Don't miss any of the chilling novels by
JOHN SAUL
THE GOD PROJECT NATHANIEL
BRAINCHILD
HELLFIRE
THE UNWANTED
THE UNLOVED
CREATURE
SLEEPWALK
SECOND CHILD
DARKNESS
SHADOWS
Available wherever Bantam Books are sold
Muttering softly, his eyes blazing with fury, he
started toward Mrs. Lewis, and began killing her.
Alex remained still in the corner of the kitchen, his
eyes glued to the scene that was being played out a
few feet away.
He could feel the pain in Mrs. Lewis's neck
as the dark-skinned boy's fingers tightened around it.
And he could feel the terror in her soul as she began
to realize that she was going to die.
But he could do nothing except stand where he was,
helplessly watching, for as he endured the pain Mrs.
Lewis was feeling, he was also enduring the pain of the
thought that kept repeating itself in his brain.
It's me. The boy who is killing her is me....
BRAINCHILD
An excursion into absolute terror
by the bestselling master of fear
By John Saul:
SUFFER THE CHILDREN""
PUNISH THE SINNERS""
CRY FOR THE STRANGERS?""
COMES THE BLIND FURY?""
WHEN THE WIND BLOWS?""
THE GOD PROJECT"
NATHANIEL"
BRAINCHILD"
HELLFIRE"
THE UNWANTED"
THE UNLOVED"
CREATURE"
SECOND CHILD"
SLEEPWALK"
DARKNESS"
SHADOWS"
GUARDIAN" his
THE HOMING"
BLACK LIGHTNING"
THE BLACKSTONE CHRONICLES:
Part 1-AN EYE FOR AN EYE: THE
DOLL"
Part 2-TWIST OF FATE: THE LOCKET"
Part 3-ASHES TO ASHES: THE DRAGON'S
FLAME""
Part 4-IN THE SHADOW OF EVIL: THE
HANDKERCHIEF""
Part 5-DAY OF RECKONING: THE
STEREOSCOPE"
Part 6-ASYLUM" THE PRESENCE"
And now available
John Saul's latest tale of terror
THE RIGHT HAND OF EVIL
was Published by Bantam Books was Published
by Fawcett Books Published by Dell Books
BRAINCHILD
John Saul
[*reg]
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NEW YORK TORONTO LONDON SYDNEY
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A Bantam Book I August 1985
All rights reserved.
Copyright [*copygg'1985 by John Saul.
Cover art copyright [*copygg'7985 by Hiram
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If you purchased this book without a cover you should be
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OPM 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27
26 25
PROLOGUE
L
The late-August sun blazed down on the parched
hills with an intensity that was usually felt only much
farther south, and south, the sixteen-year-old boy
thought as he moved stealthily through the scrub-oak
underbrush of his father's vast rancho, was where he and his
family should have gone long before now.
But his father had insisted on staying.
All year, since the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo had been signed, his parents had been
quietly arguing about what to do.
"They will drive us away," his mother had said over and
over. She had said it again only this morning, her
tall figure held firmly erect as she sat
on a ladderback chair in the shade of the eastern
wall of the hacienda, dressed, as always, in black,
despite the heat of the morning. Her hands, their long
slender fingers betraying nothing of what she might be
feeling, worked steadily at the needlepoint with which she
occupied herself during the few moments of each day that the
pressures of the
hacienda allowed her. But his father, as he had every other
day, only shook his head.
"In Los Angeles they are honoring the
Spanish grants. They will honor them here, too."
Dona Maria's eyes had flashed with impatience,
and her mouth had tightened, though when she spoke it was
with the respect she always paid her husband, and had
taught her daughters to pay to both their father and their
brother. "They have not found gold in Los
Angeles. There, the land is worthless. Why not
honor the grants? But here, even if there
is no gold, they will take the land. In San
Francisco the ships arrive every day, and the city is
full. Where will they go?"
"To the goldfields," Don Roberto de
Melendez y Ruiz had insisted, but Dona
Maria had only shaken her head.
"Most of them will go to the goldfields. But not all of
them, Roberto. Some will see into the future, and
want the land. And those men will come here. Who will defend
us?"
"The presidio at Monterey-was
"The presidio is theirs now. The war is over, and
we have lost. Our troops have gone back
to Mexico, and we should follow them."
"No!" Don Roberto had reph'ed. "We are not
Mexicans. We are Californios, and this is our
home. We built this hacienda, and we have a right
to stay here! And stay here we shall!"
"Then we shall stay," Dona Maria had said, her
voice suddenly placid. "But the hacienda will not be
ours. The rancho will be taken from us. New people are
coming, Roberto, and there is nothing we can do."
And now, this afternoon, they had come.
From a hilltop two hundred yards away, the boy
saw a squadron of United States
cavalry appear in the distance, making its
leisurely way up the trail toward the whitewashed
walls of the hacienda. Nothing in their manner
indicated a threat, and yet the boy could feel
danger. But instead of mounting his horse and riding
BRAINCHILD 3
home, he tied the animal to a tree beyond the crest
of the hill, then crouched down into the brush.
He saw his father waiting at the open gates, and could
almost hear him offering the men the hospitality of his
home. But the riders did not go inside. The
squadron waited while one of the stable boys brought
his father's horse. Don Roberto mounted, and the
squadron, with his father in its midst, started back
down the trail toward the mission village a mile
away.
The boy moved as swiftly as he could, but it was slow
going. There was only the one trail, and all his
instincts told him to stay off it, so he made his
way through the tangle of dry brush, hiding himself as
best he could in the clumps of oak.
He watched as the squad drew close to the mission,
and for a moment his fear eased. Perhaps they were only taking
his father to a meeting with the American commandant.
No.
The squadron passed the mission, and continued another
hundred yards down the trail to the enormous oak
tree around which the village had originally been
built. Under its mighty branches, Indians had
camped for untold centuries before even the
Franciscan padres had arrived.
Suddenly the boy knew what the squadron was going
to do, and knew there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
Nor could he leave. He had to stay, to watch.
As his father sat straight in the saddle, one of the men
threw a rope over the lowest branch of the tree,
while another tied Don Roberto's hands behind his
back. Then they led the black stallion under the
tree and tied the free end of the rope around Don
Roberto's neck.
From his hiding place in the brush, the boy tried
to see his father's face, but he was too far away, and the
shade of the oak was impenetrable.
Then one of the cavalrymen lashed the black stal-
lion's flanks with a riding crop; the horse
reared, snorting, and came stamping back to earth. A
second later it was over.
The black horse was galloping up the trail toward
the hacienda, and Don Roberto de Melendez y
Ruiz's body was swinging under the embracing
branches of the oak tree.
The cavalry squadron turned and at the same
leisurely pace started back up the trail toward
the hacienda.
The boy waited until the soldiers were out of sight
before he picked his way the last fifty yards to the
floor of the valley. He stared up into his fathers
face for a long time, trying to read in the eyes of the
corpse what might now be expected of him. But there
was nothing in the twisted grimace of pain, or the
bulging, empty eyes. It was as if, even as he
died, Don Roberto still hadn't understood what was
happening to him.
But the boy understood.
He turned, and faded away back into the brush.
It was late in the afternoon, and as the sun dropped toward
the western horizon, long shadows began their march
across the hilltops. Far away, the boy could see the
beginnings of a fogbank forming over the ocean.
Below him, the last of his family's servants were
drifting out of the open gates of the hacienda, their
meager belongings tied up in worn serapes, their
eyes fixed on the brown earth, as if they, too,
might be in danger if they so much as glanced up at
the guards who flanked the courtyard gates.
Against the inside of the western wall, still protecting
herself from the fading heat, his mother sat calmly on her
chair, her daughters flanking her, her fingers still
occupied with her needlework. Every now and then, he could
see her lips move as she offered words of farewell
to the departing peones, but none of them replied; only
one or two even had the courage to nod toward her.
Finally the last of the servants was gone, and at a
signal from their leader, the guards slowly swung the

BRAINCHILD 5
heavy gates closed. The officer turned to face
Dona Maria. His words carried clearly up the
hillside.
"Where is your son? his
"Gone," his mother replied. "We sent him away
last week. his
"Do not lie, Dona Maria. He was seen
yesterday."
His mother's voice rose then, and the boy knew her
words were for him, as well as for the man she faced.
"He is not here, senor. He is gone
to Sonora, where he will be safe with our people."
"We'll find him, Dona Maria."
"No. You will never find him. But he will find
you. We are not afraid to die. But you will not gain
by killing us. We will not leave our land, senor. My
husband said we will stay, and so we shall. And you will kill
us. But it will do you no good. My son will come back,
and he will find you. his
"Will he?" the squadron leader asked. "Get up,
Dona Maria."
As the boy watched from the hillside, his mother rose
to her feet. Drawing their courage from their mother, his
sisters, too, rose.
"My son will find you," he heard his mother say.
"My son will find you, and he will kill you. his
The squadron leader jerked his thumb toward the south
wall. "Over there." He stepped forward, the
bayonet fixed to the barrel of his rifle jabbing
menacingly at Dona Maria and her daughters.
Dona Maria stood firm. "We are not afraid
to die, but we will not be prodded like cattle. was She
turned and carefully set her needlework on the
chair, then took her daughters" hands in her own.
She started across the courtyard, her step firm, her
back as rigidly erect as ever.
She reached the south wall, still bathed in the afternoon
sunlight, then turned and began to pray. As her
lips began to move, the boy on the
hillside closed his eyes and silently mouthed the
words he knew his mother was speaking.
t greater-than JOHNSAUL
The first shot jerked his eyes open, and he blinked
twice before he could focus on the scene in the
courtyard.
His mother still stood, her head up and her eyes open, but
her right hand was clutching at her breast. A moment
later, blood began to seep from between her fingers, and a
crimson stain spread across the bosom of her
dress.
Then the quiet of the afternoon was shattered as his sisters'
terrified screams mixed with the angry rattle of
gunfire, and a cacophony of sound echoed off the
hacienda walls to roll over the countryside beyond.
His younger sister was the first to fall. Her knees
buckled beneath her, and the motion itself seemed to concentrate
the gunfire on her. Her body twitched
violently for a moment as the bullets slammed
home, then she lay still in the dust.
His older sister screamed and her arms reached out as if
to help the fallen child, but she only pitched forward,
falling facedown into the dirt as the rifles spoke
again.
Dona Maria stood against the wall alone
now. She faced the squadron with open eyes, gazing
down the barrels of their rifles with a calm serenity.
"It will do you no good," she said again. "My son will
find you, and he will kill you. We will never leave our
land." Then she, too, sank slowly to the ground. A
few seconds later the squad emptied its
rifles into her lifeless body.
It was past midnight when the boy crept down from the
hillside and slipped through the gates of the hacienda.
A strange silence hung over the buildings; the
night creatures themselves seemed to honor the dead.
No guards patrolled the grounds, nor had anyone
covered the corpses. The squadron had left long
ago, searching out the families of the overseers to deal
with them as they had dealt with the family of Don
Roberto.
The moon hung low in the night sky, its silvery
light casting strange shadows across the courtyard. The
crim-
BRAIN CHILD 7
son stains of his family's blood were faded by the
halflight to nothing more than grayish smears on the
whitewashed walls. The pallor of death on his mother
and sisters seemed only to be the peace of sleep.
For a long time the boy stood silently
praying for the souls of his parents and his sisters. And
then, with his last prayer, he put his grief aside.
He was changed now, and there was much to be done.
He picked up his mother first, and carried her body out
of the courtyard, then up to the top of the hill, where he
buried it deep within a tangle of brush.
Beside his mother, he buried his sisters, and then sat through
the rest of the night, his mind numb as he relived the
horrors of the day that had just passed.
As the first light of dawn began to bleach the darkness
of the long night away, he rose to his feet and
looked down once more on the hacienda that had been his
home.
His memories, and his mother's words, were etched on his
soul, as the blood of his family and the marks of the
bullets that had killed them were etched on the walls
of the hacienda.
Nothing would ever erase the images in his mind, or
soften the hatred in his heart.
Nor would he ever leave the village that had been his
home.
And forever after, night after endless night, he would
awake from the dream, shivering.
Always it was the same. Always he was in the hills above
the hacienda, watching the slaughter of his
family; always he heard the words of his mother clearly,
and understood what it was that he was to do.
Was it real? Had it all happened exactly as he
saw it in the dream? The shots. The screams.
Crimson stains on whitewashed walls.
Always the dream returned. And he knew what he
must do. ...
H O
w
i
La Paloma was the kind of town that absorbed
change slowly. Tucked up in the hills above
Palo Alto, it had grown slowly for more than a
hundred years, yet its focus remained as it had
always been, the tiny plaza of the old Spanish
mission. Unlike most of the California missions,
Mission La Paloma had never been converted to a
museum or a historical monument, becoming,
instead, the village hall, with its adjoining school
now serving as a library.
Behind the mission there was a tiny cemetery, and beyond the
cemetery was a collection of small rundown
houses where the descendants of La Paloma's
Californio founders lived, still speaking Spanish
among themselves, and eking out meager livings
by serving the gringos who had taken over the lands of the
old hacienda generations ago.
Two blocks from the plaza a smallish, roughly
triangular piece of land dominated by an immense
oak tree lay at the confluence of the main road through
La
JOHN SAUL
Paloma and the side roads that wandered through the ravines
into which the village had spread over the years. The
patch of land had existed undisturbed because the
original settlers, starting with the mission priests,
had elected to leave the massive oak in place and
route the roads away from it. And so it had remained.
There were no sidewalks or curbings along La
Paloma's haphazardly meandering streets, and though
the village that had grown up around the mission had
eventually spilled over into this unnamed, unpopulated
area, the plaza had remained the center of town.
Now the area surrounding the oak was known as the
Square. And the huge oak under which generations of La
Paloma children had grown up, had climbed on,
hung swings from, carved their initials into, and
generally abused beyond all reasonable horticultural
endurance, was neatly fenced off, surrounded by a
well-manicured lawn crisscrossed
by concrete walks carefully planned to appear
random. Discreet signs advised people to stay off the
lawns, refrain from picnicking, deposit litter
in cans prettily painted in adobe brown to conform
to La Paloma's Spanish heritage, and the tree
itself had an ominous chain surrounding it, and a sign of
its own, proclaiming it the largest and oldest oak in
California, and forbidding it to be touched in any
manner at all by anyone except an authorized
representative of the La Paloma Parks
Department. The fact that the Parks Department consisted
only of two part-time gardeners was nowhere mentioned.
For now the computer people had finally discovered La
Paloma.
At first, the thousands who had flocked to the area known
as Silicon Valley had clustered on the flats
around Palo Alto and Sunnyvale. But tiny,
sleepy La Paloma, hidden away up in the
hills, spreading out from the oak into the ravines, a
beautiful retreat from the California sun, shaded
by towering eucalyptus trees, and lush with undergrowth
except up toward the tops of the hills
BRAINCHILD

where the pasturelands still remained, was too
tempting to ignore for long.
The first to move to La Paloma were the upper
echelons of the computer people. Determined to use their new
wealth to preserve the town's simple beauty,
preserve it they had, spending large sums of their
hightech money to keep La Paloma a rustic
retreat from the outside world.
Whether that preservation was a blessing or not depended on
whom you talked to.
For the last remnants of the Californios, the influx
of newcomers meant more jobs. For the merchants of the
village, it meant more money. Both these groups
suddenly found themselves earning a decent income rather than
struggling for survival.
But for others, the preservation of La Paloma meant
a radical change in their entire life-style.
Ellen Lonsdale was one of these.
Ellen had grown up in La Paloma, and when she
had married, she had convinced her husband that La
Paloma was the perfect place in which to settle: a
small, quiet town where Marsh could set up his
medical practice, and they could raise their family
in the ideal environment that Ellen herself had been
raised in. And Marsh, after spending many college
vacations in La Paloma, had agreed.
During the first ten years after Ellen brought Marsh
to La Paloma, her life had been ideal. And then
the computer people began coming, and the village began
to change. The changes were subtle at first; Ellen
had barely noticed them until it was too late.
Now, as she steered her Volvo station wagon through the
village traffic on a May afternoon, Ellen found
herself reflecting on the fact that the Square and its
tree seemed to symbolize all the changes both
she and the town had gone through. If the truth were known,
she thought, La Paloma would not seem as
attractive as it looked.
There were, for example, the old houses-the large,
JOHN SAUL
rambling mansions built by the Californio overseers
in the style of the once-grand hacienda up in the
hills. These were finally being restored to their original
splendor. But no one ever talked about the fact that
often the splendor of the houses failed to alleviate
the unhappiness within, and that, as often as not, the homes
were sold almost as soon as the restorations were complete,
because the families they housed were breaking up,
victims of high-tech, high-tension lives.
And now, Ellen was afraid, the same thing might be
about to happen to her and her family.
She passed the Square, drove up La Paloma
Drive two blocks, and pulled into the parking lot
of the Medical Center.
The Medical Center, like the fence around the Square
and the chain around the tree, was something Ellen had never
expected to see in La Paloma.
She had been wrong.
As La Paloma grew, so had Marsh's
practice, and his tiny office had finally become the
La Paloma Medical Center, a small but
completely equipped hospital. Ellen had long
since stopped counting how many people were on staff, as she
had also long since given up trying to keep books
for Marsh as she had when they'd first married. Marsh, as
well as being its director, owned fifty percent of
its stock. The Lonsdales, like the village, had
prospered. In two more weeks they would be moving out of
their cottage on Santa Clara Avenue and into the
big old house halfway up Hacienda Drive
whose previous owners had filed for a divorce before
even beginning the restorations they had planned.
Ellen half-suspected that one of the reasons she had
wanted the house-and she had to admit she'd wanted it
far more than Marsh or their son, Alex-was to give
her something to do to keep her mind off the fact
that her own marriage seemed to be failing, as so many
in La Paloma seemed to be, not only among the
newcomers but those of her childhood friends as well,
unions that had started out with such high expectations,
had
BRAINCHILD

seemed to flourish for a while, and now were ending for
reasons that most of them didn't really understand.
Valerie Benson, who had simply thrown her
husband out one day, and announced to her friends that she no
longer had the energy to put up with George's bad
habits, though she'd never really told anyone what
those bad habits had been. Now she lived alone in
the house George had helped her restore.
Martha Lewis, who still lived with her husband, even
though the marriage seemed to have ended years ago.
Marty's husband, who had flown high with the
cornputer people for a while as a sales manager, had
finally descended into alcoholism. For Marty,
life had become a struggle to make the monthly
payments on the house she could no longer really
afford.
Cynthia Evans, who, like Marty, still lived with her
husband, but had long ago lost him to the
eighteenhours-a-day, seven-days-a-week schedule
the Silicon Valley people thrived on, and got rich
on. Cynthia had finally decided that if she couldn't
spend time with her husband, she could at least enjoy
spending his money, and had convinced him to buy the old
ruin at the top of Hacienda Drive and give her
free rein to restore it as she saw fit.
And now, the Lonsdales too were involving themselves in
one of the old houses. In the next two weeks,
Ellen had to see to it that the floors were refinished, the
replumbing and rewiring completed, and the interior of the
house painted, activity that she hoped would take her
mind off the fact that Marsh seemed to be working longer
hours than ever before, and that, more and more, the two of them
seemed to be disagreeing on practically everything. But
maybe, just maybe, the new house would capture his
interest, and they would be able to repair the marriage that,
like so many others, had been damaged by the demands of
too much to do in too little time.
As she slid the Volvo wagon in between a Mercedes
and a BMW, and walked into the receiving room, she
JOHN SAUL
put a bright smile on her face and steeled herself
to avoid a quarrel.
There had been too many recently, over too
many things, and they had to stop. They were hurting her, they
were hurting Marsh, and they were hurting Alex, who, at
sixteen, was far more sensitive to his parents'
moods than Ellen would have thought possible. If she
and Marsh quarreled now, Alex would sense it as
soon as he came home that afternoon.
Barbara Fannon, who had started with Marsh as his
nurse when he'd opened his practice almost twenty
years ago, smiled at her. "He just finished a
staff meeting and went to his office. Shall I tell
him you're here?"
Ellen shook her head. "I'll surprise him.
It'll be good for him."
Barbara frowned. "He doesn't like surprises
..."
"That's why it'll be good for him," Ellen retorted
with a forced wink, wishing she didn't sometimes feel that
Barbara knew Marsh better than she did herself.
"Mustn't let Doctor start feeling too
important, must we?" she asked as she started
toward her husband's office.
He was at his desk, and when he glanced up, Ellen
thought she saw a flash of annoyance in his eyes, but
if it was there, he quickly banished it.
"Hi! What drags you down here? I thought
you'd be up at the new place driving everyone
crazy and spending the last of our money." Though he
was smiling broadly, Ellen felt the sting of
criticism, then told herself she vstz imagining it.
"I'm meeting Cynthia Evans," she replied,
and immediately regretted her words. To Marsh, Cynthia
and Bill Evans represented all the changes that
had taken place in La Paloma. Of the fortunes
that were being made, Bill's was one of the largest.
"Don't worry," she added. "I'm not buying, just
looking." She offered Marsh a kiss, and when it was not
returned, went to perch uneasily on the sofa that
sat against one wall. "Although we are going to have to do
something about the tile in
BRAINCHILD

the patio," she added. "Most of it's broken, and
it's impossible to match what isn't. His
Marsh shook his head. "Later," he pronounced.
"We agreed that for now, we'd only do what we have
to to make the place livable. His
"I know," Ellen sighed. "But every time Cynthia
tells me what she's doing with the hacienda, I get
absolutely green with envy. his
Marsh set his pen down on the desk and faced
her. "Then maybe you should have married a programming
genius, not a country doctor," he suggested in a
tone Ellen couldn't read.
While she tried to decide how to respond, her
eyes surveyed the office. Despite Marsh's
objections, she'd insisted on decorating it with
rosewood furniture. "This isn't exactly
what I'd call shabby," she finally ventured, and was
relieved to see Marsh's smile return.
"No, it isn't," he agreed. "And even I have
to admit that I kind of like it, even though I flinch every
time I think of what it cost. Anyway, is that why
you came down here? Just to terrify me with the idea of
your shopping with Cynthia Evans?"
Ellen shook her head and tried to match his bantering
tone. "Worse. I didn't even come down to see
you. I came down to pick up the corsage for
Alex. was Marsh looked blank. "The prom," she
reminded him. "Our son? Sixteen years old?
Junior prom? Remember?"
Marsh groaned. "I'm sorry. It's just that there's
so damned much to keep track of around here. his
"Marsh, was Ellen began, "I just wish . . .
Oh, never mind."
"You wish I'd spend less time here and more
at home," Marsh finished. "I will," he added.
"Anyway, I'll try."
Their eyes met, and the office seemed suddenly
to fill with the words that both of them had spoken so often
they knew them by heart. The argument was old, and there
was, both of them knew, no resolution for it.
Besides, Marsh wasn't that different from most of the
JOHN SAUL
husbands and fathers of La Paloma. They all worked
too many hours a day, and all of them were more interested
in their careers than in their families.
"I know you'll try," she said. Then she went on,
her voice rueful in spite of her intentions. "And
I know you'll fail, and I keep telling myself that it
doesn't really matter and that everything will be all
right." Once again Ellen regretted her words, but this
time, instead of looking irritated, Marsh got up and
came to her, pulling her to her feet.
"It will be all right, " he told her. "We're just
caught up in a life we never expected, with more
money than we ever thought we'd have, and more demands on
my time than we ever planned for. But we love each
other, and whatever happens, we'll deal with it." He
kissed her. "Okay?"'
Ellen nodded, as relief flowed through her.
Over the last years, and particularly the last
months, there had been so few moments like this, when she
knew that she and Marsh did, despite the problems,
still belong together. She returned his kiss, then drew
away, smiling. "And now I'm going to get Alex
his flowers."
Marsh's expression, soft a moment before, hardened
slightly. "Alex can't get them himself?"
"Times have changed," Ellen replied, ignoring the
look on her husband's face and trying to keep her
voice light. "And I don't have time to listen to you
recite the litany of the good old days. Let's
face it-when you were Alex's age, you didn't have
nearly as much to do after school as he does, and since
I was going to be in the village anyway, I might
as well pick up the flowers. His
Marsh's eyes narrowed, and the last trace of his
smile disappeared. "And when I was a kid, my
school wasn't as good as his is, and there was no
accelerated education program for me like there is for
Alex. Except he's probably not going to get
into it."
"Oh, God, was Ellen said, as the last of their
moment of peace evaporated. Did he really have
to convert something as simple as picking up a
corsage into another
BRAINCHILD

lecture on his perception of Alex as an
underachiever? Which, of course, he wasn't, no
matter what Marsh thought. And then, just as she was about
to defend Alex, she checked herself, and forced a
smile. "Let's not start that, Marsh. Not right now.
Please?"
Marsh hesitated, then returned her smile, though
it was as forced as her own. Still, he kissed her
good-bye, and when she left his office, she hoped
perhaps they might have had their last argument of the day. But
when she was gone, instead of going back to the work that was
stacked up on his desk, Marsh sat for a few
minutes, letting his mind drift.
He, too, was aware of the strains that were threatening
to pull his marriage apart, but he had no idea of
what to do about them. The problems just seemed to pile
up. As far as he could see, the only solution was
to leave La Paloma, though he and Ellen had
agreed a year ago that leaving was no solution at
all. Leaving was not solving problems, it was only
running away from them.
Nor was Alex's performance in school the
real problem, though Marsh was convinced that if Alex
only applied himself, he could easily be a
straight-A student.
The problem, Marsh thought, was that he was beginning
to wonder if his wife, like so many other people in La
Paloma, had come to think that money would solve
everything.
Then he relented. What was going wrong wasn't
Ellen's fault. In fact, it was no one's
fault. It was just that the world was changing, and both of them
had to work harder to adjust to those changes before their
marriage was torn apart.
He made up his mind to get home early that evening
and see to it that nothing spoiled his wife's pleasure
in their son's first prom.
Alex Lonsdale leaned forward across the bathroom
sink and peered closely at the blemish on his right
cheek, then decided that it wasn't a pimple at
all-
JOHN SAUL
merely a slight redness from the pressure he'd put
on his father's electric razor while he'd shaved.
He ran the razor over his face one last time, then
opened it to clean it out the way his father had shown him.
Not that there was much to clean-Alex's beard, a
month after his sixteenth birthday, was still more a matter
of optimism than reality. Still, when he tapped the
shaver head against the sink, a few specks appeared,
and they were the black of his own hair rather than the sandy
brown of his father's. Grinning with satisfaction, he
put the razor back together, left the bathroom, and
hurried down the hall to his room, doing his best
to ignore the sound of his parents" argument as their
raised voices drifted in from the kitchen.
The argument had been going on for an hour now, ever
since he'd left the dinner table to begin getting
ready for the prom. It was a familiar argument, and as
Alex began wrestling with the studs of his rented dress
shirt, he wondered how far it would go.
He hated it when his parents started arguing, hated the
fact that as hard as he tried not to listen, he could
hear every word. That, at least, would be something he wouldn't
have to worry about when they moved into the new house. Its
walls were thick, and from his room on the second
floor he wouldn't be able to hear anything that was going
on in the rest of the house. So when the shouting matches
began, he could just go to his room and shut it all out.
Every angry word they spoke hurt him. All he could
do was try not to hear.
He finished mounting the studs, shrugged into the
shirt, then began working on the cufflinks, finally
taking the shirt off again, folding the cuffs,
maneuvering the links halfway through, then putting the
shirt on once more. The left link was easy, but the
right one gave him more trouble. At last it popped through
the buttonholes, and he snapped it into position.
He glanced at the clock on his desk. He still had
five minutes before he had to leave if he wasn't
going to be late. He pulled on his pants,
hooked up the suspend-
BRAINC HILD

ers, then eyed the cummerbund that lay on the bed. Which
way was it supposed to go? Pleats up, or pleats
down? He couldn't remember. He picked up his
hairbrush and ran it through the thick shock of hair that
always seemed to fall across his forehead, then grabbed the
offending maroon cummerbund and matching dinner
jacket. As he'd hoped they would, his parents fell
silent as he appeared in the kitchen.
"I can't remember which way it goes," he said,
holding up the garment.
"Pleats down," Ellen Lonsdale replied.
"Otherwise it'll wind up full of crumbs.
Turn around." Taking the cummerbund from
Alex's hands, she fastened it neatly around his
waist, then held his coat while he slid his arms
into its sleeves. When he turned to face her once
more, she reached up to put her arms around his neck and
give him a hug. "You look terrific," she said.
She squeezed him once more, then stepped back.
"Now, you have a wonderful time, and drive carefully.
was She shot a warning look toward Marsh, then
relaxed as she saw that he was apparently as willing
as she to drop their argument.
"Gotta go," Alex was saying. "If I'm
late, Lisa will kill
me.
"If you're late, you'll kill yourself," Ellen
observed, her smile returning. "But don't rush
off and forget these." She opened the refrigerator and
took out Lisa's corsage, along with the white
carnation for Alex's lapel.
"You should've gotten red," Alex groused as he
let his mother pin the flower onto his dinner jacket.
"If you wanted a red carnation, you should have gotten a
white jacket," Ellen retorted. She stepped
back and gazed proudly at Alex. Somehow, he
had managed to inherit both their looks, and the combination
was startling. His dark eyes and black wavy
hair were hers; his fair complexion and even
features, his father's. The combination lent his face a
sensitive handsomeness that had earned him admiring
remarks since he was a baby, and, in the last few
months, an unending
JOHN SAUL
string of phone calls from girls who hoped he might
be tiring of Lisa Cochran. "Don't be
surprised if you and Lisa don't wind up the king
and queen of the prom," she added, stretching upward
to kiss him.
"Aw, Mom-was
"They still have the king and queen of the prom, don't they?"
Ellen asked.
Blushing, Alex nodded his head, checked his
pockets for his keys and wallet, and started for the
door.
"And remember," Ellen called after him. "Don't
stay out past one, and don't get into any trouble."
"You mean, don't drink," Alex corrected her.
"I won't. I promise. Okay?"
"Okay," Marsh Lonsdale replied. He handed
Alex a twenty-dollar bill. "Take some of the
kids out and buy them a Coke after the dance."
"Thanks, Dad." Alex disappeared out the
back door. A moment later Ellen and Marsh
heard his car start. Marsh arched his brows. "I
don't believe he's actually going to drive all
the way next door," he said, unable to suppress
a smile, despite the fact that it was Alex's car
that he and Ellen had been arguing about all evening.
"Well, of course he is," Ellen replied.
"Do you really think he's going to pick up Lisa,
then walk her down our driveway? Not our
Alex."
"He could have walked her all the way to the prom,"
Marsh suggested.
"No, he couldn't," Ellen said, her voice
suddenly tired. "He needs a car, Marsh. After
we move, I just can't spend all my time ferrying
him up and down the ravine. And besides, he's a
responsible boy-was
"I'm not saying he isn't," Marsh agreed.
"All I'm saying is that I think he should have earned
the car. And I'm not saying he should have earned the
money, either. But couldn't we have used the car as an
incentive for him to pick up his grades?"
Ellen shrugged, and began clearing the dinner dishes
off the table. "He's doing just fine."
BRAINCHILD

"He's not doing as well as he could be, and you know it
as well as I do."
"I know," Ellen sighed. "But I just think it's
two separate issues, that's all." Suddenly she
smiled. "I'll tell you what. Why don't we
compromise? Let's wait until his grades come
out, and see what happens. If they get worse,
I'll agree that getting him the car was a mistake,
and you can take it away from him. I'll cope with the
transportation problem some way. If they stay the
same, or improve, he keeps the car. But either
way, we stop fighting about it, all right?"
Marsh hesitated only a second, then grinned.
"Deal," he said. "Now, what say I help you
with the dishes, and we try to put together something with the
Cochrans?" He offered his wife a mischievous
wink. "I'll even drive over next door and
pick them up."
The last of the tension that had been vibrating between them
all afternoon suddenly dissipated, and together Ellen and
Marsh began clearing away the dinner dishes.
Alex carefully backed his shiny red Mustang down
the driveway, then parked it by the curb in front of the
Cochrans house next door. He picked
up Lisa's corsage, crossed the lawn, and
walked into the house without knocking. "Anybody
here?" he called. Lisa's six-year-old sister,
Kim, hurtled down the stairs and threw herself onto
Alex.
"Is that for me?" she demanded, grabbing for the corsage
box.
"If Lisa isn't ready, maybe I'll take
you to the dance," Alex replied, peeling Kim
loose as her father's bulky frame appeared from the
living room. "Hi, Mr. Cochran. His
Jim Cochran raised one eyebrow and surveyed
Alex. "Ah, Prince Charming descends from the
castle on the mountain to take Cinderella to the
ball."
Alex tried to cover his feelings of embarrassment
with a grin. "Aw, come on. We're not moving for two
more weeks. And it's not a castle anyway."
JOHN SAUL
"True, true," Cochran agreed. "On the other
hand, I haven't noticed you asking if you can rent
Kim's room. We'll happily throw her out."
"You will not," Kim yelled, aiming a punch at her
father's belly.
"Will too," her father told her. "Want a
Coke, Alex? Lisa's still upstairs trying
to make herself look human." He dropped his
booming voice only slightly, still leaving it loud enough
to fill the house. "Actually, she's been ready for
an hour, but she doesn't want you to think she's
too eager."
"That's a big lie!" Lisa said from the top of the
stairs. "He always lies, Alex. Don't
believe a word he says." Lisa, unlike
Alex, had inherited all her looks from her mother.
She was small, with short blond hair swept
back from her face so that her green eyes became her
dominant feature. And, being not only Lisa, but
her father's daughter as well, she had chosen a
dress in brilliant emerald rather than the more
subdued pastels the other girls would be wearing.
Alex's grin widened as she came down the stairs.
"Hey, you look gorgeous."
Lisa smiled appreciatively and gave him a
mockseductive wink. "You don't look so bad
yourself." She stood waiting for a moment; then: "Aren't
you going to pin the corsage on?" Alex stared at the
box in his hands, his face reddening as he handed it
to Carol Cochran, who had appeared from the direction
of the kitchen.
"M-maybe you'd better do it, Mrs. Cochran.
I ... I might slip or something."
"You won't slip, Alex," Lisa told him.
"Now, come on. Just pin it on, and let's go.
Otherwise we'll be here all night while Mom
takes pictures."
Alex fumbled clumsily with the corsage for a moment,
but finally succeeded in getting it fastened to Lisa's
dress. Then, true to Lisa's words, Carol
Cochran began herding them into the living room,
camera in hand.
"Mom, we don't have time-was Lisa pleaded, but
Carol was adamant.
BRAINCHILD

"You only go to your first prom once, and you only
wear your first formal once. And I'm going to have
pictures of it. Besides, you both look so-was
"Oh, God, Alex," Lisa moaned. "She's
going to say it. Cover your ears."
"Well, I don't care," Carol laughed as
Alex and Lisa clapped their hands over their ears.
"You do look cute!"
Twenty-four pictures later, Alex and Lisa
were on their way to the prom.
"I don't see why we have to stand in the receiving line,
was Alex complained as he carefully slid the
Mustang into a space between an Alfa Romeo and a
Porsche. Before Lisa could answer, he was out of the
car and opening the passenger door for her.
From a few yards away, a voice came out of the
dusk. "Scratch that paint, and your ass is
grass, Lonsdale."
Alex grinned and waved to Bob Carey, who was
holding hands with Kate Lewis, but paying more
attention to his Porsche than his girlfriend. "You
tore the side off it last month!" Alex taunted
him.
"And my dad nearly tore the side off me,"
Bob replied. "From now on, I have to pay for all
the repairs myself." He waited until Lisa was
out of the car and Alex had closed the door, then
relaxed. "See you inside. was He and Kate
turned and started toward the gym, where the dance was being
held.
"We have to stand in line because you're going to be
student-body president next year," Lisa
told Alex. "If you didn't want to do that kind
of thing, you shouldn't have run."
"No one told me I had to. I thought
all I had to do was have my picture taken for the
annual."
"Come on, it won't be that bad. You know everybody
in school already. All you have to do is say hello
to them."
"And introduce them to you, which is stupid, because you know
them all just as well as I do."
JOHN SAUL
Lisa giggled. "It's all supposed to improve
our social graces. Don't you want your
graces improved?"
"What if I forget someone's name? I'll die."
"Stop worrying. You'll be fine. And we're
late, so hurry up. his
They hurried up the steps into the foyer of the gym and
took their places in the receiving line. The first couple
to approach them were Bob Carey and Kate Lewis,
and Alex was pleased to see that Bob seemed as
nervous about moving down the line as Alex was about standing
in it. The two of them stood for a moment, wondering
what to say to each other. Finally it was Kate who
spoke.
"Isn't this wonderful?" she asked. "All year
I've been looking forward to tonight, and I'm never going
to forget a minute of it."
"None of us will," Lisa assured her.
And none of them ever did. For none of their lives was
ever quite the same again.
CHAPTER TWO
The last thundering rock chord was abruptly cut off,
and Alex, gasping, glanced around the gym in search of
Lisa. The last time he'd seen her-at least
fifteen minutes ago-she d been dancing with Bob
Carey, and he'd been dancing with Kate Lewis.
Since then, he'd danced with three other girls, and
now Bob was standing near the wall shouting in Jennifer
Lang's ear. He started outside, certain that
he'd find Lisa out on the lawn catching her
breath. As he reached the door, a hand closed on his
arm. He turned to see Carolyn Evans smiling
at him.
"Hey," Carolyn said, "if you're looking for
Lisa, she's in the rest room with Kate and
Jenny."
"Then I guess I'll have a glass of punch, if
there's any left."
"There's loads left," Carolyn told him in the
slightly mocking voice Alex knew she always
used when she was trying to seem more sophisticated than
the rest of the kids. "Hardly anybody's
drinking it except you and Lisa. Come on out to my
car-I've got some beer."
JOHN SAUL
Alex shook his head.
"Oh, come on," Carolyn urged. "What's one
beer gonna do to you? I've had four, and I'm not
drunk." "I'm driving. If I'm driving, I
don't drink." Carolyn's head tipped back,
and a throaty laugh that Alex was sure she
practiced for hours emerged from her glistening lips.
"You're just too good to be true, aren't you? Not even
one little tiny beer? Come on, Alex-get human."
"It's not that," Alex replied, forcing a grin.
"It's just that my dad'll take my car away from me
if I come home with beer on my breath."
"Too bad for you," Carolyn purred. "Then I
guess you can't come to my party. was When she saw a
slight flicker of interest in Alex's eyes, she
decided to press her advantage. "Everybody's
going to be there-sort of a housewarming."
Alex stared at Carolyn in disbelief. Was she
really talking about the hacienda? But his mother told him
the Evanses weren't letting anyone see it for
another month, until it was completely
refurbished.
And everyone in La Paloma, no matter what he
thought of the Evanses, wanted to see what Cynthia
Evans had done with Bill Evans's money.
At first, when the rumors began circulating that the
Evanses had bought the enormous old mansion on
top of Hacienda Drive, the assumption had been
that they would tear it down. It had stood vacant for
too many years, was far too big for a family
to keep up without servants, and was far too decayed
for anyone to seriously consider restoring it.
But then the project had begun. First to be repaired
was the outer wall. Much of it had long since
collapsed; only a few yards of its southern
expanse were still standing. But it had been rebuilt, its
old wooden gates replaced by new ones whose
designs had been copied from faded sketches of the
hacienda as it had looked a hundred and fifty
years earlier. Except that the new gates were wired
with
BRAINCHILD

alarms and swung smoothly open on electrically
controlled rollers. And then, after the wall was
complete, Cynthia had begun the restoration of the
mansion and the outbuildings.
Almost everybody in La Paloma had gone up to the
top of Hacienda Drive once or twice, but the
gates were always closed, and no one had succeeded in
getting inside the walls. Alex, along with some of
his friends, had climbed the hills a few times to peer
down into the courtyard, but all they'd been able to see
was the exterior work-the new plaster and the whitewashing,
and the replacement of the red tiles on the roof.
What everyone was truly waiting for was a glimpse
of the interior, and now Carolyn was saying her friends could
see it that very night.
Alex eyed her skeptically. "I thought your mother
wasn't letting anyone in until next month. his
"Mom and Dad are in San Francisco for the
weekend," Carolyn said.
"I don't know-was Alex began, remembering his
promise not to go to any parties after the dance.
"Don t know about what?" Lisa asked, slipping
her arm through his.
"He doesn't want to come to my party, "
Carolyn replied before Alex could say anything.
Lisa's eyes widened. "There's a party? At the
hacienda?"
Carolyn nodded with elaborate casualness. "Bob
and Kate are coming, and Jenny Lang, and
everybody."
Lisa turned to Alex. "Well, let's go!"
Alex flushed and looked uncomfortable, but said
nothing. The band struck up the last dance and Lisa
led Alex onto the floor. "What's wrong?" she
asked a moment later. "Why can't we go
to Carolyn's party?"
was Cause I don't want to."
"You just don't like Carolyn, was Lisa argued. "But
you won't even have to talk to her. Everybody else will
be there too."
"It isn't that."
JOHN SAUL
"Then what is it?"
"I promised my folks we wouldn't go to any
parties. Dad gave me some money to take some of the
kids out for a hamburger, and I promised we'd come
home right after that."
Lisa fell silent for a few seconds; then:
"We don't have to tell them where we were."
"They'd find out. His
"But don't you even want to see the place?"
"Sure, but-was
"Then let's go. Besides, it's not where we go that your
mom and dad are worried about-they're
afraid you'll drink. So we'll go to the party, but
we won't even have a beer. And we won't stay very
long."
"Come on, Lisa. I promised them I wouldn't-was
But Lisa suddenly broke away from him and started
pulling him off the dance floor. "Let's find
Kate and Bob. Maybe we can convince them to go up
to Carolyn's with us for just a few minutes, then the
four of us can go out for hamburgers. That way we can
see the place, and you won't have to lie to your
folks."
As Lisa led him out of the gym, Alex knew he'd
give in, even though he shouldn't. With Lisa, it was
hard not to give in-she always managed to make everything
sound perfectly logical, even when Alex was
sure it wasn't.
The headlights of Alex's Mustang picked up the
open gates of the hacienda, and he braked the car to a
stop. "Are we supposed to park out here, or go
inside?"
Lisa shrugged. "Search me. Carolyn didn't
say." Suddenly a horn sounded, and Bob
Carey's Porsche pulled up beside them, its window
rolled down.
"Over there," Bob called. He was pointing
off to the left, where a small group of cars already
stood parked in the shadow of the wall. Following
Bob, Alex maneuvered the Mustang into a spot
next to a Camaro, shut off the engine, then turned
to Lisa.
BRAINCHILD

