Shadows On The Wall

Chapter 6--Ares' Children

by khammer

"Ares, spare not the brave man, 
But the coward." 

Tom Jennings shut the book in his hands with a snap. Whatever
possessed him to pick up Homeric Hymns, he didn't know. He wasn't
in the mood for any kind of reading. Or any kind of DOING. Restless
airs whispered around him wherever he went; he was not in a good
mood and he was also exhausted. 

He lived alone on what had once been a thriving family farm. With
two healthy sons and a late-miracle daughter, Joseph Jennings had no
doubt left the world believing all was secure. But Time, when it
proved to have a personality, was always fickle for Tom's family. 

The young man got up from the worn couch and went to the window.
White lace curtains his mother had put up twenty years ago still ruffled
in the faint breeze through the open panes. Bachelor-like, Chris had
never bothered to change them for something less floral. They fulfilled
their function, and he left them alone. 

Anyway, Amy would likely have a fit if he did anything with them. 

Sometimes, Tom felt he was the one and single last survivor of the
entire Jennings clan. When their father died, Amy withdrew a great
deal. Then when their mother died--but Tom didn't let himself
remember how that happened--she became a veritable ghost. Chris
had left home at eighteen, and when he ever showed himself again, it
was invariably late at night when Amy was not likely to be up. Amy
lived in her room anyway, although Julia was frank about the kid
making progress. 

"She's hurting inside." Julia was rarely sharp, but she was being so
with him--all the more reason to be impressed with it. "You should
know that. You're hurting too. If the two of you aren't going to come
together and be a family over this it's going to stretch out for years,
and it might NEVER heal. Do you want that?" 

No, he didn't want it. But life wasn't--quite--as simple as Julia
expected it to be. Once it had been, sure, but not any more. Not
since Chris had turned 18, only ten minutes before Tom. 

Good Chris, brilliant Chris, student of architecture, big scholarship
winner, great grad...somehow Tom's achievements had been slightly
shadowed under his brother. It always turned out that way. If Tom
won a ribbon for his woodwork, Chris would take the prize. Tom
was good; Chris was almost fey in his understanding of wood. Of
course, a few people noticed that Tom was the more responsible
one--that if he promised you a cherrywood wine rack to match the
decor of your kitchen by October, you would get it. Chris would
invariably turn out more than his customer expected, but always late. 

Why was it, Tom could still feel any bitterness or envy at Chris? He
didn't want to be Chris for all the money in the world! But that small
coil of resentment still rested in the pit of his stomache. 

Whenever Tom even vaguely thought of envying his brother for his
past achievements, his memory always brought the cure: the sight of
those pigs disemboweled and partially eaten. 

Tom shivered all over. 

That stuff going on...Tom knew without a doubt Chris had nothing to
do with it. But people pointed fingers all the same, drawing similarities
between one case of dead livestock with another. Word always
travleled faster than lightning around the coast. 

If word got out that Chris had come back... 

Tom rubbed his aching forehead. Sometimes he felt centuries old.
Years of self control, tight enough to bind steel, had formed itself over
his makeup, and now he doubted he could break free of that binding.
But then again, why would he want to break free? He had seen all too
well what happened when you lost control. Oh, God, had he ever
seen. 

A faint thump through the old floorboards went on over Tom's head.
Amy was moving her furniture again. Tom let her. He had offered to
help once and she had simply stopped, freezing him out. Amy moved
her bed, her dresser, little desk and small bookshelf around at least
once a week, claiming to be bored with the same thing all the time. 

They both knew she was trying to get away from the moonlight. 

Julia certainly had her work cut out for her, being this kid's therapist.
Tom doubted the infamous David Collins would be half the frustration
of that little girl. And he felt bad about that, because if anyone
deserved to be trusted with a confidence, it was Julia. Tom knew her
as wholly trustworthy, and maybe she would even be able to do
something about all three of them as a family. 

Maybe she'd even BELIEVE what had happened to them. Tom could
still remember that Halloween party, when the Ouija board had
refused to perform for anyone but Julia. Julia had laughed it off and
claimed to have the mad and the gifted in her family--which was why
she made a natural doctor. God Knew, an Ouija board would make
more of a diagnosing tool for the Jennings than a stethescope or a test
tube. 

The hour was late and he was tired; he hadn't recovered from the
spring glut of available work, buthe couldn't make himself go to bed. 

Nor could he make himself take a drink to calm his nerves. There was
no alcohol in the house anyway. Alcohol made him lose control. 

So he just went back to the couch and sat down. And tried not to
think. Not about what was going on, or his little sister, or their
doctor--he especially did not want to think about Julia--or anything. 

But most of all, he didn't want to think of Chris, alone in a single room
log cabin in the thick of the old family forest, waiting for the moon to
change.

On the other side of Collinsport, Julia couldn't help but wonder how
Tom and Amy were doing. They lived alone, and that farm was
seriously isolated. Amy was more homeschooled than public
schooled, thanks to what winter did to their ability to travel...another
mishap of the barnyard, only this time a calf. 

Unlike some people who were quick to leap to conclusions in certain
bars, Julia's fancy never flew. She had already concluded that if the
calf had anything in common with those pigs, it was too vague for
HER to see. A single case of exsanguination did not easily compare to
what had ended up as a case of mink in the henhouse, only on a much
larger scale. 

