by
Mary E. Overstreet
Every time he looked at Willie, Barnabas thought the younger man was going to be sick. Then Willie would notice him watching and that look would vanish though he still looked terrible, as though he hadn't slept in weeks. He had tried to talk him into staying in his room, but Willie said he was only a little tired.
He hadn't eaten breakfast before their meeting. He sat silently waiting for the first discrepancy to show as Barnabas discussed his past investments with their financial advisor.
The first time Barnabas detected a mistake he thought it actually was a mistake. But the second time he knew with a single glance at Willie what must have happened.
He covered for him if only to protect his own image, and kept a tally in his mind for each of the differences between the figures. Anger and indignation built slowly in him as the amount of money missing grew. He found he could not look at Willie any longer and concluded the meeting early, after he knew exactly how much was gone.
Willie was sweating profusely, looking very ill. Barnabas used this as a convenient excuse to leave and followed the shaking man out. He did not look at him until they were back out on the sidewalk.
"Go back to the hotel and wait for me. I'm going to the bank. We'll leave as soon as I return there, and take the next flight out."
Willie blinked, wanting to say something but not knowing what. He looked at Barnabas as long as the other man would look at him and nodded. He wasn't going to run away, he told himself over and over on the verge of collapse.
Barnabas would not speak to him in the airport or on the plane more than to tell him what to do. Willie was too scared to say anything himself. He was losing his mind in fear and the waiting for Barnabas to come down on him. Nightmare images plagued him, filling his mind with horror and shame. He forgot Barnabas sitting next to him and saw and felt vivid flashes of a terrible memory so that he had to clamp his eyes shut and put a hand over his brow to hide his agony as he fought to shut it out of his mind.
A stewardess asked him if he was all right, startling him mercifully into the present. He stammered something about a headache and looked over at Barnabas.
The man did not acknowledge him. He had been betrayed, let Willie steep in his guilt awhile, he thought.
He wanted Willie to drive from Bangor to Collinsport though he could see how unsteady he was.
"B-Barnabas?" Willie began once they had been on the road a while.
"Be quiet, Willie," he said coldly, concerned by the way the car would weave periodically.
"I— I—"
"I said, be quiet!" he snapped.
Willie had glanced at him and jumped in fright, swerving the car onto the shoulder.
"Willie, pull over." Barnabas' expression was hard and cold. Willie obeyed. "Get out." Barnabas opened his door when the car had stopped and waited for Willie to comply.
Willie put the car in neutral, pulling the emergency brake, then got out. He thought Barnabas was going to leave him here. He did not want to be punished, but he didn't want to be abandoned either.
Barnabas slid behind the wheel, slamming the door shut. He looked out the window to see Willie standing looking at him. "Why are you standing there? Get back in," he said impatiently.
Willie moved around to the other side and got in, shutting his door and putting his head between his hands. This silent treatment wasn't helping his nerves at all.
They were almost to Collinsport when Barnabas realized that it was rather odd Willie hadn't run away or at least tried not to act guilty. He was just so angry at being taken for a fool that Willie's behavior mattered not at all to him.
After what seemed eternity, they arrived at the Old House. Barnabas parked the car and got out, leaving Willie to bring in the luggage.
Shudders ran through Willie constantly and his muscles twitched. He dropped his briefcase twice trying to carry everything and open the door.
Once inside Barnabas went behind him and shut the door. Willie set his burdens down on the floor by the staircase, slowly turning to look at Barnabas as he felt the man's eyes boring into him.
Willie felt like someone was pulling out the seams inside him so that he was starting to come apart. Barnabas looked so angry, he thought, and took an unsteady, deep breath.
"All right, Willie," Barnabas said menacingly, still standing by the door. "You have some explaining to do."
He couldn't form words and, trembling, turned away. Chills of fear coursed up and down his body. He heard Barnabas take a step and moved haltingly into the drawing room, leaning forward against one of the pillars at the threshold.
"Ten thousand dollars, Willie!" Barnabas roared. "Where did it go?!"
Willie cringed, his knotting emotions rising amidst the tearing in his mind. "I. . . I. . ."
Barnabas moved close to him, forcing him to move away. "It was your friends, wasn't it? Those two who beat you up. Wasn't it?!" He followed him across the room.
"No!" Willie shook his head. "I-I— It wasn't them. I-I—" He bit his knuckles hard, the pain giving him a little control.