"Maybe we oughta just go on home," he suggested,
but Lisa grinned and shook her head.
"I want to see it. Come on-just for a little while."
She got out of the car, and after a second's
hesitation, Alex joined her. A moment later
Kate and Bob appeared out of the darkness, and the four of
them started toward the lights flooding from the gateway.
"I don't believe this, was Kate said a moment
later. They were standing just inside the gate, trying
to absorb the transformation that had come over what had
been, only a year earlier, a crumbling ruin.
To the left, the old stables had been rebuilt
into garages, and in the bright whiteness of the
floodlights, the new plaster was indistinguishable from
the old. The only change was that the stable roofs,
originally thatched, were now of the same red tile as the
house and the servants" quarters.
"It's weird," Alex said. "It looks
like it's a couple of hundred years old. his
"Except for that," Lisa breathed. "Have you ever seen
anything like it?"
Dominating the courtyard, which until recently had
been nothing more than an overgrown weed patch, was a
glistening swimming pool fed by a cascade of
turnbling water that made its way down five
intricately tiled tiers before finally splashing into the
immense oval of the pool.
Bob Carey whistled softly. "How big do you
s'pose it is?"
"Big enough," Alex replied. Then his eyes
wandered to what had once been the servants' quarters.
"Wanta bet that's a pool house now?"
Before anyone could venture an answer, Carolyn
Evans's voice rang out over the rock music that
was throbbing from the huge main house. "Hey! Come on
in!"
Glancing at each other uneasily, the four of them
slowly crossed the courtyard, then stepped up onto
the broad loggia that ran the entire length of the
house. Carolyn, grinning happily, waited for them
at the elab-
JOHN SAUL
orately carved oaken front door.
"Isn't it neat? Come on in-everybody's already
here."
They went through the front door into a massive
tile-floored entry hall that was dominated by a
staircase curving up to the second floor. To the
right there was a large dining room, and beyond it they could
see through another room into the kitchen. "That's a
butler's pantry between the dining room and kitchen, "
Carolyn explained, then raised her voice as
someone turned up the volume on the stereo. "Mom
wasn't really sure it was supposed to be there, but
she put it in anyway. His
"You going to have a butler?" Kate Lewis asked.
Carolyn shrugged with elaborate unconcern. "I
don't know. I guess so. Mom says the house
is too big for Maria to take care of by herself. his
"Maria Torres?" Bob Carey groaned. "That
old witch can't even take care of her own house.
My mom fired her after the first day!"
"She's okay-was Alex began, but was immediately
drowned out by the others' laughter. Even Lisa joined
in.
"Come on, Alex, she's a loony-bin case.
Everybody knows that." Then she glanced guiltily
toward Carolyn. "She isn't here, is
she?"
Carolyn giggled maliciously. "If she is, she
just got an earful."
At the top of the stairs, Maria Torres faded
back into the darkness of the second-floor hallway,
her black dress making her nearly invisible.
She had been sitting quietly in the large bedroom
at the end of the corridor-the bedroom that, by rights, should
have been hers-when the first of the cars had arrived.
No one, she knew, should have come back to the hacienda
for hours, and she should have had the house to herself and her
ghosts from the past. But now her reverie was shattered,
and the pounding din of the
BRAINCHILD

gringo music, and the children of the gringos she had spent her
life hating, filled the ancient rooms.
She had been in the house since seven o'clock, having
let herself in with her own key as soon as Carolyn
had left. She had spent the last four hours
drifting through the house, imagining that it was hers, that she
was not the cleaning woman-no more than a peon- but the
mistress of the hacienda: Dona Maria Ruiz de
Torres. And one day it would happen; one day,
sometime in the vague future, it would happen.
The gringos would be driven away, and finally the
hacienda would be hers.
But for now she could only pretend, and be careful. The
gringos were strict and never wanted her to be alone in
their homes. She must leave the hacienda without being
seen, and make her way back down the canyon to her
little house behind the mission, and when she came back
tomorrow, she must give no hint that she had been here at
all tonight.
She glanced once more around the gloom of the bedroom that
should have been hers, then slipped away, down the back
stairs, the stairs that her ancestors never would have
used, and out into the night. Then, as the gringo revelry
went on-a desecration!-she kept watch, her
ancient anger burning inside her. . . .
"Jeez," Bob whispered. "Last time I saw this,
it looked like the place had burned. Now look at
it. His
The living room, across the entry hall from the dining
room, was sixty feet long, and was dominated by an
immense fireplace on the far wall.
The oak floor gleamed a polished brown that was
nearly black, but the white walls picked up the
light from sconces that had been wired into them at
regular intervals to fill the room with an
even brightness that made it seem even larger than it
was. Twenty feet above, huge peeled logs
supported a cathedral ceiling.
"This is incredible," Lisa breathed.
"This is just the beginning," Carolyn replied. "Just
L
JOHN SAUL
wander around anywhere, and make sure you don't miss
the basement. That's Daddy's part of the house, and
Mom just hates it." Then she was gone, disappearing
into the mass of teenagers who were dancing to the rhythms
of a reggae album.
It took them nearly an hour to go through the house, and
even then they weren't sure they'd seen it all.
Upstairs there was a maze of rooms, and they'd
counted seven bedrooms, each with its own bathroom,
in addition to a library and a couple of small sitting
rooms. All of it looked as if it had been
built and furnished nearly two hundred years
ago, then somehow frozen in time.
"Can you imagine living here?" Lisa asked as they
finally started down toward the basement.
"It's not like a house at all," Alex replied.
"It feels more like a museum. Hey," he added,
suddenly stopping halfway down the stairs.
"I don't remember this place ever having a
basement."
"It didn't," Kate told him. "Carolyn
says her dad wanted his own space, but her mom
wouldn't let him have any of the old rooms. So he
dug out a basement. Do you believe it?"
"Holy shit," Bob Carey muttered. "Didn't
he think the house was big enough already?"
At the bottom of the stairs they found a laundry
room to the left, and beyond that a big empty space that
looked as though it was intended for storage.
Under the living room, occupying nearly the same
amount of space as the room above, they found Mr.
Evans's private space. For a long time they
stared at it in silence.
"Well, I think it's tacky," Lisa said when
she'd taken it all in.
Bob Carey shrugged. "And I think you're just
jealous. I bet you wouldn't think it was tacky if it
was your house."
Kate Lewis raked Bob with what she hoped was a
scathing glare. "My mother always says the Evanses
BRAINCHILD

have more money than taste, and she's right. I
mean, just look at it, Bob. It's gross!"
It was a media room. The far wall was nearly
covered by an immense screen, which could be used either for
movies or projection television. Along one
wall was a complex of electronic components that
none of them could completely identify. They were,
however, apparently the source of the rock music, and
they could barely hear Carolyn demanding that it be
turned down for fear the neighbors would call the
police. Nobody, however, was paying any attention
to her, and much of the party seemed to have gravitated
downstairs.
What had elicited Lisa Cochran's
criticism, though, was not the electronics, but the
bar opposite them. Not a typical home bar, with
three stools and a rack for glasses, the
Evanses" bar ran the entire length of the wall.
Behind the counter itself, the wall was covered with shelves of
liquor and glasses, and each shelf was edged with a
neon tube, which provided a rainbow effect that was
reflected throughout the room by the mirrors that covered
the wall behind the shelves and the bar itself. The bar, by now,
was covered with bottles, and several of the kids were
happily filling glasses with various kinds of
liquor.
"Want something?" Bob asked, eyeing the array.
Kate hesitated, then shrugged. "Why not? Is there
any gin?"
Bob poured them each a tumbler, added a little ginger
ale, and handed one of the glasses to Kate, then
turned to ask Alex and Lisa what they wanted.
But while he'd been mixing the drinks, Alex and
Lisa had disappeared. "Hey-where'd they go?"
Kate shrugged. "I don't know. Come on, let's
dance." She finished her drink and pulled Bob out
onto the floor, but when the record ended, both she
and Bob scanned the crowd, looking for Alex and
Lisa.
"You think they got mad cause we had a drink?"
Kate finally asked.
JOHN SAUL
"Who cares? It's not as if we need a ride
home or anything. Forget about them. His
"No! Come on."
They found Alex and Lisa in the courtyard, staring
up at the stars. "Hey," Bob yelled, holding
up his glass, "aren't you two gonna join the
party?"
"We weren't going to drink, remember?" Alex
asked, staring at the glass. "We were going out
for hamburgers."
"Who wants hamburgers when you can drink?" Bob
replied. He reached down and pulled a bottle of
beer out of a tub of ice and thrust it into Alex's
hands. Alex looked at it for a moment, then glanced
at Lisa, who frowned and shook her head. Alex
hesitated, then defiantly twisted the cap loose
and took a swig.
Lisa glared accusingly at him. "Alex!"
"I didn't even want to come to this party," Alex
told her, his voice taking on a defensive edge.
"But since we're here, we might as well enjoy
it."
"But we said-was
"I know what we said. And I said I wasn't going
to any parties, either. But I'm here. Why shouldn't I
do what everybody else is doing?" Deliberately
he tipped the beer bottle up and chugalugged it,
then reached for another. Lisa's eyes narrowed
angrily, but before she could say anything else,
Carolyn Evans's voice suddenly rose over the
din of the party as she came out of the front door with her
arms full of towels.
"Who wants to go in the pool?"
There was a momentary silence, then someone
replied that no one had suits. "Who needs
suits?" Carolyn squealed. "Let's go
skinny-dipping!" Suddenly she reached behind her,
pulled down the zipper of her dress, and let it
drop to the patio. Stripping ofFrom her panties and
strapless bra, she dived into the pool, swam
underwater for a few strokes, then broke the
surface. "Come on," she yelled. "It's great!"
There was a moment of hesitation, then two more kids
stripped and plunged into the water. Three more
followed, and suddenly the patio was filling up with
dis-
BRAINCHILD

carded clothes and the pool with naked teenagers. Once
more, Alex glanced at Lisa.
"No!" she said, reading his eyes. "We were only
coming for a few minutes, and we weren't going to drink.
And we're certainly not going into the pool."
"Chicken, " Alex teased, shrugging out of his dinner
jacket. Then he drained the second beer, put the
bottle down, and began untying his shoelaces.
"Alex, don't," Lisa begged. "Please?"
"Aw, come on. What's the big deal? Haven't you
ever skinny-dipped before?"
"It's not a big deal, " Lisa argued. "I just
don't think we ought to do it. I think we ought to go
home."
"Well, I think we ought to go swimming," Alex
crowed. He stripped off his pants and shirt. "I
didn't think we ought to come here, but I came,
didn't I? Well, now I think we ought to go
skinny-dipping, and I think you ought to go along with it."
Peeling off his Jockey shorts, he plunged into the
water. A moment later he came to the surface and
turned around to grin at Lisa.
She was gone.
The effects of the two fast beers suddenly
neutralized by the cold water, Alex scanned the
crowd, sure that Lisa must be among the kids still on
the pool deck. Then he was equally sure she was not.
If she'd made up her mind not to come into the pool,
she wouldn't change it.
And Alex suddenly felt like a fool.
He hadn't wanted to come to the party, he hadn't
really wanted the two beers he'd drunk, and he
certainly didn't want Lisa mad at him. He
scrambled out of the water, grabbed a towel, then dried
himself off and dressed as fast as he could. As he
started into the house, he asked Bob Carey
if he'd seen Lisa anywhere. Bob hadn't.
Nor had anyone else.
Ten minutes later, Alex left the house,
praying that his car wasn't blocked in.
JOHN SAUL
A quarter of a mile down Hacienda Drive,
Lisa Cochran's quick pace slowed, and she
wondered if maybe she shouldn't turn around and go
back to the party. What, after all, was so horrible about
skinny-dipping? And who was she to be so prissy about
it? In a way, Alex was right-it had been her idea
that they go to the party. He'd even argued with her, but
she'd insisted. Still, he had drunk a couple of
beers, and by now he might be working on a third. And
if he was, she certainly didn't want to drive
home with him.
She stopped walking entirely, and wondered what
to do. Perhaps she should walk all the way into the
village and wait for Alex at home.
Except that her parents would be up and would want to know
what had happened.
Maybe the best thing to do was go back to the party, find
Alex, and convince him that it was time for them to go home.
She would do the driving.
But that would be giving in, and she wouldn't give
in. She had been right, and Alex had been wrong,
and it served him right that she'd walked out on him.
She made up her mind, and continued down the road.
Alex jockeyed the Mustang around Bob Carey's
Porsche, then put it in drive and gunned the
engine. The rear wheels spun on the loose
gravel for a moment, then caught, and the car shot
forward, down the Evanses" driveway and
into Hacienda Drive.
Alex wasn't sure how long Lisa had been
walking-it seemed as though it had taken him forever
to get dressed and search the house. She could be almost
home by now.
He pressed the accelerator, and the car picked up
speed. He hugged the wall of the ravine on the first
curve, but the car fishtailed slightly, and he had
to steer into the skid to regain control. Then he hit a
straight stretch and pushed his speed up to seventy.
Coming up fast was an S curve that was posted at
thirty
BRAINCHILD

miles an hour, but he knew they always left a
big margin for safety. He slowed to sixty as he
started into the first turn.
And then he saw her.
She was standing on the side of the road, her green
dress glowing brightly in his headlights, staring at him
with terrified eyes.
Or did he just imagine that? Was he already that close
to her?
Time suddenly slowed down, and he slammed his foot
on the brake.
Too late. He was going to hit her
It would have been all right if she'd been on the
inside of the curve. He'd have swept around her, and
she'd have been safe. But now he was skidding right
toward her . . .
Turn into it. He had to turn into it!
Taking his foot off the brake, he steered to the right,
and suddenly felt the tires grab the pavement.
Lisa was only a few yards away.
And beyond Lisa, almost lost in the darkness, something
else.
A face, old and wrinkled, framed with white
hair. And the eyes in the face were glaring at him with
an intensity he could almost feel.
It was the face that finally made him lose all
control of the car.
An ancient, weathered face, a face
filled with an unspeakable loathing, looming in the
darkness.
At the last possible moment, he wrenched the wheel
to the left, and the Mustang responded, slewing around
Lisa, charging across the pavement, heading for the ditch
and the wall of the ravine beyond.
Straighten it out!
He spun the wheel the other way.
Too far.
The car burst through the guardrail and hurtled over the
edge of the ravine.
"Lisaaaa ..."
It was nearly two a.m. when Ellen Lonsdale
heard the first faint wailing of a siren. She hadn't
been asleep- indeed she'd been sitting in the living
room ever since the Cochrans had left an hour
earlier, growing increasingly restless as the minutes
ticked by. It wasn't like Alex to be late,
and for the last half-hour she'd been fighting a growing
feeling that something had happened to him. The siren grew
louder. A few seconds later it was joined
by another, then a third. As she listened, the mournful
wailings grew into shrill screams that tore the last
vestiges of calmness from her mind.
It was Alex. Deep in her soul, she
knew that the sirens were for her son.
Then, inside the house, the phone began to ring.
That's it, she thought. They're calling to tell me
he's dead. Her feet leaden, she forced herself to go
to the phone, hesitated a moment, then picked it up.
"H-hello?"
"Ellen?"

BRAINCHILD

"Yes."
"This is Barbara, at the Center?"
The hesitancy in Barbara Fannon's voice
told Ellen that something had gone wrong. "What is
it? What's happened?"
Barbara's voice remained professionally
neutral. "May I speak to Dr. Lonsdale
please?"
"What's happened?" Ellen demanded again. Then,
hearing the note of hysteria in her voice, she took
a deep breath and reminded herself that Marsh was on
call that night. "I'm sorry," she said. "Just a
moment, Barbara. his
Her hand shaking in spite of herself, she laid the
receiver on the table next to the phone and turned
toward the hall. Marsh, his eyes still bleary with
sleep, stood in the doorway. "What's happening?
Something woke me up."
"Sirens," Ellen breathed. "Something's happened,
and the hospital wants to talk to you."
His eyes immediately clearing, Marsh strode into the room
and picked up the phone. "This is Dr.
Lonsdale."
"Marsh? It's Barbara. I'm In the emergency
room. I hate to call you in this late, but there's
been some kind of an accident, and we don't know how
bad it is yet. Since you're on call ..."
Her voice trailed off uncertainly.
"You did right. I'll be right there. Does anybody
have any details at all?"
"Not really. Apparently at least one car went off
the road, and we don't know how many people were in it-was
"Maybe I'd better go up there. his
There was a hesitation; then: "The EMT'S are with the
ambulance, Doctor. ..."
Now it was Marsh who hesitated, then grimaced
slightly. Even after five years, he found it hard
to accept that the emergency medical technicians
were, indeed, better trained to handle such situations
than he himself was. "I get the picture,
Barb. Say no more. See you in a few minutes."
He hung up the phone, then
JOHN SAUL
turned to Ellen, who stood behind a chair, both hands
gripping its back.
"It's Alex, isn't it?" she breathed.
"Alex?" Marsh repeated. What could have put that
idea into Ellen's head? "Why on earth should it have
anything to do with Alex?"
Ellen did her best to steady herself. "I just have a
feeling, that's all. I've had it for about half an
hour. It is Alex, isn't it?"
"No one knows who it is yet," Marsh replied.
"It's an automobile accident, but that doesn't
mean it's Alex." His words, though, did nothing
to dissipate the fear in her eyes, and despite the
tension that still hung between them, he took her in his arms.
"Honey, don't do this to yourself." When Ellen made
no reply, he reluctantly released her and
started toward their bedroom, but Ellen held onto his
arm, and when she spoke, her eyes, as well as her
words, were pleading.
"If it isn't Alex, why did they call you?
There's an intern on duty, isn't there?"
Marsh nodded. "But they don't know how many people
might have been hurt. They might need me, and I
am on call. was He gently disengaged her hand, but
Ellen followed him into the bedroom.
"I want to go with you," she said while he began
dressing.
Marsh shook his head. "Ellen, there's no reason-was
"There is a reason, was Ellen protested, struggling
to keep her voice level, but not succeeding. "I have
a feeling, and-was
"And it's only a feeling," Marsh insisted, and
Ellen flinched at the dismissive tone of his words.
He relented, and once more put his arms around his
wife. "Honey, please. Think about it.
Automobile accidents happen all the time. The
odds of this one involving Alex are next to nothing.
And I can't deal with whatever's happening if I have
to take care of you too."
His words hurt her, but Ellen knew he was right.
Deliberately she made herself stop shaking and
stepped
BRAINCHILD

away from him. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just
that. . . Oh, never mind. G."
Marsh offered her a smile. "Now, that's my
girl."
Though her husband's smile did nothing
to alleviate her pain, Ellen picked up his
wallet and keys from the dresser and handed them to him.
"Marsh?" she asked, then waited until he met
her eyes before going on. "As soon as you know what's
happened, have someone call me. I don't need
details-I just need to know it's not Alex."
"By the time I know what's happened, Alex will
probably be home," Marsh replied. Then he
relented. "But I'll have someone call. With any
luck, I'll be back in an hour myself."
Then he was gone, and Ellen sank slowly onto the
sofa to wait.
"Jesus Christ, was Sergeant Roscoe Finnerty
whispered as the spotlight on his patrol car
illuminated the wreckage at the bottom of the
ravine. "Why the fuck didn't it burn?"
Grabbing his flashlight, he got out of the car and started
clambering down the slope, with his partner, Thomas
Jefferson Jackson, right behind him. A few yards
away, Finnerty saw a shape move, and trained his
light on the frightened face of a teenage boy.
"Far enough, son," Finnerty said quietly.
"Whatever's happened, we'll take care of
it."
"But-was the boy began.
"You heard him," Jackson broke in. "Get
back up on the road, and stay out of the way." He
flashed his light on the knot of teenagers who were
clustered together. Most of them had wet hair, and their
clothes were in disarray. "Those your friends?"
The boy nodded.
"Musta been some party. Now, get up there with them, and
we'll talk to you later."
Silently the boy turned and started back up the
hill, and Jackson followed Finnerty down toward
the wreckage. Behind him, he heard car doors
slamming, and the
JOHN SAUL
sound of voices issuing orders. Vaguely he
became aware of other people beginning to move down the
slope of the ravine.
The car lay on its side, so battered its make was
no longer recognizable. It appeared to have turned
end for end at least twice, then rolled until it
came to rest against a large boulder.
"The driver's still in it," Jackson heard
Finnerty say, and his stomach lurched the way it always
did when he had to deal with the victims of
automobile accidents. Stoically he moved
forward.
"Still alive?"
"Dunno, " Finnerty grunted. "Don't
hardly see how he can be, though." He paused
then, well aware of his partner's weak stomach. "You
okay?"
"I'll throw up later," Jackson muttered.
"Anybody else in the car?"
"Nope. But if someone wasn't wearing a seat
belt, they'd have gone out on the first flip." He
shone his light briefly on Jackson's sweating
face. "You wanna help out here, or look around for
another victim?"
"I'll help. Least till the medics get here."
He approached the car and stared in at the body that was
pitched forward against the steering wheel. The head was
covered with blood, and it looked to Jackson as if
Finnerty was right-if the smashup itself hadn't killed
the driver, he must have bled to death by now. Still, he had
his job to do, and clenching his teeth, Jackson began
helping his partner cut through the seat belt that held the
inert body into what was left of the car.
"Don't move him," one of the emergency
technicians warned a moment later. He and
his partner began unfolding a stretcher as the two
cops finished cutting away the seat belt.
"You think we haven't done this before?" Finnerty
rasped. "Anyway, I don't think it'll make
much difference with this one."
"We'll decide that," the EMT replied, moving
for-
BRAINCHILD

ward and edging Jackson aside. "Anybody know
who he is?"
"Not yet," Jackson told him. "We'll run
a make on the plate as soon as we get him up
to the road."
The two EMT'S slowly and carefully began working
Alex's body out of the wreckage, and, what seemed
to Jackson to be an eternity later, eased him
onto the stretcher.
"He's not dead yet," one of the EMT'S muttered.
"But he will be if we don't get him out of here
fast. Come on."
With a man at each corner of the stretcher, the two
EMT'S and the two cops began making their way up
the hill.
The crowd of teenagers on the road stood
silently watching as the stretcher was borne upward.
In the midst of them, Lisa Cochran leaned
heavily on Kate Lewis, who did her best
to keep Lisa from looking at the bloodied shape of
Alex Lonsdale.
"He must still be alive, " Bob Carey whispered.
"They've got something wrapped around his head, but his
face isn't covered. his
Then the medics were on the road, sliding the stretcher
into the ambulance. A second later, its lights
flashing and its siren screaming, it roared off into the
night.
In the emergency room of the Medical Center, a
bell shattered the tense silence, and a scratchy
voice emanated from a speaker on the wall.
"This is Unit One. We've got a white
male, teenage, with multiple lacerations of the
face, a broken arm, damage to the rib cage, and
head injuries. Also extensive bleeding."
Marshall Lonsdale reached across the desk and
pressed the transmission key himself. "Any
identification yet?"'
"Negative. We're too busy keeping him
alive to check his ID."
"Will he make it?"
JOHN SAUL
BRAINCHILD

There was a slight hesitation; then: "We'll know in
two minutes. We're at the bottom of
Hacienda, turning into La Paloma Drive."
Thomas Jefferson Jackson sat in the passenger
seat of the patrol car, waiting for the identification of the
car that lay at the bottom of the ravine. He glanced
out the window and saw Roscoe Finnerty talking to the
group of kids whose party had just ended in tragedy.
He was glad he didn't have to talk to them-he
doubted whether he would have been able to control the rage
that seethed in him. Why couldn't they have just had a dance
and let it go at that? Why did they have to get drunk
and start wrecking cars? He wasn't sure he'd
ever understand what motivated them. All he'd do was go
on getting sick when they piled themselves up.
"It was Alex Lonsdale," Bob Carey said,
unable to meet Sergeant Finnerty's eyes.
"Dr. Lonsdale's kid?"
"Yes."
"You sure he was driving it?"
"Lisa Cochran saw it happen. his
"Who's she?"
"Alex's girlfriend. She's over there."
Finnerty followed Bob's eyes and saw a
pretty blond in a dirt-smeared green formal
sobbing in the arms of another girl. He knew he
should go over and talk to her, but decided it could
wait-from what he could see, she didn't look too
coherent.
"You know where she lives?" he asked Bob Carey.
Numbly Bob recited Lisa's address, which
Finnerty wrote in his notebook. "Wait here a
minute. was He strode to the car just as Jackson was
opening the door.
"Got a make on the car," Jackson said.
"Belongs to Alexander Lonsdale. That's Dr.
Lonsdale's son, isn't it?"
Finnerty nodded grimly. "That's what the kids
say, too, and apparently the boy was driving it.
We got a
witness, but I haven't talked to her yet." He
tore the sheet with Lisa's address on it out of his
notebook and handed it to Jackson. "Here's her name
and address. Get hold of her parents and tell them
we'll take the girl down to the Center. We'll
meet them there."
Jackson looked at his partner
uncertainly. "Shouldn't we take her to the station and
get a statement?"
"This is La Paloma, torn, not San
Francisco. The kid in the car was her boyfriend, and
she's pretty broken up. We're not gonna
make things worse by dragging her into the station. Now,
get hold of the Center and tell them who's coming in,
then get hold of these Cochran people. Okay?"
Jackson nodded and got back in the car.
Lisa sat on the ground, trying to accept what had
happened. It all had a dreamlike quality to it,
and there seemed to be only bits and pieces left in
her memory.
Standing in the road, trying to make up her mind whether
or not to go back to the party and find Alex.
And then the sound of a car.
Instinctively, she'd known whose car it was, and her
anger had suddenly evaporated.
And then she'd realized the car was coming too fast.
She'd turned around to try to wave Alex down.
And then the blur.
The car rushing toward her, swerving away at the last
minute, then only a series of sounds.
A shriek of skidding tires-
A scraping noise-
A crash-
And then the awful sound of Alex screaming her name,
cut off by the horrible crunching of the car hurtling into the
ravine.
Then nothing-just a blank, until suddenly she was
back at Carolyn Evans's, and all the kids were
staring at her, their faces blank and confused.
She hadn't even been able to tell them what had
JOHN SAUL
happened. She'd only been able to scream Alex's
name, and point toward the road.
It had been Bob Carey who had finally understood and
called the police.
And then there had been more confusion.
People scrambling out of the pool, grabbing clothes,
streaming out of the house.
Most of them running down the road.
A few cars starting.
And Carolyn Evans, her eyes more furious than
frightened, glaring at her.
"It's your fault, " Carolyn had accused.
"It's all your fault, and now I'm going to be in
trouble. His
Lisa had gazed at her: what was she talking about?
"My parents," Carolyn had wailed.
"They'll find out, and ground me for the rest of the
summer."
And then Kate Lewis was beside her, pulling her
away.
Suddenly she was back on Hacienda Drive, and the
night was filled with sirens, and flashing lights, and people
everywhere, asking her questions, staring down into the ravine. .
. .
It had seemed to go on forever.
Finally there was that awful moment when the stretcher had
appeared, and she'd seen Alex-
Except it hadn't been Alex.
It had only been a shape covered by a blanket;
She'd only been able to look for a second, then
Kate had twisted her around, and she hadn't seen
any more.
Now a voice penetrated the haze.
"Lisa? Lisa Cochran?"
She looked up, nodding mutely. A policeman
was looking at her, but he didn't seem to be mad
at her.
"We need to get you out of here," the policeman said.
"We have to take you down to the Medical Center."
He held out a hand. "Can you stand up?"
"I ... I ..." Lisa struggled
to rise, then sank back to the ground. Strong hands
slid under her arms and lifted her up. A minute
later she was in the back seat of
BRAINCHILD

a police car. A few yards away she saw
another police car, and a policeman talking to some
of her friends.
But they didn't know what had happened. Only she
knew.
Lisa buried her face in her hands, sobbing.
The speaker on the wall of the emergency room
crackled to life once again.
"This is Unit One," the anonymous voice
droned. "We'll be there in another thirty
seconds. And we have an identification on the
victim." Suddenly the voice cracked, losing its
professional tone. "It's Alex . . . Alex
Lonsdale."
Marsh stared at the speaker, willing himself to have heard the
words wrong. Then he gazed around the room, and knew
by the shock on everyone's face, and by the way they were
returning his gaze, that he had not heard wrong. He
groped behind him for a chair, found one, and lowered himself
into it.
"No," he whispered. "Not Alex. Anyone but
Alex ..."
"Call Frank Mallory, was Barbara Fannon
told one of the orderlies, immediately taking charge.
"He's next on call. His number's on the
Rolodex." She moved around the desk and put a
hand on Marshall Lonsdale's shoulder. "Maybe
it's a mistake, Marsh," she said, though she knew
that the ambulance crew wouldn't have identified Alex
if they weren't absolutely sure.
Marsh shook his head and then raised his agonized
eyes. "How am I going to tell her?" he asked,
his voice dazed. "How am I going to tell
Ellen? She . . . she had a feeling . . . she
told me . . . she wanted to come with me tonight-was
"Come on." Barbara assumed her most
authoritative tone, the one she always used with people she
knew were close to breaking. Outside, the sound of the
approaching ambulance disturbed the night. "We're
getting you out of here." When Marsh failed
to respond, she took him by the hand and drew him
to his feet. I m taking you to your office."
JOHN SAUL
"No!" Marsh protested as the approaching siren
grew louder. "Alex is my son-was
"Which is exactly why you won't be here when they bring
him in. We'll have Frank Mallory here as
soon as possible, and until he gets here, Benny
Cohen knows what to do."
Marsh looked dazed. "Benny's only an intern-was
Barbara began steering him out of the emergency room as
the siren fell silent and headlights glared
momentarily through the glass doors of the emergency
entrance. "Benny's the best intern we've ever had.
You told me so yourself."
Then, as the emergency-room doors opened and the
gurney bearing Alex Lonsdale's nearly
lifeless body was pushed inside, she forced Marsh
Lonsdale into the corridor.
"Go to your office," she told him. "Go to your
office and mix yourself a drink from the bottle you and
Frank nip at every time you deliver a baby. I can
take care of everything else, but right now I can't
take care of you. Understand?"
Marsh swallowed, then nodded. "I'll call
Ellen-was
"You'll do no such thing, " Barbara cut in.
"You'll fix a drink, drink it, and wait. I'll
be there in five minutes, and by then we'll know something
about how he is. Now, go!" She gave
Marsh a gentle shove, then disappeared back into the
emergency room.
Marsh paused a moment, trying to sort out his thoughts.
He knew that Barbara was right.
With a shambling gait, feeling suddenly helpless, he
started down the hall toward his office.
In the little house behind the old mission, across the street
from the graveyard, Maria Torres dropped the blind
on the front window back into place, then shuffled
slowly into the bedroom and eased her aged body
into bed.
She was tired from the long walk home, and tonight it had
been particularly exhausting.
BRAINCHILD

Unwilling to be seen by anyone that night, Maria had
been forced to make her way down the canyon by way
of the path that wound through the underbrush a few feet below the
level of the road. Each time she had heard the
wailing of a siren and seen headlights flashing on the
road above, she had huddled close to the ground,
waiting until the car had passed before once more making
her slow progress toward home.
But now it was all right.
She was home, and no one had seen her, and
her job was safe.
Tonight she had no trouble. Tonight it was the gringos who had
the trouble.
To Maria Torres, what had happened on the road
near the hacienda tonight was nothing less than a blessing
from the saints. All her life, she had spent many
hours each week praying that destruction would come to the
gringos. Tonight, she knew, was one of the nights the
saints had chosen to answer those prayers.
Tomorrow, or the next day, she would find out who had been
in the car that had plunged over the edge of the ravine, and
remember to go to church and light a candle to whichever
saint had, in answer to her prayers, abandoned one of
his namesakes this evening. Her candles were not much, she
knew, but they were something, and the souls of her ancestors
would appreciate them.
Silence finally fell over La Paloma. For the
rest of the night, Maria Torres slept in peace.
Benny Cohen carefully peeled away the towel that
had been wrapped around Alex Lonsdale's head,
and stared at the gaping wound on the boy's skull.
He's dead, Benny thought. He may still be breathing,
but he's dead.
Ellen Lonsdale knew her premonition had come
true as soon as she opened the front door
and saw Carol Cochran standing on the porch, a
handkerchief clutched in her left hand, her eyes
rimmed with red.
"It happened, didn't it?" she whispered.
Carol's head moved in a barely perceptible nod.
"It's Alex, was she whispered. "He ... he was
alone in the
Alex, sne wnispered. fie . . . ne was alone
in tne car ..."
"Alone?" Ellen echoed. Where had Lisa been?
Hadn't she been with Alex? But her questions went
unspoken as she tried to concentrate on what Carol
was saying.
"He's at the Center," Carol told her, stepping
into the house and closing the door behind her. "I'll
take you."
For a moment Ellen felt as if she might
collapse. Then, with an oddly detached calmness,
she picked her purse up from the table in the entry
hall and automatically opened it to check its
contents. Satisfied that everything was there, she walked
past Carol and opened the front door. "Is he
dead?" she asked.

BRAINCHILD

"No," Carol replied, her voice catching.
"He's not dead, Ellen. his
"But it's bad, isn't it?"
"I don't know. I don't think anyone does."
Silently the two women got into the Cochrans"
car and Carol started the engine. As she was backing
down the Lonsdales' driveway, Ellen asked the
question that was still lurking in her mind. "Why wasn't
Lisa with him?"
"I don't know that. We got a call from the
police. They said to meet them at the Center, that they
were taking Lisa there. I thought . . . Oh, God,
never mind what I thought. Anyway, Lisas all
right, but Alex-his car went off the road up near
the old hacienda. Carolyn was having a party."
"He said he wouldn't go to any parties," Ellen said
numbly, her body slumped against the car door.
"He promised-was She broke off her own thought, and
remained silent for several seconds as her mind
suddenly began to shift gears. still can t fall apart.
I can't give in to what I'm feeling. I have to be
strong. For Alex, I have to be strong. She
consciously straightened herself in the car seat.
"Well, it doesn't matter what he
promised, does it?" she asked. "The only thing that
matters is that he be all right." She turned
to gaze searchingly at Carol, and when she spoke,
her voice was stronger. "If you knew how bad it
was, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"
Carol moved her hand off the steering wheel to give
Ellen's arm a quick squeeze. "Of course I
would. And I'm not going to tell you not to worry, either.
his
As Carol drove, Ellen tried to make herself
concentrate on anything but what might have happened
to Alex. She gazed out the window, forcing her mind
to focus only on what her eyes were taking in.
"It's a pretty town," she said suddenly.
"What?"' Carol Cochran asked, taken aback
by Ellen's odd statement.
"I was just looking at it," Ellen went on. "I
haven't really done that for a long time. I drive
around it all the
JOHN SAUL
time, but it's been years since I really paid
attention to what it looks like. And a lot of it
hasn't really changed since we were children."
"No," Carol said slowly, still not sure where
Ellen's thoughts were leading. "I don't
suppose it has."
Ellen uttered a sound that was partly a hollow
chuckle, partly a sob. "Do you think I'm
crazy, talking about how pretty La Paloma
is? Well, I'm not. Anyway, I don't think
I am. But I'm having a feeling, and if I let
myself think about that, then I will go crazy."
"Do you want to tell me what it is?"
There was another long silence, and when she spoke again,
Ellen's voice had gone strangely flat.
"He's dead," she stated. "I have the most awful
feeling that Alex is dead. But he isn't dead.
I ... I won't let him be dead!"
Ellen stared at the knot of people in the emergency
waiting room. She recognized most of the faces,
though for some reason her mind refused to put names
to them. Except for a few.
Lisa Cochran.
She was sitting on a couch, huddled close to her
father, and a policeman was talking to her. Lisa saw
her and immediately stood up and started toward her.
"I'm sorry," she blurted. "Oh, Mrs.
Lonsdale, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean
to-was
"What happened?" Ellen asked, her
voice dull.
"I ... I'm not sure," Lisa stammered. "We
had a fight-well, sort of a fight, and I
decided to walk home. And Alex must have been coming
after me. But he was driving too fast, and ..." She
went on, blurting out the story of what had happened,
while Ellen listened, but only half-heard. Around
them, the rest of the people in the waiting room fell
silent.
"It was my fault," Lisa finished. "It was all
my fault."
Ellen laid a gentle hand on Lisa's cheek,
then kissed her. "No," she said quietly. "It
wasn't your fault. You weren't in the car, and it
wasn't your fault."
BRAINCHILD

