Needful Things - Stephen King [275]
Oh Alan, how could you? she asked him-and herself-again.
The voice which replied surprised her. It was Aunt Evvie's voice, and beneath the dry lack of sentiment that had always been her way, Polly felt a disquieting, powerful anger.
If you had told him the truth in the first place, girl, he never would have had to.
Polly sat up quickly. That was a disturbing voice, all right, and the most disturbing thing about it was the fact that it was her own voice. Aunt Evvie was many years dead. This was her own subconscious, using Aunt Evvie to express its anger the way a shy ventriloquist might use his dummy to ask a pretty girl for a date, andStop it, girl-didn't I once tell you this town "sfull of ghosts? Maybe it is me. Maybe it is.
Polly uttered a whimpering, frightened cry and then pressed her hand against her mouth.
Or maybe it isn't. In the end, who it is don't matter much, does it?
The question is this, Trisha: Who sinned first? Who lied first?
Who covered up first? Who cast the first stone?
"That's not fair!" Polly shouted into the hot room, and then looked at her own frightened, wide-eyed reflection in the bedroom mirror. She waited for the voice of Aunt Evvie to come back, and when it didn't, she slowly lay back down again.
Perhaps she had sinned first, if omitting part of the truth and telling a few white lies was sinning. Perhaps she had covered up first. But did that give Alan the right to open an investigation on her, the way a law officer might open an investigation on a known felon? Did it give him the right to put her name on some interstate law-enforcement wire or send out a tracer on her, if that was what they called it or or
Never mind, Polly, a voice-one she knew-whispered. Stop tearing yourself apart over what was very proper behavior on your part. I mean, after all! You heard the guilt in his voice, didn't you?
"Yes!" she muttered fiercely into the pillow. "That's right, I did!
What about that, Aunt Evvie?" There was no answer only a queer, light tugging (the question is this Trisha) at her subconscious mind. As if she had forgotten something, left something out (would you like a sweet Trisha) of the equation.
Polly rolled restlessly onto her side, and the azka tumbled across the fullness of one breast. She heard something inside scratch delicately at the silver wall of its prison.
No, Polly thought, it's just something shifting. Something inert.
This idea that there really is something alive in there it's )just your imagination.
Scratch-scritch-scratch.
The silver ball jiggled minutely between the white cotton cup of her bra and the coverlet of the bed.
Scratchy-scri'tch-scratch.
That thing is alive, Trisha, Aunt Evvie said. That thing is alive, and you know it, Don't be silly, Polly told her, tossing over to the other side.
How could there possibly be some creature in there? I suppose it might be able to breathe through all those tiny holes, but what in God's name would it eat?
Maybe, Aunt Evvie replied with soft implacability, i't's eating You, Trisha.
"Polly," she murmured. "My name is Polly."
This time the tug at her subconscious mind was strongersomehow alarming-and for a moment she was almost able to grasp it. Then the telephone began to ring again. She gasped and sat up, her face wearing a look of tired dismay. Pride and longing were at war there.
Talk to him, Trisha-what can it hurt? Better still, listen to him.
You didn't do much of that before, did you?
I don't want to talk to him. Not after what he did.
But you still love him.
Yes; that was true. The only thing was, now she hated him as well.
The voice of Aunt Evvie rose once more, gusting angrily in her mind. Do you want to be a ghost all your life, Trisha? What's the matter with you, girl?