"What else could you have done with ten thousand dollars, Willie? Tell me!" Barnabas grabbed his arm and spun him around. "It was my money—I have a right to know."
"I-I. . . There's. . . I-I-I h-have a girl," he stammered. "I-I g-gave it to her."
"I don't believe you. It was your friends. I want the truth, Willie!" He shook him.
"No! It-it wasn't them." His mind was unraveling bit by bit.
Barnabas seized his wrist, twisting it behind him and forcing his body to straighten against his own. "I want the truth!" He looked right down into Willie's face. Receiving no answer, only a look of intense emotion, he took his other wrist and forced it behind him as well. "The truth, Willie!"
So much was happening inside Willie; the long-tied knots of memories and feelings were loosening, unwinding, releasing an increasing flow of emotion. The close physical proximity of his own private demon accelerated his fear and the confusion building in him. He looked into Barnabas' eyes and felt his mind reeling away.
Barnabas wrenched his arms up, sending sharp pain from his shoulders to his back. A sound escaped him, a cry of agony that echoed to the darkest, deepest part of his soul. He didn't hear Barnabas' frustrated words, but the second jerk on his arms snapped the last thread holding him together.
Head hanging back, his face contorted, mouth opening in a silent scream of anguish, Willie's knees gave way as his mind was flooded with too many memories and all the pent up feelings that went with them. All at once he was faced with everything, every indignation, humiliation, barbarism, pain, and even bittersweet pangs of pleasure he had lived through. The loose ends to all his feelings spun around inside him, creating a whirlpool that his mind was slowly drawn into, constantly brushed by the acid-coated trailing ends, going down into darkness.
Barnabas let him sink to the floor, as Willie slowly brought his arms against his chest, straining till his face was red and the veins at his temples pounded visibly. He fought the whirlpool, knowing he couldn't win. And it hurt so much inside, so much that he would scarcely have noticed if Barnabas had suddenly taken the cane to him. Barnabas was only a part of what he was feeling, only some of the strands that had finally broken loose. He was split into countless ribbons and felt the pain from within dragging him down. He was only marginally aware of Barnabas bending down to try to pull him up. Willie folded in on himself, choking beneath the waves of emotional pain. His eyes squeezed shut, did not hold in the tears that poured forth. Like a dying man, he struggled on with only a basic will to survive. All coherent thought was gone. He sought escape from the terrifying tempest within but could not have effected his own death with Barnabas there. Death by his own hand now would inevitably require violence and was impossible for him.
Willie was not strong now. His ability to fight the flow in him was far smaller than it had been the first time he had faced this internal maelstrom. And even then, he had been weakened to the point he had not known himself. He went down, remembering the first time, wailing inside until it was too late.
Barnabas was distressed over what was happening. He had at first thought Willie was just reacting to his own guilt, but now he could get no response from him at all. Willie's visible tension eased, his hands holding his arms relaxed and let go, his head drooped forward, almost touching the floor. For a few minutes he breathed steadily but hard.
Barnabas frowned down at him. "Willie?" He knelt down and touched his back, wondering if he had pushed Willie over the edge. There was a slight flex of muscle, then he relaxed again.
Barnabas got up and called Wyndecliffe, asking to speak with Julia. He was told she was at Collinwood so he called there and asked her to come to the Old House immediately.
"You're back early—what happened?" Julia had a foreboding feeling.
"I'll explain it to you when you get here." He looked down at Willie whose head rested against his knees just above the floor.
"It's Willie, isn't it?"
"Yes. You must hurry, Julia. Please."
"I'll be right down." She hung up, afraid Barnabas had done something terrible to him.
Barnabas again knelt beside the other man whose head had rolled to one side. His expression was blank, with lines around half-lidded eyes, and deep circles below, and an almost slack jaw. He almost appeared dead except for the rise and fall of his back.
Barnabas was afraid to try to move him, and rose to his feet, pacing nervously around him. He heard Julia's car when it arrived and was waiting for her at the door.
Both were reminded of the night Willie had been put in the hospital. But the sight of him folded up on the floor struck Julia harder than seeing him smeared with blood.
She went to him, kneeling down and touching his back gently. "Willie?" She looked into his eyes, pulling back the lids. He moved very slightly at her first touch, but his face showed no change.