She turned away to find Barbara Fannon at her
elbow. "Where is he?"' she asked. "Where's
Alex?"
"He's in the O.r. Frank and Benny are working
on him. Marsh is in his office." She took
Ellen's arm and began guiding her out of the waiting
room.
When she came into his office, Marsh was
sitting behind his desk, a glass in front of him,
staring at nothing. His gaze shifted, and he stood
up, came around the desk, and put his arms around her.
"You were right," he whispered, his voice strangling on
the words. "Oh, God, Ellen, you were right."
"Is he dead?" Ellen asked.
Marsh drew back sharply, as if the words had been
a physical blow. "Who told you that?"
Ellen's face paled. "No one. I just ... I
just have a feeling, that's all."
"Well, that one isn't true, was Marsh told her.
"He's alive. his
Ellen hesitated; then: "If he's alive, why
don't I feel it?"
Marsh shook his head. "I don't know. But he's not
dead. He's seriously injured, but he's not dead."
Time seemed to stand still as Ellen gazed deep into her
husband's eyes. At last she quietly repealed
Marsh's words. "He's not dead. He's not dead.
He won't die." Then, despite her determination
to be strong, her tears began to flow.
In the operating room, Frank Mallory
carefully withdrew the last visible fragment of
shattered skull from the tissue of Alex's brain.
He glanced up at the monitors.
By rights, the boy should be dead.
And yet, there on the monitors was the evidence that he
was not.
There was a pulse-weak and erratic, but there.
And he was breathing, albeit with the aid of a
respirator.
His broken left arm was in a temporary splint, and
JOHN SAUL
the worst of his facial lacerations had been stitched just
enough to stop the bleeding.
That had been the easy part.
It was his head that was the problem.
From what Mallory could see, as the car tumbled down
the ravine, Alex's head must have smashed against a
rock, crushing the left parietal plate and
damaging the frontal plate. Pieces of both
bones had broken away, embedding themselves in
Alex's brain, and it was these splinters that
Mallory had been carefully removing. Then, with
all the skill he could muster, he had worked the
fractured pieces as nearly into their normal
positions as possible. Now he was applying what could
only be temporary bandages-bandages intended to bind
Alex's wounds only until the
electroencephalogram went totally flat
and the boy would be declared dead.
"What do you think?" Benny Cohen asked.
"Right now, I'm trying not to think," Mallory
replied. "All I'm doing is putting the pieces
back together, and I'm sorry to say I'm not at
all sure I can do it."
"He's not gonna make it?"
"I'm not saying that, either," Mallory rasped,
unable to admit his true thoughts. "He's made it this
far, hasn't he?"
Benny nodded. "With a lot of help. But without the
respirator, he'd be gone."
"A lot of people need respirators. That's why they
were invented."
"But most people only reed them temporarily. He's
going to need it the rest of his life."
Frank Mallory glowered at the young intern, then
softened. Cohen, after all, hadn't known Alex
Lonsdale since the day the boy was born, nor had
Cohen yet lost a patient. When he did,
maybe he'd realize how much it hurt to see someone
die and know there's nothing you can do about it. But Alex
had survived the first emergency procedures, and there
was still the possibil-
BRAINCHILD

ity that he might live. "Let's get him into the
ICU, then start setting up for X rays and a
CAT scan."
Ten minutes later, still drying his hands with a white
towel, Mallory walked into Marshall
Lonsdale's office. Both Marsh and Ellen
struggled wearily to their feet.
"He's still alive, and in the ICU," Mallory
told them, gesturing for them both to sit down again.
"But it's bad, Marsh. Real bad."
"Tell me," Marsh replied, his voice toneless.
Mallory shrugged. "I can't tell you all of it
yet-you know that. But there's brain damage, and it
looks extensive. His
Ellen stiffened, but said nothing.
"We're setting up right now for every test we can give
him. But it's going to be tough, because he's on a
respirator and a cardiostimulator." Then, as
Marsh and Ellen listened, he described Alex's
injuries, using the dispassionate, factual tone he
had learned in medical school, in order to keep
himself under control. When he was done, it was Ellen who
spoke.
"What can we do?"
Mallory shook his head. "Nothing, for the moment.
Try to stabilize him, and try to find out how bad the
damage is. We should know sometime early in the
morning. Maybe by six."
"I see," Ellen murmured. Then: "Can I see
him?"
Frank Mallory's eyes flicked toward Marsh,
who nodded. "Of course you can," Mallory said.
"You can sit with him all night, if you want to.
It can't hurt, and it might help. You never know
what people in his condition know or don't know, but if
somehow he knows you're there . . . well, it can't
hurt, can it?"
Barbara Fannon glanced up at the clock on the
wall and was surprised to see that it was nearly five
in the morning. To her, it seemed as if it couldn't have
been more than an hour since the ambulance arrived with
Alex.
There had been so much to do.
JOHN SAUL
There had been all the tests that needed to be set up,
and it had fallen to Barbara to coordinate the testing so
that Alex was subjected to the least amount of movement
possible. Not only had she coordinated the X
rays and CAT scan, but everything else
Frank Mallory had requested. And, as far as
Barbara could determine, he hadn't forgotten
anything: he'd ordered ultrasound imaging and a
cerebrospinal tap, as well as an arteriograph
and an EEC The only thing he'd left out was a
pneumoencephalograph, and Barbara knew the
only reason he'd skipped it was that Alex would have
had to be put in a vertical position to carry it out.
In his present condition, that simply wasn't
feasible. It had taken Barbara nearly an hour
simply to contact all the technicians necessary and get
them to the Center. And then, of course, there had been the
people in the waiting room.
They had thinned out after the first couple of hours, when
Barbara had finally told them that there would be no more
news that night-Alex was undergoing a series of
tests, but the results would be unavailable for an
indefinite period.
Now, at five o'clock, she could at last go home.
Everything that needed to be done, or could be done, was
finished, and she realized she was bone weary. All
she had to do was check the waiting room, and she could go.
She pushed the door open, expecting the room to be
empty.
It wasn't.
Sitting on the couch in the far corner was Lisa
Cochran, her parents flanking her. She was
dry-eyed now, and sitting straight up, her hands
folded quietly in her lap. Barbara hesitated,
then went into the waiting room, letting the door swing
shut behind her.
"Can I get you anything?" she asked. "Some
coffee, maybe?"
Lisa shook her head, but said nothing.
"If you can think of a way to convince her to come home with
us, that might help," Carol said, rising to
BRAINCHILD

her feet, stretching, and offering the tired nurse a
resigned smile.
"I can't, Mama," Lisa whispered. "What if
he wakes up and asks for me?"
Barbara crossed the room and sat next to the girl.
"He's not going to wake up tonight, Lisa. his
Lisa regarded her with bloodshot eyes. "Is
... is he going to wake up at all?"
Barbara knew it wasn't her place to talk
to anyone about Alex Lonsdale's condition, but she
also knew exactly who Lisa was, and how Alex
felt about her. God knew he'd spent enough
time perched on the edge of Barbara's desk telling
her how wonderful Lisa was. And after watching her
through the last several hours, Barbara was convinced that
Alex was right. She sighed heavily. "I don't
know, " she said carefully; then, when Lisa's
eyes turned suddenly frightened, she went on: "I
said I don't know. That doesn't mean he's not
going to wake up. All it means is that I don't
know, and no one else does either."
"If he wakes up, will that mean he's going to be
all right?"
Barbara shrugged. "We don't know that, either. All
we can do is wait and see."
"Then I'll wait," Lisa said.
"You could go home and try to get some sleep,"
Barbara suggested. "I promise I'll arrange
for someone to call you if anything happens. Anything
at all."
Lisa rubbed at her eyes, then shook her head.
"No, was she said. "I want to be here. Just in
case. was She looked at the nurse beseechingly.
"He might wake up."
Barbara started to speak, then changed her mind.
She's right, she decided. He damned well might
wake up. And as she absorbed the thought,
she realized that she, like most of the staff at the
clinic, had only been going through the motions of
administering to Alex.
For all of them, all the trained medical people who had
seen injuries like Alex's before, it was a hopeless
case. You did what you could, tried not to overlook
any
JOHN SAUL
measure, no matter how drastic, that might save
the life, but deep inside you prepared yourself for the
fact that the patient wasn't going to make it.
And at the end of your shift, you went home.
But Lisa Cochran wasn't going home, and
Barbara Fannon decided she wasn't going home
either, even though her shift had ended long ago. Coming
to that decision, she stood up. "Come on," she said.
The Cochrans looked at her uncertainly, but
followed her down the hall. Without knocking, she
opened the door to Marshall Lonsdale's office and
led them inside. "If we're all going to stay, we
might as well be as comfortable as possible."
"This is Marsh's office," Jim Cochran said.
"Nobody else's. his
"Should we be here?"
"You're his friends, aren't you? It's been a
long night, and it's going to be an even longer one.
I was going home, but if you can stick this out, so can
I. But not out there." She lowered the lights a little, and
closed the blinds to the windows. "Make yourselves comfortable
while I go find some coffee. If you want something
stronger, you might poke around the office while I'm
gone. I've heard rumors that sometimes there's a
bottle in here. his
Jim eyed the nurse. "Any rumors about just where it
might be?"
"No," Barbara replied. Then, as she left the
office, she spcke once more. "But if I were you,
I'd start looking in the credenza. Bottom right."
Ellen Lonsdale sat in a straight-backed
chair that had been pulled close to Alex's bed,
her right hand resting gently on his. He lay as he
had been placed, on his back, the cast on his left
arm suspended slightly above the mattress, his
limp right arm extended parallel to his body. His
face, covered with the respirator mask and a mass of
bandages, was barely visible, and totally
unrecognizable. Around him was an array of
equipment
BRAINCHILD
61
that Ellen couldn't begin to comprehend. All she knew
was that the monitors and machinery were somehow keeping her
son alive.
She had been there for nearly five hours now. The
sky outside the window was beginning to brighten, and she
shifted slightly in her chair, not as a reaction to the
stiffness that had long ago taken over her body, but so
that she could get a clearer look at Alex's
eyes.
For some reason, she kept thinking they should be open.
The night had been filled with odd thoughts like that.
Several times she had found herself feeling surprise
that the respirator was still operating.
Once, when they brought Alex back from one of the
tests-she couldn't remember which one-she had been
shocked at the warmth of his hand when she touched it.
She knew what the odd feelings were about.
Despite what she had been told-despite her
own inner resolve-she still had the horrible feeling that
Alex was dead.
Several times she had found herself studying the
monitors, wondering why they were still registering life
signs in Alex.
Since he was dead, the graphic displays of his
heartbeat and breathing should be flat.
She kept reminding herself that he wasn't dead, that
he was only asleep.
Except he wasn't asleep.
He was in a coma, and despite what everyone kept
saying, he wasn't going to come out of it.
Abstractly she already understood that it wasn't a
matter of waiting to see what would happen. It was a
matter of deciding when to remove the respirator and
let Alex go.
She didn't know how long that thought had been in her
mind, but she knew she was beginning to get used to the
reality of it. Sometime today, or perhaps tomorrow, after all the
test results had been studied and analyzed, she and
Marsh were going to have to make
JOHN SAUL
the most difficult decision of their lives, and she
wasn't at all sure either of them would be up to it.
If Alex's brain was, indeed, dead, they were
going to have to accept that keeping Alex alive the way
he was was cruel.
Cruel to Alex.
She stared again at all the machinery, and momentarily
wondered why it had ever been invented.
Why couldn't they just let people die?
And yet, she realized with sudden clarity,
even though she understood the reality of Alex's
situation, she would never simply let him die.
If she were going to, she would have done it already.
During the last two hours there had been plenty of
opportunities. All she would have had to do was turn
off the respirator. Alarms would have gone off, but
she could have dealt with that. And it wouldn't have taken long-
only a minute or two.
But she hadn't done it. Instead, she'd simply
sat there battling her feelings of despair,
strengthening her resolve not to let him die, and
whispering encouraging words to Alex as she held his
hand.
And even though part of her still insisted that Alex was already
dead, the other part of her, the part that was determined that
he should live, was growing stronger by the hour.
Suddenly the door opened, and Barbara Fannon
stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.
"Ellen? It's eight o'clock-you've been here all
night."
Ellen turned her head. "I know."
"Marsh is in Frank's office. They have the test
results. They're waiting for you. his
Ellen thought about it for a moment, then slowly shook her
head. "No," she said at last. "I'll
stay here with Alex. Marsh will tell me what I
need to know."
Barbara hesitated, then nodded. "I'll tell
them," she said, then let herself out of the room, leaving
Ellen alone with her son.
BRAINCHILD

"It's bad," Frank Mallory said. "About as
bad as it can get, I'm afraid."
"Let's see." Marsh's whole body felt
drained from the shock and exhaustion of the last hours, but
for some reason his mind was perfectly clear. Slowly
and deliberately he began going over the results
of all the tests and examinations that had been
administered to Alex during the long night.
Mallory was right-it was very bad.
The damage to Alex's brain was extensive. Bone
fragments seemed to be everywhere, driven deep into the
cortex. The cerebrum snowed the heaviest damage,
much of it apparently centered in the temporal lobe.
But nothing seemed to have escaped injury-the parietal
and frontal lobes showed extensive injury as
well.
"I'm not an expert at this," Marsh said, though both
he and Mallory were well aware that many of the
ramifications of Alex's injuries were obvious.
Mallory decided to take the direct approach.
"If he lives at all, he won't be able
to walk or talk, and it's doubtful that he'll be able
to hear. He may be able to see-the occipital lobe
seems to have suffered the least amount of damage. But
all that's almost beside the point. It's highly doubtful
if he'll be aware of anything going on around him,
or even be aware of himself. And that's if he wakes
up."
"I don't believe that, was Marsh replied, fixing
Mallory with cold eyes.
"Don't, or won't?" Mallory countered
gently.
"It doesn't make any difference," Marsh
replied. "Everything's going to be done for Alex that
is humanly possible."
"That goes without saying, Marsh, was Frank
Mallory said, his voice reflecting the pain
Marsh's words had caused. "You know there isn't
anyone here who wouldn't do his best for Alex."
If Marshall heard him, he ignored him. "I
want you to start by getting hold of Torres, down in
Palo Alto."
"Torres?" Mallory repeated.
"Raymond Torres?"
JOHN SAUL
"Is there anyone else who can help Alex?"
Mallory fell silent as he thought about the man
to whom Marsh was considering turning over his son.
Raymond Torres had grown up in La
Paloma, and though there was little question in anyone's mind
of the man's brilliance, there were, and always had been,
many questions about the man himself. He had left La
Paloma long ago, remaining in Palo Alto after
medical school, returning to La Paloma only
to see his mother- old Maria Torres. And even his
visits to her were rare. There was a feeling in La
Paloma that Torres resented his mother, that she was little
more to him than a constant reminder of his past, and that,
if there was one thing Torres would like to ignore, it was
his past. In La Paloma he was primarily
regarded as a curiosity: the boy from behind the mission
who had somehow made good.
Beyond La Paloma, he had become, over the
years, something of an enigma within the medical
community. To his supporters, his aloofness was a
result only of the fact that he devoted nearly every
waking hour to his research into the functioning of the
human brain, while his detractors
attributed that same aloofness to intellectual
arrogance.
But for all the questions about him, Raymond Torres
had succeeded in becoming one of the country's foremost
authorities on the structure and functioning of the
human brain. In recent years, the thrust of his
research had changed slightly, and his primary
interest had become reconstuctive brain surgery.
"But isn't most of his work experimental?"
Mallory asked now. "I don't think a lot of
it has even been tried on human beings yet."
Marshall Lonsdale's desperation was reflected in
his eyes. "Raymond Torres knows more about the
human brain than anybody else alive. And some
of the reconstruction work he's done is just this side of
incredible. I'd say it was incredible if I hadn't
seen the results myself. I want him to work on
Alex."
BRAINCHILD

"Marsh-was
But Marsh was on his feet, his eyes fixed on the
pile of X rays, CAT scans, lab
results, graphs, and other documentation pertaining
to the damage his son's brain had sustained.
"He's still alive, Frank," he said. "And as
long as he's alive, I have to try to help him. I
can't just leave him alone-you can see what he'll be like
as well as I can. He'll be a vegetable,
Frank. My God, you told me so yourself just now.
Nothing can hurt him anymore, Frank. All
Torres can do is help. Call him for me.
Tell him what's happened, and that I want to talk
to him. Just talk to him, that's all. Just get me in
to see him."
When Frank Mallory still hesitated, Marshall
Lonsdale spoke once more. "Alex is all I
have, Frank. I can't just let him die."
When he was alone, Frank Mallory picked up
the phone and dialed the number of Raymond
Torres's office in Palo Alto, twenty
miles away. After talking to him for thirty
minutes, he finally convinced Torres to see Marsh
Lonsdale and look at Alex's case.
The doctor made no promises, but he agreed
to talk, and to look.
Privately, Frank half-hoped Torres would
turn Marsh down.
Exhaustion was overtaking Marsh, and he was beginning
to feel that the situation was hopeless. He'd
been in Raymond Torres's offices for most of the
day, and for most of the day he'd been by himself. Not that it
hadn't been interesting; it had, despite the
overriding fear for his son's life that had never left
his consciousness since the moment he had arrived that
morning.
He'd stared at the Institute through bleary eyes.
The building itself was a bastard-it had obviously
started out as a home, and an imposing one. But from the
central core of the mansion-for a mansion it had been-
two wings had spread, and no attempt had been
made to make them architecturally compatible with the
original structure. Instead, they were sleekly
functional, in stark contrast with the Georgian
massiveness of the core. The buildings were surrounded
by a sprawling lawn dotted with trees, and only a
neat brass plaque mounted on the face of a large
rock near the street identified the structure:
institute for THE human brain.

BRAINCHILD

Inside, a receptionist had led him immediately
to Raymond Torres's office, where he'd turned
all of Alex's records over to the
surgeon himself, who, without so much as glancing at
them, had given them to an assistant. When the
assistant had disappeared, Torres had offered him
a chair, then spent what Marsh thought was an
unnecessarily long time lighting his pipe.
It took Marsh only a few seconds to decide
that there was nothing of Torres's scientific
reputation in either his manner or his bearing. He was
tall, and his chiseled features were carefully framed
by prematurely graying hair in a manner that
seemed to Marsh more suitable for a movie star than a
scientist. The star image was further enhanced by the
perfectly cut tan silk suit Torres wore,
and the cool casualness of his posture. For all his
fine credentials, the first impression Raymond
Torres gave his visitor was that of a society
doctor more interested in the practice of golf than
in the practice of medicine.
Nor was Marsh's instinctive dislike of the man
alleviated by the fact that once the pipe was lit, the
meeting had lasted only long enough for Torres to tell
him that there would be no decision made until his staff
had been able to analyze Alex's case, and that the
analysis would take most of the day.
"I'll wait," Marsh had said. From behind his
desk, Raymond Torres had shrugged with apparent
disinterest. "As you wish, but I could just as easily
call you when I've come to a decision. His
Marsh had shaken his head. "No. I have to be here.
Alex is my only child. There's . . . well,
there's just nowhere else for me to go. his
Torres had risen from his chair in a manner that
Marsh found almost offensively dismissive. "As I
said, as you wish. But you'll have to excuse me-I have a
great deal to do this morning."
Marsh had stared at the man in stunned disbelief.
You're not even interested in hearing about the case?"
"It's all in the records, isn't it?" Torres
had countered.
JOHN SAUL
"Alex isn't in the records, Dr. Torres,"
Marsh had replied, his voice trembling with the effort
to control his anger. Torres seemed to consider his
words for a moment, but didn't reseat himself, and when he
finally replied, his voice was cool.
"I'm a research man, Dr. Lonsdale. I'm
a research man because, as I discovered long ago, I
don't have much of a bedside manner. There are those,
I know, who don't think I relate to people very well.
Frankly, I don't care. I'm
interested in helping people, not in coddling them. And I
don't have to know the details of your son's life in
order to help him. I don't care who he is, or
what he's like, or what the details of his accident
were. All I care about are the details of his
injuries, so that I can make a reasonable judgment
about whether or not I can help him. In other words,
everything I need to know about your boy should be in his
records. If there is anything missing, I-or
someone on my staff-will know, and do whatever has to be
done to rectify the matter. If you want to spend the
rest of the day here, just in case we need you, I have no
objection. Frankly, I doubt we'll need you.
If we need anybody, it will be the patient's
attending physician. his
"Frank Mallory. His
"Whoever. " Torres shrugged disinterestedly. "But
feel free to stay. We have a comfortable lounge, and
you'll certainly find plenty to read. was Suddenly
he smiled. "All of it, of course, having to do with
our work. One thing I insist on is that the lounge be
well stocked with every article and monograph I've
ever written. his
Offended as he was by the man's open pride in himself,
Marsh managed to keep silent, for without
Torres, he knew there was no hope for Alex at
all. And by two o'clock that afternoon he'd become totally
convinced that whatever Raymond Torres lacked in
personal warmth, he more than made up for in
professional expertise.
The articles he'd read-and he'd read at least
thirty of them, forcing himself to maintain his concentration
BRAINCHILD

through the interminable hours-covered a wide field of
interest. Torres had not only made himself an
expert on the structure of the brain, but he had also
become a leading theorist on the functioning of the brain
as well. In dozens of articles, Torres had
described cases in which he'd found methods with which
to circumvent damaged areas of a brain, and utilize
other, healthy areas to take over the functions of the
traumatized tissue. And through it all ran one
constant theme-that the mysteries of the human brain were,
indeed, solvable, but that the potentialities of the
brain were only just being discovered. Indeed, he'd
summed it up in a few sentences that had particularly
intrigued Marsh:
The backup systems of the brain appear to me to be
almost limitless. Long ago, we discovered
that if a portion of the brain fails, another portion
of the same brain can sometimes take over the function
of the failed portion. It is almost as if each area
of the brain not only knows what every other area does, but
can perform that work itself if it really has to. The
problem, then, seems to be one of convincing a damaged
brain not to give up, and, further, of making it aware
of its own problems so that it may redistribute its
work load among its healthy cornponents.
Marsh had read and reread that article several times
when the receptionist suddenly appeared, smiling
warmly at him.
Dr. Lonsdale? Dr. Torres will see you
now." He put the journal aside and followed the
neat young woman back to Torres's office.
Nodding a greeting, Torres beckoned him to a
chair near his desk. In another chair, already
seated, was Frank Mallory.
"Frank? What are you doing here?"
"I asked him to come," Torres replied. "There
are some things I have to review with him."
"But Alex-was
JOHN SAUL
BRAINCHILD
71
"He's stable, Marsh," Frank told him. "There
haven't been any changes in his condition for several
hours. Benny's there, and a nurse is always in the
room."
"If we may proceed," Torres interrupted.
He turned toward a television screen on a table
next to his desk. The screen displayed a
high-resolution photograph of a human brain.
"It's not what you think it is," Torres said.
Startled, both Marsh Lonsdale and Frank
Mallory glanced toward Torres.
"I beg your pardon?" Frank asked.
"It's not a photograph. It's a
computer-generated graphic representation of
Alexander Lonsdale's brain." He paused a
beat; then: "Before the accident."
Mallory's gaze shifted back to the screen.
"Here's what happened," he heard Torres's
voice say. "Or, more exactly, here's a
reconstruction of what happened." He typed some
instructions into the keyboard in front of him, and
suddenly the image on the monitor began to move,
turning upside down. Then, at the bottom of the
screen, another shape came into view. As the three
of them watched, the image of the brain came
into contact with the other object, and suddenly began
to distort. It was, Marsh realized, just like watching a
movie of someone's head being smashed against a sharp
rock.
In slow motion, he could see the skull crack, then
splinter and begin to cave in.
Beneath the skull, brain tissue gave way, part of
it crushed, part of it torn. Fragments of skull
broke away, lacerating the brain further. Frank
Mallory and Raymond Torres watched in
silence, but Marsh was unable to stifle a groan of
empathic pain. Suddenly it was over, and the brain was
once again right-side-up. And then, as Torres
tapped more instructions into the computer, the image
changed again.
"Christ," Mallory whispered. "That's not
possible."
"What is it?" Torres demanded.
"It's Alex's head," Mallory breathed.
Marsh, his face
ashen, gazed at Mallory, but the other man's
eyes remained fixed on the screen. "It's his
head," Mallory breathed. "And it looks just the
way it did when they brought him into the hospital. But
. . . how?"
"We'll get to that," Torres replied. Then:
"Dr. Mallory, I want you to concentrate on that
image very hard. This is very important. How
close is that picture to what you saw when they brought
the patient in?" He held up a cautioning hand.
"Don't answer right away, please. Examine it
carefully. If you need me to, I can rotate the
image so you can see it from other angles. But I
need to know how exact it is."
For two long minutes, as Marsh looked on in
agonized silence, Mallory examined the image,
asking Torres to turn it first in one direction, then
in another. At last he nodded. "As far as I can
tell, it's perfect. If there are any flaws,
I can't see them."
"All right. Now, the next part should be easier for you.
Don't say anything, just watch, and if there's
anything that doesn't look as you remember it, tell
me."
As they watched, the image came to life once more.
A forceps appeared and began removing fragments of
bone from the brain. Then the forceps was gone, and a
probe appeared. The probe moved, and a small
bit of brain tissue tore loose. Mallory
winced.
It went on and on, in agonizing detail. For each
fragment of bone that was removed from the wound, a new
wound was inflicted on Alex's brain. And then, after
what seemed an aeon, it was over.
Frank Mallory was staring at an exact image
of Alex's brain after he'd finished cleaning his
wounds.
"Well?" Torres's voice asked.
Mallory heard his own voice shake as he
spoke. "Why did you show me that? Just to prove my
incompetence?"
'Don't be ridiculous," Torres snapped.
"Aside from the fact that I don't need to waste my
time with such a thing, you're not an incompetent. In
fact, you did as good a job under the circumstances as
could have been
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expected. What I need to know is whether that
reconstruction was accurate."
Mallory chewed his lip, then nodded. "I'm
afraid so. I'm sorry-I was doing my best."
"Don't be sorry," Torres remarked coldly.
"Just think about it."
"It's accurate," Mallory assured him.
"Now, can you tell us how you did it?"
"still didn't do it," Torres replied. "A
computer did it all. For the last"-he glanced at the
clock on his desk- "six hours, we've been
feeding the computer information. Much of it the results of the
CAT scan your lab did in La Paloma.
Fortunately, that was a good job too. But our
computer goes a lot further than yours. Your
machinery can display any aspect of the brain, from any
angle, in two dimensions. Ours is much more
sophisticated," he went on, and suddenly his
eyes, so cool and aloof until now, took on a
glowing intensity. "Once it had all the data, it was
able to reconstruct everything that happened to Alexander
Lonsdale's brain from the first impact to the time of the
CAT scan. For ourselves, an educated guess would
have been the best we could do. We would have been able
to extrapolate the approximate shape of the
traumatizing instrument, and the probable angle from which it
struck. And that would have been about all. But the wounds
are extensive, and the computer is designed to handle a
great many variables simultaneously. According to the
computer, what you just saw is 99.624 percent
accurate, given that the input was accurate. That's
why I wanted you to look at the reconstruction.
If there were any basic errors in the
data, they would have been magnified by the extrapolation
process to the point where you'd have seen something
significantly in error. But you didn't, so we
can assume that what we saw is what happened."
While Mallory sat in silence, Marsh voiced the
question that was in both their minds. "Why is that
important? It seems to me that what comes next
is what we should be concerned with."
BRAINCHILD

"Exactly, " Torres agreed. "Now, watch
carefully. What you're about to see is going to be at
high speed, but it's what we think we can do for
Alexander."
"Everyone calls him Alex," Marsh interjected.
Torres's brows arched slightly. "Very well.
Alex. It makes no difference what we call
him." He ignored the flash of anger in Marsh's
eyes, and his fingers once more flew over the
keyboard. The picture began to change again. As the
two doctors from La Paloma watched in
fascination, layers of brain tissue were peeled
back. Certain tissue was removed entirely; some
was simply maneuvered back into place. The chaos
of the wound began to take on a semblance of
order, and then, slowly, the mending process began,
beginning deep within the medulla and proceeding outward
through the various lobes of the brain. At last it was
over, and the image on the screen was once again filled
with the recognizable shape of a human brain. Certain
areas, however, had taken on various shades of red,
and Marsh's frown reflected his puzzlement.
"Those are the areas that are no longer functional,"
Torres told him before he could ask his question. "The
pale pink ones are deep within the brain, the bright red
ones on the surface. The gradations, I think, are
obvious."
Mallory glanced at Marsh, whose attention seemed
totally absorbed by the image on the screen. Finally
he turned to Torres, his fingers interlaced beneath his
chin. "What you've shown us is pure science
fiction, Dr. Torres," he said. "You can't cut
that deep, and make repairs that extensive, without
killing the patient. Beyond that, it appears to me that
what you're proposing to do is to reconstruct
Alex's brain, even to the extent of repairing
nerve cells. Frankly, I don't believe you
or anyone else can do that."
Torres chuckled. "And, of course, you're right.
I can't do that, nor can anybody else.
Unfortunately, I'm much too large, and my hands
are much too clumsy. Which is why
Alexan-Alex," he corrected himself, "is going
to have to be brought here." He switched off the
JOHN SAUL
monitor and rose from his chair. "Come with me. I
want to show you something."
They left Torres's office and walked down a
corridor that led to the west wing of the building. A
security guard looked up at them as they passed,
then, recognizing Torres, went back to gazing at
the television monitor at his desk. Finally they
turned into a scrub room, beyond which was an operating
room. Wordlessly Torres stood aside and let the
two others precede him through the double doors.
In the center of the room was an operating table, and against
one wall was the customary array of O.r.
equipment-all the support systems and monitors
that both Marsh and Frank Mallory were used to.
The rest of the room was taken up with an array of
equipment the likes of which neither of them had ever seen
before.
"It's a computerized microsurgical robot,"
Torres explained. "In the simplest terms
possible, all it does is reduce the
actions of the surgeon-in this case, me- down from
increments of millimeters into increments of
millimicrons. It incorporates an electron
microscope, and a computer program that makes the
program you just saw look like simple addition in
comparison to advanced calculus. In a way," he
went on, the pride in his voice belying his words,
"with the development of this machine, I've reduced
myself from being a brain surgeon to being little more than a
technician. The microscope looks at the
problems, and then the computer analyzes them and
determines the solutions. Finally it tells me what
to attach to what, and I make the movements
relative to an enlarged model of the tissue. The
robot reduces my motions and performs the
procedures on the real tissue. And it works.
Physically, that machine and I can repair much of the
damage done to Alex Lonsdale's brain."
Marsh studied the equipment for several minutes, then
turned to face Torres once again. When he
spoke, his voice clearly reflected the
uncertainty he was feel-
BRAINCHILD

ing. "What are the chances of Alex
surviving the operation?"
Torres's expression turned grim. "Let's go
back to my office. The computer can tell us that,
too."
No one spoke again until they were back in the old
core building, with the door to Torres's office
closed behind them. Marsh and Frank Mallory took
their seats, and Torres switched the computer back
on. Quickly he began entering a series of
instructions, and then the monitor flashed into life:
SURGERY
SURGERY
PERFORMED
NOT PERFORMED
PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL PAST ONE
WEEK
90%
10%
PROBABILITY OF REGAINING CONSCIOUSNESS
50%
.02%
PROBABILITY OF PARTIAL RECOVERY
20%
PROBABILITY OF TOTAL RECOVERY
Marsh and Mallory studied the chart, then,
still staring at the screen, Marsh asked the first question that
came to mind.
"What does partial recovery mean, exactly?"
"For starters, that he'll be able to breathe on his own, and
that he'll be both cognizant of what is going on
around him and able to communicate with the world beyond his own
body. To me, anything less is no recovery at
all. Though such a patient may be technically
conscious, I still consider him to be in a state of coma.
I find it inhuman to keep people alive under such
circumstances, and I don't believe that simply
because such people can't communicate their suffering, they are
therefore not suffering. For me, such a life would be
unbearable, even for a few days."
JOHN SAUL
Marsh struggled to control the inner rage he was feeling
at this cool man who was able to discuss Alex so
dispassionately. And yet, deep down, he wasn't
at all sure he disagreed with Torres. Then he
heard Frank Mallory asking another question.
"And full recovery?"
"Exactly what the words say," Torres
replied. "In this case, full recovery is
simply not possible. Too much tissue has been
destroyed. No matter how successful the
surgery might be, there will never be total healing.
He might, however-and I want to stress the word
"might"-recover what anyone would consider a
remarkable number of his faculties. He might
walk, talk, think, see, hear, and feel. Or
he could recover any combination of those abilities."
"And you, I assume, are willing to perform the
surgery?"
Torres shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't like the
odds," he said. "I'm a man who doesn't like
to fail."
Marsh felt a knot forming in his stomach. "Fail?"
he whispered. "Dr. Torres, you're talking about
my son. Without you, he'll die. We're not
talking success or failure. We're talking
life or death. his
"I didn't say I wouldn't do it," Torres
replied. "In fact, under certain conditions, I will
do it."
Marsh's relief was apparent in his sigh, and he
allowed himself to slump in his chair. "Anything," he
whispered. "Anything at all."
But Frank Mallory was suddenly uneasy.
"What are those circumstances?" he asked.
"Very simple. That I be given complete
control over the case for as long as I deem necessary,
and that I be absolved of any responsibility for
any of the consequences of either the surgery or the
convalescent period." Marsh started to interrupt, but
Torres pressed on. "And by convalescent period,
I mean until such time as I-and only I-discharge
the patient." He reached into a drawer of his desk and
withdrew a multipage document, which he handed
to Marsh. "This
BRAINCHILD

is the agreement that you and the boy's mother will sign. You
may read it if you want to-in fact I think you
should-but not so much as a comma of it can be changed. Either you
sign it or you don't. If you do, and your wife
does, bring the boy here as soon as possible. The
longer you wait, the riskier the surgery will be. As
I'm sure you know, patients in your son's condition
rarely get stronger-if anything, they get weaker."
He rose from his chair, indicating his dismissal.
"I'm sorry this has taken so long, but I'm
afraid there was no choice. Even my computers need
time to work."
Mallory rose to his feet. "If the
Lonsdales decide to go ahead, when will you
do the surgery, and how long will it take?"
"I'll do it tomorrow," Torres replied. "And it will
take at least eighteen hours, with fifteen people working.
And don't forget," he added, turning to Marsh. "The
odds are eighty percent that we'll fail, at least
to some extent. I'm sorry, but I don't believe
in lying to people."
He opened the door, held it for Marsh and Frank,
then closed it as soon as they had stepped through.
Raymond Torres sat alone for a long time after
showing the two doctors from La Paloma out of his
office.
La Paloma.
Odd that this case-the most challenging case he'd ever
been given the opportunity to work on-should not only
come from the town he'd grown up in but also involve
someone he'd known all his life.
He wondered if Ellen Lonsdale would even
remember who he was. Or, more to the point, who
he'd been.
Probably not.
In La Paloma, as in most of California during
those years of his childhood, he and all the other
descendants of the old Californios had been
regarded as just more Mexicans, to be
ignored at best, and despised at worst.
And in return, his friends had despised the gringos
even more than they were despised themselves.
JOHN SAUL
Raymond Torres could still remember the long
nights in the little kitchen, when his grandmother listened to the
indignities his mother and her sisters had suffered at the
hands of their various employers, then talked, as she
always did, of the old days before even she had been
born, when the Melendez y Ruiz family had
owned the hacienda, and the Californios were preeminent.
Back then, it had been the families of Torres
and Ortiz, Rodriguez and Flores who had
lived in the big white houses on the trail up to the
hacienda. Over and over, his grandmother had told the
legend of the massacre at the hacienda, and the
carnage that followed as one by one the old families
were driven from their homes, and slowly reduced to the
level of peones. But things would change, his grandmother
had insisted. All they and their friends had to do was
maintain their hatred and wait for the day when the son of
Don Roberto de Melendez y Ruiz would
return and drive the gringos away from the lands and
homes they had stolen.
Raymond had listened to it all, and known it
was all useless. His grandmother's tales were no more than
legends, and her certainty of future vengeance no
more solid than the ghost on which her hopes depended.
When she had finally died, he'd thought it might end,
but instead, his mother had taken up the litany. Even
now, the old legends and hatreds seemed to be all
she lived for.
But there would be no revenge, and there would be no driving
away of the gringos, at least not for Raymond
Torres. For himself, he had taken another path,
ignoring the slights of the gringos and closing his ears
to the hatreds of his friends and their plans for someday
avenging their ancestors.
For Raymond Torres, vengeance would be simple.
He would acquire a gringo education and become as
superior to the gringos as they thought they were to him. But his
superiority would be real, not imagined.
Now, finally, the day had come when they needed him.
BRAINCHILD

And he would help them, despite the fury he would
face from his mother.
He would help them, because he had long ago decided
that all the years of having been dismissed as being
unworthy of the gringos' attention would best be
avenged by the simple act of forcing them to realize that
they had been wrong; that he had always been their
equal. He'd always been their equal, though he'd
never had their power.
Now, because of an accident on the very site of the
ancient massacre, that power had come into his hands.
The skill he would need he had acquired over long
years of hard work. Now he would combine that skill with the
power they would give him to rebuild Alex
Lonsdale into something far more than he had been before his
accident.
Slowly and carefully he began making the preparations
to rebuild Alex Lonsdale's mind.
In the demonstration of his own genius, he would have his
own revenge.
"But why can't he do it here?" Ellen asked.
Several hours of fitful sleep had eased the
exhaustion she had felt that morning, but she still found
it impossible to absorb every word Marsh had spoken.
Patiently Marsh explained it once again.
"It's the equipment. It's extensive, and it's
all built into his O.r. It simply can't be
moved, at least not quickly, and not into our facility.
We just don't have the space. his
"But can Alex survive it?"
This time it was Frank who answered her question. "We
don't know," he said. "I think he can. His pulse
is weak, but it's steady, and the respirator can go in
the ambulance with him. There's a mobile ICU in
Palo Alto, and we can use that."
There was a silence, then Marsh spoke, his voice
quiet but urgent. "You have to decide, Ellen. This
waiver needs both our signatures."
JOHN SAUL
Ellen gazed at her husband a moment, her thoughts
suddenly far in the past.
Raymond Torres. Tall and good-looking, with
dark, burning eyes, but no one anyone would ever
consider going out with. And he'd been smart, too. In
fact, he'd been the smartest person in her
class. But strange, in a way she'd never quite
understood, nor even, for that matter, cared about
understanding. He'd always acted as though he was better
than anyone, and never had any friends, either of his own
race or of hers. And now, suddenly, the life of
her son depended on him.
"What's he like?" she suddenly asked.
Marsh looked at her curiously. "Does it
matter?"
Ellen hesitated, then slowly shook her
head. "I don't suppose so," she replied.
"But I used to know him, and he was always . . .
well, I guess he seemed arrogant, and sometimes
he was almost scary. None of us ever liked him."
Marsh smiled tightly. "Well, he hasn't
changed. He's still arrogant, and I don't like him
at all. But he might be able to save Alex."
Once more Ellen hesitated. In times past, she and
Marsh used to spend hours discussing their problems,
listening to each other, balancing their thoughts and
feelings, weighing what was best for them. But in the last
few months-or had it become years?-that easy
communication had been lost. They had been too
busy- Marsh with the expanding Medical Center, herself
with the expanding social life that had accompanied the
building of the Center. What had been sacrificed,
finally, was their ability to communicate with each other.
Now, with Alex's life hanging in the balance, she
had to come to a decision.
She made up her mind. "We don't have a
choice, do we?" she asked. "We have to try. was
She picked up the pen and signed the waiver, which she
had not bothered to read, then handed it back to Marsh. A
sudden thought flashed through her mind.
BRAINCHILD

If Raymond Torres thinks it will work, why
won't he take responsibility for it?
Then she decided that she didn't want to know the
answer to that question.
Carol Cochran covered the telephone's
mouthpiece with her right hand and called up the stairs,
"Lisa? It's for you." She waited a few
seconds, and when there was no answer, she called out
again: "Lisa?"
"Tell whoever it is I'm not here." Lisa's
voice was muffled, and Carol paused a moment,
wondering if she ought to go upstairs and insist that
Lisa take the call. Then she sighed. "She
says she isn't here, Kate. I'm sorry, but
she just doesn't want to talk to anyone right now.
I'll have her call you back, all right?"
Hanging up the phone, Carol mounted the stairs, and
found Kim standing in the hall.
"Her door's locked, and she wont come out," the
six-year-old reported.
"I'll take care of it, dear. Why don't you go
find your father?"
"Is he lost?" Kim replied with the same look of
innocence Jim always wore when he
tortured her with the same kind of response.

