Tom?

  “Sam, just promise you won’t tell anyone,” she interrupted, “especially here at Harvard. I don’t care if you don’t—can’t—believe this, but it’s important that, for the moment, no one be aware of what we’re doing. You can see yourself that it’s too sensational, too far-fetched, and any sort of publicity would be detrimental. I only told you because you’re my friend, and a scientist. I thought you’d understand.” She was leaning forward, staring hard at him. The look in her eyes told him she was deadly serious.

  Sam nodded and absentmindedly picked up his fork and began to eat. For a moment both of them were silent, and then Sam asked, speaking speculatively, “If all of this is true, Sara, if this girl is—was—a databank, then what are you going to do next fall?”

  Sara paused, glanced at Sam, unsure of what he meant.

  “The autumnal equinox,” Sam answered. “Won’t that space window to this extraterrestrial life be open? Won’t they come searching for Cindy? And if there is some sort of residual data in her brain cells, won’t they find her?”

  “No, they won’t.“ Sara shook her head. “We don’t live in the valley, and that’s the place where the eye of Bel made its contact with earth—on the land that became the Delps’ farm. The ancient settlers of America discovered this; that’s why they built the temple in that valley.”

  Sam set down his knife and fork and stared at Sara. “But you just said you thought other autistic children might also be controlled like Cindy. That means the force from Bel must make contact with earth in other places—lots of other places; there’s no telling where, or how many. They could go anywhere, attack anyone’s brain, and they could find Cindy again, wherever she is in the world.” He stopped abruptly, seeing the fear fill her eyes.

  “Are you okay, Sara …?” Sam reached for her hand, but Sara pulled away, trembling with fear, then stood abruptly and, collecting her coat and briefcase, rushed from the restaurant.

  She ran headlong into the busy street as if pursued by the truth of Sam’s question, and only the blare of car horns and screeching tires brought her back to reality.

  Sara spun around in the heavy Cambridge traffic, momentarily unsure which way to turn, then stopped and stared into the bright spring sky over Boston. Sam was right. They would come again to search for Cindy. In the fall of the year when the Northern Hemisphere was once more aligned with the eye of Bel, they would come to kill Cindy. They would come again to kill her child.

  Other books by John Coyne now available or coming soon from Crossroad Press

  Child of Shadows

  Fury

  The Hunting Season

  The Piercing

  The Shroud