Barnabas met her eyes when she looked up at him. "Is he all right? What is it?" he asked.
"Help me get him to his feet." She took one of Willie's arms and Barnabas took the other. They pulled him up, his resistance amounting to little more than cringing, but he did not go limp and fall back to the floor; he let them support him.
"Julia, what is it?" Barnabas repeated. He could feel Willie trembling very slightly and very rapidly. "What's wrong with him? Can he hear us?"
She led them toward the door, the young man's steps shuffling across the floor. "He's regressed. When we get to the car, I'd like you to drive. I want to give him an injection. He's still very tense."
Willie was deep down inside himself. He was aware of his body physically, but powerless to initiate more than basic instinctive reactions. He was beyond the pain of memory, safe from the outside world as if he were beneath the water at the bottom of a deep well. His body felt the sharp prick of Julia's syringe in his hip and the following ride in the car. None of it mattered to Willie.
The drug she had given him relaxed his bodily tension, and he slumped into the corner of the back seat, Julia beside him. He stopped trembling and his eyes closed slowly. She thought he looked utterly exhausted. If nothing else, the rest would do him good.
When she was certain he was asleep and wouldn't need her undivided attention, Julia finally spoke to Barnabas. "What happened back there, Barnabas?"
He sighed, glancing through the rearview mirror at her. She looked angry with him. "I discovered he'd—" Even now, having trusted Willie made him look the fool. "He's been stealing from me, Julia. Ten thousand dollars is unaccounted for. I was confronting him with it."
She looked at Willie, asleep in his grey business suit, leaning against the car door, his face relaxed and expressionless. She was terribly sad for him, even if he had stolen the money. Her own expression hardened when she looked up at Barnabas. "What did you do to him?"
"Is he going to be all right?"
"What did you do to him?"
His quiet sigh was audible over the sound of the tires on the road to her even in the back. "I was trying to get him to admit it was his two friends for whom he was stealing."
"What did you do to him?" her voice dropped gravely. "You hurt him, didn't you? What did you do?"
"I just twisted his arm," he said after a long silence.
"But it hurt," she said, and looked at Willie.
"I assume it did." That it must have hurt, gave him a bad feeling inside.
"You'll never learn, will you, Barnabas? Willie's regressed—withdrawn into himself because you pushed him too far. If he doesn't pull out of this, you are responsible. You're responsible anyway." Barnabas said nothing. "I only hope he comes out of this as he has before." She bit her lips together, feeling like crying. "Poor Willie. He looks so tired." She tore her gaze from him when she had gotten too close to her own emotion. "Tell me what happened on the trip, Barnabas. I need to know everything that happened with Willie."
Barnabas told her what he knew—that Willie had been extremely nervous the entire time, he'd disappeared from his room when they'd first arrived and returned looking scuffed and shaken, and he had looked increasingly worn.
"And you wouldn't speak to him about what you suspected? You just let him get more and more anxious, when you know how bad his nerves have been," she berated him.
"I didn't want to confront him in New York and have something like this happen there. Besides, I was angry with him. He betrayed my trust."
"He may have been coerced."
"Oh, I'm certain of it. It was those two friends of his."
"Did he ever admit it?"
"No. But he should've come to me about it and told me he was in trouble with them."
"He's probably afraid to. He may have some kind of loyalty to them or they may have threatened him with something he didn't think you'd understand."
"Julia, I would've believed whatever he told me after they put him in the hospital."
"Maybe he doesn't know that. Did you ever talk to him about it? Ask him who did it to him?"
"I tried to once, and he said it didn't matter now. It seemed to distress him when I mentioned the hospital and pressed him about it. I honestly didn't think anything else would come of it, so I let it drop."
"And you're certain it was those two men?"
"Absolutely. Willie is a bad liar when he's worked up over something. I could always tell."
"That's because you always intimidated him." Julia sat back, not wanting to say any more to Barnabas because all she had was criticism and that would not help Willie now.
Barnabas drove on, disappointed in himself and Willie. Ten thousand dollars was a lot of money—but worth Willie's sanity? He knew he would never get the money back. The thought of someone having it who did not deserve it really bothered him. If Willie had just come to him. . . But it was as Julia said—Willie didn't trust him enough, he had hidden resentments and anger he never showed. And if he didn't recover. . . He sighed quietly to himself. It was like another death on his conscience.
*