BRAINCHILD

"Just go, all right? I need to talk to your sister."
"Do I have to?" Kim begged. "I could talk to her
too."
"I'm sure you could, was Carol observed. "But right
now I want to talk to her alone."
Kim cocked her head, her eyes narrowing
inquisitively. "Are you gonna talk about
Alex?"
"Possibly," Carol parried.
"Is Alex going to die?"
"I don't know," Carol replied, sticking to the
policy of total honesty she'd always followed in
raising her children. "But that's something we won't talk
about until it happens. I hope it won't. Now,
run along and find your father."
Kim, who had long since learned when she'd pushed
her luck as far as it would go, headed down the stairs
as Carol tapped at Lisa's door.
"Lisa? May I come in?"
There was no answer, but a moment later Carol heard
a click as Lisa turned the key from the
inside. The door opened a few inches, and Carol
saw Lisa's retreating back as the girl
returned to her bed, sprawled out on her back, and
fixed her gaze on the ceiling. Carol stepped into the
room and closed the door behind her.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked. When there
was no reply, Carol crossed to the bed and sat down
on the edge of it. Lisa moved slightly to one
side to make more room. "Well, I want to talk
about it," Carol went on. "I know what you're
thinking, and you're wrong."
Lisa's tear-streaked face turned slowly toward
her mother, who reached out to brush a stray hair from her
brow. "It was my fault, Mom," she said, her
voice bleak. "It was all my fault."
"We're not going to go over it all again," Carol
told her. "I've heard the whole story too many
times already. If you want to feel guilty, you can
feel guilty about talking Alex into going to that party.
But that's all
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you can feel guilty about. It was Alex who drank
the beer, and it was Alex who was driving the car."
"But he had to swerve-was
"Only because he was driving too fast. He
caused the accident, Lisa. Not you."
"But . . . but what if he dies?"
Carol bit her lip, then took a deep breath.
"If he dies, then we will all feel very badly
for a while. Ellen and Marsh will feel badly for a
long time. But the world won't end, Lisa. And if
Alex does die, that won't be your fault any more
than the accident was your fault. His
"But Carolyn Evans said-was
"Carolyn Evans is a selfish, spoiled
brat, and you weren't the only one who heard her say
it was all your fault. I've talked to Bob
Carey and Kate Lewis tonight, and they both told
me exactly what Carolyn meant. She meant that
if you hadn't left the party, then Alex wouldn't have
either, and that the accident might not have happened. And do you
know what she was worried about? Not you, and not Alex.
The only thing that concerned darling Carolyn was the fact
that her party was no longer going to be her little secret.
Also, as far as I know, Carolyn was the only
person at the party who didn't bother to go to the
Center last night. All she did was go home and
try to clean up the house."
"It doesn't make any difference what she
meant," Lisa said, rolling over to face
the wall. "It still doesn't change the way I
feel."
Carol sat silently for a few seconds, then
reached out and pulled Lisa close. "I know,
honey. And I suppose you're going to have to get over
that feeling your own way. In the meantime, what about
Alex?"
Lisa stirred suddenly, and sat up. "Alex?
What about him?"
"Suppose he wakes up?"
"He will wake up," Lisa said. "He has to.
his
"Why? So you can stop feeling sorry for yourself? Is
that why you want him to wake up? So it will make you
feel better?"
BRAINCHILD

Lisa's eyes widened with shock. "Mom! That's
an awful thing to say-was
Carol shrugged. "Well, what else can I think?"
She took Lisa's hands in her own. "Lisa, I
want you to listen very carefully. There's a chance that
Alex may survive all this, and there's a chance he
may wake up. But if he does, he's going to be
in bad shape, and he's going to need all the
help he can get. His parents won't be enough.
He's going to need his friends, too, and he's going
to need you. But if you're spending all your energy
feeling guilty and sorry for yourself, you're not going
to be much good to him, are you?"
Lisa looked dazed. "But what can I do?"
"None of us will know that till the time comes. But for
starters, you could try pulling yourself together." She
hesitated for a moment, then went on. "Alex is
going to be operated on tomorrow." Lisa's eyes
reflected her surprise, but before she could say
anything, Carol went on. "I know you're going
to want to be there-we all want to be there-but you're not
going to sit on a sofa and cry. If anyone's going
to do that, it's going to be Ellen, and I suspect she
won't do that either. It's going to be a long operation,
and Alex might not make it through. But if you want
to be there, both your father and I expect you to behave like
the girl we hope we raised."
There was a long silence; then the slightest trace of a
smile appeared at the corners of Lisa's mouth.
"You mean keep my chin up?" she asked in a tiny
voice.
Carol nodded. "And remember that it's Alex who's
in trouble, not you. Whatever happens tomorrow, or
next week, or whenever, your life will go on. If
Alex comes through this, he's not going to have a lot of time
to spend cheering you up." She stood up, and forced a
grin she didn't truly feel. "The ball's in
your court, kid. Play it."
Forty minutes later, Lisa Cochran came
downstairs. She was wearing one of her father's old
white shirts and
JOHN SAUL
a pair of jeans, and her hair, still wet from the shower,
was wrapped in a towel. "Who all called?" she
asked. Her father lowered his paper and opened his mouth.
"I mean besides Prince Andrew and John
Travolta, Dad. I already talked to them and told
them it's definitely over."
"All the messages are by the phone," her mother told
her. "Anything going on you want to tell us about, or
shall we read it in the papers?"
"Nothing much," Lisa said. "I just thought I'd
get the kids organized for tomorrow. Do you know what time
they're operating on Alex?"
Jim put his paper aside, looking curiously at
his older daughter. "Early," he said. "They want
to start by six, I think." As Lisa started out of the
room, he called her back. "Mind
telling me just what you're organizing?"
"Well, everyone's going to want to go down there, but
there's no point in having everyone show up at once.
I'm just going to sort of get them spaced out:"
"Most of them already are," Jim commented.
Lisa ignored him. "Tomorrow's Sunday, so nobody
has to go to school or anything. We might as well
all help out. his
Carol frowned uncertainly. "I hope there's not
going to be a mob like there was last night-was
"I'll tell them not to stay very long. And I'm going
to ask Kate if she'll just sort of hang around, in
case anybody needs anything."
Now Jim was shaking his head. "Lisa, honey, I
know you want to do the right thing, but-was
"It's all right," Carol interrupted. "But,
Lisa? Can I make a suggestion? Why don't you
call Ellen and see what she thinks? She might
prefer it if you just kept everybody away, at least
until we know what's happening. his
Lisa's face fell, and she groaned. "Why
didn't I think of that?"
was "Cause you're an idiot," Kim said,
abandoning the
BRAINCHILD

drawing she'd been working on to scramble into her father's
lap. "Isn't she an idiot, Daddy?"
"It takes one to know one."
"Daddy! You're s'posed to be on my side."
"I guess I forgot." Jim snuggled the little
girl in, then turned back to Lisa. "Got any
plans for your sister?" he asked mildly. "If you
really want to do some organizing, why don't you line
up your friends to take care of Kim?"
"I want to go with you!" Kim immediately objected.
"That's what you say now," Jim told her. "That's
not what you'll say tomorrow. And don't argue with
me-I'm bigger than you are, and can pound you into the
ground." Kim giggled, but closed her mouth.
"Maybe someone could take her to a movie or
something. And we'll need a baby-sitter after dinner.
his
Lisa's eyes clouded. "Won't it be all over
by then?"
Carol and Jim exchanged a glance, then Jim
spoke. "I talked to Marsh earlier," he said.
"He told me the operation will take at least
eighteen hours. It's not going to be any party,
honey. his
Lisa paled slightly, and fought down the tears that were
welling in her eyes. When she spoke, though, her
voice was steady. "I know it's not a party, Dad,"
she said softly. "I just want to do whatever I can
to help."
"Your mother can-was
"No! still can, and I will. I'll take care of
Kim, and see to it that there's no mob scene. I'll
be all right, Dad. Just let me do this my way,
all right?"
When she was gone, and they could hear her murmuring into the
telephone, Jim turned to Carol. "What
happened up there?" he asked.
"I think she just grew up, Jim. Anyway,
she's sure trying."
There was a silence, then Kim squirmed in her father's
lap, twisting around to look up at him. "Do I have
to go to the movies with her dumb old friends?" she
demanded.
"If you do, I'll bet they'll let you choose the
movie,"
JOHN SAUL
Jim replied. Somewhat mollified, Kim
settled down again.
"I hope Alex gets better soon,"
she said. "I like Alex."
"We all do," Carol told her. "And he will get
better, if we all pray a lot."
And, she added to herself, if Raymond Torres
really knows what he's doing.
As Carol Cochran entertained that thought, Raymond
Torres himself was making his final rounds of the evening.
Not, of course, that they were really rounds, for Alex
Lonsdale was his only patient. He stopped first
in Alex's room, just across the hall from the operating
complex. The night nurse glanced up from the book
she was reading. "Nothing, doctor," she said as
Torres scanned the monitors that were tracking
Alex's vital functions. "No change from an
hour ago."
Torres nodded, and gazed thoughtfully at the boy in
the bed.
Looks like his mother. The thought drifted through his mind,
followed by a sudden flood of unbidden memories from
a past he thought could no longer hurt him. Along with
his memories of Ellen Lonsdale came
memories of three other girls, and as their faces
came into focus in his mind's eye, he felt himself
begin to tremble.
Forget it, he told himself. It was long
ago, and it's all over now. It doesn't matter.
With an effort of will, he forced himself to concentrate on
the motionless form of Alex Lonsdale. He leaned
over and carefully opened one of the boy's eyes,
checked the pupil, then closed the eye again. There had
been no reaction to the sudden incursion of light. Not
a good sign.
"All right, " he said. "I'm sleeping here tonight,
in the room over my office. If anything
happens-anything at all-I want to be awakened
at once. his
"Of course, doctor," the nurse replied. Not that
he need have said anything-the first rule for staff working
under Torres was made very clear at the time they
BRAINCHILD

were hired: "If anything happens, let Dr.
Torres know at once." And everyone at the
Institute adhered to the rule, quickly learning
to suspend his own judgment. So tonight, if Alex
Lonsdale so much as twitched, an instrument would
record it, and Raymond Torres would be
notified immediately. As Torres left the room, the
nurse went back to her book.
Torres crossed the corridor and went
into the scrub room, his eyes noting instantly that
everything necessary for tomorrow's scrub was already there-gowns,
gloves, masks, everything. And it would all be
checked at least twice more during the night. He
proceeded into the O.r. itself, where six technicians
were going over every piece of equipment in the room,
running test after test, rechecking their own work, then
having it verified by two other technicians. They
would continue working throughout the night, searching for anything
that could possibly fail, and replacing it. They would
leave only when it was time for the sterilization process
to begin, an hour before the operation was scheduled.
Satisfied, he moved on down the corridor
to what had long ago become known as the Rehearsal
Hall. It was a large room, housing several
desks, each of which held a computer terminal. It was
here that every operation carried out at the Institute was
rehearsed.
Tonight, all the desks were occupied, and all the
terminals glowed brightly in the soft light of the
Rehearsal Hall. The technicians at the
monitors, using the model of Alex's brain that
had been generated earlier that day, were going over the
operation step by step, searching for bugs in the program
that the computer itself, using its own model, had
generated.
They didn't expect to find any bugs, for they had
long ago discovered that programs generated by computers
are much more accurate than programs written by men.
Except that there was also the possibility that somewhere in
the system there was a sleeper.
"Sleeper" was their term for a bug that had never been
found. The defect might not even be in the pro-
JOHN SAUL
gram they were using. It could have been in a program that
had been used to write another program, that had, in
turn, been used to generate still a third program.
They all knew, from bitter experience, that the bug
could suddenly pop up and destroy everything.
Or, worse, it could simply inject a tiny error
into the program, creating a new sleeper.
In this case, that would be a wrong connection in Alex
Lonsdale's mind, which could lead to anything.
Or nothing.
Or Alex's death.
Torres moved silently through the room, concentrating
first on one monitor, then on another. All of
what he saw was familiar; he would see it all again
tomorrow.
Except that tomorrow wouldn't be a rehearsal.
Tomorrow his fingers would be on the robot's controls, and as
he followed the program, making the connections
inside Alex's brain, there would be no turning
back. Whatever he did tomorrow, Alex Lonsdale
would live withforthe rest of his life.
Or die with.
One of the technicians leaned back and stretched.
"Problems?" Torres asked.
The technician shook his head. "Looks perfect
so far."
"How many times have you been through it?"
"Five."
"It's a beginning," Torres said. He wished they
had months to keep rerunning the program, but they
didn't. So even in the morning, they wouldn't be
sure there were no bugs. That, indeed, was the worst thing
about bugs-sometimes they didn't show up for years. The
only way to find them was to keep running and rerunning
a program, hoping that if something was going to go wrong
it would go wrong early on. But this time, they simply
didn't have time-they would have to trust that the program was
perfect.
Yet as he moved toward the little bedroom above his
office that was always kept ready for him, one thought
BRAINCHILD

kept going through Torres's mind: Nothing is ever
perfect.
Something always goes wrong.
He pushed the thought away. Not this time. This time,
everything had to be perfect. And only he would ever know
what that perfection really was.
At five o'clock the next morning, Ellen and
Marshall Lonsdale arrived in Palo Alto.
It was still dark, but all over the Institute for the
Human Brain, lights glowed brightly, and people
seemed to be everywhere. They were shown into the same
lounge where Marsh had spent most of the previous day,
and offered coffee and Danishes.
"Can we see Alex?" Ellen asked.
The receptionist smiled sympathetically. "I'm
sorry. He's already being prepped." Ellen
carefully kept her expression impassive, but the
other woman could clearly see the pain in her eyes.
"I really am sorry, Mrs. Lonsdale, but
it's one of Doctor's rules. Once Hie
prepping starts, we always keep the patient totally
isolated. Doctor's a fanatic about keeping
everything sterile."
Suddenly the door opened, and a friendly
voice filled the room. "Why do they always have to have
operations at dawn?" Valerie Benson asked of
no one in particular. "Do they think it's a war or
something?" She crossed the room and gave Ellen a
quick hug. "It's going to be all right, was she
whispered. "I don't get up this early unless I
know nothing can possibly go wrong, and here I am.
So you might as well stop worrying right now. Alex
is going to be fine."
Ellen couldn't resist smiling at Valerie, who was
a notorious late-riser. Indeed, Valerie
sometimes claimed that the real reason she'd divorced
her husband was that demanding breakfast by nine a.m. was the
worst sort of mental cruelty. But here she was,
as always, coming through in the pinch, and looking as if she'd
been up for hours.
"You didn't have to come, was Ellen told her.
JOHN SAUL
"Of course I did," Valerie said. "If I
hadn't, everybody would have talked about it for years.
Is Marty here yet?"
"I don't know if she's even coming. And it's so
early-was
"Nonsense, " Valerie snorted. "Must be
nearly noon." She gave Marsh a quick
kiss on the cheek. "Everything okay? she asked,
her voice dropping.
"They wont even let us see Alex before the
operation," Marsh replied, making no attempt
to hide the anger he was feeling. Valerie nodded
knowingly.
"I've always said Raymond Torres is
impossible. Brilliant, yes. But impossible."
Ellen's eyes clouded. "If he can save
Alex, I don't care how impossible he is."
"Of course you don't, darling," Valerie assured
her. "None of us does. Besides, maybe he's
changed over the last twenty years. My God, if
I had any brains, I'd marry him! This is some
place, isn't it? Is it all his?"
"Val," Ellen interrupted. "You can slow down..
You don't have to distract us-we're going to get through
this."
Valerie's bright smile faded, and she sat down
abruptly, reaching into her purse and pulling out a
handkerchief. She sniffled, wiped her eyes, then
determinedly put the handkerchief away. "I'm
sorry," she said. "It's just that the thought of anything
happening to Alex . . . Oh, Ellen, I'm just so
sorry about all of this. Is there anything I
can do?"
Ellen shook her head. "Nothing. Just stay with me,
Val. Having you and Marty Lewis and Carol here
is going to be the most important thing." To know that
her friends would be here to support her, to try to comfort
her, would help.
The longest day of her life had just begun.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When the lounge door opened just after ten-thirty that
evening, neither Ellen nor Marsh paid much attention.
People had been in and out all day, some staying only a
few minutes, others remaining for an hour or two.
But now only her closest friends were still there: the
Cochrans, Marty Lewis, and Valerie
Benson. Only Cynthia Evans had not come.
Slowly she realized that someone was standing in front of
her, had spoken to her. She looked up into the face
of a stranger.
"Mrs. Lonsdale? I'm Susan Parker-the
night person. Dr. Torres wants to see you and
your husband in his office."
Ellen glanced at Marsh, who was already on his feet,
his hand extended to her. Suddenly she felt
disoriented- she'd thought it was going to take until
midnight. Unless . . . She closed her
mind to the thought that Alex must, at last, have died.
"It's over?" she managed. "He's finished?"
JOHN SAUL
Then she was in Torres's office, and the doctor was
gazing at her from the chair behind his desk. He stood
up, and came around to offer her his hand. "Hello,
Ellen," he said quietly.
Her first fleeting thought was that he was even more handsome
than she'd remembered him. Hesitantly she
took his hand and squeezed it briefly, then, still
clutching his hand, she gazed into his eyes. "Alex,
" she whispered. "Is he-?"
"He's alive, was Torres said, his voice
reflecting the exhaustion he was feeling, while his
eyes revealed his triumph. "He's out of the
O.r., and he's off the respirator. He's
breathing by himself, and his pulse is strong. his
Ellen's legs buckled, and Marsh eased her into a
chair. "Is he awake?" she heard her husband
ask. When Torres's head shook negatively,
her heart sank.
"But it doesn't mean much," Torres said. "The
soonest we want him to wake up is tomorrow morning.
his
"Then you don't know if the operation is a
success." Marsh Lonsdale's voice was flat.
Again Torres shook his head, and rubbed his eyes with
his fists. "We'll know tomorrow morning, when- if-he
wakes up. But things look good." He offered them a
twisted smile. "Coming from me, that's something. You know
what I consider success and what I consider
failur	e. And I can tell you right now that if Alex
dies in the next week, it won't be from his brain
problems. It will be from complications-pneumonia, some
kind of viral infection, that sort of thing. I intend
to see that that doesn't happen. His
"Can . . . can we see him?" Ellen asked.
Torres nodded. "But only for a minute, and only
through the window. For the time being, I don't want
anyone in that room except members of my staff."
Marsh seemed about to say something, but Torres
ignored him. "I'm sorry, but that includes you.
What you can do is take a look at him-Susan will
take you over there-and then go home and get some
sleep. Tomorrow morning's going to tell the tale, and
I want you to
BRAINCHILD

be here. If he wakes up, I'm going to want
to try to determine if he can recognize
people."
"Us," Ellen breathed.
"Exactly." Torres stood up. "Now, if
you'll excuse me, I'm going up to bed."
Ellen struggled to her feet, and reached out to grasp
Torres's hand once again. "Thank you,
Raymond," she whispered. "I ... I don't
know what to say. I didn't believe ... I
couldn't-was
Torres abruptly withdrew his hand from hers.
"Don't thank me, Ellen," he said. "Not yet.
There's still a good chance that your son will never wake
up." Then he was gone, leaving Ellen to stare after
him, her face ashen.
"It's just him," Marsh told her. "It's just his way
of telling us not to get our hopes too high."
"But he said-was
"He said Alex is alive, and breathing by himself. And
that's all he said. was He began guiding her toward
the door. "Let's go take a look at him, then
go home."
Silently Susan Parker led them into the west wing and
down the long corridor past the O.r. She
stopped at a window, and the Lonsdales gazed through the
glass into a large room. In its center
stood a hospital bed, its guardrails up.
Around the bed was an array of monitors, each of them
attached to some part of Alex's body.
His head, though swathed with bandages, seemed
to bristle with tiny wires.
But there was no respirator, and even from beyond the window
they could see his chest rising and falling in the deep,
even rhythm of sleep. A glance at one of the
monitors told Marsh that Alex's pulse was now
as strong and regular as his breathing.
"He's going to come out of it," he said softly.
Next to him, Ellen squeezed his hand tightly.
"I know," she replied. "I can feel it. He
did it, Marsh. Raymond gave us back our
son." Then: "But what's he going to be like? He
won't be the same, will he?"
JOHN SAUL
"No," Marsh said slowly, "he won't be. But
he'll still be Alex."
There was a soft beeping sound, and the nurse whose sole
duty was to watch Alex Lonsdale glanced quickly
up, scanning the monitors with a practiced eye,
then noting the exact time.
Nine-forty-six a.m.
She pressed the buzzer on the control
panel, then went to the bed to lean over Alex,
concentrating on his eyes.
The beeping sounded again, and this time she saw its
cause. She picked up the phone and pressed two
buttons. On the first ring, someone picked it up.
"Torres. What is it?"
"Rapid-eye movement, doctor. He may be
dreaming, or-was
"Or he may be waking up. I'll be right down."
The phone went dead in her hand and the nurse's
attention went back to Alex.
Once more, the beeping began, and the occasional faint
twitching in Alex Lonsdale's eyelids
increased to an erratic flutter.
Hazily he became vaguely aware of himself.
Things were happening around him.
There were sounds, and faint images, but none of it
meant anything.
Like watching a movie, but run so fast you couldn't
see any of it.
And darkness. Darkness all around him, and no sense of
being at all. Then, slowly, he began to feel
himself. There was more than the darkness, more than the
indistinct sounds and images.
A dream.
He was having a dream.
But what was it about? He tried to focus his mind.
If it was a dream, where was he? Why wasn't he
part of it?
BRAINCHILD

The darkness began to recede a little, and the sounds and
images faded away.
Not a dream. Real. He was real.
He.
What did "he" mean?
"He" was a word, and he should know what it meant. There
should be a name attached to it, but there wasn't.
The word had no meaning.
Then slowly "he" faded into "me."
"Me." "Me" became "I."
I am me. He is me.
Who?
Alexander James Lonsdale.
The meaning of those little words came back into his mind.
He began to remember.
But there were only fragments, and most of them didn't
make any sense. He was going somewhere. Where? A
dance. There had been a dance. Picture it.
If you want to remember something, picture
it.
Nothing.
Going somewhere.
Car. He was in a car, and he was driving. But where?
Nothing. No image came to mind, no street name.
Picture something-anything.
But nothing came, and for a moment he was sure that all
he would ever know was his name. There was nothing else in his
mind. Nothing but that great dark void. Then more names
came into his mind.
Marshall Lonsdale.
Ellen Smith Lonsdale.
Parents. They were his parents. Then, very slowly, the
blackness surrounding him faded into a faint glow.
He opened his eyes to blinding brightness, then closed
them again.
"He's awake." The words meant something, and he
understood what they meant.
He opened his eyes again. The brightness faded, and
JOHN SAUL
blurred images began to form. Then, slowly, his
eyes focused.
Certain images clicked in his mind, things he'd
seen before, and suddenly he knew where he was. He
was in a hospital.
A hospital was where his father worked. His father was a
doctor. His eyes moved again, and he saw a
face.
His father?
He didn't know. He opened his mouth.
"Which-who . . . are . . . you?"
"Dr. Torres," a voice said. "Dr.
Raymond Torres." There was a silence, then the
voice spoke again. "Who are you?"
He lay quiet for a few seconds, then, once
more, spoke, the words distorted, but clear enough to be
understood. "Lonsdale. Alexander James
Lonsdale."
"Good," the man whose name was Dr. Torres told
him. "That's very good. Now, do you know where you are?"
"H-hob ..." Alex fell silent, then
carefully tried it again. "Hos ... pi ...
tal," he said.
"That's right. Do you know why you're in the hospital?"
Alex lapsed into silence again, his mind trying
to grasp the meaning of the question. Then, in a rush, it
came to him.
"Ha-hacienda," he whispered. "Car."
"Good," Dr. Torres said softly. "Don't
try to say anything else right now. Just lie
there. Everything's going to be all right. Do you understand?"
"y-yes."
The image of the doctor disappeared from his vision, and was
replaced by another face that he didn't
recognize. He closed his eyes.
Ellen and Marsh rose anxiously to their feet as
Torres walked into his office a few minutes
later.
"He's awake," he told them. "And he can
speak." "He ... he actually said something?"
Ellen asked,
BRAINCHILD

her voice alive with hope for the first time since the
accident. "It wasn't just sounds?"
Torres seated himself at his desk, his demeanor, as
always, perfectly composed. "Better than just saying
something. The first thing he did was ask me who I
was. Then he told me his name. And he knows what
happened."
Marshall Lonsdale felt his heart pounding, and
suddenly a vision leapt into his mind. It was the chart
of probabilities he'd seen two days earlier.
Partial recovery had been only a twenty-percent
chance. Full recovery had been zero
percent. But Alex could hear, and he could speak, and
apparently he could think. Then he realized that
Torres was still speaking, and forced himself to concentrate
on the doctor's words.
"... but you have to realize that he might not recognize
you."
"Why not?" Ellen asked. Then: "Oh, God.
He ... he isn't blind, is he?"
"Absolutely not," Torres assured her. His
eyes fixed on her, and Ellen felt a small
shiver run through her. There was a quality of strength in
his eyes that had not been there twenty years ago. Where
once his eyes had smoldered in a way that she used
to find frightening, now they burned with a reassuring
self-confidence. Whatever Raymond Torres
told her, she was suddenly certain, would be the
absolute truth. And if Alex could be healed,
Raymond Torres was the one man who could heal
him. In his presence, the overriding fear she had
fallen victim to since the moment she heard of
Alex's accident began to ebb away. She found
herself concentrating on his words with an intensity she had
never felt before.
"At this point there's no way of knowing what he will
remember and what he won't. He could
remember your names, but have no memory at all of
what you look like. Or just the opposite. You might
be familiar to him, but he won't remember
exactly who you are. So when you see him, be very
careful. If he doesn't recog-
JOHN SAUL
nize you, don't be upset, or at least try not
to let him know that you're upset. his
"The fact that he's alive, and that he's conscious,
is enough," Ellen breathed. Then, though she knew
she could never truly express what she was feeling,
she went on. "How can I thank you?" she asked.
"How can I ever thank you for what you've done?"
"By accepting Alex in whatever condition he is now
in," Torres replied, ignoring the emotion in
Ellens words.
"But you said-was
"I know what I said. You must understand that Alex will
undoubtedly have a lot of limitations from now on, and
you must learn to deal with them. That may not be a simple
task."
"I know," Ellen said. "I don't expect it
to be. But whatever Alex's needs are, I know
we'll be able to meet them. You've given us back
Alex's life, Raymond. You . . .
well, you've worked a miracle."
Torres rose to his feet. "Let's go see
him. I'll take you in myself, and I'd like to do it one
at a time. I don't want to give him too much
to cope with."
"Of course," Marsh agreed. They started toward the
west wing and paused outside Alex's room. Through
the window, nothing seemed to have changed. "Does it
matter which of us goes in first?" he asked.
"I'd rather you went first, was Torres replied.
"You're a doctor, and you'll be less likely to have
any kind of reaction to whatever might happen. his
The Lonsdales exchanged a glance, and Ellen
managed to conceal her disappointment. "Go on," she
said. "I'll be fine. His
Torres opened the door, and the two men stepped
inside. Ellen watched as Marsh approached the bed,
stopping when he was next to Alex.
Alex's eyes opened again, and he recognized
Dr. Torres. On the other side of him was someone
else. "Who . . . are . . . you?"
your
BRAINCHILD

There was a slight pause, and then the
stranger spoke. "I'm your father, Alex."
"Father?" Alex echoed. His eyes fixed on the
man, and he searched his memory. Suddenly the face
that had been strange was familiar. "Dad, " he
said. Then, again: "Dad. his
He saw his father's eyes fill with tears, then heard
him say, "How are you, son?"
Alex searched his mind for the right word. "H-hurt,"
he whispered. "I hurt, but not . . . not too
bad." A phrase leapt into his mind. "Looks
like we're going to live after all."
He watched as his father and Dr. Torres glanced at
each other, then back down at him. His father was
smiling now. "Of course you are, son," he heard
his father say in an oddly choked voice. "Of course
you are."
Alex closed his eyes and listened to the sound of
footsteps moving away from the bed. The room was
silent; then there were more footsteps, and he knew people were
once again standing by the bed. Dr. Torres, and someone
else. He opened his eyes and peered upward. A
face seemed to hang in the air, framed by dark
wavy hair.
"Hello . . . Mom," he whispered.
"Alex," she whispered back. "Oh,
Alex, you're going to be fine. You're going to be just
fine."
"Fine," he echoed. "Just fine." Then, exhausted,
he let himself drift back into sleep.
"You can spend the day here if you want to,"
Torres told them when they were back in his office.
"But you won't be allowed to see Alex again until
tomorrow. his
"Tomorrow?" Marsh asked. "But why? What if he
wakes up? What if he asks for us?"
"He won't wake up again," Torres replied.
"I'm going to look at him once more, and then give
him a sedative. his
Marsh's eyes suddenly clouded. "A sedative?
He just came out of a coma. You don't give that kind
of patient a sedative-you try to keep them
awake."
JOHN SAUL
Torres's face seemed cut from stone. "I
don't believe I asked for your advice or your
opinions, Dr. Lonsdale," he said.
"But-was
"Nor am I interested in hearing them," Torres
went on, ignoring the interruption. "Frankly, I
don't have time to listen to what you have to say, and
I'd just as soon you kept whatever thoughts you might have
to yourself. Alex is my patient, and I have my own
methods. I made that clear day before yesterday.
Now, if you'll excuse me. was He opened the
door in his habitual gesture of dismissal.
"But he's our son," Marsh protested. "Surely
we can-was
"No, Marsh," Ellen interrupted. "We'll do
whatever Raymond wants us to do."
Marsh gazed at his wife in silence for a moment, his
jaw tightening with anger. But her obvious anguish
washed his rage away, and when he turned back
to Torres, he had regained his composure. "I'm
sorry-I was out of line." He offered Raymond
Torres a crooked smile. "From now on I'll
try to remember that I'm not the doctor here. I've
dealt with enough worried parents to know how difficult they
can be."
Torres's demeanor thawed only slightly.
"Thank you," he replied. "I'm afraid I have
few patients, and no patience, but I do know what
I'm doing. Now, if you'll excuse me, I
want to get back to Alex."
But as Ellen led him toward the lounge, Marsh's
anger surged back. "I've never heard
of such a thing-he as much as told us he doesn't
want us around!"
"Apparently he doesn't," Ellen agreed.
"But I'm Alex's father, dammit!"
Exhaustion threatening to overwhelm her, Ellen
regarded her husband with oddly detached curiosity.
Wasn't he even pleased with what Raymond
Torres had accomplished? "He's Alex's
doctor," she said. "And without him, we wouldn't even
have Alex anymore. We owe
BRAINCHILD

Raymond Alex's life, Marsh, and I don't
intend to forget that."
"Raymond," Marsh repeated. "Since when are you
on a first-name basis with him?"
Ellen gazed at him in puzzlement. "Why wouldn't
I be?"
"I'm not," Marsh countered.
Her confusion deepened. What on earth was the matter
with him? And suddenly the answer came to her. "Marsh,
are you jealous of him?"
"Of course not," Marsh replied, too quickly. "I
just don't like the man, that's all."
"Well, I'm sorry," Ellen said, a
distinct chill in her voice. "But he did save
our son's life, and even if you don't like him, you
should be grateful to him."
Her words struck home, and once again Marsh's
anger evaporated. "I am," he said quietly.
"And you were right back there. He did perform a
miracle, and it's one I couldn't have performed myself.
Maybe I am a little jealous." He slipped his
arms around her. "Promise me you won't fall in
love with him?"
For just a moment, Ellen wasn't sure if he was
joking or not, but then she smiled and gave him a quick
kiss. "I promise. Now, let's tell everyone
the good news."
They stepped into the lounge to find Carol and Lisa
Cochran pacing anxiously. "Is it true?"
Lisa asked eagerly. "Is he really awake?"
Ellen gathered Lisa into her arms and hugged her.
"It's true," she said. "He woke up, and he can
talk, and he recognized me. his
"Thank God," Carol breathed. "The girl at the
desk told us, but we could hardly believe it."
"And," Marsh told her, "we've just been thrown out.
Don't ask me why, but Torres wants to put
him to sleep again, and says we can't see
him until tomorrow."
Carol stared at him with incredulous eyes, "You're
kidding, of course."
"I wish I were," Marsh replied. "I think
it's crazy, but around here, I'm not the doctor.
Let's get out of
JOHN SAUL
here and go home. I don't know about you, but I
didn't get much sleep last night, and I don't
think Ellen got any."
As they stepped out into the bright sunlight of the May
morning, Ellen paused and looked around as if seeing
her surroundings for the first time. "It's beautiful,
isn't it?" she asked. "The grounds, and the building-
it's just lovely!"
Carol Cochran grinned at her. "This morning,
anything would look lovely to you!"
For the first time since Alex's accident, a truly
happy smile covered Ellen's face. "And why
shouldn't it?" she asked. "Everything's going to be
fine. I just know it!" Impulsively she hugged
Lisa close. "We've got him back!" she
cried. "We've got him back, and he's going
to be all right."
"Alex?" Raymond Torres waited
for a moment, then spoke again. "Alex, can you hear
me?"
Alex's eyes fluttered for a second, then opened,
but he said nothing.
"Alex, do you think you can answer a couple of
questions?"
Alex struggled for the right words, then spoke
carefully: "I don't know. I'll try."
"Good. That's all I want you to do. Now, try
to think, Alex. Do you know why you didn't
recognize your father?"
There was a long silence; then: "After he told me
he was my father, I knew who he was."
"But when you first saw him, Alex, did he look
familiar?"
"No."
"Not at all?"
"I ... I don't know."
"But you recognized your mother, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"So she did look familiar?"
"No."
BRAINCHILD

Torres frowned. "Then how did you
recognize her?"
Alex fell silent for a moment, then spoke again, his
words strained, as if he weren't sure he was using the
right ones.
"I ... I thought she had to be my mother if he was
my father. I thought about it, and decided that if my father
was here, then my mother was here too. After I decided
she was my mother, she started to look familiar."
"So you didn't recognize either of them until you
knew who they were?"
"No."
"All right. Now, I'm going to give you something that's
going to put you to sleep, and when you wake up again,
I'll come to see you." He slid a hypodermic
needle under the skin of Alex's right arm and pressed
the plunger. As he swabbed the puncture with a wad
of cotton soaked with alcohol, he asked Alex
if the needle had hurt.
"No."
"Did you feel it at all?"
"Yes."
"What did it feel like?"
"I ... I don't know," Alex said.
"All right, was Torres told him. "Go to sleep
now, Alex, and I'll see you later."
Alex closed his eyes, and Torres watched him
for a moment, then stepped to the monitors at the head
of the bed and made some adjustments. Before leaving the
room, he checked Alex once more.
Alex's eyelids were twitching rapidly.
Torres wished there were a way to know exactly what
was happening inside the boy's mind.
But there were still some mysteries that even he hadn't yet
unraveled.
H H
O
Alex glanced at the clock on Raymond
Torres's desk, and, as he always did, Torres
took careful note of the action.
"Two more hours," he said. "Getting excited?"
Alex shrugged. "Curious, I guess."
Torres placed his pen on the desk and leaned back
in his chair. "If I were you, I think I'd be
excited. You're finally going home after three
months-it seems to me that should be exciting."
"Except I'm not really going home, am I?"
Alex asked, his voice as expressionless as his
eyes. "I mean, Mom and Dad have moved, so
I'll be going to a house I've never lived in before.

"Do you wish you were going back to the house you grew up
in?"
Alex hesitated, then shook his head. "I guess
it doesn't matter where I go, since I don't
remember the old house anyway."
"You don't have any feelings about it at all?"
JOHN SAUL
"No." Alex uttered the single word with no
expression whatsoever.
And that, Torres silently reminded himself, was the
crux of the matter. Alex had no feelings, no
emotions. That was not to say that Alex's recovery had
not been remarkable; indeed, it was very little short of
miraculous. The boy could walk and talk, see,
hear, and touch. But he seemed not to be able to feel
at all.
Even the news that he was being released from the
Institute had elicited no emotional response
from him. Rather, he'd accepted the news with the same
detachment with which he now accepted everything. And that,
Torres knew, was the one factor that kept the
medical world from viewing the operation as a complete
success.
"What about going back to La Paloma?" Torres
pressed.
Alex shifted in his chair and started to cross his
legs. On the second try, his left ankle
came to rest on his right knee.
"I ... I guess I wonder what it will be like, was
he finally said. "I keep wondering if I'll
recognize anything, or if it's all going to be like
it was when I first woke up."
"You've remembered a lot since then," Torres
replied.
Alex shrugged indifferently. "But I keep
wondering if I really remember anything, or if
I'm just learning things all over again. His
"Not possible," Torres stated flatly. "It
has to be recovery-nobody could learn things as fast
as you have. And don't forget that when you first woke up,
you spoke. You hadn't forgotten language."
"There were a lot of words I didn't understand,"
Alex reminded him. "And sometimes there still are. was
He stood up and took a shaky step, paused, then
took another.
"Take it easy, Alex," Torres told him.
"Don't demand too much of yourself. It's all going
to take time. And speaking of time, I think we'd
better get started." He
BRAINCHILD

waited while Alex swiveled his chair around so
both of them were facing the screen that had been set up
in a corner of the large office. When Alex was
ready, Torres switched off the lights. A
picture flashed on the screen.
"What is it?" Torres asked.
Alex didn't hesitate so much as a second.
"An amoeba."
"Right. When did you take biology?"
"Last year. It was Mr. Landry's class."
"Can you tell me what Mr. Landry looked like?"
Alex thought a minute, but nothing came. "No."
"All right. What about your grade?"
"An A. Brit that was easy-I always got As in
science."
Torres said nothing, and changed the slide.
"That's the Mona Lisa," Alex said promptly.
"Leonardo da Vinci. His
"Good enough. Is there another name for it?"
"La Gioconda."
The pictures changed again and again, and each time
Alex correctly identified the image on the
screen. Finally the slide show ended, and Torres
turned the lights back on. "Well?
What do you think?"
Alex shrugged. "I could have learned most of that stuff
since I've been here," he said. "All I've
been doing is reading."
"What about your grades? Did you read them here,
too?"
"No. But Mom told me. I don't really
remember much of anything about any of my classes.
Just names of teachers and that kind of thing. But I don't
see anything. Know what I mean?"
Torres nodded, and rifled through some of his notes.
"Having problems visualizing things? No mental
images?"
Alex nodded.
"But you don't have problems visualizing things you've
seen since the accident?"
"No. That's easy. And sometimes, when I see
something, it seems familiar, but I can't quite put it
together. Then, when someone tells me what it is, it's
JOHN SAUL
almost like I remember it, but not quite. It's hard
to describe."
"Sort of like deja vu?"
Alex knit his brows, then shook his head.
"Isn't that where you think what's happening
now has happened before? his
"Exactly. His
"It's not like that at all." Alex searched his mind,
trying to find the right words to describe the strange
sensations he had sometimes. "They're like
half-memories," he finally said. "It's like
sometimes I see something, and I think I remember
it, but I really don't. His
"But that's just it, " Torres told him. "I think
you do remember, but your brain isn't healed yet.
You've had a lot of damage to your brain, Alex.
I was able to put it back together again, but I couldn't do
it perfectly. So there are a lot of connections that
aren't there yet. It's as though part of your brain knows
where the data it's looking for are stored, but can't get
there. But it doesn't stop trying, and sometimes-and I
think this will happen more and more-it finds a new route, and
gets what it's after. But it's a little different. Not
the data itself-just the way you remember it. I think
you'll have more and more of those half-memories over the
next few months. In time, as your brain finds and
establishes new paths through itself, it'll happen
less and less. And eventually, everything left in your
mind after the accident will become accessible again." A
buzzer sounded. Torres picked up the
phone and spoke for a moment, then hung up. "Your
parents are here," he told Alex. "Why don't
you go over to the lab, and I'll have a talk with them?
And when you're done, that's it. We check you out, and you
only have to come back for a couple of hours a day. his
Alex got to his feet and started toward the door in
the shambling gait that, most of the time, got him where he
wanted to go. He was still unsteady, but he hadn't
actually lost his footing for a week, and each day he
was doing better. Still, he wasn't allowed
to attempt stairs
BRAINCHILD

without someone there to help him, and he used a cane
whenever he wanted to go more than a few yards. But it
was coming back to him.
The door opened just before Alex got to it, and his
parents stepped inside. He stopped short, leaning
his weight on the cane, and bent his head to kiss his
mother's cheek as she gave him a hug. Then he
shook his father's hand, and started out of the office.
"Alex?" Ellen asked. "Where are you going?"
"My tests, Mom," Alex replied, his voice
flat. "Then we can go home, I guess." He
turned away, and shambled out of the caret
room. Ellen, her brows furrowed, watched him go,
then stood perfectly still for several long moments.
When at last she spoke, she still faced the door.
"I'm not sure I'm going to be able to stand this,
Raymond," she said, her voice trembling. "He
isn't changing, is he? He doesn't really care
if he goes home or not."
"Sit down, Ellen." Torres gestured the
Lonsdales toward the sofa, but remained standing himself,
preferring to roam the room while he brought them up
to date on Alex's progress.
"So that's it," he finished thirty mintues later.
"Physically and intellectually, he's doing better
than we could possibly have hoped for. his
"But still no emotions," Ellen said, her voice
dull. Then she sighed, and forced a smile. "I'm
sorry," she said. "I've got to learn not
to expect miracles, don't I?"
"We've already had the miracle," Torres
replied. "And I'm not through yet. But I think you have
to face the fact that Alex is probably never going
to be the same as he was before."
"I don't expect him to be," Marsh said evenly,
determined that today he would keep his dislike of
Torres under control. "I'll be
honest-I never expected him to come as far as he
has. his
Torres shook his head. "Some of it may be deceiving.
There are still enormous gaps in his memory, and when
he leaves here, he may become completely
disoriented.
JOHN SAUL
He says he doesn't remember what La
Paloma looks like, or how to get to his house."
"We'll get him there," Marsh said. "Anyway,
we'll try," he added, grinning ruefully. "I'm
afraid I still go to the old place a couple of times
a week. But I'm getting better. his
Torres didn't respond to Marsh's grin.
"Actually, I think Alex could get you there himself.
We gave him a map, and after he studied it, I
asked him to tell me how to get home from here. He
didn't miss a turn. But he says he
doesn't have any idea of what any of it looks
like. He simply can't get a mental image of
anything he hasn't actually seen since the
accident."
"Is that possible?" Ellen asked.
"Possible, but unlikely." He told them what
he'd told Alex earlier, then, finally,
sat down behind his desk. "Which brings us, finally, to the
problem of his personality, or lack of it."
Marsh and Ellen exchanged a glance-it was Alex's
altered personality that had, during the last few
weeks, become their primary concern. Steadfastly
Ellen had insisted that Alex's strange passivity
was only temporary, that once he had recovered
physically from his injuries, Raymond Torres
would begin working to restore his personality. Marsh, on
the other hand, had tried to prepare her for the
possibility that Alex's personality might never
recover, that the emotional center of his brain might very
well be irrevocably damaged.
"No, was Ellen had insisted over and over again.
"It's just a matter of time. Raymond will help
him. We just have to trust him, that's all."
Futilely Marsh had pointed out that Torres was a
surgeon, not a psychologist, but it had done no
good. Through the end of spring and the long summer that
followed, Ellen's faith in Torres's
abilities had only grown stronger, while at the
same time, Marsh's own dislike of the man had
increased proportionately. On the surface,
Marsh pretended that his animosity toward Torres was
based solely on the man's arrogance, but
privately he
BRAINCHILD

was all too aware that he was, indeed, jealous of
Torres. More and more, Torres was taking over the
role of father to his son, and adviser and confidant
to his wife. And there was nothing he could do about it-he
owed the man Alex's very life.
"I'm afraid Alex has what we call a
flat personality," he heard Torres saying.
"I know the term," he said, abandoning his previous
resolve and making no attempt to keep his voice
free of sarcasm.
"I don't doubt it," Torres replied
coldly. "But I'm going to explain it anyway."
He turned to Ellen. "It's very common in this kind of
case," he went on. "Often, when there is brain
damage-even much less brain damage than Alex
suffered-the emotional structure of the victim is the
slowest to recover. Sometimes the damage results in
what is called a labile personality, in which the
patient tends to exhibit inappropriate
emotions-such as laughing uncontrollably at things
that don't appear funny to others, or suddenly
bursting into tears for no apparent reason.
Or, as in Alex's case, the personality
simply goes flat. There seems to be little
emotional reaction to anything. Over a long period
of time, the personality may be partially rebuilt, but
there is rarely a full recovery. And that, I'm
afraid, may easily be the case with Alex. From
what we've seen so far, it appears that the permanent
damage in him is going to be to his personality."
There was a silence. Then: "I told you at the
outset that there was no chance for a complete recovery."
"But of course he will recover," Ellen said, and
Marsh felt a slight chill at the determination in
her voice, and the faith in her eyes as she gazed at
Raymond Torres. "He has you to help him."
Torres nodded, but made no reply. "All I
have to know," Ellen went on, "is how to help him.
Should I go ahead and put my arms around him, even
though he just stands there? Should I try to elicit
emotional responses in him?"
Again Torres nodded. "Of course you should. And
JOHN SAUL
frankly, I don't think you'll be able to resist
trying. But I've worked with Alex all summer, and
I can tell you there are times when it will be very
frustrating. You'll want him to be as
excited about his progress as you are, and it just won't
happen. Or perhaps it's just that he hasn't learned
how to express his feelings yet. We'll just have
to wait and see. his
Ellen nodded, and smiled triumphantly at
Marsh. "Is there anything else we should expect?"
she asked.
"I don't know. Expect anything and nothing. Just
don't be surprised at anything. Alex's mind
is still healing, and all kinds of things might happen
during that process. The most important thing for you
to do is keep track of what happens. I want you
to keep notes, and bring them with you every day. I don't
care what's in the notes-I want to know when his
behavior seems normal, and when it doesn't. I
particularly want to know what, if anything, makes
him laugh or cry. Or even smile. his
"Don't worry," Ellen assured him. "I'll
get him smiling again. his
"I hope so, was Torres replied. "But try not
to worry about it too much if it doesn't happen.
And keep in mind that while he doesn't smile,
he doesn't frown, either. his
Marsh silently wondered if Torres had intended
that to be a comforting thought. If he had, he'd
failed totally.
In the lab, Alex began to come up from the anesthesia
that was always administered to him during the daily tests,
and, as always, slowly became aware of the strange and
fleeting images that filled his mind. As always, the
images were unidentifiable; as always, they were
accompanied by an incomprehensible stream of something that
was almost, but not quite, like sound.
Then he came fully awake, and the images and
sounds faded away. He opened his eyes.
"How do you feel?" the technician asked. His name
was Peter Bloch, but other than that, Alex didn't
know
BRAINCHILD

much about him. Nor, for that matter, was he curious
to know anything about him. To Alex, Peter was simply
one more part of the Institute.
"Okay," he said. Then: "How come I always see
and hear things just before I wake up?"
Peter frowned. "What kind of things?"
"I don't know. It's like a flickering I can't quite
see, and there's a sort of squeaky, rasping sound."
Peter began disconnecting the monitors from the tiny
wires that emerged, almost like hairs, from the
metal plate that had replaced part of Alex's
left parietal bone, and the scalp that had been
drawn across to cover it. "What about pain?"
"No. There's no pain."
"Anything at all? Do you feel anything, or
smell anything? Taste anything?"
"No."
"Well, I'm not sure," Peter told him.
"I know that during the tests, some of these electrodes
are constantly stimulating your brain, then measuring
its responses. That's why we have to put you
to sleep. We're giving your brain artificial
stimuli, and if you were awake, it could be pretty
unpleasant. You might feel like we'd burned your
hand, or cut your arm, or you might smell or
taste something pretty awful. It sounds like you're just
waking up too early, and responding to visual and
otic stimuli-seeing and hearing things that aren't there at
all."
Alex got up from the table and pulled his shirt on,
then sat still, waiting for the last of the anesthesia to wear
off. "Shall I tell Dr. Torres about it?"
Peter Bloch shrugged. "If you want. I'll
make a note of it, and tomorrow we'll hold off on
flushing you out with oxygen for a few more
minutes."
"That's okay," Alex replied. "It doesn't
bother me. his
Peter offered him an uncertain grin. "Does
anything ever bother you?"
Alex thought a moment, then shook his head. "No."
He tucked in his shirt and carefully put his feet
on the
JOHN SAUL
floor, then took his cane in his right hand and began
making his slow way to the door.
Peter Bloch watched him go, and his grin faded
away. He began closing up the lab, shutting down
the equipment that had been in use almost constantly over
the last three months. For himself, he was glad
Alex Lonsdale was going home. The work load,
since Alex had arrived, had been nearly
intolerable, and Torres had never let up on the
staff for a moment.
Besides, Peter realized as he took off his lab
jacket and hunched into his favorite khaki
windbreaker, he didn't like Alex Lonsdale.
True, what Torres had accomplished with Alex
would probably make some kind of medical history,
but Peter wasn't impressed. To him, it
didn't matter how well Alex was doing.
The kid was a zombie.
Marsh drove north out of Palo Alto, staying on
Middlefield Road until he came to La
Paloma Drive, where he turned left to start up
into the hills. Every few minutes he glanced over at
Alex, who sat impassively in the passenger
seat next to him, while from the back seat Ellen
kept up a steady stream of chatter:
"Do you remember what's just around the next curve?
We're almost to La Paloma, and things will start
looking familiar to you. his
Alex pictured the map he'd studied. "The county
park," he said. "Hillside Park."
"You remember!" Ellen exclaimed.
"It was on the map Dr. Torres gave me,"
Alex corrected her. They came around the bend in
the road, and Marsh slowed the car. "Stop," Alex
suddenly said.
Marsh braked the car, and followed Alex's gaze.
In the distance, there was a group of children playing on a
swing set, while two teenage boys tossed a
Frisbee back and forth.
"What is it, Alex?" Marsh asked.
BRAINCHILD

