The Binding by Nicholas Wolff Page A

atmosphere . . .”
    Prescott raised his eyebrows. Nat suddenly felt that the old man was mocking him, somehow. He couldn’t account for the change in the man’s behavior from yesterday to today. Prescott was the one who had begged him to come, and then he seemed terrified that Nat had actually shown up. Now he was acting . . . vilely amused by Nat’s concern.
    “It’s not conducive to any kind of recovery, Prescott. The things that have happened here . . . She’s emotionally damaged, and vulnerable. You’ve created a kind of dungeon full of bad memories. I need to see her in a neutral environment.”
    “ I didn’t create anything. I have no such abilities.”
    “You’re her father. Sign the goddamn order. I’ll get her on a daily schedule and some medication, if necessary. We can keep here there for observation.”
    “I can’t possibly do that.”
    “You wanted me to help her, right? Well, this is what helping looks like.”
    Prescott shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with, Dr. Thayer.”
    “What am I dealing with, Mr. Prescott? It might help me to know if you told me.”
    “This,” Prescott said, looking around, his look encompassingthe whole house. “It’s not my doing. It came about of its own accord. I suffer here, too.”
    Nat wanted to grab the old man’s thin turkey neck and shake this gothic horror batshit nonsense out of him and take his daughter away to a clean, antiseptic facility that wasn’t dripping with the accumulated paranoia of the last five fucked-up generations of the Prescott clan.
    Prescott turned and walked away.
    “I will be back,” Nat called after him. Prescott made no gesture, just shuffled until the murk of the hallway seemed to swallow him up.
    “Asshole,” Nat muttered. He moved toward the front door, knocked the metal bar left out of its sleeve, turned the handle, and jerked the door open, slamming it shut as he left.
    He felt drained and slightly dizzy as he climbed down the porch steps. Becca was clearly delusional; her father was so terrified of her joining the two brothers that he’d convinced her she was next.
    You have to get her out of here , he said to himself.
    He ripped the Saab door open, got in, and turned the key in the floor ignition. But he just sat there then, with the engine running, his foot pressed slightly on the gas. Finally, he looked back up at the house. The light was still on in Becca’s room, and the curtains were pulled tight. He thought he could detect the presence of a human form behind the ivory cloth. It had to be Becca, but the material was too thick for Nat to be sure.
    The figure moved away from the window.
    Nat drove out of the Shan with the radio pumping loud. He nearly rear-ended an old Mercedes turbo on Narragansett Avenue, and glared back at the driver—a gaping old woman with a doughy face framed by gray curls—when she stared back at him. He felt aggressive, like some strong narcotic was washing out of his bloodstream, leaving him tetchy and spoiling for a fight.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    I t was Saturday, but Daddy had to work, so Mrs. Finlay was in her chair in the living room, watching reruns. Charlie was allowed to stay in bed as long as he wanted, so long as his room was clean by the time Daddy came home. He lingered in the bed, watching the trees dance in the backyard as the wind tossed the branches this way and that. He loved his bedroom; he felt safe and warm here, no matter what was happening outside.
    Finally, his stomach began to rumble, hungryhungryhippofeedmefeedmefeedme , and Charlie jumped off his bed. He quickly pulled the Patriots sheet, with its footballs and helmets and goalposts, all the way up to the wooden bars, then did the same with the Patriots blanket. Charlie didn’t really like football all that much—he was going to play lacrosse at Bishop Carroll, whose playing fields were just past their back fence—but his dad liked it a lot, and Charlie sat on his lap during games