She rubbed her neck roughly, an old habit formed from years of
needing some kind of tension relief, and pushed aside Amy's file with
a sigh. Progress was slow, but it was there. What frightened her was
the threat of Amy's regression if she endured another upset. She was
lucky; Amy liked her, and said so, and proved so in her willingness to
talk with Julia. Some of the things Amy talked about, Julia really
wished she could share with Tom, but that was outside the bounds of
her personal ethics. What Amy told her in confidence had to remain
confident....maybe someday, Amy would feel ready to open up to her
brother the way she did to Julia. 

Julia's mind slipped to the matter of the calf again. News traveled
quickly in a small town, and in a hospital quickest of all--quicker even
than the local bars, incredible as it sounded. And thinking of the calf
reminded her of the slaughter of those pigs--"wild animal" being the
general verdict, but Julia knew of no wild animal capable of that kind
of wholesale murder. 

Amy's other brother Chris had left Collinsport at about the same time
the livestock had been torn apart. Julia was STILL unsure as to which
happening had traumitized the girl more. Tom said that Chris was in
touch off and on, but that was hardly enough reassurance to the child.
Their parents were dead; Julia had never met Chris, but had decided
he had better have a 48-k excuse for his not seeing Amy more often. 

She still wondered why Tom had brought his treasured little sister to
HER, of all people. Julia was highly recommended for her results, but
not that many people understood them, and she was quite used to
getting the majority of her clients from outside the immediate area. 

It was acid-churning situations like that, that had persuaded Julia to
take a sabbatical. She never worried about her sanity, but the strain of
work had been showing up in unmistakeable ways: fatigue. A
listlessness in her rare periods of idleness. She was afraid that the
edge would wear off her judgement and cause someone to suffer. 

So when she had said as much to Liz, it had surprised her when the
other woman practically ordered her to do her vacationing over at
Collinwood. They were friends, yes--but not overtly close, although
that was changing, with extended contact with each other. Julia had a
great deal of respect for Elizabeth, and considering what people said
about herself, she would be a poor kind of person to listen to what
people said about her. 

"Julia, you're just trading one madhouse for another." Words of
wisdom from Dave Woodard, with his arms folded as usual over his
chest and his back against the wall while she packed. There were
times when Julia wondered if their friendship was simply a testimony
to each doctor's depth of patience. It wasn't as though they had much
in common, once you took away the schooling and degrees. They
argued so often that a new nurse at CG, in all seriousness, had asked
if they were married. "They might as well be." Had been her answer. 

And you could take THAT how you chose to. Julia had actually
considered the possibility once or twice, and so had Dave, but neither
of them really wanted to come out, and take the leap off the deep
end. Their friendship was often shaky enough. Matrimony might well
destroy it. If they hadn't killed or kissed each other by now, they
never will. 

Dave wasn't her kind of mate anyway. God love him, but he was too
conservative in his use of medicines, and his thinking ran in the same
lines. Julia quarrelled with him over that, as much as he took offense
at her constant push of the envelope. 

So Julia kept her head cool and simply shrugged as she hefted her
heavy travel bag up. She was so used to travel, her luggage was
canvas rather than rigid leather and board. "I like Liz." She told him
simply. "She's a good person to know." 

Dave snorted. "Julia, the woman hasn't stepped foot outside her
house for twenty years! Doesn't that mean anything to you?" 

Julia refused to rise to the bait. "It means she must be living at
Collinwood, because I can't think of another house large enough to
get lost in." 

Dave made a snorting noise, not wanting to admit she had scored a
point. "You didn't grow up around here; she's something out of a
Wuthering Heights novel." He left his metaphor scrambled like the
single finger poised in the air. "Her husband got itchy feet and simply
walked out one day, left her with a baby Carolyn. Liz turned herself
into the most green of grass widows and hasn't done a THING
except run the Cannery, indirectly, ever since. Carolyn's run like the
wilds-child she is, and the Cannery has been slowly deteriorating in
quality..." Dave exhaled. "If she wants you to visit, don't you think she
might be looking for someone to take care of her??" 

Julia sighed. "Dave, the closest Liz ever came to drawing on me for
free medical advice was to ask me if there was a difference between
marigolds and calendula. That was once in the entire year I've known
her, and I've seen her often. I don't think you have anything to worry
about from her." 

And please quit fretting, she silently begged. 

"You'll see." Dave finished his end of the conversation with a pitying
disgust. "I like them too, Julia, but when you really get to know that
whole family, you'll see that there is something seriously and
fundamentally wrong with them." 

Julia didn't like that he would be so free to talk about people who had
been his patients off and on. Dr. Tobias practiced on the Collinses
more than anybody, and he never had anything negative to say. 

But then, Dave was not often the most professional of physicians. 

Now looking back on that explosive little scene (one of many), Julia
wondered if there hadn't been a grain of truth to what he was saying. 

Because Liz seemed to need Julia around for SOMETHING. 

Nothing she would ever talk about; and Julia instinctively understood,
she wouldn't ever talk about it, too much stone New England
Yankee. And that left it to Julia to intuit everything going on. 

There was, Julia thought with not a little sorrow, something seriously
wrong with a grown and outwardly stable woman who walked in her
sleep every single night. 

The tap on the door was so unexpected, Julia nearly jumped a mile
before she realized it was Sarah Johnson. 

"Oh, Dr. Hoffman." The housekeeper's pinched face was flushed. She
looked excited about something, which was also amazing. Julia only
stared at her as she talked. "There's company downstairs. A cousin of
Mrs. Stoddard's. From England. You should come see this for
yourself!"