Alex's eyes seemed to be fixed on the children on the
swings.
"I always wanted to do that when I was little," he said.
Marsh chuckled. "You not only wanted to, you
nearly drove us crazy." His voice took on a
singsong tone as he mimicked a child's voice. was
'More! More! Don't want to go home. Want
to swing!" That's why I finally hung one in the
backyard at the old house. It was either that or spend
every free minute I had bringing you out here."
Alex turned and gazed at his father, his eyes steady.
"I don't remember that at all," he said.
In the rearview mirror, Marsh saw Ellen's
worried eyes, and wondered if either of them would be able
to stand seeing their son's memory wiped clean of every
experience they had all shared. "Do you want to swing
now?" he asked.
Alex hesitated, then shook his head. "Let's go
home," he said. "Maybe I'll remember our
house when I see it."
They drove into La Paloma, and Alex began
examining the town he'd lived in all his life. But
it was as if he'd never seen it before. Nothing was
familiar, nothing he saw triggered any
memories.
And then they came to the Square.
Marsh bore right to follow the traffic pattern
threequarters of the way around before turning right once
again into Hacienda Drive. Alex's eyes, he
noted, were no longer staring out toward the front of the
car. Instead, he was leaning forward slightly, so he
could look across Marsh's chest and see into the Square.
"Remembering something?" he asked quietly.
"The tree ..." Alex said. "There's something about the
tree." As he stared at the giant oak that
dominated the Square, Alex was certain it looked
familiar. And yet, something was wrong. The tree
looked right, but nothing else did.
"The chain," he said softly. "I don't remember
the chain, or the grass."
In the back seat, Ellen nodded, sure she
understood
JOHN SAUL
what was happening. "It hasn't been there a long
time," she said. "When you were little, the tree was there, but
there wasn't anything around it. his
"A rope," Alex suddenly said. "There was a
rope."
Ellen's heart began to pound. "Yes!
There was a rope with a tire on it! You and your friends
used to play on it when you were little!"
But the image that had flasned into Alex's mind
wasn't of a tire at all.
It was the image of a man, and the man had been hanging
at the end of the rope.
He wondered if he ought to tell his parents what
he'd remembered, but decided he'd better not. The
image was too strange, and if he talked about it,
his parents might think he, too, was strange.
For some reason-a reason he didn't understand-it was
important that people not think he was strange.
Marsh pulled into the driveway, and Alex gazed at
the house.
And suddenly he remembered it.
But it, like the oak tree, didn't look quite right either.
He stared at the house for a long time.
From the driveway, all he could see was a long
expanse of white stucco, broken at regular
intervals by deeply recessed windows, each framed
with a pair of heavy shutters. There were two stories,
topped by a gently sloping red tile roof, and on the
north side there was a garden, enclosed by walls which were
entirely covered with vines.
It was the vines that were wrong. The garden
wall, like the house itself, should be plain white stucco,
with decorative tiles implanted in it every six
feet or so. And the vines should be small, and climbing
on trellises.
He sat still, trying to remember what the inside
looked like, but no matter how he searched his
memory, there was nothing.
He stared at the chimney that rose from the roof. If
there was a chimney, there was a fireplace. He
tried to
BRAINCHILD

picture a fireplace, but the only one he could
visualize was the one in the lobby of the Institute.
He got out of the car, and with his parents following behind
him, approached the house. When he came to the wide
steps leading up to the garden gate, he felt his
father's hand on his elbow.
"I can do it," he said.
"But Dr. Torres told us-was his mother began.
Alex cut her off.
"I know what he said. Just stay behind me, in case
I trip. I can do it."
Carefully he put his right foot on the first step,
then, supporting himself with the cane,
cautiously began to bring his left foot up toward
the second step. He swayed for a momentst then felt
his father's hands steadying him.
"Thank you," he said. Then: "I have to try again.
Help me get back down, please."
"You don't have to try right now, darling," Ellen
assured him. "Don't you want to go in?"
Alex shook his head. "I have to go up and down the
steps by myself. I have to be able to take care of myself.
Dr. Torres says it's important."
"Can't it wait?" Marsh asked. "We could get you
settled in, then come back out. his
"No," Alex replied. "I have to learn it now. his
Fifteen minutes later Alex slowly but steadily
ascended the three steps that led up to the gate, then
turned to come back down. Ellen tried to put her
arms around him, but he turned away, his face
impassive. "All right," he said. "Let's go
in."
As she followed him into the garden, across the tiled
patio and into the house itself, Ellen hoped he'd
turned away before he saw the tears that, just for a
moment, she had been unable to hold back.
Alex gazed around the room that was filled with all the
possessions he'd had since he was a child.
Oddly, the room itself seemed vaguely familiar,
as if sometime,
JOHN SAUL
long ago, he'd been in it. But its furnishings
meant nothing to him. Against one wall was a desk, and
he opened the top drawer to stare at the contents. Some
pens and pencils, and a notebook. He picked up
the notebook and glanced at its contents.
Notes for a geometry class.
The name of the teacher came instantly to mind: Mrs.
Hendricks.
What did Mrs. Hendricks look like?
No image.
He began reading the notes. At the end of the
notebook there was a theorem, but he'd never finished
the proof of it. He sat down at the desk and
picked up a pencil. Writing slowly, his
handwriting still shaky, he began entering a series of
premises and corollaries in the notebook. Two
minutes later, he'd proved the theorem.
But he still couldn't remember what Mrs.
Hendricks looked like.
He began scanning the books on the shelf above the
desk, his eyes finally coming to rest on a large
volume bound in red Leatherette. When he
looked at the cover, he. saw that it was emblazoned
with a cartoon figure of a bird, and the title: The
Cardinal. He opened it.
It was his high-school annual from last year. Taking
the book with him, he went to his bed, stretched out, and
began paging slowly through it.
An hour later, when his mother tapped softly at the
door, then stuck her head inside to ask him if he
wanted anything, he knew what Mrs. Hendricks
looked like, and Mr. Landry. If he saw them, he
would recognize them.
He would recognize all his friends, all the people
Lisa Cochran had told him about each day when she
came to visit him at the Institute.
He would recognize them, and be able to match their names
to their faces.
But he wouldn't know anything about them.
All of it was still a blank.
BRAINCHILD

He would have to start all over again. He put the book
aside and looked up at his mother.
"I don't remember any of it, was he said at
last. "I thought I recognized the house, and even
this room, but I couldn't have, could I?"
"Why not?" Ellen asked.
"Because I thought I remembered the garden wall without
vines. But the vines have always been there, haven't
they?"
"Why do you say that?"'
"I looked at the roots and the branches. They
look like they've been there forever."
Ellen nodded. "They have. The wall's been covered
with morning glory as long as I can remember. That's
one of the reasons I always wanted this house-I love
the vines."
Alex nodded. "So I couldn't have remembered. And
this room seemed sort of familiar, but it's just a
room. And I don't remember any of my things.
None of them at all."
Ellen sat on the bed next to him, and put her arms
around him. "I know, was she said. "We were all hoping
you'd remember, but Raymond told us you
probably wouldn't. And you mustn't worry about it. his
"I won't," Alex said. "I'll just start over,
that's all. his
"Yes," Ellen replied. "We'll start over.
And you'll remember. It will be slow, but it'll come
back."
It won't, Alex thought. It won't ever
come back. I'll just have to act like it does.
One thing he had learned in the last three months was
that when he pretended to remember things, people seemed
to be happy with him.
As he followed his mother out to the family room a few
minutes later, he wondered what happiness felt
like-or if he'd ever feel it himself.

CHAPTER NINE
The Monday after Labor Day was the kind of
California September morning that belies any
hint of a coming change of season. The morning fog had
burned off by seven, and as Marsh Lonsdale
dropped Alex off in front of the Cochrans"
house, the heat was already building.
"Sure you don't want me to take you both
to school?"
"I want to walk," Alex replied. "Dr.
Torres says I should walk as much as I can."
"Dr. Torres says a lot about everything," Marsh
cornmented. "That doesn't mean you have to do everything he
says."
Alex opened the car door and got out, then put his
cane in the back seat. When he looked up, his father
was watching him with disapproval. "Did
Dr. Torres tell you not to use the cane
anymore?"
Alex shook his head. "No. I just think it would be
better if I stopped using it, that's all."
His father's hard expression dissolved into a smile.
"Good for you," he said. Then: "You okay with going
back to school?"

L
Alex nodded. "I think so."
"It's not too late to change your mind. If you
want, we can get a tutor up from Stanford, at
least for the first semester ..."
"No," Alex said. "I want to go to school. I
might remember a lot, once I'm there."
"You're already remembering a lot," Marsh replied.
"I just don't think you should push yourself too hard. You
. . . well, you don't have to remember everything that
happened before the accident."
"But I do," Alex replied. "If I'm going
to get really well, I have to remember everything."
He slammed the car door and started toward the
Cochrans' front porch, then turned to wave
to his father, who waved back, then pulled away from the
curb. Only when the car had disappeared
around the corner did Alex start once again toward the
house, idly wondering if his father knew he'd lied
to him.
Since he'd come home, Alex had learned to lie
a lot.
He pressed the doorbell, waited, then pressed
it again. Even though the Cochrans had told him over
and over again that he should simply let himself into their
house as he used to, he hadn't yet done it.
Nor did he have any memory of ever having let
himself into their house.
Their house, like the one next door where he knew
he'd spent most of his life, had rung no bells
in his head, elicited no memories whatsoever. But
he'd been careful not to say so. Instead, when he'd
walked into the Cochrans' house for the first time after
leaving the Institute, he'd scanned the rooms
carefully, trying to memorize everything in them. Then,
when he was sure he had it all firmly fixed in his
mind, he'd said that he thought he remembered a
picture upstairs-one of himself and Lisa, when they
were five or six years old.
Everyone had been pleased. And since then, after he
d relearned something he was sure he'd known before, and
discovered as much as he could about its past, he
would experiment with "remembering."
JOHN SAUL
It worked well. Last week, while looking for a pen
in his parents' desk, he had found a repair bill
for the car. He'd studied it carefully, then, as they were
driving to the Cochrans' that evening, and passed the shop
where the car had been fixed, he'd turned to his father.
"Didn't they work on the car last year?" he'd
asked.
"They sure did," his father had replied. Then: "Do
you remember what they did to it?"
Alex pretended to ponder the question.
"Transmission?" he asked.
His father had sighed, then smiled at him in the
rearview mirror. "Right. It's coming back,
isn't it?"
"A little bit," Alex had said. "Maybe a little
bit."
But, of course, it wasn't.
The front door opened, and Lisa was smiling at
him. He carefully returned the smile.
"Ready?"
"Who's ever ready for the first day of school?" Lisa
replied. "Do I look all right?"
Alex took in her jeans and white
blouse, and nodded gravely. "Did you always wear
clothes like that to school?"
"Everybody does." She called a good-bye over
her shoulder, and a moment later the two of them set out
toward La Paloma High.
As they walked through the town, Alex kept asking
Lisa an endless series of questions about who lived in which
house, the stores they passed, and the people who spoke
to them. Lisa patiently answered his questions, then
began testing his memory, even though she knew that
Alex never seemed to forget anything she told him.
"Who lives in the blue house on Carmel
Street?"
"The Jamesons."
"What about the old house at the corner of
Monterey?"
"Miss Thorpe," Alex replied. Then he
added, "She used to be a witch."
Lisa glanced at him out of the corner of her eye,
wondering if he was teasing her, even though she knew
he wasn't. Since he'd come home, Alex never
teased
BRAINCHILD

anybody. "She wasn't really a
witch," she said. "We just always thought she was when we
were little."
Alex stopped walking. "If she wasn't one, why
did we think she was?"
Lisa wondered what to tell him. He seemed to have
forgotten everything about his childhood, including what it
had been like to be a child. How could she explain to him
how much fun it used to be to scare themselves half to death
with speculations on what old Miss Thorpe might
be doing behind her heavily curtained windows, or what
she might do to them if she ever caught them in her
yard? For Alex never seemed to imagine anything
anymore. He always wanted to know what things were,
and who was who, but it didn't seem to matter to him, and
he didn't seem, really, to care. In fact, though
she'd told no one of her feelings, Lisa was
glad that school was finally starting arid she could
legitimately spend less time with Alex.
"I don't know," she said at last. "We just thought
she was a witch, that's all. Now, come on, or
we'll be late."
Alex moved uncertainly around the campus of La
Paloma High School. Deep in the recesses
of his mind, he had a faint feeling of having been
here before, but nothing seemed to be quite right.
The school was built around a quadrangle, with a
fountain at its center, and from the fountain, some of the
campus seemed familiar.
And yet, the picture in his mind seemed
incomplete. It was as if he could remember only
parts of the campus; other areas were totally strange.
Still, it was a memory.
He looked at his program card, and when the first
bell sounded, he started toward the building that housed
what would be his homeroom that year.
It was in one of the buildings he had no memory of,
but he had no problem in locating the room. Just before
the second bell rang, he stepped into the
classroom, and started toward an empty seat next
to Lisa Cochran.
JOHN SAUL
Before he could sit down, the teacher, whom he
recognized from the picture in the yearbook as Mr.
Hamlin, told him that he was to report to the dean of
boys. He looked questioningly at Lisa, but she
only shook her head and shrugged. Silently he
left the classroom and went to the Administration
Building.
As soon as he was inside, he knew that he was in
familiar territory. As he glanced
around, the walnut wainscoting seemed to strike a
chord in him, and he stopped for a moment to take in the
details of the lobby.
To the left, where it felt as though it should be, was a
large glass-fronted office. Through the glass, he
could see a long counter, and beyond it, several
secretaries sitting at desks, typing.
Straight ahead, and off to the right, two corridors
ran at right angles to each other, and without thinking,
Alex turned right and went into the second office on
the left.
A nurse looked up at him. "May I help
you?"
Alex stopped short. "I'm looking for Mr.
Eisenberg's office. But this isn't it, is it?"
The nurse smiled and shook her head. "It's in the
other wing. First door on the right. his
"Thank you," Alex said. He left the nurse's
office and started back toward the main foyer.
Something, though, was wrong. When he had come into the
building, he had recognized everything, and known
exactly where the dean's office was. Yet it
wasn't there.
Apparently he hadn't remembered after all.
Still, as he made his way into what really was
the dean's office, he had the distinct feeling that he
had remembered, and when the dean's secretary glanced
up and smiled at him, he decided he knew what
had happened.
"How do you like the new office?" he asked.
The smile faded from the secretary's face. "New
office?" she asked. "What are you talking about,
Alex?"
BRAINCHILD

Alex swallowed. "Wasn't Mr. Eisenberg's
office where the nurse is this year?"
The secretary hesitated, then shook her head.
"It's been right here for as long as I've been here,"
she said. Then she smiled again. "You can go right in, and
don't worry. You're not in any trouble. his
He passed the desk and knocked at the inner door,
as he had always knocked at Dr. Torres's
door before going inside.
"Come in," a voice called from within. He opened the
door and stepped through. As with everyone else who had
been pictured in the yearbook in his bedroom, he
recognized the face and knew the man's name, but had
no memory of ever having met him before. Whatever his
flash of remembrance had been about, it was
over now.
Dan Eisenberg unfolded his large frame from the
chair behind his desk to offer Alex his hand. "Alex!
It's great to see you again."
"It's nice to see you, too, sir," Alex
replied, hesitating only a second before grasping
Eisenberg's hand in a firm shake. A moment
later, the dean indicated the chair next to his
desk.
"Sorry to have to call you in on the first day of
school," he said, "but I'm afraid a little problem
has come up."
Alex's face remained impassive. "Miss
Jennings said I wasn't in trouble-was
"And you aren't," Eisenberg reassured him. "But
I did take the liberty of talking to Dr.
Torres last week, and he suggested that perhaps we
might want to give you a couple of tests." He
looked for a reaction from Alex, but saw none. "Do
you have any idea what the tests might be for?"
"To see how much I've forgotten," Alex said, and
Eisenberg had the distinct feeling that Alex wasn't
making a guess, but already knew about the tests.
"Right. I take it Dr. Torres told you about
them."
JOHN SAUL
"No. But it makes sense, doesn't it? I
mean, you don't know which class I should be in if you
don't know how much I remember."
"Exactly." Eisenberg picked up a packet of
standard form tests. "Do you remember these?" Alex
shook his head. "They're the same tests you took
at the beginning of last year, and would have taken again in the
spring, except ..." His voice trailed off, and
he looked uncomfortable.
"Except for the accident," Alex finished for him.
"I don't mind talking about it, but I don't
remember it too well, either. Just that it happened."
Eisenberg nodded. "Dr. Torres tells us there
are still a lot of gaps in your memory-was
"I've been studying all summer," Alex broke
in. "My dad wants me to be in the accelerated
class this year."
Which is certainly not going to happen, Eisenberg
thought. From what Torres had told him of Alex's
case, he knew it was far more likely that Alex would
have to start all over again with the school's most basic
courses. "We'll just have to see, won't we?" he
asked, trying to keep his pessimism out of his
voice. "Anyway, if you feel up to it,
I'd like you to take the tests today."
"All right."
Ten minutes later Alex sat in an empty
classroom while Eisenberg's secretary
explained the testing system and the time limits. "And
don't worry if you don't finish them," she said as
she set the time clock for the first of the battery of eight
tests. "You're not expected to finish all of them.
Ready?" Alex nodded. "Begin."
Alex opened the first of the booklets and began marking
down his answers.
Dan Eisenberg looked up from the report he was
working on, his smile fading when he saw the look of
disappointment in his secretary's eyes. A glance
at his watch told him Alex had begun the tests
only an hour and a half ago. "What's happened,
Marge? Couldn't he do it?"
BRAINCHILD

The young woman shook her head sorrowfully. "I
don't think he even tried," she said. "He just .
. . well, he just started marking answers randomly."
"But you told him how they're scored, didn't you?
Right minus wrong?"
Marge nodded. "And I asked him again each
time he handed me one of his answer sheets. He said
he understood how it was scored, and that he was finished."
"How many did he do?"
Marge hesitated; then: "All of them."
The dean's brows arched skeptically. "All of
them?" he repeated. Then, after Marge had nodded
once more: "But that's impossible. Those tests are
supposed to take all day, and even then, no one's
supposed to finish them. his
"I know. So he must have simply gone down the
sheets, marking in his answers. I'm not really sure
there's any point in scoring it." Still, she handed the
stack of answer sheets to Dan, and he slid the first
one under the template.
Behind each tiny slot in the template, there was a
neat black mark. Dan frowned, then shook his
head. Wordlessly he matched the rest of the answer
sheets to their templates. Finally he leaned back,
a smile playing around the corners of his mouth.
"Cute," he said. "JR-,L cute." The smile
spread into a grin. "He's still working on them, isn't
he?"
Now it was Marge Jennings who frowned. "What are
you talking about?"
"I'm talking about you," Dan said,
chuckling. "You came in early and dummied up this
set of answer sheets, didn't you? Well, you
went too far. Did you really expect me to buy
this?"
"Buy what?" Marge asked. She stepped around the
desk and repeated the process of checking the answer
sheets. "My God," she breathed.
Dan looked up at her, fully expecting to see
her eyes twinkling as she still tried to get him to fall
for her joke.
JOHN SAUL
And then, slowly, he began to realize it was not a
joke at all.
Alex Lonsdale had completed the tests, and his
scores were perfect.
"Get Torres on the phone," Dan told his
secretary.
Marge Jennings returned to her office, where Alex
sat quietly on a sofa, leafing through a magazine.
He looked up at her for a moment, then returned
to his reading.
"Alex?"
"Yes?" Alex laid the magazine aside.
"Did you . . . well, did anyone show you a
copy of those tests? I mean, since you
took them last year?"
Alex thought a moment, then shook his head. "No.
At least not since the accident."
"I see," Marge said softly.
But, of course, she didn't see at all.
Ellen glanced nervously at the clock, and once,
more regretted having allowed Cynthia Evans
to set up an appointment for her to interview Maria
Torres. Not, of course, that she didn't need a
housekeeper; she did. A few months ago, before
the accident, she would have felt no hesitation about
hiring Maria Torres. But now things were different,
and despite all of Cynthia's arguments, she still
felt strange about asking the mother of Alex's
doctor to vacuum her floors and do her laundry.
Still, it would only be two days a week, and she
knew Maria was going to need the work: starting next
month, Cynthia herself was going to have full-time,
live-in help.
But right now, Maria was late, and Ellen herself was
due for what Marsh always referred to, with a hint of
what Ellen considered to be slightly sexist
overtones, as "lunch with the girls." Of course, part
of it was her own fault, for try as she would, she still
hadn't been able to train herself to think of her
friends as "women": they had known each other since
childhood, and they would be, forever, "girls," at
least in Ellen's mind.
BRAINCHILD

Except Marty Lewis, who had long since
stopped being a girl in any sense of the word. Ellen
often wondered if Alan Lewis's alcoholism
had anything to do with the changes that had come over Marty
in the last few years.
Of course it had. If Alan hadn't turned into a
drunk, Marty would have been just like the rest of them-
staying home, raising her kids, and taking care of
her husband. But for Marty, things had been different.
Alan couldn't hold a job, so Marty had taken
over the support of the family, and made a success
of it, too, while Alan drifted from treatment
program to treatment program, sobering up and working
for a while, but only a while. Sooner or later,
he would begin drinking again, and the spiral would start over
again. And Marty, finally, had accepted it. She'd
talked of divorce a few years ago, but in the end
had simply taken over the burdens of the family.
At the fairly regular lunches the four of
them-Carol Cochran and Valerie Benson
were the other two-enjoyed, Marty's main conversation was
about her job, and how much she liked it.
"Working's funl" she would insist. "In fact, it's
a lot better this way. I never was much good at the
domestic scene, and now that Kate's growing up, I
don't even feel I'm robbing her of anything. And
I don't have to get terrified every time Alan starts
drinking anymore. Do you know what it was like? He'd
start drinking, and I'd start saving, because I always
knew that it would only be a matter of months before he
was going to be out of a job again. was Then she'd smile
ruefully. "I suppose I should have left him
years ago, but I still love him. So I put up with
him, and hope that every binge will be the last one."
And, of course, there was Valerie Benson, who,
three years ago, actually had divorced her
husband. "Dumbest thing I ever did," was now
Val's characteristically blunt summation of the divorce.
"I can't even remember what he used to do that made
me think I couldn't stand it anymore. I had this
idea that if I only got rid of
JOHN SAUL
George, life would be wonderful. So I got
rid of him, and you know what? Nothing changed. Not one
damn thing. Except now I don't have
George to blame things on, so, in a way, I
suppose I'm a better person." Then she'd
roll her eyes: "Lord, how I loathe those words.
I'm sick of being a better person. I'd rather be
married and miserable."
Ellen glanced at the clock once more, and realized
that if Maria didn't arrive within the next five
minutes, she was going to have to choose between waiting for
Maria and going to lunch. Not that the interview would
take long-Maria had been a fixture in La
Paloma all of Ellen's life, and all Ellen
really had to do was explain to the old woman what she
wanted done, then leave the house in Maria's hands.
Lunch, however, was something else. This would be the
group's first lunch since Alex's accident, and she
was sure that Alex would be the main topic of
conversation.
Alex, and Raymond Torres.
And, she readily admitted to herself, she was looking
forward to the lunch, looking forward to spending even a
few hours relaxing with her friends.
It had been a long summer. Once the decision had
finally been made that Alex could go back to school,
Ellen had begun looking forward to this day. This
morning, after Alex and Marsh had left,
she had treated herself to a leisurely hour of pure
relaxation, and then spent two full hours getting
herself ready for today's lunch. She was determined that
Alex wasn't going to be the only topic of
conversation that day, nor was Raymond Torres.
Instead, she was going to encourage the others to talk about
themselves rather than the Lonsdales' problems. It would be
wonderful to laugh and chat with old friends as if nothing
had changed.
The doorbell and the telephone rang
simultaneously, and Ellen called out to Maria
to let herself in as she picked up the receiver. Then, when
the voice at the other end of the wire identified itself
as Dan Eisenberg,
BRAINCHILD

her heart sank, and she waved Maria Torres
into the living room as she focused her attention on the
telephone.
"What's happened?" she asked, wearily setting
her purse back on the table.
"I'm not sure," Eisenberg replied. "But
I'd like you to come down to the school this afternoon. his
"This afternoon?" Ellen asked, relief flooding through
her. "Then it isn't an emergency?"
There was a momentary silence. When Eisenberg spoke
again, his voice was apologetic. "I'm sorry,"
he said. "I should have told you right away that Alex
is all right. It's just that we gave him some tests this
morning, and I'd like to go over the results with you.
Both you and Dr. Lonsdale, actually. Would two
o'clock be all right?"
"Fine with me, was Ellen told him. "I'll have
to call my husband, but I imagine it will be fine with
him too. was She paused; then: "Where Alex is
concerned, he tends to make time, even if he
hasn't got it. his
"Then I'll see you both at two, was Eisenberg
replied. He was about to hang up when Ellen stopped
him.
"Mr. Eisenberg? The tests. Did Alex do
all right on them?"
There was a slight hesitation before Eisenberg spoke.
"He did very well, Mrs. Lonsdale," he
said. "Very well indeed."
A moment later, as Ellen turned her attention
to Maria Torres, she decided to put Dan
Eisenberg's words, and the tone in which he'd spoken
them, out of her mind. If she didn't, the feeling
she had of something amiss woujd ruin the
lunch for her, and she was determined that that wouldn't
happen.
Maria, dressed as always in black, her skirt
reaching almost to the floor, still hovered near the door, a
worn shawl wrapped around her stooped shoulders,
despite the heat of the summerlike day. Her eyes
were fixed on the floor. "I am sorry, senora,"
she said softly. "I am very late."
The abject sorrow evident in the old woman's
entire
JOHN SAUL
being dissolved Ellen's impatience. "It's all
right," she said gently. "I don't really need
to interview you anyway, do I?" Without waiting for a
reply, she began giving Maria hurried
instructions. "All the cleaning things are in the
laundry room behind the kitchen, but if you'll just try
to get some vacuuming done today, that's all I really
need. Then we can go over the rest of it on
Saturday. All right?"
"Si, senora," Maria muttered, and as she started
toward the kitchen, Ellen hurriedly threw on a
coat, picked up her purse, and left the house.
The moment she was gone, Maria's back straightened
and her glittering old eyes began taking in
every detail of the Lonsdales" house. She prowled
the rooms slowly, examining every possession of the gringo
family whose son had been saved by Ramon.
Better if Ramon had let him die, as all the
gringos should die. And it would happen someday, Maria
was sure. It was all she thought about now, as she spent
her days wandering through La Paloma, cleaning the old
houses for the ladrones.
The thieves.
That's what they all were, and even if Ramon
didn't understand it, she did.
But she would go on cleaning for them, go on looking after
the houses that rightfully belonged to her people, until
Alejandro returned to avenge the death of his parents
and sisters, and all his descendants could finally
return to their rightful homes.
And the time of vengeance was coming. She could feel it,
deep in her old bones.
At last she came into the boy's room, and suddenly
she knew. Alejandro was here. Soon, la
venganza would begin.
For Ellen, the lunch she had so looked forward to had
been a disaster. As she'd expected, the conversation had
revolved around Raymond Torres and Alex, but
she had found herself totally distracted with
worry over
BRAINCHILD

what the dean might have to tell her after lunch. And
now, though she'd listened carefully, it still didn't
make sense. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I still
don't understand exactly what it all means. his
She and Marsh had been in Dan Eisenberg's
office for nearly an hour, and thirty minutes ago
Raymond Torres, too, had arrived. But
Ellen still felt as confused as ever-it all seemed quite
impossible.
"It means Alex is finally using his brain, was
Marsh told her. "It's not so difficult. We've
seen the results of the tests. His scores were
perfect!"
"But how can that be?" Ellen argued. "I know he's
been studying all summer, and I know he has a good
memory, but this"-she picked up the math-testing
booklet-"how could he have even done the calculations?
He simply didn't have the time, did he?" She
dropped the test back on Eisenberg's desk and
turned to Torres. If anyone could make her
understand, he could. "Explain it to me again, was she said,
and as his intense eyes met hers, she began
to relax, and concentrate.
Torres spread his hands and pressed his fingers together
thoughtfully. "It's very simple," he said in the
slightly patronizing tone that never failed
to infuriate Marsh. "Alex's brain works
differently from the way it did before. It's a matter
of compensation. If a person loses one sense, his
others become sharper. The same kind of thing has
happened to Alex. His brain has compensated for the
damage to its emotional centers by sharpening its
intellectual centers."
"I understand that," Ellen agreed. "At least, I
understand the theory. What I don't understand is what it
means. I want to know what it means for Alex. His
"I'm not sure anyone can tell you that, Mrs.
Lonsdale," Dan Eisenberg replied.
"Nor does it matter, was Torres pronounced.
"With Alex we are no longer at a point where we
can do anything about his abilities, or his
responses. I've done what can be done. From now
on, all I can do is observe Alex-was
JOHN SAUL
"Like a laboratory animal?" Marsh broke in.
Torres regarded him with cold eyes.
"If you wish," he said.
"For God's sake, Torres, Alex is my
son." Marsh turned to Ellen. "All this means for
Alex is that he is a remarkably intelligent
young man. In fact," he went on, his attention now
shifting to Dan Eisenberg, "I suspect there
probably isn't much this school can do for him
anymore. Is that right?"
Eisenberg reluctantly nodded his agreement.
"Then it seems to me that perhaps we should take him down
to Stanford next week and see if we can get him
into some sort of special program."
"I won't agree to that," Torres interrupted.
"Alex is brilliant, yes. But brilliance
isn't enough. If he were my son-was
"Which he's not," Marsh replied, his smile gone.
"Which he's not," Torres agreed. "But if he
were, I would keep him right here in La Paloma,
and let him reestablish all his old friendships and
old patterns of behavior. Somewhere, there might be
a trigger, and when he stumbles across that trigger, his
mind may fully reopen, and the past will come back
to him."
"And what about his intellect?" Marsh demanded.
"Suddenly I have a very brilliant son, Dr.
Torres-was
"Which, I gather," Torres interrupted in a
voice as cool as Marsh's own, "is something you have
always wanted."
"Everyone hopes his children will be brilliant," Marsh
countered.
"And Alex is brilliant, Dr. Lonsdale,
" Torres replied. "But keeping him here for
another year isn't going to affect that. I should
imagine that the school can design a course of study
for him that will keep his mind active and challenged. But
there is another side to Alex-the emotional side-and
if he has any chance to recover in that area, I
think we have an obligation to give him that chance."
"Of course we do," Ellen agreed. "And Marsh
knows
BRAINCHILD

it as well as we do." She turned to her husband.
"Don't you?"
Marsh was silent for a long time. Torres's words,
he knew, made sense. Alex should stay home.
But he couldn't just go on letting Torres run his
life, and the lives of his wife and son.
"I think," he said at last, "that perhaps we ought
to talk to Alex about it. his
"I agree," Torres replied, rising to his
feet. "But not for at least a week. I want
to think about this for a while, and then I'll decide
what's best for Alex." He glanced at his watch,
then offered Eisenberg his hand. "I'm afraid I have
another meeting. If you need me for anything, you have
my number." With nothing more than a nod to either Marsh
or Ellen, he left the dean's office.
Alex lay on his bed staring at the ceiling.
Something was wrong, but he had no idea what it might
be, or what he ought to do about it.
All he knew was that something was wrong with him. He was
no longer the same as he had been before the accident,
and for some reason his parents were upset about it. At
least, his mother was upset. His father seemed pleased.
They had told him about the test results as they
drove him home that afternoon, and at first he hadn't
understood what all the fuss was about. He could have
told them he'd correctly answered all the questions
before they even checked. The questions had been easy, and
didn't really involve anything like thinking. In
fact, he'd thoiught they must be testing his memory
rather than his ability to think, because all the tests had
involved were a series of facts and calculations, and
if you had a good memory and knew the right
equations, there wasn't anything to them.
But now they were saying he was brilliant, and his father
wanted him to go into a special program down in
Palo Alto. From what he'd heard in the car,
though, he
i caret
JOHN SAUL
didn't think that was going to happen. Dr. Torres
would see to it that he stayed home.
And that, he decided, was fine with him. All day,
he'd been trying to figure out what had happened at
school that morning-why he had remembered some things so
clearly, other things incorrectly, and still others not
at all.
He was sure it had something to do with the damage his brain
had suffered, and yet that didn't make sense to him.
He could understand how parts of his memory could have been
destroyed, but that wouldn't account for the things he had
remembered incorrectly. He should, he was sure,
either remember things or not remember them. But
memories shouldn't have simply changed, unless there was
a reason.
The thing to do, he decided, was start keeping track
of the things he remembered, and how he remembered them,
and see if there was a pattern to the things he
remembered incorrectly.
If there was, he might be able to figure out what was
wrong with him.
And then, there was Maria Torres.
She had been in his room when he got home that
afternoon, and when he had first seen her, he'd thought he
recognized her. It had only been a fleeting
moment, and a sharp pain had shot through his head, and then it
was over. A moment later he realized that what he'd
recognized was not her face, but her eyes. She had
the same eyes that Dr. Torres had: almost black
eyes that seemed to peer right inside you.
She'd smiled at him, and nodded hery head, then
quickly left him alone in his room.
By now he should have forgotten the incident, except for the
pain in his head.
The pain itself was gone now, but the memory of it was still
etched sharply in his mind.
CHAPTER TEN
Lisa Cochran's face set into an expression of
stublwrnness that Kate Lewis had long ago come
to realize meant that the argument was over-Lisa would, in
the end, have her way. And, as usual, Kate knew
Lisa was right. Still, she didn't want to give in
too easily.
"But what if he won't go?" she asked.
"He'll go, " Lisa insisted. "I can talk him
into it. I've always been able to talk Alex
into anything."
"That was before," Kate reminded her. "Ever since
he's come home, he's . . . well, he's just
different, that's all. Most of the time he acts like he
doesn't even like us anymore."
Lisa sighed. Over and over again she'd tried
to explain to Kate and Bob that Alex did still like
them-and all his other friends too-but that right now he was just
incapable of showing his feelings. Kate and Bob,
however, had remained unconvinced.
"If we're going to go up to San Francisco,"
Bob repeated for the third time that afternoon, "I want
to go
JOHN SAUL
with people I can have fun with. All Alex ever does
anymore is ask questions. He's like a little kid."
The three of them were sitting in their favorite
hangout, Jake's Place, which served pizza and
video games. While the games had long since
lost their novelty, the kids still came for the pizza,
which wasn't very good, but was cheap. And Jake didn't
mind if they came in right after school and
sat around all afternoon, nursing a Coke and talking.
Today, gathered around a table with a Pac-Man unit in
its top, they had been talking a long time as Lisa
tried to convince Bob and Kate that they should take
Alex along to San Francisco day after tomorrow.
Jake, they knew, had been listening to them casually,
but, as always, hadn't tried to offer them any advice.
That, too, was one of the reasons they hung out here.
Suddenly, however, he appeared by their table and leaned
over.
"Better make up your minds," he told them.
"Alex just came in."
Kate and Bob looked up guiltily as Lisa
waved to Alex. "Over here!" Alex hesitated
only a second before coming over to slide into the seat
next to Lisa.
"Hi. I looked for you after school, but you didn't
wait. What's going on?"
Lisa glanced at Kate and Bob, then decided
to end their argument immediately. "We're talking about going
up to the City on Saturday. Want to go with us?"
Alex frowned. "The city? What city? his
"San Francisco," Lisa replied, ignoringthe
roll of Bob Carey's eyes. "Everybody
calls it t/want to go with us?"
"I'll have to ask my folks."
"No, you don't," Lisa told him. "If you
tell your folks, they'll tell my folks and
Kate's folks, and they'll all say no.
We're just going to go."
Bob Carey suddenly reached into his pocket,
pulled out a quarter, and began playing Pac-Man.
Lisa, sure he was doing it only to avoid talking
to Alex, glared at him, but he ignored her.
Alex, however, didn't seem to
BRAINCHILD

notice the slight. His eyes were fastened on the little
yellow man that scooted through the maze under Bob's
control.
"What's it do?" he asked, and Lisa immediately
knew it was yet one more thing of which he had no
memory. Patiently she began explaining the
object of the game as Alex kept watching while
Bob played. In less than two minutes, the
game was over.
"Want me to show you how to do it?" Alex asked.
Bob looked at him with skeptical curiosity.
"You? You're even worse at this than me."
Alex slipped a quarter in the slot, and
began playing, maneuvering the little man around the
maze, always just out of reach of the hungry goblins that
chased him. But when the goblins suddenly turned
blue, Alex turned on them, gobbling them up one
after the other. He cleared board after board, never
losing a man, racking up an array of fruit, and
an enormous score.
After ten minutes, he took his hands off the
controls. Instantly, Pac-Man was gobbled up,
and a new one appeared. Alex ignored it, and in a
few seconds it, too, was devoured. "It's
easy," he said. "There's a pattern, and all you have
to do is remember the pattern. Then you know where all
the goblins are going to go."
Bob shifted in his chair. "How come you could never do
that before?" he asked.
Alex frowned, then shrugged. "I don't know," he
admitted.
"And I don't care," Lisa declared. "What about
going to the City? Do you want to go with us, or not?"
Alex considered it a moment, then nodded his head.
"Okay. What time?"
"We'll tell our folks we're going to the beach in
Santa Cruz," Lisa said. "I'll even pack
us a lunch. That way we can leave early,
and we won't have to be back until dinnertime."
"What if we get caught?" Kate asked.
"How can we get caught?" Bob countered. Then, his
eyes fixed on Alex, he added, "Unless someone
tells."
JOHN SAUL
"Don't worry," Lisa assured him.
"Nobody's going to tell."
Kate drained the last of the warm Coke that had been
sitting in front of her most of the afternoon, and stood
up. "I've got to get home. Mom'll kill
me if I haven't got dinner started when she gets
home from work."
"You want us to come along?" Lisa asked. Though
none of the kids talked about it much, they all knew
about Mr. Lewis's drinking problem. Kate shook
her head. "Dad's still sort of okay, but I think
he'll have to go back to the hospital next week.
Right now he's at the stage where he just sits in
front of the TV all the time, drinking beer. I
wish Mom would just kick him out."
"No, you don't," Bob Carey said.
"I do too!" Kate flared. "All he does is
talk about what he's going to do, but he never does
anything except get drunk. If I
could, I'd move out!"
"But he's still your father-was
"So what? He's a drunk, and everybody knows
it!"
Her eyes brimming with sudden tears, Kate turned
and hurried out of Jake's Place, Bob right behind
her. "Pay the check, will you, Alex?" Bob
called back over his shoulder.
When they were alone, Lisa grinned at Alex. "Do
you have any money?" she asked. "Or do I get
stuck with the check again?"
"Why should I pay it?" Alex asked, bewildered.
"I didn't eat anything."
"Alex! I was only kidding!" -""
"Well, why should I pay it?" Alex insisted.
Lisa tried to keep the exasperation she was feeling out
of her voice. "Alex," she said carefully,
"nobody expects you to pay the check. But Bob was
in a hurry, and he'll pay you back tomorrow. You and
Bob have always done that."
Alex's eyes fixed steadily on her. "I
don't remember that."
"You don't remember anything," Lisa replied,
her voice edged with anger. "So I'm telling you.
Now, why
BRAINCHILD

don't you just give Jake some money, and we'll
get out of here?" Then, when Alex still hesitated,
she sighed. "Oh, never mind. I'll do it myself."
She paid the check, and started toward the door. "You
coming?"
Alex stood up and followed her out into the afternoon
sunshine. They started walking toward the
Cochrans", and after a few minutes of silence,
Lisa finally took Alex's hand in her own.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have gotten
mad."
"That's okay." Alex dropped her hand, and kept
walking.
"You mad at me?"' Lisa asked.
"No."
"Is something else wrong?"
Alex shrugged, then shook his head.
"Then how come you don't want to hold hands?"
Lisa ventured.
Alex said nothing, but wondered silently why holding
hands seemed so important to her.
Apparently it was yet something else he didn't
remember. Feeling nothing, he ignored
her outstretched hand.
Carol Cochran climbed the stairs to Lisa's
room, and found her daughter stretched out on the bed
staring at the ceiling as the thundering music of her
favorite rock group seemed to make the walls
shake. Carol went to the stereo and turned the volume
down, then perched on the edge of the bed.
"Want to tell me what's wrong, or is it too
big a secret?"
"Nothing's wrong," Lisa replied. "I was just
listening to my records."
"For three solid hours," Carol told her. "And
it's been the same record, over and over, which is
driving your father crazy."
Lisa rolled over onto her side and propped her
head up on one hand. "It's Alex. He's . .
. well, he's just so different. Sometimes he's almost
spooky. He takes ev-
JOHN SAUL
erything so seriously, you can't even joke with him
anymore."
Carol nodded. "I know. I guess you just have to be
patient. He might get over it."
Lisa sat up. "But what if he doesn't?
Mom, what's happening is terrible."
"Terrible?" Carol repeated.
"It's the other kids," Lisa told her.
"They're starting to talk about him. They say all he
ever does is ask questions like a little kid."
"We know what that's all about," Carol replied.
Lisa nodded. "I know. But it still doesn't make
it any easier."
"For whom?"
Lisa seemed startled by the question, then flopped onto
her back again. "For me," she whispered. Then: "I
just get so tired of trying to explain him to everyone
all the time. And it's not just that, anyway," she added,
her voice suddenly defiant.
"Then what is it?"
"I'm not sure he likes me anymore. stHe
... he never seems to want to hold hands with me,
or kiss me, or anything. He's just . . . oh,
Mom, he just seems so cold."
"I know about that, too," Carol sighed. "But it's not
just you, honey. He's that way with everyone. his
"Well, that doesn't make it any easier."
"No, it doesn't. " Carol shook her head,
considering what to tell her daughter. Lisa sat
against the headboard, drawing her knees up to her chest
and wrapping her arms around her legs, as her
mother continued. "I'm going to go right on treating Alex
the way I always have, and try not to let my feelings
get hurt if he doesn't respond the way he
used to," she said. "And he may never respond the
way he used to. It's a function of the accident.
In a way, Alex is crippled now. But he's still
Alex, and he's still my best friends' son. If they
can get through this, and Alex can get through this, so can I."
BRAINCHILD

