House of Reckoning by John Saul Page B

difficult to believe.
    “I wish,” Nick said as he put his heavy chemistry book into his backpack and pulled out a tattered paperback. “Still have to write a book report on this.”
    Lily hesitated, wondering if she should just leave well enough alone, but before she could stop herself, the question leaped from her lips as if of its own volition. “No voices tonight?”
    Nick swiveled his chair so he was facing her. “They’re actually leaving me alone.”
    “You mean it’s working? We’ve actually found the right dose of the right medicine?”
    Her son shrugged and his eyes shifted away from hers.
    There was something he wasn’t telling her. “What is it, Nick?”
    “Nothing.” He began swiveling back and forth in his chair, a nervous tic that put the lie to his answer.
    “It’s something.” She reached out and took the arm of his chair to stop the swiveling. “Are you taking some other drugs?”
    “No,” he said, but his eyes still avoided hers.
    “Then what?”
    Nick hesitated, but then finally spoke, his eyes turning quizzical. “Well, a weird thing happened.”
    Lily steeled herself for whatever he was about to tell her.
    “There’s this girl.”
    A girl? Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this. “A girl?” she echoed. “You’ve met a girl?”
    “Well, I haven’t really met her yet. She’s new. She’s staying with the Garveys. Her name’s Sarah Crane.”
    Lily had heard that Angie Garvey was getting a foster child. “So what was weird about it?”
    Once again Nick hesitated, and for a moment Lily thought he might just close down. But then he actually grinned.
    “The voices stop when she’s around,” he said.
    Lily let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “What do you mean, they stop?”
    “Just that—when she’s around, they just stop bugging me.”
    “Well, I don’t call that weird,” Lily declared. “I call that wonderful. So tell me about her.”
    He looked up at her. “There’s nothing to tell. I don’t even know her yet.”
    “Well, whatever makes you feel better makes me feel better,” she said, standing up. “So get to know her, okay?” She leaned over and kissed the top of his head. “I’ll let you get back to your homework.”
    “Okay. Good night.”
    Heading back down to the living room, Lily picked up her crossword puzzle, but now, instead of the silence, it was an overwhelming feeling of hope that kept her from concentrating. “Guess what?” she said to Shep, putting the puzzle aside once again.
    Shep glanced disinterestedly in her direction. “What?”
    “Nick’s found a girl.”
    Shep lowered his newspaper and looked at her.
    “Which isn’t the best part,” she went on. “The best part is that his voices go quiet when he’s around her.” As Shep looked at her in disbelief, Lily finally let her face break into the grin she’d been holding back.
    “You’re kidding,” Shep said.
    Lily shook her head.
    “What’s her name?”
    “Sarah Crane. She’s a new girl at school.”
    A shadow passed over Shep’s face, and he was silent for a moment, then stood up. “I think I’ll go have a talk with him.”
    Lily’s belly clenched. If her husband went upstairs and started pressuring Nick—
    But what could she do? Shep was Shep, and she could only do so much to shield her son from him. So she held her tongue as she watched him walk up the stairs.
    Nick tried to focus on the words on the page in front of him, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t quite lied to his mother, but he hadn’t told her the whole truth, either, and he knew she’d been happy at what he had told her. He hadn’t told her just how weirdly the voices had reacted to Sarah Crane, and he sure hadn’t told her about the horrible hallucinations he had in the cafeteria when the other kids were being nasty to Sarah.
    He hadn’t told her because he knew she’d never understand.
    She’d think he was getting worse, and he wasn’t.
    He was getting better. He could