"And so can I?" Lisa asked, but Carol shook her
head.
"I don't know. I don't even know if you should
try. You're only sixteen, and there's no reason
at all that you should have to spend your time explaining
Alex to anyone or trying to deal with his new
personality. There are lots of other boys in La
Paloma, and there's no reason why you shouldn't date
them."
"But I can't just dump Alex," Lisa
protested.
"I'm not saying you should," Carol replied. "All
I'm saying is that you have to make certain decisions
based on what's best for you. If it's too
difficult for you to go on spending so much time
with Alex, then you shouldn't do it. And you shouldn't feel
badly about it, either. his
Lisa's eyes filled with tears. "But I do feel
bad," she said. "And I don't even know why. I
don't know if I don't like him anymore, or if
I'm just hurt because I'm not sure he still likes
me. And I don't know if I'm getting tired of
having to defend him all the time, or if I'm mad
at everybody else for not understanding him. Mom, I just
don't know what to do!"
"Then don't do anything," Carol told her. "Just
take it all day by day, and see what happens. In
time, it will all work out."
Lisa nodded, then got up from the bed and went to the
stereo, where she changed the record. Then, with her
back to her mother, she said, "What if it doesn't
work out, Mom? What if Alex never changes?
What's going to happen to him?"
Carol rose to her feet and pulled her daughter
close. "I don't know," she said. "But in the end,
it really isn't your problem, is it? It's
Alex's problem, and his parents" problem. It's
only yours if you make it yours, and you don't have
to. Do you understand that?"
Lisa nodded. "I guess so," she said.
She wiped her eyes, and forced a smile. "And
I'll be all right," she said. "I guess I was just
feeling sorry for myself. his
"And for Alex," Carol added. "I know how much you
want to help him and how bad it feels not to be able
JOHN SAUL
to." She started toward the door. "But there is one
thing you can do," she added before she left the room.
"Turn that awful music down, so at least your
sister can get some sleep. Good night."
was Night, Mom." As the door closed, Lisa
plugged in her headset, and the room fell silent as
the music from the stereo poured directly into her ears.
Alex lay awake late into the night, pondering
what had happened at Jake's Place and on the
way home afterward. He knew he'd made a
mistake, but he still couldn't quite figure it out.
Lisa had wanted to hold hands with him, and even though
he didn't understand why, he should have gone ahead and
done it anyway. And she had been mad at him, which
was another thing he didn't understand.
There was so much that just didn't make any sense.
At the beginning of the week, there had been the strange
memories, and caret he odd pain that had gone through
his head when he'd first seen Maria
Torres.
And beyond those things, which he was sure he would eventually
figure out, there were the other things, the concepts he was
beginning to feel certain he would never understand.
Love.
That was something he couldn't get any kind of grasp
on. His mother was always telling him that she loved him, and
he didn't really doubt that she did.
The trouble was, he didn't understand what love
was. He'd looked it up, and read that it was a
feeling of affection.
But, as he had slowly come to understand as he read more,
apparently he didn't have feelings.
It was something he was only beginning to be aware of, and
he didn't know whether he should talk to Dr.
Torres about it or not. All he knew so far was that
things seemed to happen to other people that didn't happen
to him.
Things like anger.
BRAINCHILD

He knew Lisa had been angry at him this afternoon,
and he knew it was a feeling that she got when he did
something she didn't approve of.
But what did it feel like?
He thought, from what he'd read, that it must be like pain,
only it affected the mind instead of the body. But what
was it like?
He was beginning to suspect he'd never know, for every day
he was becoming more and more aware that something had, indeed,
gone wrong, and that he was no longer like other people.
But he was supposed to be like other people. That was the whole
idea of Dr. Torres's operation-to make him the
way he'd been before.
The problem was that he couldn't remember how he'd
been before. If he could remember, it would be easy.
He could act as though he was the same, and then people
wouldn't know he was different.
He was already doing some of it.
He'd learned to hug his mother, and kiss her, and whenever
he did that, she seemed to like it.
He'd decided not to act on any of the things he
seemed to remember until he'd determined if his
memory of them was correct.
And after this afternoon, he'd remember to hold Lisa's
hand when they were walking together, and to pay a check if
Bob Carey asked him to.
But what about other people? were there other people he used
to borrow money from and loan money to?
Tomorrow, when he saw Lisa, he'd ask
her.
No, he decided, he wouldn't ask her. He
couldn't keep asking everybody questions all the time.
He'd seen the look on Bob Carey's face when
he'd asked Lisa what city she was talking about, and
he knew what it meant, even though it hadn't
bothered him.
Still, Bob Carey thought he was stupid, even though
he wasn't. In fact, after the tests on Monday,
he knew
JOHN SAUL
he was just the opposite. If anything, he was a lot
smarter than everybody else.
He got out of bed and went to the family room. In
the bookcase next to the fireplace, there was an
Encyclopaedia Britannica. He switched on
a lamp, then pulled Volume VIII of the
Micropaedia off the shelf. A few minutes
later, he began reading every article in the
encyclopedia that referred to San Francisco.
By the time they got there, he would be able to tell them more
about the city than they knew themselves. And, he
decided, he would know his way around.
Tomorrow-Friday-he would find a map of San
Francisco, and memorize it by the next
morning.
Memorizing things was easy.
Figuring out what was expected of him, and then doing
it, was not so easy.
But he would do it.
He didn't know how long it would take, but he
knew that if he watched carefully, and remembered
everything he saw, sooner or later he would be able
to act just like everybody else.
But he still wouldn't feel anything.
And that, he decided, was all right. If he could
learn to act as though he felt things, it would be good
enough.
Already he'd learned that it didn't matter what he
was or wasn't.
The only thing that really mattered was what people thought you
were.
He closed the book and put it back on the shelf,
then turned around to see his father standing in the doorway.
"Alex? Are you all right?"
"I was just looking something up," Alex replied.
"Do you know what time it is?"
Alex glanced at the big clock in the corner.
"Threethirty."
"How come you're not asleep?"
"I just got to thinking about something, so I decided
to look it up. I'll go back to bed now." He
started out of
BRAINCHILD

the room, but his father stopped him with a hand on his
shoulder.
"Is something bothering you, son?"
Alex hesitated, wondering if maybe he should
try to explain to his father how different he was from other
people, and that he thought something might be wrong with his brain,
then decided against it. If anyone would understand, it would
be Dr. Torres. "I'm fine, Dad. Really."
Marsh dropped into his favorite chair, and looked
at Alex critically. Certainly the boy looked
fine, except for his too-bland expression. "Then
I think maybe you and I ought to talk about your
future, before Torres decides it for us," he
suggested.
Alex listened in silence while Marsh repeated his
idea of sending Alex into an advanced program at
Stanford. As he talked, Marsh kept his eyes on
his son, trying to see what effect his words might be
having on the boy.
Apparently there was none.
Alex's expression never changed, and Marsh
suddenly had the uneasy feeling that Alex wasn't
even hearing him. "Well?" he asked at last.
"What do you think?"
Alex was silent for a moment, then stood up.
"I'll have to talk to Dr. Torres about it," he
said. He started out of the room. "Good night,
Dad."
For a moment, all Marsh could do was stare at his son's
retreating back. And then, like a breaking storm,
fury swept over him. "Alex!" The single word
echoed through the house. Instantly Alex stopped and
turned around.
"Dad?"
"What the hell is going on with you?" Marsh demanded.
He could feel blood pounding in his veins, and his
fists clutched into tight knots at his side.
"Did you even hear me? Do you have any idea of
what I was saying to you?"
JOHN SAUL
Alex nodded silently, then, as his father's furious
eyes remained fixed on him, began repeating
Marsh's words back to him.
"Stop that!" Marsh roared. "Goddammit, just stop
it!"
Obediently Alex fell back into silence.
Marsh stood still, forcing his mind to concentrate on the
soft ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner,
willing his rage to ease. A moment later he
became vaguely aware that Ellen, too, was in the
room now, her face pale, her frightened eyes
darting from him to Alex, then back again.
"Marsh?" she asked uncertainly. "Marsh, what's
going on?" When Marsh, still trembling with anger,
made no reply, she turned to her son.
"Alex?"
"I don't know," Alex replied. "He was
talking about me going to college, and I said I'd
talk to Dr. Torres about it. Then he started
yelling at me."
"Go to bed," Ellen told him. She gave him a
quick hug, then gently eased him toward the hall.
"Go on. I'll take care of your father." When
Alex was gone, she turned to Marsh, her eyes
damp. When she spoke, her voice was a bleak
reflection of the pain she was feeling, not just for her
son, but for her husband too. "You can't do this," she
whispered. "You know he's not well yet. What do you
expect from him?"
Marsh, his anger spent, sagged onto the
couch and buried his face in his hands.
"I'm sorry, honey, was he said softly. "It's
only that talking to him just now was like talking to a brick
wall. And then all he said was that he'd talk
to Torres about it. Torres!" he repeated
bitterly, then gazed up at her, his face suddenly
haggard. "I'm his father, Ellen," he said in a
voice breaking with pain. "But for all the reaction I
get from him, I might as well not even exist."
Ellen took a deep breath, then slowly let it
out. "I know," she said at last. "A lot of the time
I feel exactly the same way. But we have to get
him through it, Marsh. We can't just send him off somewhere.
He can
BRAINCHILD

barely deal with the people he's known all his life-how would
he ever be able to deal with total strangers?"
"But he's so bright ..." Marsh whispered.
Ellen nodded. "I know. But he's not well yet.
Raymond-was She broke off suddenly, sensing her
husband's animosity toward the man who had saved
Alex's life. "Dr. Torres," she began
again, "is helping him, and we have to help him too.
And we have to be patient with him, no matter
how hard it is." She hesitated, then went on.
"Sometimes . . . well, sometimes the only way I
can deal with it is to remember that whatever I'm going
through, what Alex is going through must be ten times
worse."
Marsh put his arms around his wife and pulled her
close. "I know," he said. "I know you're right, but
I just can't help myself sometimes. was A rueful
smile twisted his face. "I guess there's a good
reason why doctors should never treat their own
family, isn't there? Lord knows, my bedside
manner deserted me tonight." His arms fell away from
Ellen as he stood up. "I'd better go
apologize to him."
But when he entered Alex's room, his son was sound
asleep. As far as he could see, even his rage
hadn't affected the boy. Still, he laid his hand
gently on Alex's cheek. "I'm sorry,
son," he whispered. "I'm sorry about everything."
Alex rolled over, unconsciously brushing his
father's hand away.
At a few minutes past nine on Saturday
morning, Bob Carey maneuvered his father's Volvo
into the left lane of the Bayshore Freeway, and
three minutes later they left Palo
Alto behind. Alex sat quietly in the back seat
next to Lisa, his ears taking in the chatter of his
three friends while his eyes remained glued to the world
outside the car. None of it looked familiar, but
he studied the road signs carefully as they passed
through Redwood City, San Carlos, and San
Mateo, then began skirting the edge of the bay. His
eyes took in everything, and he was sure that on the
return trip that afternoon, even though he would be seeing
it all from the other direction, all of it would be
familiar.
Then, a little north of the airport, Bob veered off
the freeway and started inland.
"Where are we going?" Kate Lewis asked. "We
want to go all the way into the City!"
"We're going to the BART station in Daly City,"
Bob told her.

BRAINCHILD

"BART?" Kate groaned. "Who wants to ride
the subway?"
"I do," Bob told her. "I like the subway, and
besides, I'm not going to drive Dad's car in the
City. All I need is to have to try
to explain how I smashed a fender on Nob Hill
when I was supposed to be in Santa Cruz. I'd
wind up grounded lower than Carolyn Evans
was."
Kate started to protest further, but Lisa backed
Bob up. "He's right," she said. "I had to argue
with my folks for half an hour to keep from having
to bring Kim along, and if we get caught now,
we'll all be in trouble. Besides, I like BART
too. It'll be fun!"
Forty minutes later, they emerged from the BART
station, and Alex gazed around him, knowing immediately where
he was. Yesterday he d found a tour guide
to San Francisco in the La Paloma
bookstore, then spent last night studying it. The
city around him looked exactly like the pictures in
the guidebook. "Let's ride the cable car out
to Fisherman's Wharf," he suggested.
Lisa stared at him with surprised eyes. "How
did you know it goes there?" she asked.
Alex hesitated, then pointed to the cable car that was just
coasting onto the turntable at Powell and Market.
On its end was a sign that read "Powell and
Mason" and, below that, "Fisherman's Wharf."
They wandered around the wharf, then started back
toward the downtown area, through North Beach on
Columbus, then turning south on Grant to go
into Chinatown. People milled around them, and suddenly
Alex stopped dead in his tracks. Lisa turned
to him, but he seemed unaware of her. His eyes were
gazing intently at the faces of the people around him.
"Alex, what is it?" she asked. All morning,
he'd seemed fine. He'd asked a few questions, but
not nearly as many as usual, and he'd always seemed
to know exactly where he was and where they were going.
Once, in fact, he'd even told them where a
street they were looking for was, then, when asked how
he knew, admitted to having memorized all the
street signs while they
JOHN SAUL
rode the cable car. But now he seemed totally
baffled. "Alex, what's wrong?" Lisa asked
again.
"These people," Alex said. "What are they? They
don't look like us."
"Oh, Jeez," Bob Carey groaned.
"They're Chinese, " Lisa said, keeping her
voice as low as she could, and silencing Bob with a
glare. "And stop staring at them, Alex. You're being
rude."
"Chinese," Alex repeated. He started walking
again, but his eyes kept wandering over the Oriental
faces around him. "The Chinese built the
railroads," he suddenly said. Then: "The
railroad barons, Collis P. Huntington and
Leland Stanford, brought them in by the thousands. Now
San Francisco has one of the biggest Chinese
populations outside of China."
Lisa stared at Alex for a moment; then suddenly she
knew. "A tour book," she said. "You read a
tour book, didn't you?"
Alex nodded. "I didn't want to spend all
day. asking you questions," he said. "I know you don't like
that. So I studied."
Bob Carey's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You
studied? You read a whole guidebook just because we were
coming up here for a day?"
Again Alex nodded.
"But who can remember all that stuff? Who even
cares? For Christ's sake, Alex, all we're
doing is messing around."
"Well, I think it's neat;" Kate told her
boyfriend. Then she turned to Alex. "Did you really
memorize all the streets while we were on the cable
car?"
"I didn't have to," Alex admitted. "I got
a map, too. I memorized it."
"Bullshit!" Bob's eyes were suddenly angry.
"Where's the mission?" he demanded.
Alex hesitated a moment; then: "Sixteenth and
Dolores. It's on the corner, and there's a park
in the same block."
"Well?" Kate asked Bob. "Is he right?"
BRAINCHILD

"I don't know," Bob admitted, his face
reddening. "Who even cares where the mission is?"
"I do," Lisa said, reaching out to squeeze
Alex's hand. "How do we get there?"
"Go down to Market, then up to Dolores, and left
on Dolores."
"Then lets go."
The little mission with its adjoining cemetery and garden was
exactly where Alex had said it would be, crouching on
the corner almost defensively, as if it knew it was
no more than a relic from the city's longforgotten
past. The city, indeed, had even taken away its
original name-San Francisco de Asis. Now
it was called Mission Dolores, and it seemed to have
taken on the very sadness its name implied.
"Want to go in?" Lisa asked of no one in
particular.
"What for?" Bob groaned. "Haven't we all
seen enough missions? They used to drag us off to one every
year!"
"Well, what about Alex?" Lisa argued. "I
bet he doesn't remember ever seeing a mission
before. And did you ever see this mission? Come on."
Following Lisa, they went into the little church, then out
into the garden, and suddenly the city beyond the garden walls
might as well have disappeared, for within the little space
occupied by the mission, there was no trace of the modern
world.
The garden, still kept neatly trimmed after nearly
two hundred years, was in the last stages of its
summer bloom. Here and there dead leaves had already
fallen to the ground, dotting the pathways with bright
gold. Off in the far corner, they could see the old
cemetery. "Over there," Alex said softly.
"Let's go over there."
The quietness of his voice caught Lisa's
attention, and she turned to look into Alex's eyes.
For the first time since the accident, there seemed to be
life in them. "What is it, Alex?" she asked.
"You're remembering something, aren't you?"
"I don't know," Alex whispered. He was walking
slowly along one of the paths now, but his eyes re-
JOHN SAUL
mained fixed on the weathered headstones of the
graveyard.
"The graveyard?" Lisa asked. "Do you remember
the graveyard?"
Alex's mind was whirling, and he barely heard
Lisa's question. Images were flickering, and there were
sounds. But nothing was cleareaddexcept that the images
and sounds were connected with this place. Trembling
slightly, he kept walking.
"What's wrong with him?" Kate asked, her voice
worried. "He looks weird. His
"I think he's remembering something," Lisa
replied.
"We'd better go with him," Bob added, but Lisa
shook her head.
"I'll go," she told them. "You guys wait for
us, okay?"
Kate nodded mutely, and as Alex stepped into the
tiny fenced cemetery, Lisa hurried after him.
The images had begun coming into focus as soon as
he'd entered the cemetery. His heart was pounding, and
he felt out of breath, as if he'd been
running for a long time. He scanned the little
graveyard, and his eyes came to rest on a small
stone near the wall.
In his mind, there were images of people.
Women dressed in black, their faces framed
by white cowls, their feet clad in sandals.
Nuns.
In his mind's eye he saw a group of nuns
clustering around a boy, and the boy was himself.
But he was different somehow.
His hair was darker, and his skin had an olive
cornplexion to it.
And he was crying.
Unconsciously Alex moved closer to the headstone
that had triggered the strange images, and the images
seemed to move with him. Then he was standing at the
grave, gazing down at the inscription that was still
barely legible in the worn granite:
BRAINCHILD 159
Fernando Melendez y Ruiz

A word flashed into his mind, and he repeated it out
loud. "iTio!" As he uttered the word, a stab of
pain knifed through his brain, then was gone.
And then voices began whispering to him-the
voices of the nuns, though the images of them had already
faded away.
"t$1 esta muerto." He is dead.
And then there was another voice-a man's voice-
whispering to him out of the depths of his memory.
"jVenganza . . . venganza!"
He stood very still, his eyes brimming with unfamiliar
tears, his pulse throbbing. The voice went on,
whispering to him in Spanish, but only the one word
registered on his mind: "Venganza."
His tears overflowed, and a sob choked his throat.
Then, as the strange words pounded in his head, he
gave in to the sudden unfamiliar rush of emotion.
Time seemed to stand still, and he felt a kind of pain
he couldn't remember having ever felt before. Pain
of the heart, and of the soul.
The pain seared at him, and then he became aware of a
hand tugging at him, slowly penetrating the chaos in his
mind.
"Alex?" a voice sa do. "Alex, what's
wrong? What is it?"
Alex pointed to the grave, sobbing brokenly, and
Lisa, after a moment of utter confusion, began
to understand what must have happened. She had listened
carefully that day last month before Alex
came home from the hospital, and she could still
remember the words.
"He could start laughing or crying at any time,"
Alex's mother had told her. "Dr. Torres
says it won't matter if something is funny or
sad. It's just that it's possible that there will be
misconnections in his brain,
JOHN SAUL
and he could react inappropriately to something. Or
he could simply overreact."
And that, Lisa was certain, was exactly what was
happening now. Alex was overreacting to an ancient
grave.
But why?
He had remembered something, she had been sure of
it. And now he was staring at the grave, tears streaming
down his face, uncontrollable sobs racking his
body. Gently she tried to pull him away as a
priest appeared from the back of the church and looked at
them quizzically.
"Something wrong?"
"No," Lisa quickly replied. "Everything's all
right. It ..." She floundered for a moment, trying
to think of an explanation for Alex's behavior, but
her mind had suddenly gone blank. "Come
on, Alex, " she whispered. "Let's get out of
here."
Half-dragging Alex, she edged her way past the
priest, then out of the graveyard. Once back in the
garden, she put her arms around Alex and squeezed
him. "It's all right, Alex," she whispered. "It
was only an old grave. Nothing to cry about."
Slowly Alex's sobs began to subside, and he
made himself listen to Lisa's words.
Only a grave. But it hadn't been only a
grave. He had recognized the grave, as he had
recognized the cemetery itself. What he had just
experienced, he had experienced before.
The memories were clear in his mind now. He could
remember having been in that cemetery, having looked
down at the grave, having listened to the nuns telling
him his uncle was dead.
His uncle.
As far as Alex knew, he had no uncle.
And certainly he wouldn't remember an uncle who
had died in 1850.
But it was all so clear, just as clear as the memory
he'd had at school last week. Clear, but
impossible.
BRAINCHILD

He took a deep breath, and his last sob released
its grip on his throat. Lisa found a handkerchief
in her bag and handed it to him. He blew his nose.
"What happened?" she asked.
Alex shrugged, but his mind was whirling. It didn't
make any sense, and if he told her what had
happened, she would think he was crazy. But he had
to tell her something. "I'm not sure," he said.
"I ... I remembered something, but I'm not sure
what. But it was like I was here before, and something terrible
happened. But I can't remember what."
Lisa frowned. "Were you ever here before? Maybe
something did happen here."
Then, before Alex could say anything else, Bob and
Kate moved toward them, their expressions a
mixture of worry and uneasiness.
"What happened?" Kate asked. "Are you okay,
Alex?"
Alex nodded. "I just remembered something, and it
made me cry. Dr. Torres said it might
happen, but I didn't really think it would." Lisa
looked at him sharply, but said nothing. If he
didn't want to tell them what had really happened,
she wouldn't either. "Maybe its a good
sign," he said, making himself smile. "Maybe it
means I'm getting better. His
Kate and Lisa exchanged a glance, each of them
realizing what might have to happen. Finally Kate
voiced the thought.
"Are you going to tell your folks about it?"
"He can't, was Bob said. "If he does, then
all our folks will find out what we did, and we'll
all be in trouble."
"But what if it's important?" Lisa asked.
"What if it means something?"
"Why can't he just say it happened at the beach?"
Bob suggested. "Besides, what's the big deal about
crying in a graveyard? Isn't that what you're
supposed to do?"
"I didn't say it was a big deal," Lisa
replied. "All I said was that it might mean something,
and if it does,
JOHN SAUL
none of us should worry about getting into trouble. I just
think Alex should tell his folks exactly what
happened."
"Well, I think we should vote on it," Bob
said. "And I vote he doesn't tell." He
looked expectantly at Kate
Lewis, whose eyes reflected her uncertainty.
Finally she made up her mind, looking away from
Bob.
"Lisa's right, " she said. "He should tell. And
I think we should go home right now."
"I don't," Alex suddenly said. The other three
looked at him, puzzled. "I think I should call
Dr. Torres and tell him what happened.
Maybe he'll want me to stay here. his
"Stay here?" Lisa asked. "Why?"
"Maybe something else will happen."
Bob Carey stared at him. "What are you, some kind
of a nut? I'm not gonna waste the rest of the day
waiting for you to freak out again!"
"Bob Carey, that's just gross!" Lisa said, her
voice quivering with anger. "Can't you ever think of
anybody but yourself? Why don't you just go away? We
can get home without you. Come on!" She grabbed
Alex by the hand and began walking quickly toward the
church door. Kate hesitated, then started after
them.
"Kate-was Bob called, but his girlfriend whirled
around and cut his words off.
"Can't you ever think about anybody but yourself? Just
once?" She turned and ran to catch up with
Lisa and Alex.
They found a phone booth half a block away, and
Alex studied the instructions carefully before placing
his call. On the second try, he managed to get
through to the Institute. While Lisa and Kate
fidgeted on the sidewalk outside the booth, he
tried to explain to Torres exactly what had
happened. When he was finished, Torres was silent
for a few seconds, then asked, "Alex, are you
sure you remembered that cemetery?"
"I think so," Alex said. "Do you think I should
stay here? Do you think I might remember something
else? his
BRAINCHILD

"No," Torres said immediately. "I think one
experience like that is enough for one day. I want you to go
home right away. I'll call your mother and explain
what happened."
"She's gonna be pretty mad," Alex
replied. "I ... well, I told her we were
going to the beach. She thinks I'm in Santa
Cruz."
"I see." There was another silence, and then
Torres spoke once more. "Alex, when
you lied to your parents about where you were going today, did you
know you were doing the wrong thing?"
Alex thought for a few seconds. "No," he said
finally. "I just knew that if I told them where we were
going, they wouldn't let me go. None of our folks
would have."
"All right," Torres said. "We'll talk about
all this on Monday. In the meantime, I'll fix
things with your mother so you don't get into any trouble. But
I don't see how I can do anything for your friends."
"That's okay," Alex said. He was about to say
goodbye when Torres's voice came over the wire
once more.
"Alex, do you care if your friends get into trouble?"
Alex thought about it, and knew that he was supposed
to say yes, because part of having friends was caring what
happened to them. But he also knew he shouldn't lie
to Dr. Torres. "No," he said. Then: "I
don't really care about anybody."
"I see," Torres replied, his voice barely
audible. Then: "Well, we can talk about that, too.
And I'll see you tomorrow, Alex. We won't wait
til Monday."
Alex hung up the phone and stepped out of the booth.
Kate and Lisa were staring anxiously at
him, and a few feet away, Bob Carey stood
uncertainly watching them all.
He wants me to go home," Alex said. "He'll
call my mom and tell her what happened. was He
fell silent, then decided what he should say.
"I'll try to get my mom to make it all right with
your folks too."
Lisa smiled at him, while Kate Lewis
looked sud-
JOHN SAUL
denly worried. "How are we supposed to get
home?" she asked.
"I'll take you," Bob Carey offered. He
stepped closer, his eyes fixed on the sidewalk
at his feet. Then he hesitantly offered Alex
his hand. "I'm sorry about what I said back there.
It's just that . . . Aw, shit, Alex, you're just
different now, and I don't know what to do. So I just
get pissed off. his
Alex tried to figure out what he should say, but
couldn't remember being apologized to before. "That's
okay, was he finally replied. "I don't know what
to do either, most of the time. his
"But at least you don't get pissed off about it, and
if anybody has a right to get pissed,
I guess you do." Bob grinned, and Alex
decided he'd chosen the right words.
"Maybe I will sometime," he offered. "Maybe
sometime I'll get really pissed off. His
There was a moment of startled silence while his three
friends wondered what his words meant. Then the four of
them started home.
Marsh Lonsdale hung up the phone. "Well,
that's done," he said, "even though I still don't
approve of it."
"But, Marsh," Ellen argued, "you talked
to Raymond yourself."
"I know," Marsh replied, sighing. "But the whole
idea of four kids getting off scot-free after
going someplace they knew perfectly well they
shouldn't go, and lying about it to boot, just rubs me the
wrong way."
"Alex didn't know he shouldn't go to San
Francisco-was
"But he knew he shouldn't lie," Marsh said,
turning to Alex. "Didn't you?" he demanded.
Alex shook his head. "But I know now," he
offered. "I won't do it again. his
"And Alex is right," Ellen added. "It isn't
fair for the other kids to be punished, and him
not. And besides, if they hadn't decided to break all
the rules and go up to the City, Alex might not have
had this breakthrough."
Breakthrough, Marsh thought. Why was bursting into
BRAINCHILD

tears in a graveyard a breakthrough? And yet, when
he'd talked to Torres that afternoon, the specialist
had assured him that it was, even though Marsh had
suggested that it might be simply a new symptom
of the damage that still existed in Alex's mind. Still,
Marsh was not yet ready to accept Torres's
assessment. "And what if it's not a breakthrough?" he
asked, then held up his hand to forestall Ellen's
interruption. "Don't. I know what Torres said.
But I also know that I've never been to Mission
Dolores, and I don't think Alex has either.
Did you ever take him up there?"
"No, I don't think I did," Ellen
admitted. Then she sighed heavily. "Oh, all
right, I know I didn't. I've never been there
either. But I think you might consider the possibility
that Alex went there with someone else. His grandparents,
for instance."
"I've already called my parents," Marsh
told her. "Neither of them can remember ever taking
Alex there."
"All right, maybe it was my folks who took him
there. For that matter, it could have been anybody." She
searched her mind, looking for something-anything- that might
explain what had happened to Alex. Then she
remembered. "One of his school classes went
to San Francisco on a field trip once!
Maybe they went to the mission. But if Alex
remembers it, he remembers it. And I don't
see why you can't simply accept that. his
Because it just doesn't make sense. Why, of all the
places Alex has been-that we know he's been-would
he remember a place that as far as either one of us
knows, he's never been to at all? I'm sorry, but
I just don't think it adds up." He turned back
to Alex. Are you sure you really remembered being there
before?"
Alex nodded. "As soon as I saw it, I knew
I'd seen it before."
That could have been deja vu," Marsh suggested. That
happens all the time to everyone. We've talked about
it with Dr. Torres."
I know," Alex agreed. "But this was different. When
JOHN SAUL
I went in, I didn't even look around. I just
went right into the cemetery, to the grave. And then I
started crying."
"All right," Marsh said. He reached over and
squeezed Alex's shoulder. "I guess the fact
that you cried is really what's important anyway,
isn't it?"
Alex hesitated, then nodded. But what about the words
he'd heard? were they important too? Should he have
told his parents about seeing the nuns and hearing the
voices? No, he decided, not until he'd
talked to Dr. Torres about it. "Is it okay if
I go to bed now?" he asked, slipping away from his
father's touch.
Marsh glanced at the clock. It was only a quarter
to ten, and he knew Alex was seldom in bed before
eleven. "So early?"
"I'm gonna read for a while. His
He shrugged helplessly. "If you want to."
Alex hesitated, then leaned down to kiss his mother.
"Good night."
was Night, darling," Ellen replied. She watched
her son leave the family room, then turned her
gaze to Marsh, and immediately knew that the discussion of
what had happened that day was not yet over.
"All right," she said tiredly. "What is it?"
But Marsh shook his head. "No, was he said. "I'm
not going to talk about it anymore." Suddenly he
grinned, though there was no humor in it. "I guess
I've just suddenly fallen victim to a feeling, and
I don't like it."
Ellen sat down on the couch next to him and slipped
her hand into his. "Tell me," she said. "You know
I won't laugh at you-I won't even argue with
you. I've had too many feelings myself."
Marsh considered for a moment, thei. made up his mind.
"All right," he said. "I just feel that something's
wrong. I can't quite put my finger on it, because I
keep telling myself that what I'm feeling is a
result of the accident, and the brain surgery, and the
fact that I'm not too crazy about the eminent Dr.
Torres. But no matter how much I tell myself
that, I still have a feeling
BRAINCHILD

that there's more. That Alex has changed somehow, and that
it's more than the brain damage."
"But everything that's happened is consistent with the damage
and the surgery, was Ellen replied, keeping her
voice as neutral as possible and choosing
her words carefully. "Alex is different, but he's
still Alex. His
Marsh sighed. "That's just it," he said. "He's
different, all right, but I keep getting the feeling
that he's not Alex. his
No, Ellen thought to herself. That's not it at all. You
just can't stand the idea that Raymond Torres did
something you couldn't have done yourself. Aloud, though, she was
careful to give Marsh no clue as to what she'd been
thinking. Instead, she smiled at him encouragingly.
"Just wait," she said. "We've had several
miracles already. Maybe we're about to have another
one."
As she went to bed that night, she decided that when she
took Alex down for the special meeting Raymond
had asked for tomorrow morning, she'd have a private
talk with the doctor.
A talk about Marsh, not Alex.
For Maria Torres, sleep would not come that night.
For hours she tossed in her bed, then finally rose
tiredly to her feet, put on her frayed
bathrobe, and went into her tiny living room to light
a candle under the image of the Blessed Mother. She
prayed silently for a while-a silent prayer of
thanksgiving that at last the saints were
listening to her entreaties, and answering her.
She was sure the answers were coming now, for she had been
in the Lonsdales' house all afternoon. She had
listened as they talked to their son and heard his story of
what had happened at the mission in San
Francisco, and like all the gringos, they had barely
been aware of her presence.
To them, she was nobody, only someone who came m
now and then to clean up after them.
But they would find out who she was, now that the
JOHN SAUL
saints were listening to her, and had sent Alejandro
back at last.
And Alejandro knew her now, and he would listen to her
when she spoke to him.
She let the little candle burn out, then crept back
to her bed, knowing that sleep would finally come.
She hoped the gringos, too, would sleep well tonight.
Soon there would be no sleep for them at all.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"How come Peter isn't here?" Alex asked. He
was lying on the examining table, his eyes closed,
while Raymond Torres himself began the task of
attaching the electrodes to his skull.
"Sunday," Torres replied. "Even
my staff insists on a day or two off each
week."
"But not you?"
"I try, but every now and then I have to make an
exception. You qualify as an exception."
Alex nodded, his eyes still closed. "Because of how I
scored on the tests."
There was a short silence, and Alex opened his eyes.
Torres was at the control panel, adjusting a
myriad of dials. Finally he turned back
to Alex. "Partly," he said. But frankly, I'm
more interested in what happened in San Francisco
yesterday, and at school on Monday morning."
It seems like I'm getting some of my memory
back, doesn't it?"
Torres shrugged. "That's what we're going to try
to
JOHN SAUL
I
find out. And we're also going to try to find out if
there's any significance to the fact that even what little
you have remembered seems to be faulty."
"But the dean's office used to be where the nurse's
office is now," Alex protested. "Mom just
told us so."
"True. But apparently it was moved long before you ever
went to La Paloma High. So why-and how-did you
remember where it used to be, instead of where it is?
Even more important, why did you remember
Mission Dolores, when you apparently have never been
there?"
"But I could have been there," Alex suggested.
"Maybe yesterday wasn't the first day I sneaked
off to San Francisco."
"Fine," Torres agreed. "Let's assume
that's the case. Now tell me why you remembered a
grave that's over a hundred years old, and thought it
was your uncle's grave? You have no uncles, let
alone one who's been dead since 1850."
"Well, why did I?"
Torres's brows arched. "According to those exams you
took last week, you're smart enough to know better than
to ask that question before these tests."
"Maybe I'm not smart," Alex suggested.
"Maybe I'm just good at remembering things. his
"Which would make you some kind of idiot savant,"
Torres replied. "And the fact that you just suggested it
is pretty good proof that you're more than that." He
slid a pair of diskettes into the twin drives
of the master monitor, then began preparing a
hypodermic. "Peter tells me you woke up
early a couple of times," he said, his voice
studiedly casual. "How come you never mentioned it?"
"It didn't seem important."
"Can you tell me what it was like?"
Carefully Alex explained the sensations he'd had
when coming up from the anesthesia that always accompanied the
tests. "But it wasn't unpleasant," he finished.
"In fact, it was interesting. None of it made any
sense, but
BRAINCHILD

I always had the feeling that if I could only slow it
down, it would make sense." He hesitated, then
spoke again. "Why do I have to be asleep when you
test my brain?"
"Peter already explained that, was Torres replied.
He swabbed Alex's arm with alcohol, then
plunged the needle into his arm.
Alex winced slightly, then relaxed. "But if it
got bad-if I started hurting or something-you could
stop the tests, couldn't you?"
"I could, but I won't," Torres told him.
"Besides, if you were awake, the very fact that you'd be
thinking during the examination would have an effect
on the results. In order for the tests to be valid,
your brain has to be at rest when they're
administered."
Thirty seconds later, AlexVeyes closed and
his breathing became deep and slow. Checking all the
monitors one more time, Torres left the room.
In his office, Torres leaned back in his desk
chair and began methodically packing his pipe with
tobacco. As he carried out the ritual of lighting the
pipe, his eyes kept flicking toward the monitor
that showed what was happening in the examining room.
All, as he had expected, was as it should be, and he
would have a full hour alone with Ellen Lonsdale.
"I presume you're going to tell me why your
husband isn't here this morning?"
Ellen shifted in her chair and nervously crossed
her legs, unconsciously tugging at her skirt as
she did so. "He's . . . well, I'm afraid
we're having a little trouble."
"That doesn't surprise me," Torres commented,
concentrating on his pipe rather than Ellen. "I
don't mean this as anything against your husband, but a
lot of doctors have a great deal of difficulty in
dealing with me. In fact," he added, his hypnotic
eyes fixing directly on her, "a lot
of people have always had difficulty dealing with me." The
barest hint of a smile crossed
JOHN SAUL
Torres's face. "I'm talking about the fact that
I was always considered something of an oddball."
Ellen forced a smile, though she knew his words
carried a certain truth. "Whatever you might have been
in high school is all over now," she offered. "You
were just so bright we were all terrified of you!"
"And, apparently, people still are," Torres replied
dryly. "At least your husband seems to be. His
"I'm not sure terrified is the right word-was Ellen
began.
"Then what would you suggest?" Torres countered.
"Frightened? Insecure? Jealous?" He brushed the
words aside with an impatient gesture, and his
voice grew hard. "Whatever it is-and I assure
you it's of no consequence to me-it has to stop. For
Alex's sake."
So this was what it was all about. Ellen sighed in
relief. "I know. In fact, that's exactly what
I wanted to talk to you about today. Raymond, I'm
starting to worry about Marsh. This thing with Alex's
intellect . . be Well, I hate to say I'm
afraid he's going to get fixated on it,
but I guess that's exactly what I am afraid
of!"
"And," Torres added, "you're afraid that he
might decide that I have served my purpose. Is
that correct?"
Ellen nodded unhappily.
"Well, then we'll just have to see that that doesn't
happen, won't we?" Torres smiled at her, and
suddenly Ellen felt reassured. There was a
strength to the man, a determination to do whatever must be
done, that made her feel that whatever happened, he
would be able to deal with it. She felt herself begin
to relax under his steady gaze.
"Is there anything I can do?"
Torres shrugged, seeming unconcerned. "Until
he actually suggests removing Alex from my care,
I don't see that either you or I need to do anything.
But if the time comes, you can be sure that I will deal with
your husband."
Your husband. Ellen repeated the words to herself, and
tried to remember if Raymond had ever used
Marsh's
BRAINCHILD

first name. To the best of her memory, he
hadn't. Was there a reason for that? Or was it just
Raymond's way?
Suddenly she realized how little she actually knew
about Raymond Torres. Practically nothing,
really. A thought drifted into her mind: did he
feel as strange about his mother working for her as she did?
"Raymond, may I ask you a question that has nothing
to do with Alex at all?"
Torres frowned slightly, then shrugged. "You can
ask me anything, but I might not choose to answer."
Ellen felt herself flush red. "Of course," she
said. "It . . . well, it's about your mother. You know,
she's working for me now, and-was
"For you?" Torres broke in. Suddenly he put
his pipe on the desk and leaned forward, his eyes
blazing with interest. "When did that start?"
Ellen gasped with embarrassment. "Oh, God,
what have I done? I was sure you'd know."
"No," Torres replied, shaking his head. Then
he picked up his pipe and drew deeply on it.
"And don't worry," he added. "There is a lot
about my mother that I don't know. Frankly, we
don't see each other that much, and we don't agree
on much, either. For instance, we don't agree on her
working."
"Oh, Lord," Ellen groaned. "I'm sorry.
I should never have hired her, should I? I didn't
really think it was right, but when Cynthia absolutely
insisted, I ... well, I . . was She fell
silent, acutely aware that she had begun babbling.
"Cynthia," Torres repeated, his expression
darkening. "Well, Cynthia's always had her way,
hasn't she? Whatever Cynthia wanted, she always
got, and whatever she didn't want, she always
managed to keep well away from her."
Himself, Ellen suddenly thought. He's talking about
himself. He always wanted to go out with Cynthia, and
she'd never give him the time of day. But was he still
holding an old grudge? Surely he wasn't,
not after
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twenty years. And then he was smiling again, and the
awkward moment had passed.
"As for Mother, no, I didn't know she was working for
you, but it doesn't matter. I'm quite capable of
supporting her, but she'll have none of it. I'm
afraid," he added, his brows arching, "that my mother
doesn't quite approve of me. She's very much of the
old country, despite the fact that she was born
here, as were her parents and grandparents. She
has yet to forgive me for my own success. So she
supports herself by doing what she's always done, and
whom she works for is no concern of mine. If it
helps, I think I'd rather have her working for you than for
someone else. At least I can count on you to treat
her decently."
"I can't imagine anyone not-was Ellen began, but
Torres cut her off with a wave of his hand.
"I'm sure everyone treats her fine. But she
tends to imagine things, and sees slights where none
are meant. Now, why don't we get back
to Alex?"
Though Ellen would have liked to talk more of Maria, the
force of Raymond Torres's personality
engulfed her, and a moment later, as Torres wished,
they were once more deeply involved in the possible
meanings of Alex's experiences in San
Francisco.
Alex opened his eyes and gazed at the monitors that
surrounded him. The tests were over, and today, as he
came up from the sedative y there had been none of the
backslash strange sounds and images that he had
experienced) before. He started to move, then
remembered the re-.] straints that held him in
place so that he couldn't accidentally disturb
the labyrinth of wires that were attached to his skull.
be
He heard the door open, and a few seconds later
thej doctor was gazing down at him. "How do you
feel?" .]
"Okay," Alex replied. Then, as Torres
began detach- were' ing him from the machinery: "Did you
find out anything?"
"Not yet," Torres replied. "I'll have to spend
some time analyzing the data. But there's something I
want
BRAINCHILD

you to do. I want you to start wandering around La
Paloma, just looking at things."
"I've done that," Alex said. As the last of the
wires came free, Torres released the
restraints, and Alex sat up, stretching. "I've
done that a lot with Lisa Coch-
ran.
Torres shook his head. "I want you to do it
alone," he said. "I want you just to wander around, and
let your eyes take things in. Don't study
things, don't look for anything in particular. Just
let your eyes see, and your mind react.
Do you think you can do that?"
"I guess so. But why?"
"Call it an experiment," Torres replied.
"Let's just see what happens, shall we? Something,
somewhere in La Paloma, might trigger another
memory, and maybe a pattern will emerge."
As his mother drove him home, Alex tried
to figure out what kind of pattern Torres might
be looking for, but could think of nothing.
All he could do, he realized, was follow
Torres's instructions and see what happened.
After Alex and Ellen left, Raymond Torres
sat at his desk for a long time, studying the results
of the tests Alex had just taken. Today, for the first time,
the tests had been only that, and nothing more.
No new data had been fed into Alex's mind, no
new attempts had been made to fill his empty
memory.
Instead, the electrical impulses that had been
sent racing through his brain had been searching for something that
Torres knew had to be there.
Somewhere, deep in the recesses of Alex's brain,
there had to be a misconnection.
It was, as far as Torres could see, the only
explanation for what had happened to Alex in
San Francisco: somehow, during the long hours
of the surgery, a mistake had been made, and the
result was that Alex had had an emotional
response.
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He had cried.
Raymond Torres had never intended that Alex have
an emotional response again.
Emotions-feelings-were not part of his plan.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Well, I don't give a damn what Ellen
Lonsdale and Carol Cochran say, I say that
Kate's grounded for the next two weeks!" Alan
Lewis rose shakily to his feet, an empty
glass in his hand, and started toward the cupboard where
he kept his liquor. "Don't you think you've had
enough?" Marty Lewis asked, carefully keeping
her voice level. "It's not even noon yet. His
"Not even noon yet," Alan sneered in the mocking
singsong voice he always took on when his drinking was
becoming serious. "For Christ's sake, Mart, it's
Sunday. Even you don't have to go to work today."
"At least I go to work all week," Marty
replied, and then immediately wished she could retrieve
her words. But it was too late.
"Oh, back to that, are we?" Alan asked, wheeling
around to fix her with eyes bleary from too much liquor
and not enough sleep. "Well, for your information, it just
happens that the kind of job I'm qualified for
doesn't grow on trees. I'm not like you-I can't
just wander out
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someday and come home with a job. "Course, when I do
come home with a job, it pays about ten times what yours
does, but that doesn't count, does it?"
Marty took a deep breath, then let it out
slowly. "Alan, I'm sorry I said that. It
wasn't fair. And we're not talking about jobs
anyway. We're talking about Kate."
"Thass what I was talking about," Alan agreed,
his voice starting to slur. "You're the one who changed
the subject." He grinned inanely, and poured
several shots of bourbon into his glass, then
maneuvered back to the kitchen table. "But I don't
give a damn what we talk about. The subject of
our darling daughter is closed. She's grounded, and
thass that."
"No," Marty said, "that is not that. As long as
you're drunk, any decisions about Kate will be
made by me."
"Oh, ho, ho! My, aren't we the high-and-mighty
one? Well, let me tell you something, wife of
mine! As long as I'm in this house, I'll
decide what's best for my daughter."
Marty dropped any effort to cover her anger.
"At the rate you're going, you won't be in this house
in two more hours! And if you don't pull yourself
together, we won't even be able to keep this house!"
Alan lurched to his feet and towered over his wife.
"Are you threatening me?"
As his hand rose above his head, a third voice
filled the kitchen.
"If you hit her, I'll kill you, Daddy."
Both the elder Lewises turned to see Kate
standing in the kitchen doorway, her face streaked with
tears but her eyes blazing with anger.
"Kate, I told you I'd take care of this-was
Marty began, but Alan cut in, his voice
quavering.
"Kill me? You'll kill me? Nobody kills
their daddy ..."
"You're not my father," Kate said, struggling to hold
back her tears. "My father wouldn't drink like you do."
Alan lurched toward her, but Marty grabbed his arm,
holding him back. "Leave us alone,
Kate," she said.
BRAINCHILD

"Just go over to Bob's or something. Just for a few
hours. I'll get all this straightened out."
Kate gazed steadily at her father, but when she
spoke, her words were for her mother. "Will you send him
back to the hospital?"
"I ... I don't know ..." Marty faltered,
even though she already knew that the binge had gone on
too long, and there was no other choice. Alan had
switched from beer to bourbon on Friday afternoon, and
all day yesterday, while Kate had been gone,
he'd been steadily drinking. All day, and then all
night. "I'll do whatever has to be done. Just
leave us alone. Please?"
"Mom, let me help you," Kate pleaded, but
Marty shook her head.
"No! I'll take care of this! Just give me a
few hours, and when you get back, everything will be
fine."
Kate started to protest again, then changed her mind.
After the last five years, she knew the last thing her
mother needed during one of her father's binges was an
argument from her. "All right," she said.
Til go. But I'll call before I come back, and
if he's not gone, I won't come home."
"You won't even leave!" Alan Lewis suddenly
roared. "You take one step out of this house, young
lady, and you'll regret it!"
Kate ignored him, and walked out into the patio,
letting the screen door slam behind her. A moment
later she slammed the patio gate as well, and
hurried away down the street, her hands clenched
into fists as she tried to control her churning emotions.
In the kitchen, Alan Lewis glared drunkenly
at his wife. "Well, this is a fine fuckin"
mess you've made," he muttered. "A man's
wife shouldn't turn his little girl against him."
"I didn't," Marty hissed. "And she's not against
you. She loves you very much, except when you get like
this. And so do I."
"If you loved me-was Stop it, Alan!" Marty's
voice rose to a shout. "Just
JOHN SAUL
stop it! None of this is my fault, and none of it
is Kate's. It's your fault, Alan! Do you
hear me? Your fault!" She stormed out of the kitchen
and upstairs to the bedroom her husband had never
appeared in last night, shutting the door
behind her and locking it.
She had to get control of herself. Right now, shouting at
him would accomplish nothing. She had to calm herself
down and deal with the situation.
He'd be upstairs in a minute, pounding on the
door and alternately begging her forgiveness and
threatening her. And she'd have to get through it all once
more, and try to talk him into letting her drive him to the
hospital in Palo Alto to check himself into the
alcoholism unit. Or, if worse came
to worst, call them herself, and have them come for Alan with
an ambulance. That, though, had only happened
once, and she prayed it wouldn't happen again.
She went into the bathroom and washed her face with
cold water. Any second now, he'd be at the.
door, and the argument would begin. Only this time, it
wouldn't be about Kate. Kate, at least, would be out
of it. Now it would be the drinking again.
Five minutes went by, and nothing happened.
Finally Marty opened the bedroom door and stepped out
to the landing at the top of the stairs. From below, there was
only silence. "Alan?" she called. ,
There was no answer.
She started down the stairs, pausing at the bottom
to call her husband once more. When there was still
no answer, she headed for the kitchen. Perhaps he'd
passed out.
The kitchen was empty.
Oh, God, Marty groaned to herself. Now what?
She poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot she
always kept hot on the stove in the hopes that Alan
would choose it over alcohol, and tried to figure out
what to do.
At least he hadn't taken his car. If he had,
she'd have
BRAINCHILD

heard him pulling out of the garage. Still, she checked the
garage anyway. Both cars were still there.
Maybe she should call the police. No. If
he'd taken his car, she would have, but as long as he was
on foot, he couldn't hurt anyone. In fact,
one of the La Paloma police would probably
pick him up within the hour anyway.
Would they bring him home, or take him to the
hospital? Or maybe even to jail?
Marty decided she didn't really care.
Yesterday, last night, and this morning had been just
too exhausting. It was time for Alan to clean up his
own messes. She'd call no one, and do
nothing about finding him, at least until this evening.
Then, if he still wasn't home, she'd start
looking.
Her decision made, she began cleaning up the
kitchen, starting with Alan's liquor. She drained
the half turnbler of bourbon into the sink, then began
taking the bottles off the cupboard shelf.
One by one, she emptied them, too, into the drain, and
threw the bottles in the trash basket by the back
door.
Thirty minutes later, when the kitchen was spotless,
she started on the rest of the house.
Alex wandered through the village, doing his best
to follow Raymond Torres's instructions to keep
his eyes open and his mind clear. But so far, nothing
had happened. The village seemed familiar now,
and everything seemed to be in the right place, and
surrounded by the right things. After an hour, he stopped
in a complex of little shops that specialized in the
expensive items that so intrigued the computer people in
town.
In one window there was a small glass sphere that
seemed to have nothing in it but water. Then, when he
looked closer, he realized that there were tiny shrimp
swimming in the water, and a little bit of
seaweed. It was, according to the card next to it, a
fully balanced and self-contained ecosystem that would
live on in the
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sealed globe for years, needing only light
to survive. He watched it for a few minutes,
fascinated, and then a thought came into his head.
It's like my brain. Sealed up, with no way to get
at what's inside. A moment later he turned
away and continued up La Paloma Drive until
he came to the Square.
He stopped to gaze at the giant oak, and found
himself wondering if he'd ever climbed the tree, or
carved his initials in its trunk, or tied a swing
to its lower branches. But if he had, the memories
were gone now.
And then, very slowly, things began to change. His eyes
fixed on the base of the tree, and everything around him
seemed to fade away, almost as if the coastal fog
had drifted down from the hillsides and swallowed up
everything except himself and the tree.
Once again, as at the mission in San
Francisco, images began to come into his mind, and
something he had only vaguely remembered when he
came home from the Institute was suddenly
clearly visible.
There was a rope hanging from the lowest limb of the
tree, and at the end of the rope, a body hung.
Whose body?
Around the body, men on horseback were laughing.
And then a sudden pain lashed through his brain, and the
whispering began, as it had begun in the cemetery at
the mission in San Francisco.
The words were in Spanish, but he understood them
clearly.
"They take our land and our homes. They take our
lives. Venganza . . . venganza ..."
The words droned on and on in his mind, and then,
finally, Alex turned away from the ancient oak.
Standing a few yards away, staring at him, was Maria
Torres. His eyes met hers, and then she turned
and began walking toward the tiny plaza a few
blocks away.
As the strange mists gathered closer around him,
Alex followed the old woman.
BRAINCHILD

The plaza had changed, but as Alex sat on a
roughhewn bench, Maria Torres whispering beside him
in the Spanish he now clearly understood,
it seemed to him that the plaza had always looked this
way.
The mission church stood forty yards away, its
whitewashed walls glistening brightly in the sunlight.
Browncassocked priests, their feet clad in
sandals, made their way in and out of the sanctuary, and
in the shade of the building, three Indians lounged
on the ground.
Set at right angles to the church, the little mission
school stood with its doors and windows open to the
fresh air, and in the schoolyard five children were playing
while a black-habited nun looked on, her hands
modestly concealed under the voluminous material of her
sleeves.
On the other side of the plaza there was a small
store, its wood construction in odd contrast to the
substantial adobe of the mission buildings. As
Alex watched, a woman came out, and though she
looked directly at him, seemed not to see him.
He began to listen as Maria whispered to him of the
church and of the brightly painted images of the saints that
lined its walls.
Then Maria began whispering to him of La Paloma
and of the people who had built the village and loved it.
"But there were others, was she went on.
"Others came, and took it all away. Go,
Alejandro. Go into the church and see how it was.
See what once was here."
As if in a dream, he rose from the bench and crossed
the plaza, then stepped through the doors of the
sanctuary. There was a coolness inside the church,
and the light from two stained-glass windows, one above the
door, the other above the altar, danced colorfully
on the walls. In niches all around the sanctuary
stood the saints Maria had told him of, and he
went to one of them and looked up into the martyred eyes
of the statue. He lit a candle for the saint, then
turned and
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once more left the church. Across the plaza, still
sitting on the bench, Maria Torres smiled at
him and nodded. Without a word being spoken, Alex
turned, left the plaza, and began walking through the
dusty paths of the village, the whispering voices in
his head guiding his feet.
Marty Lewis woke up and listened for the normal
morning sounds of the house. Then, slowly, she came
to the realization that it was not morning at all, and that the
house was empty.
A nap.
After Alan had left, and she'd cleaned up the
house, she'd decided to take a nap.
She rolled over on the bed and stared at the clock.
Two-thirty. She had been asleep for almost three
hours. Groaning tiredly, she rose to her feet and
went to the window, where she stared out for a moment into the
hills behind the house, and wondered if Alan were up
there somewhere, sleeping off his bender. Possibly so.
Or he might have walked into the village and be
sitting right now at one of the bars, adding fuel to the
fires of his rage.
But he wasn't at the Medical Center. If he
were, she would have heard from them by now.
She slipped into a housecoat and went downstairs,
wondering once more if she should call the police, and
once more deciding against it. Without a car, there was little
harm Alan could do.
She poured the last of the morning's coffee, thick with
having been heated too long, down the drain, and
began preparing a fresh pot.
When Alan came home-t/alan came home-he
was going to be in need of coffee.
She was just about to begin measuring the coffee into the filter
when she heard the back gate suddenly open, then
close again. Relief flooded through her.
He'd come back.
BRAINCHILD

She went on with her measuring, sure that before she was
done the door would open and she would hear Alan's
voice apologizing once again for his drunkenness and
pleading with her for forgiveness.
But nothing happened.
She finished setting up the coffee maker, turned it
on, and, as it began to drip, went to the back door.
Two minutes later, her heart pounding in her
throat, she knew what was going to happen to her, and
knew there was nothing she could do about it.
Alex blinked, and looked around him. He was sitting
on a bench in the plaza, staring across at the village
hall and at the black-clad figure of Maria
Torres disappearing down the side street toward the
little cemetery and her home.
A thought flitted through his mind: She looks like a
nun. An old Spanish nun.
Suddenly he became aware of someone waving to him from
the steps of the library, and though he wasn't quite sure
who it was, he waved back.
But how had he gotten to the plaza?
The last thing he remembered, he'd been
at the Square looking at the old oak tree and
trying to remember if he'd ever played in it when he
was a boy.
And now he was in the plaza, two blocks away.
But he was tired, as if he'd walked a couple of
miles, much of it uphill.
He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter past
three. The last time he had looked, only a few
minutes ago, it was one-thirty.
Almost two hours had gone by, and he had no
memory of it. As he started home, his mind began
working at the problem. Hours, he knew, didn't
simply disappear. If he thought about it long enough,
he knew, he would figure out what had happened
during those hours, and know why he didn't remember
them.
JOHN SAUL
I
The back door slammed, and Marsh looked up from the
medical journal he was reading in time to see Alex
come in from the kitchen. "Hi!"
Alex stopped, then turned toward Marsh. "Hi,"
he replied.
"Where you been?"
Alex shrugged. "Nowhere."
Marsh offered his son a smile. "Funny, that's
exactly where I always was when I was your age."
Alex made no response, and slowly the smile
faded away from Marsh's face as Alex silently
left the room, drifting upstairs toward his own
room. A few months ago, before the accident,
Alex's eyes would have lit up, and he would have asked
where, exactly, nowhere was, and then they would have been
off, the conversation quickly devolving into total
nonsense on the subject of the exact location of
nowhere and just precisely what one was doing when one was
doing nothing in the middle of nowhere.
Now there was nothing in his eyes.
For Marsh, Alex's eyes had become symbolic
of all the changes that had come over him since the
accident.
The old Alex had had eyes full of life, and
Marsh had always been able to read his son's mood with
one glance.
But now his eyes showed nothing. When he looked
into them, all he saw was a reflection of himself. And
yet, he had no sense that Alex was trying to hide
anything. Rather, it was as if there was nothing there; as if the
flatness of his personality had become visible in his
eyes.
The eyes, Marsh remembered, had sometimes been
referred to as the windows to the soul. And if that was
true, then Alex had no soul. Marsh felt
chilled by the thought, then tried to banish it from his mind.
But all afternoon, the thought kept coming back to him.
Perhaps Ellen's feeling on that awful night in May
had been right after all. Perhaps Raymond Torres
had not saved him at all.
Perhaps in a way Alex was truly dead.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kate Lewis listened to the hollow ringing of the phone
long past the time when she knew it was going to go
unanswered. For the fourth time in the last hour, she
told herself that her mother must have taken her father to the
hospital. But if she had, why hadn't she left
a message on the answering machine? Why hadn't the
answering machine even been turned on? Worried,
she hung up the phone at the back of Jake's and
returned to the table she and Bob Carey had been
occupying throughout the long Sunday afternoon.
"Still nothing?" Bob asked as Kate slid back
into the booth.
Kate tried to force a casual shrug, but failed.
"I don't know what to do. I want to go home, but
Mom said to call first."
"You've been calling all afternoon, " Bob pointed
out. 'Why don't we go up there, and if they're still
fighting, we can leave again. We don't even have to go
in. But
111 bet she took him to the hospital." He
reached across
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the table and squeezed Kate's hand reassuringly.
"Look, if he was as drunk as you said he was,
she was probably so busy getting him out of the house
and into the car that she didn't have time to turn on the
machine."
Kate nodded reluctantly, though she was still
unconvinced. Always before, her mother had left a
message for her, or if her father was really bad, not
even tried to take him to the hospital. Instead,
she'd called an ambulance.
And this morning, her father had been really bad. Still,
she couldn't just go on sitting around Jake's.
"Okay," she said at last.
Ten minutes later they pulled into the Lewises"
driveway, and Bob shut off the engine of his
Porsche. They stared first at the open garage door
and the two cars that still sat inside it. Then they turned
their attention toward the house.
"Well, at least they're not fighting," Kate said,
but made no move to get out of the car.
"Maybe she called an ambulance, and went with it,"
Bob suggested.
Kate shook her head. "She would have followed it, so
she wouldn't have to call someone for a ride home."
"You want to stay here while I go see if they're
home?" Bob asked.
Kate considered a moment, then shook her head. Her
hand trembling, she opened the door of the Porsche and
got out. With Bob behind her, she started up the walk
to the front door.
When she found it unlocked, she breathed a sigh of
relief. One thing she was absolutely certain
of-her mother would never leave the house unlocked. She
pushed the door open and stepped inside.
"Mom? I'm home!" she called out. An empty
silence hung over the house, and Kate's heart
began beating faster. "Mom?" she called again,
louder this time. She glanced nervously at Bob.
"Something's wrong," she whispered. "If the door's
unlocked, Mom should be here."
BRAINCHILD

"Maybe she's upstairs," Bob
suggested. "You want me to go look?"
Kate nodded silently, and Bob started up the
stairs. A moment later he was back. "Nobody
up there, was he told her. "Let's look in the
kitchen. his
"No," Kate said. Then, her voice quavering,
she spoke again. "Let's call the police. His
"The police?" Bob echoed. "Why?"
"Because I'm scared," Kate said, no longer trying
to control the fear in her voice. "Something's wrong,
and I don't want to go into the kitchen!"
"Aw, come on, Kate," Bob told her, starting
down the hall toward the closed kitchen door.
"Nothing's wrong at all. She probably just
called an ambulance and-was He fell silent as he
pushed open the kitchen door. "Oh, God," he
whispered. For just a moment he stood perfectly still.
Then he stepped back and let the door swing
closed. He turned unsteadily around, his face
ashen. "Kate," he whispered. "Your mom-I think
. . . She looks like she's dead."
Kate stared at him for a moment while the words slowly
registered in her mind. Then, without thinking, she started
down the hall, pushing her way past Bob and into the
kitchen. Wildly, she scanned the room,
and then found what she was looking for.
Her knees buckled, and she sank sobbing to the
floor.
Roscoe Finnerty glanced up at torn
Jackson. "You okay?"
Jackson nodded. "I can handle it." He stared at
Marty Lewis's body for a moment, trying to get a
handle on what he was feeling. It wasn't at all
like last spring, when he'd almost fallen apart at the
sight of Alex Lonsdale's broken body
trapped in the wreckage of the Mustang. No, this was
different. Except for the look on her face, and the
pallor of her skin, this woman could be sleeping.
He knelt and pressed his finger to her neck.
JOHN SAUL
She wasn't sleeping.
"What do you think?" he asked, getting to his feet
once more.
"Until I talk to the kids, I don't think
anything." A siren sounded, and a few seconds
later an ambulance pulled into the driveway. Two
medics came into the room and repeated the procedure
Finnerty and Jackson had gone through when they'd
arrived a few minutes earlier. "Don't move
her," Finnerty told them. "Just make
sure she's dead, then don't do anything till the
detectives get up here. torn, you get outside
and make sure none of the rubberneckers try to come
inside, and I'll have a talk with the kids."
Finnerty left the kitchen and went back to the living
room, where he found Kate Lewis and Bob
Carey still sitting on the sofa where he'd left them,
Kate sobbing softly while Bob tried to comfort her.
"How's she doing?" Finnerty asked. Bob looked
dazedly up at him.
"How do you think she's doing?" he demanded, his
voice cracking. "Her mom's . . . her mom's
..." And then he fell silent as his own emotions
overcame him and he choked back a sob.
"It's all right," Finnerty told him. "Just try
to take it easy." He searched his memory; then it
came to him. "You're Bob Carey, aren't you?"
Bob nodded, and seemed to calm down a little.
"Have you called your folks yet? Do they know what's
happened?" Bob shook his head. "Okay. I'll
call them and have them come over here. Then I'd like
to talk to you. Will that be okay?"
"Nothing happened," Bob said. "We just came over
here, found her, and called the cops."
Finnerty patted the boy on the shoulder.
"Okay. We'll get the details in a little
while." He found the phone and the phone book, and
spent the next five minutes assuring Dave
Carey that his son was all right. Then he went back
to the living room.
Slowly he pieced together the story. The longer he
BRAINCHILD

listened, the more he was sure he knew what had
happened. It was a story he'd heard over and over
during his years as a cop, but this was the first time in his
experience that the story had ever ended in death. Only
when Dave Carey arrived did Finnerty return
to the kitchen.
Two detectives were there, and Finnerty watched in
silence as they went over the room, methodically
looking for clues as to what might have happened there.
"How's it look?" he asked when Bill Ryan
finally nodded to him.
Ryan shrugged. "Without talking to anybody, I'd
say it was premeditated, and pretty cold. No
signs of a fight, no signs of forced entry, no
signs of rape."
"If what the kids say is true, it was the
husband. He was drunk, and they were having
an argument when the girl left this morning. In
fact, that's why she left- her father was pissed at
her, and her mother was trying to get him to lay off. The
girl thinks her mother was going to try to get her father
into detox today."
"And he didn't want to go."
"Right."
Suddenly the back door opened, and torn
Jackson appeared, his right arm supporting a
bleary-eyed man whose hands were trembling and whose face
was drawn. Without being told, Finnerty knew
immediately who he was.
"Mr. Lewis?"
Alan Lewis nodded mutely, his eyes fastened
on the sheet-covered form on the floor. "Oh,
God," he whispered.
"Read him his rights," Ryan said. "Let's see
if we can get a confession right now."
"I still can't believe it," Carol Cochran sighed.
"I just can't believe that Alan would have killed
Marty, no matter how drunk he was."
It was a little after nine, and the Cochrans had been at
the Lonsdales" since six-thirty. All through a
dispir-
JOHN SAUL
ited dinner which had gone all but untouched, the
Cochrans and the Lonsdales had been discussing what
had happened in La Paloma that day. Now, as they
sat in the still only partially furnished living room,
with Lisa and Alex upstairs and Kim asleep in
the guest room, the discussion threatened to go on right through
the evening.
"Cant we talk about something else?" Ellen
wondered, although she knew the answer. All over
La Paloma, there was only one thing being talked about
tonight: did Alan Lewis kill his wife, or did
someone else?
"Don't ever underestimate what a drunk can do,"
Marsh Lonsdale told Carol, ignoring his
wife's question.
"But Alan was always a harmless drunk. My God,
Marsh, Alan's not very effectual when he's sober.
And when he's drunk, all he does is pass
out."
"Hardly," Jim Cochran observed. "Last time
I played golf with him, he wrapped his putter
around a tree, and took a swing at me when I
suggested maybe he ought to lay off the sauce."
"That's still a far cry from killing your wife," Carol
insisted.
"But there weren't any signs of a struggle, was Marsh
reminded her. "As far as the police can tell,
Marty knew whoever killed her. his
Carol shook her head dismissively. "Marty
knew everybody in town, just like all the rest of us.
Besides, she always felt safe in that house, although
God alone knows why." Her eyes scanned the
Lonsdales' living room, and she shuddered
slightly. "I'm sorry, but these old places
always give me the willies."
"Carol!"
"Honey, Ellen and I have been friends long enough so I
don't have to lie to her. Besides, I told her when she
first started looking at this place that if she didn't
do something drastic to it within six months, I'd never
visit her again. I mean, just look at it-it looks
like some kind of monastery or something. I always feel
that there
BRAINCHILD

ought to be chanting going on in the background. And what
about the windows? All covered up with wrought iron-like
a prison!" Suddenly running out of steam, she
fell into a slightly embarrassed silence, then
grinned crookedly at Ellen. "Well,
it's what I think."
"And in a way, you're right, was Ellen agreed.
"Except that I happen to like all those things you
hate. But I don't see what it has to do with
Marty. his
"It's just that she always said that old fortress made her
feel safe, and look what happened to her."
"Honey," Jim protested, "murders can happen
anywhere. It didn't matter where the house was, or
what it looked like."
Once more, Carol sighed. "I know. And I also know
it looks as though Alan must have done it. But I
don't care. I just don't think that's the way it
happened at all."
Suddenly Lisa appeared in the wide archway that
separated the living room from the foyer, and the four
adults fell guiltily silent.
"Are you still talking about Mrs. Lewis?"' Lisa
asked uncertainly. Her mother hesitated, then
nodded. "Can I ... well, is it all right if I
sit down here and listen?"
"I thought you and Alex were listening to some records-was
"I don't want to, was Lisa said, and the sharpness
in her voice made the Lonsdales and the Cochrans
exchange a curious glance. It was Ellen
who finally spoke.
"Lisa, did something happen up there? Did you and
Alex have a fight about something?" Lisa hesitated,
then shook her head, but it seemed to Ellen the girl
was holding something back. "Tell us what happened,"
she urged. "Whatever it is, it can't be so bad that you
can't tell us about it. Did you two have a fight?"
"With Alex?" Lisa suddenly blurted. "How can
you have a fight with Alex? He doesn't care about
anything, so he won't fight about anything!"
Suddenly she was crying. "Oh, I'm sorry. I
shouldn't say that but-was
"But it's true," Marsh said softly. He got up
and went
JOHN SAUL
to Lisa, putting his arms around her. "It's okay,
Lisa. We all know what Alex is like, and how
frustrating it is. Now, tell us what happened."
Somewhat mollified, Lisa sat down and dabbed at
her eyes with her father's handkerchief. "We were listening
to records, and I wanted to talk about Mrs.
Lewis, but Alex wouldn't. I mean, he'd
talk, but all he'd say were weird things. It's like
he doesn't care what happened to her, or who did
it. He ... he doesn't even care that
she's dead. was Her eyes fixed on her mother.
"Mom, he said he never even met Mrs.
Lewis, and even if he had, it wouldn't matter.
He said everybody dies, and it doesn't make
any difference how." Burying her face in her
handkerchief, she began sobbing quietly.
There was a long silence in the room. Carol
Cochran moved over to sit next to her daughter,
while Marsh, his expression cold, gave his wife
a long look. "It ... it doesn't mean
anything-was Ellen began, but he cut her off.
"No matter what it means, he doesn't need
to say things like that. He's smart enough to keep his mouth
shut sometimes. was He turned and started toward the
foyer and the stairs.
"Marsh, leave him alone, was Ellen protested, but
it was too late. All of them could hear the echo of his
feet tramping up the stairs. Ellen, her voice
trembling, turned back to Lisa. "Really,
Lisa, was she said again, "it j doesn't mean
anything. ..." j
I
Marsh walked into Alex's room without knocking, his
were' breath coming in short, angry rasps, and found his
son i lying on the bed, a book propped
against his drawn-up j knees. From the stereo, the
precise notes ofEine Kleine backslash
Nachtmusik echoed off the bare walls. Alex
glanced up i at his father, then put the book
aside.
"Are the Cochrans gone?" I
"No, they're not," Marsh grated. "No thanks
to you. What the hell did you say to Lisa?" Then,
before Alex could answer, he went on, his voice
icily cold. "Never
BRAINCHILD

mind. I know what you said. What I want to know is
why you said it. She's down there crying, and I can't
say that I blame her."
"Crying? How come?"
Marsh stared at Alex's serene face. Was it
possible the boy really didn't know? And then, as he
made a conscious effort to bring his breath under control,
he realized that it was, indeed, quite possible that
Alex didn't know what effect his words would have on
Lisa.
"Because of what you said," he replied. "About Mrs.
Lewis, and about dying."
Alex shrugged. "I didn't know Mrs.
Lewis. Lisa wanted to talk about her, but how could
I? If you don't know someone, you can't talk about
them, can you?"
"It wasn't just that, Alex," Marsh said. "It was
what you said about dying. That everybody dies, and that it
doesn't matter how they die."
"But it's true, isn't it?" Alex countered.
"Everybody does die. And if everybody dies,
why should it be a big deal?"
"Alex, Marty Lewis was murdered."
Alex nodded, but then said, "But she's still dead,
isn't she?"
Marsh took a deep breath, and when he spoke, he
chose his words carefully. "Alex, there are some things
you have to understand, even though they don't have any meaning
to you right now. They have to do with feelings and emotions."
"I know about emotions, was Alex replied. "I just
don't know what they feel like."
"Exactly. But other people do know, and you used to know.
And someday, when you're all well again, you'll feel
them too. But in the meantime, you have to be careful, because
you can hurt people's feelings by what you say."""
"Even if you tell them the truth?" Alex asked.
"Even if you tell them the truth. You have to remember
that right now, you don't know the full truth
about everything. For instance, you don't know that you can
JOHN SAUL
hurt people mentally as well as physically. And that's
how you hurt Lisa. You hurt her feelings. She
cares a great deal about you, and you made her feel as
though you don't care about anything."
Alex said nothing. Watching him, Marsh couldn't see
whether the boy was thinking about his words or not. And then,
once again, Alex spoke.
"Dad, I don't think I do care about anything.
Not the way other people do, anyway. Isn't that what's
still wrong with me? Isn't that why Dr. Torres
says I'll never get well? Because I don't have
all those feelings and emotions that other people have, and I
never will?"
The hopelessness of Alex's words was only reinforced
by the tonelessness of his voice. Suddenly Marsh wanted
to reach out and hold Alex as he'd held him when he
was a baby. And yet he knew it would do no good.
It wouldn't make Alex feel more secure or more
loved, for Alex didn't feel insecure, and
didn't feel unloved.
He felt nothing. And there was nothing Marsh could do about
it.
"That's right, was he said quietly. "That's
exactly what's wrong, and I don't know how
to fix it." He reached out and squeezed Alex's
shoulder, though he knew the gesture was much more for himself
than for Alex. "I wish I could fix it, son.
I wish I could help you be the way you used to be, but
I can't."
"It's all right, Dad," Alex replied. "I
don't hurt, and I don't remember what I
used to be like. his
Marsh tried to swallow the lump that had formed in his
throat. "It's okay, son," he managed to say.
"I know how hard everything is for you, and I know how
hard you're trying. And we'll get you through all this.
I promise. Some way, we'll get you through."
Then, unwilling to let Alex see him cry, Marsh
left the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
Ten minutes later, when he had his emotions back
under control, he went downstairs.
"He's sorry," he told Lisa and her parents.
"He says he's sorry about what he said, and he
didn't really mean
BRAINCHILD

it." But a few minutes later, as the Cochrans
left, he wondered if anyone had
believed his words.
Alex woke up, and for a moment didn't realize where
he was. And then, as the walls of his room came
into focus, so also did the dream that had awakened him.
He remembered the details, which were as clear in his
mind as if he had just experienced them, yet there was
no beginning to the dream.
He was just there, in a house very much like the one he lived
in, with white plaster walls and a tile floor in the
kitchen. He was talking to a woman, and even though
he didn't know the woman, did not recognize her
face, he knew it was Martha Lewis.
And then there was a sound outside, and Mrs. Lewis
went to the back door, where she spoke to someone. She
opened the door and let the other person in.
For a moment Alex thought the other person was himself, but
then he realized that although the boy resembled him, his
skin was darker, and his eyes were almost as black as his
hair. And he was angry, though he was trying not to show
it.
Mrs. Lewis, too, seemed to think the other boy
was Alex, and she was ignoring Alex now, talking
only to the other boy, and calling him Alex.
She offered the boy a Coke, and the boy took it.
But then, after he'd taken only a couple
sips of the Coke, he set it down on the table and
abruptly stood up.
Muttering softly, his eyes blazing with fury, he
started toward Mrs. Lewis, and began killing her.
Alex remained still in the corner of the kitchen, his
eyes glued to the scene that was being played out a few
feet away.
He could feel the pain in Mrs. Lewis's neck
as the dark-skinned boy's fingers tightened around it.
And he could feel the terror in her soul as she began
to realize she was going to die.
But he could do nothing except stand where he was,
helplessly watching, for as he endured the pain Mrs.
JOHN SAUL
Lewis was feeling, he was also enduring the pain of the
thought that kept repeating itself in his brain.
It's me. The boy who is killing her is me.
And now, fully awake, the thought stayed with him, as
did the memory of the feelings he'd had during the
killing he'd watched.
Feelings. Emotions.
Pity for Mrs. Lewis, anger toward the boy,
fear of what might happen after the murder was done.
Then, just as Mrs. Lewis died and Alex woke
up, the emotions were gone. But the memory of
them remained. The memory, and the image of the killing,
and the words the boy had spoken as he killed.
Alex got out of bed and went downstairs. In the
back of the third volume of the dictionary, he found the
translation of the words the boy had repeated over and
over again.
Venganza . . . vengeance.
Ladrones . . . thieves.
Asesinos . . . murderers.
But vengeance for what?
Who were the thieves and murderers?
None of it made any sense to him, and even though
he'd recognized her in his dream, Alex still
couldn't remember ever meeting Martha Lewis.
Nor did he know Spanish.
Then the boy in the dream couldn't have been him.
It was just a dream.
He put the dictionary back on the shelf, then
took himself back to bed.
But the next morning, when he opened up the La
Paloma Herald, he stared at the picture of
Martha Lewis for a long time.
It was, without any question, the woman he had seen in
his dream.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
On the morning of Martha Lewis's funeral,
Ellen Lonsdale woke early. She lay in bed
staring out the window at the cloudless California sky.
It was not, she decided, the right kind of day for a
funeral. On this, of all mornings, the coastal
fog should have been hanging over the hills above La
Paloma, reaching with damp fingers down into the
village below. Beside her, Marsh stirred, then opened
one eye.
"You don't have to get up yet," Ellen told him.
"It's still early, but I couldn't sleep."
Marsh came fully awake, and propped himself up
on one elbow. He reached out a tentative finger
to touch the flesh of Ellen's arm, but she shrank
away from him, threw back the covers, and got out of
bed.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, though he
knew full well that she didn't. If she wanted
to talk to anybody, it would be Raymond Torres.
Increasingly he was feeling more and more cut off from both
his wife and his son.
JOHN SAUL
As Marsh had expected, Ellen shook her head.
"I'm just not sure how much more I can cope with," she
said, then forced a smile. "But I will," she
went on.
"Maybe you shouldn't," Marsh suggested. "Maybe you
and I should just take off for a while, and see if we can
find each other again."
Ellen stopped dressing to face Marsh with incredulous
eyes. "Go away? How on earth can we do that?
What about Alex? What about Kate Lewis?
Who's going to take care of them?"
Marsh shrugged; then he, too, got out of bed.
"Valerie Benson's been taking care of Kate,
and she can go right on doing it. Hell, at least it
gives her something better to do than whine about how she
never should have gotten a divorce. his
"That's a cruel thing to say-was
"It's not cruel, honey," Marsh interrupted.
"It's true, and you know it. As for Alex, he's quite
capable of taking care of himself, even if he isn't
like he used to be. But you and I are having a problem,
whether we want to face it or not." For a split
second Marsh wondered why it was all going to come out
now, and if he should try to hold his feelings in. But
he knew he couldn't. "Did you know you don't
talk to me anymore? For three days now, you've
barely said a word, and before that, all you were doing was
telling me what Raymond Torres had
to say about how we should run our lives. Not just
Alex's life, but ours too."
"There's no difference," Ellen said. "Right now,
Alex's life is our life, and Raymond knows
what's best. his
"Raymond Torres is a brain surgeon, and a
damned fine one. But he's not a shrink or a
minister-or even God Almighty-even though he's
trying to act as though he is."
"He saved Alex's life-was j
"Did he?" Marsh asked. He shook his head
sadly.! "Sometimes I wonder if he saved
Alex, or if he stole! him. Can't you see
what's happening, Ellen? Alex isn't! ours
anymore, and neither are you. You both belong to bar
BRAINCHILD

Raymond Torres now, and I'm not sure that
isn't exactly what he wants."
Ellen sank onto the foot of the bed and put her
hands over her ears, as if by shutting out the sound of
Marsh's voice she could shut out the words he'd
spoken as well. She looked up at him
beseechingly. "Don't do this to me, Marsh," she
pleaded. "I have to do what I think is
best, don't I?"
She looked so close to tears, so defeated, that
Marsh felt his bitterness drain away. He knelt
beside his wife and took her hands, cold and limp, in
his own. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I
don't know what any of us has to do anymore.
All I know is that I love you, and I love
Alex, and I want us to be a family again."
Ellen was silent for a moment, then slowly nodded.
"I know," she said at last. "But I just keep
wondering what's coming next."
"Nothing's next," Marsh replied. "There's no
connection between Alex and Marty Lewis. What
happened to Alex was an accident. Marty Lewis
was murdered, and unless Alan can come up with something
better than "I don't remember anything,"
I'd say he's going to be tried for it, and found
guilty. his
Ellen nodded glumly. "But I keep having a
feeling that there's more to it than that. I keep getting this
strange feeling that there's some kind of curse hanging
over us."
"That," Marsh told her, "is the silliest thing
I've heard in months. There's no such thing as
curses, Ellen. What's happening to us
is life. It's as simple as that."
But it's not, Ellen thought as she finished dressing,
then went downstairs to begin fixing breakfast. In
life, you raise your family and enjoy your friends.
Everything is ordinary. But Alex isn't ordinary,
and someone killing Marty isn't ordinary, and getting
up every morning and wondering if you're going to get through
the day isn't ordinary.
She glanced at the clock. In another five
minutes
JOHN SAUL
Marsh would be down, and a few minutes later,
Alex, too, would appear. That, at least, was
ordinary, and she would concentrate on that. In her
mind, she began to make a list of things she could do that
would make her life seem as unexceptional and
routine as it once had been, but by the time Marsh and
Alex appeared, she had come up with nothing. She
poured them each a cup of coffee, and kissed Alex
on the cheek.
He made no response, and, as always, a pang of
disappointment twisted at her stomach.
She mixed up a can of frozen orange juice and
poured a glass for her husband and one for her son.
It was then that she noticed that Alex was
dressed for school, not for Marty Lewis's
funeral.
"Honey, you're going to have to change your clothes. You
can't wear those to the funeral. his
"I decided I'm not going, was Alex said, draining
his glass of orange juice in one long gulp.
Marsh glanced up from the front page of the paper.
"Of course you're going," he said.
"Alex, you have to go, was Ellen protested. "Marty
was one of my best friends, and Kate's always been a
friend of yours."
"But it's stupid. I didn't even know Kate's
mother. Why should I go to her funeral? It doesn't
mean anything to me."
Ellen, too stunned by Alex's words to respond,
slid the muffins under the broiler, and reminded herself of
what Raymond Torres had told her over and
over again: Don't get upset. Deal with Alex
on his own level, a level that has nothing to do with
feelings. She searched her mind, trying to find something
that would reach him.
There was so little, now.
More and more, she was realizing that relationships- i
Alex's as well as her own and everyone
else's-were! based on feelings: on
love, on anger, on pity, on all the bar
emotions that she'd always taken for granted, and. that
con* Alex no longer had. And slowly, all his
relationships
BRAINCHILD

were disappearing. But how could she stop it? Her thoughts were
interrupted by Marsh's voice. She turned to see
him staring angrily at Alex.
"Does it make any difference that we'd like you to go?"
she heard him ask. "That it would mean a lot to us for
you to be there with us?" He sat back, his arms folded
across his chest, and Ellen knew he was going to say no
more until Alex came up with some kind of answer
to his question.
Alex sat still at the table, analyzing what his father
had just said.
He'd made a mistake, just as he'd made a
mistake with Lisa the other night. He could see from
the look on his father's face that he was angry, and now
he had to figure out why.
And yet, in his mind, he knew why.
He'd hurt his mother's feelings, so his father was
angry.
He was starting to understand feelings, ever since
the dream he'd had about Mrs. Lewis. He could still
remember how he'd felt in the dream, even though
he'd felt nothing since. At least he now had the
memory of a feeling. It was a beginning.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, knowing the words were
what his father wanted to hear. "I guess I wasn't
thinking."
I guess you weren't," his father agreed. "Now, I
suggest you get yourself upstairs and into your suit, and
when you go to that funeral-which you will do-I will expect you
to act as if you care about what happened to Marty
Lewis. Clear?"
"Yes, sir," Alex said. He rose from the table
and left the kitchen. But as he started up the stairs,
he could hear his parents' raised voices, and though the
words were indistinct, he knew what they were talking
about.
They were talking about him, about how strange he was.
JOHN SAUL
That, he knew, was what a lot of people talked about
now.
He knew what happened when he came into a room.
People who had been talking suddenly stopped, and their
eyes fixed on him.
Other people simply looked away.
Not, of course, that it bothered him. The only thing that
bothered him was the dream he'd had, but he still hadn't
figured out what it meant, except that it seemed that
if he had feelings in his dreams, he should, sooner
or later, have them when he was awake, too. And when
he did, he'd be like everyone else.
Unless, of course, he really had killed Mrs.
Lewis.
Maybe, after all, there was a reason to go to the
funeral. Maybe if he actually saw her body,
he'd remember whether or not he had killed her.
Alex stepped through the gate of the little cemetery, and
immediately knew that something was wrong.
It was happening again.
He had a clear memory of this place, and now it
no longer looked as it should have.
The walls were old and worn, and the lawn-the soft
grass that the priests always tended so well-was
gone. In its place was barren earth, covered only
in small patches by tiny clumps of crabgrass.
The tombstones, too, didn't look right. There were
too many of them, and they, like the walls, seemed to have
worn away so he could barely read the names on them.
Nor were there flowers on the graves, as there always had
been before.
He gazed at the faces of the people around him. None of
them were familiar.
All of them were strangers, and none of them belonged
here.
Then the now-familiar pain slashed through his brain, and the
voices started, whispering in his ears.
"Ladrones . . . asesinos ..."
Suddenly he had an urge to turn around and run
BRAINCHILD

away. Run from the pain in his head, and the voices,
and the memories.
He felt a hand on his arm, and tried to pull
away, but the grip tightened, and the touch of strong
fingers gouging into his flesh suddenly cut through the
voices.
"Alex," he heard his father whisper. "Alex,
what's wrong?"
Alex shook his head, and glanced around. His mother was
looking at him worriedly. A few feet away
he recognized Lisa Cochran with her parents.
He scanned the rest of the crowd: Kate Lewis
stood next to the flowercovered coffin, with Valerie
Benson at her side. Over by the wall, he
recognized the Evanses.
"Alex?" he heard his father say again.
"Nothing, Dad, " Alex whispered back.
"I'm okay."
"You're sure?"
Alex nodded. "I just ... I just thought I
remembered something, that's all. But it's gone now."
His father's grip relaxed, and once more Alex let
his eyes wander over the cemetery.
The voices were silent now, and the cemetery suddenly
seemed right again.
And why had he thought about priests?
He gazed up at the village hall that had once
been a mission, and wondered how long it had been
since there had been priests here. Certainly there
hadn't been any since he was born.
Then why had he remembered priests tending the
cemetery?
And why had all the faces of the people looked strange
to him?
The words that had been whispered in the depths of his mind
came back to him. Thieves . . . murderers
..."
The words from his dream. All that was happening was that he
was remembering the words from his dream. But deep in his
mind, he knew that it was more. The words had
meaning, and the dream had meaning, and a" of it was more than
dreams and false memories.
JOHN SAUL
I
All of it, some way, was real, but he couldn't think
about it now. There were too many people here, and he could feel
them watching him. He had to act as if nothing was
wrong.
He forced himself to concentrate on the funeral then,
focusing on the coffin next to the grave.
And then, once more, he heard his father's voice.
"What the hell is that son of a bitch doing here?"
He followed his father's eyes. A few yards
away, standing alone, he saw Raymond Torres.
He nodded, and Torres nodded back.
He's watching me, Alex suddenly thought. He
didn t come here for the funeral at all. He came
here to watch me.
Deep in his mind, at the very edges of his consciousness,
Alex felt a sudden flicker of emotion.
It was so quick, and so unfamiliar, that he almost
didn't recognize it. But it was there, and it
wasn't a dream. Something deep inside him was coming
alive again-and it was fear.
"How are you, Alex?" Raymond
Torres's hand extended. Alex took it, as he
knew he was expected to. The funeral had ended
an hour ago, and most of the people who had been there were
gathered in Valerie Benson's patio, talking
quietly, and searching for the right words to say to Kate.
Alex had been sitting alone, staring at a small
fishpond and the waterfall that fed it, caret when
Torres had approached. 1
"Okay," he said, feeling the doctor's sharp
eyes oot him. 1
"Something happened at the cemetery, didn't it? was

Alex hesitated, then nodded. "It . . . well,
it was sorfl of like what happened up in San
Francisco."
Torres nodded. "I see. And something happened
here* too." A statement, not a question. J9
Alex hesitated, then nodded. "The same thing, fl
came in, and for a minute I thought I recognized
thfl house, but it's different than I remember it.
It's thiJust
BRAINCHILD

fishpond. The whole patio looked familiar,
except the fishpond. I just don't
remember it at all."
"Maybe it's new. His
"It doesn't look new," Alex replied.
"Besides, I asked Mrs. Benson about it, and she
said it's always been here."
Again Torres nodded. "I think you'd better come
down tomorrow, and we'll talk about it."
Suddenly his father appeared at his side. Alex
felt his father's arm fall over his shoulders, but made
no move to pull away. "He'll be going to school
tomorrow," he heard his father say.
Torres shrugged. "After school's fine."
Marsh hesitated. Every instinct in him was telling him
to inform Torres that he wouldn't be bringing Alex to him
at all anymore.
But not here. He nodded curtly, making a mental
note to clear his schedule tomorrow so that he could take
Alex to Palo Alto himself. "That will be fine. was
And tomorrow afternoon, he added to himself, you and I will have our
last conversation. Keeping his arm around Alex's
shoulder, he started to draw his son away from
Torres, but Torres spoke again.
"Before you make any decisions, I'd like to suggest that
you read the waiver you signed very carefully. was Then
Torres himself turned and strode out of the
patio. A moment later, a car engine roared
to life, and tires squealed as Torres shot down
the road.
As he drove out of La Paloma, Raymond
Torres wondered if it had been a mistake to go
to Martha Lewis's funeral after all. He hadn't
really intended to go. It had been years since he was
part of La Paloma, and he knew that he would be
something of an intruder there.
And that, of course, was exactly what had happened.
He d arrived, and recognized many of the faces, but
most of the people hadn't even acknowledged his presence. It
was just as his mother had told him it would be
JOHN SAUL
when he stopped to see her before going into the cemetery.
"Loco," she had said. "You are my son, but you are
j loco. You think they want you there? Just because you bar
have a fancy degree, and a fancy hospital
all your own, I you think they will accept you? Then go!
Go let them I treat you the way they always did. You
think they've I changed? Gringos never change.
Oh, they won't say 1 anything! They'll be
polite. But see if any of them invite were' you
to their homes." Her eyes had flashed with fury, I
and her body had quivered with the pent-up
anger of 1 the years. "Their homes!" she had
spit. "The homes J they stole from our
ancestors!" 1
"That was generations ago, Mama," he had protested.
I "It's all forgotten. None of these people had
anything to I do with what happened a hundred years
ago. And II grew up with Marty." I
"Grew up with her," the old woman had scoffed.
"Si, I you grew up with her, and went to school with
her. B. J did she ever speak to you? Did she
ever treat you like a I human being?" Maria
Torres's eyes had narrowed J shrewdly.
"It's not for her you go to the funeral. It's I something
else. What, Ramon?" 1
Under his mother's penetrating gaze, Raymond
Tor-1 res found his carefully maintained
self-confidence slipping away. How did she know?
How did she know that his interest in the funeral went
beyond the mere paying of respects to the memory of
someone he'd known long ago? Did she know that deep
in his heart he wanted to see the pain in the eyes of
Martha Lewis's friends, see " the bewilderment on
Cynthia Evans's face, see all of them
suffering as he'd suffered so many years ago? No,
i he decided, she couldn't know all that,
and he would * never admit it to her. "left-brace
"It's Alex," he had finally told her. "I
want to see what happens to him at the funeral."
He told her about Alex's experience in San
Francisco, and the old woman nodded knowingly.
"You don't know whose grave that was?" she asked.
BRAINCHILD

"Don Roberto had a brother. His name was
Fernando, and he was a priest."
"Are you suggesting that Alex Lonsdale saw a
ghost?" he asked, his voice betraying his disbelief
in his mother's faith.
The old woman's eyes glittered. "Do not be so
quick to scoff. There are legends about Don
Roberto's family."
"Among our people, there are legends about everything, was
Torres replied dryly. "In fact, that's about
all we've got left."
"No," Maria had replied. "We have something
else. We have our pride, too. Except for you.
For you, pride was never enough. You wanted more-you
wanted what the gringos have, even if it meant becoming
one of them to get it. And now you have tried, and you have
failed. Look at you, with your fancy
cars, and your fancy clothes, and gringo education. But
do they accept you? No. And they never will."
And so he had left the little house he had been born
in. His mother had been right. He had felt out of
place at the funeral, even though he knew almost
everyone there.
But he was right to have gone.
Something had happened to Alex Lonsdale. For a
few moments, before his father had grasped his arm,
Alex's whole demeanor had changed.
His eyes had come to life, and he had seemed to be
listening to something.
But what?
Raymond Torres thought about it all the way back
to Palo Alto. When he reached the Institute, he
went directly to his office and began going over the
records of Alex's case once more.
Somewhere, something had gone wrong. Alex was showing more
signs of emotional behavior.
If it went too far, it would destroy everything,
including Alex himself.
Alex stood in the middle of the plaza, waiting for the
pain to strike his brain, and the strange memories that
didn't fit with the real world to begin churning through his
mind. He gazed intently at the old
buildings that fronted on the plaza, searching for the
unfamiliar details that he had expected to find in
them. But nothing struck a chord. The buildings
merely looked as they had always looked-a village
hall that had once been a; mission church, and a
library that had once been a! school. caret
No voices whispered in his head, and no pain
racked his mind. It was all as it had been throughout his
lifetime.
When he was at last certain that nothing in the plaza
or the buildings around it was going to trigger some-be thing
in his mind, he walked slowly into the library and;
approached the desk. Arlette Pringle, who had
been less-than librarian in La Paloma for
thirty years, raised her brows right-brace
reprovingly.

BRAINCHILD

"Did someone declare a holiday without telling me,
Alex?"
Alex shook his head. "I went to Mrs.
Lewis's funeral this morning. And this afternoon . . .
well, there's some things I need to look up, and the
school library can't help me."
"I see." Arlette Pringle tried to figure out
whether Alex had just told her a very smooth lie-and
after thirty years of dealing with the children of La Paloma
as well as their parents, she thought she'd heard them
all-or if he really was working on a school
project and was here with the blessing of his teachers. Then she
decided it really didn't matter at all. So
few of the kids came to the library anymore that a
young face was welcome under any circumstances. "Can
I help you find anything?"
"The town, was Alex said. "Are there any books
about the history of La Paloma? I mean, all the
way back, when the fathers first came?"
Arlette Pringle immediately nodded, and opened the
locked case behind her desk. She pulled out a
leatherbound volume and handed it to him. "If it's the
old history you're after, this is it. But it was printed
almost forty years ago. If you need anything more
up-to-date, I'm afraid you're out of luck."
Alex glanced at the cover of the thin oversized
book, then opened it to study the first page.
Superimposed over an ink drawing of the plaza was the
title: La Paloma: The Dove of the
Peninsula. On the next page was a table of
contents, and after scanning it, Alex knew
he'd found what he was looking for. "Can I check this
out?"
Miss Pringle shook her head. "I'm sorry, but
it's the only copy we have, and it can't be replaced.
I even made Cynthia Evans sit right here every
time she had to refer to it for the hacienda." When Alex
looked puzzled, Arlette Pringle suddenly
remembered what she'd been told about Alex's
memory. "For the restoration," she went on. "In
fact, after you read about it, you
JOHN SAUL
might want to go up to the Evanses' and see what
they've done. On the outside, at least, it's
exactly as it used to be." The front door
opened, and Arlette instinctively glanced toward it.
"If you have any questions, I'll be here," she finished,
then turned to the new arrival as Alex settled
himself at one of the heavy oak tables that graced the
single large room of the library.
The book, as he paged through it, proved to be
primarily a collection of old pictures of the
early days of La Paloma, accompanied by a
sketchy narrative of the history of the town, beginning
with the arrival of the Franciscan fathers in 1775, the
Mexican land grants to the Californios
in the 1820's, and the effect of the Treaty of
Hidalgo Guadalupe in 1848. An entire
chapter dealt with the story of Roberto Melendez y
Ruiz, who was hanged after attempting
to assassinate an American major general. After
the hanging, his family abandoned their hacienda in the
hills above La Paloma and fled back
to Mexico, while the rest of the Californios quickly
sold their homes to the Americans, and followed.
The rest of the book was devoted to detailed drawings
of the mission, the hacienda, and the homes of the
Californios. It was the drawings that commanded Alex's
attention.
There was page after page of floor plans and
elevations of all the old houses that still stood in and
around the village. For many of them, there were
accompanying photographs as well, showing how the
houses had been altered and modified over the years.
Near the end of the book, Alex found his own house,
and stared at the old drawings for a long time. Little had
changed over the years-of all the houses in La
Paloma, the Lonsdales' alone seemed to have
survived in its original condition.
Except for the wall around the garden.
In the detailed drawings of the house that had
been done by one of the priests shortly after the mission
had lost its lands to the Californios, the patio
wall was
BRAINCHILD

shown in great detail, complete with intricately
tiled insets at regular intervals along its main
expanse. Between the insets, set with equal
precision, were small, well-clipped vines,
espaliered on small trellises. Alex studied
the picture carefully.
It was exactly as he had thought the wall should look
when his parents had first brought him home from the
Institute. But in the photograph of the same
wall, taken forty-odd years ago, the vines had
long since grown wild, covering the wall with a
tangle of vegetation that completely obliterated the
insets.
On the next page, he found Valerie Benson's
house. It bore little resemblance to what it had
once been. Over the years, it had twice burned,
and both times, during the rebuilding, walls had been
moved and roof lines changed. The only thing that had not
been altered beyond recognition was the patio, but even
that had not completely survived the
remodeling.
In 1927, a fishpond, fed by a waterfall, had
been added.
Once again Alex studied the old drawing and the more
recent photograph.
Once again it was the old drawing that looked right to him,
that depicted the patio as he'd thought he remembered
it only that morning.
He closed the book, and sat still for several
minutes, trying to find an answer to the puzzle that was
forming in his mind. At last he stood up and carried
the volume over to Arlette Pringle's desk. The
librarian took it from him and carefully slid it
back into its position in the locked cabinet behind her
desk.
"Miss Pringle?" Alex asked. "Is there any
way to tell when the last time I looked at that book
was?"
Arlette Pringle pursed her lips. "Why,
Alex, what on earth would you want to know that for?"
"I ... well, I don't remember so many things,
but some of the things in that book look kind of familiar.
And I just thought it might help if I could find out
when the last time I looked at it was."
JOHN SAUL
"Well, I don't know," Miss Pringle mused,
wondering if it was worth her while to dig through the old
records of the locked cabinet. Then, remembering
once more what had happened to Alex only a few
months ago, she made up her mind. "Of
course," she said. "If it were in the open stacks, it
would be impossible, but I keep records of every
book that goes in and out of that cabinet. Let's have a
look." From the bottom drawer of her desk she
took a thick ledger and began flipping through its
pages. A minute later she smiled bleakly at
Alex. "I'm sorry, Alex. According to my
records, you've never seen that book before. In
fact, nobody but Cynthia Evans has looked
at it for the last five years, and before that, you and your
friends were all so young I wouldn't have let you touch it
anyway. His
Alex frowned, then wordlessly turned and left the
library. He walked home slowly, lost in thought.
As he approached his house he finally made up his
mind, and, though he was already tired, trudged on up
Hacienda Drive.
He stopped once to rest, at the curve where only
a few months ago his car had crashed through the
safety barrier and plunged into the canyon
below. He stayed there for nearly half an hour,
searching his mind for memories of the crash.
He knew what had happened: he'd been told the
details many times since he'd awakened in the
hospital. There had been a party, and he and Lisa
had had a quarrel, and she had left. A few
minutes later he'd gone after her, but he'd been
driving too fast, and had to swerve to avoid hitting
her. And that was when he'd gone off the road.
But something seemed to be missing. Deep in his mind,
he was sure there was one more image-a fleeting
glimpse of something he couldn't quite grasp-that was the
real reason for his accident.
Somehow, he knew that there was more to it than avoiding
Lisa. There had been something else-someone
else-whom he had also swerved to avoid.
BRAINCHILD

But who? He couldn't bring the image into focus,
couldn't quite identify it.
Struggling to his feet, he went on toward the
Evanses" mansion and the hills beyond.
Marsh Lonsdale sat in the records office of the
Medical Center and punched angrily at the keys
of the computer. The screen sat like a
Cyclops on the desk in front of him. There were
times, of course, when he thanked all the various
gods he could think offorthe computer system that had been
put in the Center five years earlier, but there were
times-and this was one of them-when he wished that the
microprocessor had never been invented.
"You have to have a special degree just to operate this
damned thing," he muttered. From the file cabinet,
Barbara Fannon smiled sympathetically.
"It doesn't respond to cursing," she told him.
"Why don't you tell me what you're looking for, and
I'll pull it up for you." Gently nudging him
aside, she sat down and put her fingers on the
keyboard.
"Alex," Marsh said. "All I want is the
medical records for my own son, and this damned
machine won't give them to me."
"Don't be silly," Barbara told him. "You just
have to ask it politely, in terms it understands. was She
tapped at the keyboard for a few moments, and the
screen came to life. "There you are. Just push this
button, and it will scroll right on down, from the day
he was born until the last time he was here." She
stood up, relinquishing the chair to Marsh once again,
and went back to her filing.
Marsh began scrolling through the record, paying little
attention to anything until he suddenly came to the end
of the file. The last entry was for a routine checkup that
Alex had undergone the previous April. He
gazed irritably at the screen for a moment, then
glared at Barbara Fannon's back. "Are we
really five months behind in the records?"
"I beg your pardon?"'
JOHN SAUL
I
"I asked if we're really five months behind in the
records," Marsh repeated. "This is September,
and the last entry in Alex's file is for his checkup
in April. That's five months."
"That's ridiculous," Barbara replied. "We
haven't even been twenty-four hours behind in the last
three years. Usually everything that happens to a
patient is in the records within two or three
hours. Let me see." She bent over Marsh's
shoulder and began tapping on the keyboard once more,
but this time nothing happened. The record simply
came to an abrupt end.
"See?"
"I see that something's wrong, and it could be any
number of things. Now, why don't you just go
back to your office and get back to administering this
place, and I'll figure out what's happened
to Alex's records. If I can't get them out of the
computer, I'll bring you the originals from
downstairs, but that will take a while. All right?"
Reluctantly Marsh got up and started out of the
office, but Barbara Fannon stopped him. "Marsh,
is something wrong? With Alex, I mean?"
"I don't know, was Marsh replied. "I just have a
bad feeling about him, and I don't like Torres.
I want to go over his records and see exactly
what was done, that's all."
"All right, was Barbara Fannon sighed. "Then at
least I know what I'm looking for. I'll have something
for you as soon as possible. his
But an hour later, when she came into his office,
her expression was both puzzled and worried. "I
can't find them," she said.
Marsh looked up from the report he was revising.
"They're not in the computer?"
"Worse than that," Barbara replied, seating herself
in the chair opposite Marsh and handing him a file
folder. "They aren't here at all. His
Frowning, Marsh opened the folder, which had Alex's
BRAINCHILD

name neatly typed at the top. Inside was a single
sheet of paper, with one sentence typed on it:
Contents of this file transferred to the Institute for the
Human Brain, by authority of Marshall
Lonsdale, M.d., Director.
Marsh's frown deepened. "What the hell does this
mean?"
Barbara shrugged. "I assume it means that you sent
all the records relating to the accident to Palo
Alto, and they never came back."
Marsh reached over and pressed a key on the
intercorn. "Frank, can you come in here?" A moment
later Frank Mallory came into the office, and
Marsh handed him the sheet of paper. "Do you know
anything about this?"
Mallory glanced at it, then shrugged. "Sure.
All the records went to Palo Alto. Torres
needed them."
"But why didn't they come back? And why didn't
we keep copies?"
Now Mallory, too, was frowning. "I ...
well, I guess I thought they had. They should have
been here months ago, along with copies of what was
done down there. It's all part of Alex's
medical history."
"Exactly," Marsh agreed. "But apparently they
didn't. Barbara, would you mind getting on the phone
and calling down there? Find out what's going on, and
why those records never came back."
When they were alone, Frank Mallory studied
Marsh for a moment. "Why the sudden upset, Marsh?"
he asked. "Is something going on with Alex that I
don't know about?"
"I don't know," Marsh admitted. "It's just
something I can't quite put my finger on. I'm worried
about him."
"And you don't like Raymond Torres."
"I've never said I did," Marsh replied, unable
to keep a defensive tone out of his voice. "But
it's more than that. Torres is acting more and more as though
he
JOHN SAUL
owns Alex, and Alex . . . well, I guess
I'm just worried about him."
"What about Ellen? Is she worried too?"
Marsh shrugged helplessly. "I wish she were.
Unfortunately, she thinks Torres is the
miracle man of the century. But she also thinks
there's a curse on La Paloma, or
some such thing. his
Mallory s eyes widened in disbelief. "A
curse? Oh, come on, Marsh, not Ellen-was
"I know," Marsh sighed. "And I don't think she
really believes it herself. She was just upset this
morning. What with Marty Lewis being killed so
soon after Alex's accident-
"Which events have no connection whatsoever," Mallory
pointed out.
"I told her that," Marsh agreed. "And when she
thinks about it, I'm sure she'll realize it's
true. But what's really bugging me is Torres's
attitude. was He told Mallory about the
conversation he'd had with Torres after the funeral.
"And all he did was suggest that I read the release
we signed."
"And have you? I mean, since the night you signed it?"
Before Marsh could reply, the door opened, and Barbara
Fannon stepped into the office, another file
folder in her hand. One look at her face told
Marsh that something was wrong.
"What is it? What did they say?"
Barbara shook her head, as if even she couldn't
believe what she'd been told. "They said they have
all the records and that they won't be
returning them. They won't even be returning our
records, let alone forwarding copies of their own!"
"That's impossible," Marsh said. "They can't do that-was
"They . . . they said they can, Marsh, " Barbara
replied, her voice so low the two men had to strain
to hear her. "They said the instructions and authorizations
are very clear in the release you signed before the
operation."
BRAINCHILD

"I don't believe it," Marsh declared. "Let's
take a look at that release."
Silently Barbara handed him the folder. "I thought
you'd want to see it," she said. "I ... well,
I already read it."
Marsh scanned the document, then went back and
reread the whole thing very carefully. When he was done,
he handed it to Frank Mallory.
"It won't hold up," Mallory said when he,
too, had read every word of the agreement Marsh and Ellen
had made with the Institute for the Human Brain.
"There isn't a court in the country that would uphold
all this. My God, according to this, the man isn't
accountable to anybody. He doesn't have to release
any records, describe any
procedures-nothing. And he can do anything he wants
with Alex for as long as he wants. According to this, you've
even given him custody of Alex. Why the hell
did you sign it in the first place?" At the look
on Marsh's face, he immediately regretted his words.
"Sorry, Marsh," he mumbled, "that was out of line."
"Was it?" Marsh asked, his voice hollow. "I
wonder. I should have read it-Lord knows Torres
told me to enough times. But I guess I thought it was
a standard release."
"It's about as far from standard as anything I've ever
seen," Mallory said. "I think we'd better
get a lawyer on this right away."
Marsh nodded. "But I'm not sure what good it'll
do. Even if a lawyer can get it broken, it'll
take months, if not years. Besides," he added,
"even if I'd read it thoroughly, I would have
signed it."
But it seems to me the circumstances constitute
duress of the worst kind," Mallory said. "It was
either sign or let Alex die, for God's sake!
What else could you do?"
"More to the point, what do I do now?" Marsh asked.
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room, as
all
three of its occupants realized the position Marsh
was
JOHN SAUL
in. Without the records, they had no idea of what
had been done to Alex, but that was the least of it.
The first thought that had flashed through all their minds was
simply to remove Alex from the area. But that, of
course, was impossible now.
Besides not knowing what procedures had been used
to save Alex's life, they also had no idea of
what treatment might still be in progress, and what the
ramifications of ending that treatment might be.
It was a trap, and there seemed to be no way out.
Alex sat on the hillside, the afternoon sun warming
his back even though the offshore breeze was already
starting to bring the cool sea air inland. He was staring
down at the hacienda, and in his memory, images were
once again beginning to flash.
He seemed to remember horses filling the
courtyard, then riding away toward the village.
He remembered people-his people-walking slowly away from
the hacienda, carrying small bundles.
And he remembered three people who remained in the
courtyard long after all the others were gone. In his
memory, he couldn't see their faces
clearly, but he knew who they were.
They were his family.
Then the faintly remembered voices began in his
head, one voice standing out from all the others.
"We are not afraid to die . . . we will not leave
our land . . ."
But they had left. The book had said they fled
to Mexico.
"It will do you no good to kill us . . . my son will
find you, and he will kill you . . ."
The words echoed in Alex's head. He stood up and
began walking up the hillside, and then, when he was
near the top, he plunged into a tangle of scrub
oak, and a moment later began digging. The earth,
packed hard after nearly a century and a half,
resisted, but in the end gave way.
BRAINCHILD

Two feet below the surface, Alex found the
ancient skeletons. He hunched low to the ground,
staring at the three skulls, their hollow eye
sockets seeming to plead with him; then he slowly
reburied them. When the job was finished, he began
walking once again, staying high on the hillside, but
always keeping the hacienda in his view. The
memories were coming clearer now, and images of what
had happened there flashed brightly in his mind.
The walls-the whitewashed walls-were stained with
crimson, and the bodies, crumpled and torn, lay
still in the dust.
And then, as he moved around to the east, the images
began to fade, and soon were gone altogether.
The images were gone, but the memories remained.
Finally he came back down into the village.
Lisa Cochran looked up when the bell on
Jake's door clattered noisily, and waved
to Alex as he walked into the pizza parlor. He
hesitated, then joined Lisa and Bob Carey at
the table they were sharing.
"How come you weren't in school this afternoon? his
"I went to the library, was Alex replied. "There
was some stuff I wanted to look up."
"So you just went?" Bob asked. "Jeez, Alex,
didn't you even ask anyone if it was all right?
They'll mark you down for a cut. his
Alex shrugged. "It doesn't matter. his
Lisa looked at Alex sharply. "Alex, is
something wrong?"
Again Alex shrugged, then glanced from Lisa to Bob.
"Can I ... well, can I ask you guys
a question without you thinking I'm nuts?"
Bob Carey rolled his eyes and stood up. "Ask
Lisa," he said. "I gotta get out of here-I
promised Kate I'd come by on my way home and
give her the homework assignments."
"When's she coming back to school?" Lisa asked.
"Search me," Bob replied. Then he lowered his
voice.
JOHN SAUL
"Did you hear anything about her not coming back at
all?"
Lisa shook her head. "Who'd you hear that from?"
"Carolyn Evans. She said she didn't think
Kate would come back to school until after they try
her dad, and if he gets convicted, she doesn't
think Kate will come back at all."
Lisa groaned. "And you believed her? Carolyn
Evans? Oh, come on, Bob. Even if Mr.
Lewis did do it, nobody's going to hold it against
Kate!"
"I don't know," Bob replied. "Sometimes people can
get really weird." Then, after shooting a meaningful
look toward Alex, he left.
"I don't believe it!" Lisa cried when he was
gone. "I swear to God, Alex, sometimes
people make me so mad. Carolyn Evans spreading
gossip like that, and Bob looking at you like you're some
kind of nut-was
"Maybe I am," Alex said, and Lisa, her
mouth still open, stared at him for a moment.
"What?"
"I said, maybe I am a nut."
"Oh, come on, Alex. You're not crazy-you just
don't remember a lot of things."
"I know," Alex replied. "But I'm starting
to remember some things, and they're really strange. I
mean, they're things I couldn't possibly
remember, because they happened before I was even born."
"Like what?" Lisa asked. She started to fidget
with a straw that lay dripping Coke on the Formica
tabletop. She wasn't at all sure she wanted
to know.
"I'm not sure," Alex said. "It's just images,
and words, and things that don't look quite right. But I
don't know what it all means."
"Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Maybe it's
just all in your brain. You know, from the accident?"
Alex hesitated, then nodded. "Maybe you're
right." But in his own mind, he wasn't so sure. The
memories had seemed too real to be
figments of his imagination.
BRAINCHILD

Suddenly Lisa looked up at him. "Alex, do
you think Mr. Lewis killed Mrs. Lewis?"
Alex hesitated, then shrugged. "How should I
know?"
"Well, none of us knows," Lisa replied. "But
what do you think?"
Suddenly Alex remembered his dream from the night
Kate's mother had died.
"I don't think he did it," he said. "I think
someone else did it. was He hesitated. "And I
think it's going to happen again."
Lisa stared at him, then stood up. "That's an
awful thing to say," she whispered, her eyes
furious. "If you're trying to convince me you're
nuts, you've just done it. Nobody but a crazy
person would say something like that!" Picking up her
books and her bag, she hurried out into the street,
letting the door slam shut behind her.
Alex, his eyes empty, watched her go.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ellen listened quietly as her husband
once again recited the terms of the release they'd
signed before Alex's operation. Even after more than an
hour's discussion, she was still certain he was
overreacting. "Marsh, you're being absolutely
paranoid," she said when he at last fell silent.
"I don't care what you think Raymond Torres
is up to, because you're wrong. Raymond isn't
up to anything. He's Alex's doctor, and whatever
he's doing is in Alex's best interests."
"Then why won't he let us see the records?"
Marsh demanded, and Ellen could only shake her head
wearily.
"I don't know. But I'm sure there's an
explanation, and it seems to me the person you should be
talking to is Raymond, not me."
Marsh had been standing next to the fireplace,
lean-j ing on the mantel, but now he wheeled around
to face! his wife. He hadn't gotten through to her at
all. Noi matter what he told her-about the wall
of secrecy! Torres had erected around Alex's
case, about the terms!
224 1
of the release, in which they'd given Torres full
legal custody of Alex-she still remained steadfast
in her defense of the man. To her, it came
down to only one thing-Torres had saved Alex's
life.
"Besides, what does it matter?" he heard her
asking. "Why are the records so important? The
point is that whatever he did, it worked!" Suddenly
the calm facade she had been maintaining slipped,
and her voice took on a bitter edge. "I should
think you'd be grateful! You always said Alex was
brilliant-gifted, even-and now Raymond's
proved it. his
"But there's more to it than that. For Christ's sake,
Ellen. Don't you even see Alex anymore?
He's like a machine! He doesn't feel anything.
Not for anyone or anything. He's . . . well, in
some ways he's just like your precious Raymond
Torres. And it's not changing."
Ellen's eyes flashed with sudden anger. Though she
knew that what she was about to say would only widen the
chasm between them, she didn't try to hold the words
back. "So that's what it's all about! I knew it!
I knew when this whole thing started that it had nothing to do
with the release. It's Raymond, isn't it? In the
end, it all comes down to the same thing. You're
jealous, Marsh. He did what you couldn't do, and you
can't stand it."
Marsh stood silently for a moment, then nodded
briefly. "It started out that way," he admitted,
moving away from the fireplace to flop into his
favorite easy chair. "I'm not going to pretend
it didn't. But something's wrong, Ellen. The more I
think about it, the less I understand it. How is it
possible that Alex could have made such a phenomenal
recovery intellectually, and physically, and show no
progress at all emotionally?"
"I'm sure there's an explanation-was Ellen
began.
"Oh, there is!" Marsh interrupted. He rose
to his feet again and began nervously pacing the room.
"And it's all in the records that Torres won't
let us see."
Ellen sighed and stood up. "This is getting us
nowhere. All we're doing is going in circles.
I'm sure
JOHN SAUL
Raymond has his reasons for keeping the records
closed, and I'm sure they're valid. As for the
rest of it-the terms of the release ..." She
hesitated, then plunged on. "Well, I'm
afraid that's a problem you're going to have to deal with
yourself. His
"You mean you can accept those terms?"' Marsh asked,
his voice heavy with disbelief.
Ellen nodded. "I'm sure they're there to protect
Alex, and I'm sure Raymond will explain them
to me. In fact, he started to the other day."
"The other day? was Marsh asked. "What are you
talking about?"
"I talked to him," Ellen replied. "When you were
going to pull Alex out of school and send him down
to Stanford, I talked to Raymond about it. I was .
. . well, I was afraid you might ignore his
advice. At any rate, he assured me that I
had nothing to worry about. He said . . . well, he
said that if you tried to do something, he could deal with you.
His
Marsh felt dazed. "Deal with me? He actually
said that?"
Ellen nodded, but said nothing.
"And that didn't faze you at all, that as far as
he's concerned, I'm simply someone to be dealt
with?"
Ellen was silent for several long seconds.
"No," she said at last. "In fact, it made
me feel relieved."
The words struck Marsh with the force of a
physical blow. He sank back into his chair as
Ellen rose and quietly left the room.
Alex had long since stopped listening to the argument that
was going on downstairs, tuning out his parents'
voices as he immersed himself in the book he'd were
picked up at the library after he left Jake's.
I
When he'd come in for the second time, Arlette 1
Pringle had immediately turned to the locked case, but
1 Alex had stopped her. 1
"I need some medical books," he'd told her.
backslash
"Medical books? But doesn't your father have any?"
BRAINCHILD

"I need new ones," Alex went on. "I need
something about the brain. his
"The human brain?"
Alex nodded. "Do you have anything?"
Arlette Pringle removed her glasses and
thoughtfully chewed on an earpiece while she ran
over the library's medical collection in her mind.
"Not much that's really technical, was she said at
last. "But there's one new one we just got in. was
She rose from her desk and went to the small
shelf labeled "Current Nonfiction." "Here it
is. The Brain. Think that's specialized enough for
you?"
Alex thumbed through the book, nodding. "I think so,"
he replied. "I'll tell you tomorrow. Can I check
this out?"
Arlette led him back to the desk and showed him the
process of checking out a book. "If this doesn't
seem familiar," she said dryly, "I can tell you
why. You were never much of a one for books."
"Then I guess that's something different about me,
too," Alex replied, thinking: And maybe the
reason why is in here.
Since dinner, while his parents had been arguing,
he'd scanned the entire book, and reread Chapter
7, the chapter dealing with learning and memory, two more
times. And the more he read, the more puzzled he became.
From what he'd read, what was happening to him seemed
to be impossible.
He was about to begin the chapter for the third time, sure that
he must have missed something, when there was a soft tap at
the door. A second later his mother stuck her head
in.
"Hi."
"Hi, Mom." He glanced up from the
book. "You and Dad still fighting?"
Ellen studied her son carefully, searching for any
sign that the angry words she and Marsh had just
exchanged might have upset Alex, but his expression
was as bland as always, and his question had been asked
JOHN SAUL
in the same tone he might have used had he been
interested in the time of day. "No," she said. "But it
wasn't really a fight, honey. We were just discussing
Dr. Torres, that's all. his
Alex frowned thoughtfully; then: "Dad doesn't like
him, does he?"
"No," Ellen agreed, "he doesn't. But it
doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that
you keep getting better."
"But what if I'm not getting better?"
Ellen stepped into the room and closed Alex's
door behind her, then came to sit on the end of the bed.
"But you are getting better."
"Am I?"
"Of course you are. You're starting to remember things,
aren't you?"
"I don't know," Alex replied. "Sometimes I
think I am, but the memories don't always make
sense. It's like ... I remember things that
I couldn't possibly remember."
"What do you mean?"
Alex tried to explain some of the things that had
happened, but carefully made no mention of the voices
that sometimes whispered inside his head. He wouldn't
mention those until he understood them. Ellen listened
carefully as he talked, and when he was done, she
smiled reassuringly.
"But it's all very simple. Obviously you saw the
book before."
"Miss Pringle says I didn't. his
"Arlette Pringle's memory isn't as good as she
likes people to think it is," Ellen replied. "And
anyway, even if you didn't ever see that copy of the
book, you certainly might have seen it somewhere else.
At your grandparents', for instance."
"My grandparents? But I don't even remember
them. How could I remember something I saw at their
house, without remembering them or their house either?"
"We'll ask Dr. Torres. But it seems to me
that your
BRAINCHILD

memory must be coming back, even if it's just
scraps. Instead of worrying about what
you're remembering, I think you ought to be trying
to remember more." For the first time her eyes fell on the
book Alex had been reading, and she picked it up,
studying the immensely enlarged brain cell on the
cover for a moment. "Why are you reading this?"
"I thought maybe if I knew more about the brain, I
might be able to figure out what's happening to me,"
Alex replied.
"And are you?"
"I don't know yet. I'm going to have to do a lot more
studying."
Ellen put the book down and took Alex's hands.
Though he made no response, neither did he
immediately draw away from her. "Honey, the only thing
that matters is that you're getting better. It
doesn't matter why or how. Don t you see
that?"
Alex shook his head. "The thing is, I'm not sure
I am getting better, and I want to know. It just
seems . . . well, I just think it's important
that I know what's happening in my brain. his
Ellen squeezed his hands, then let them go and stood
up. "Well, I'm not going to tell you not to study,
and Lord knows your father won't either. But don't stay
up all night, okay?" Alex nodded and
picked up his-book. When Ellen leaned down
to kiss him good night, he returned the gesture.
But as his mother left the room, Alex wondered why
she always kissed him, and what she felt when she
did. For his own part, he felt nothing. . . .
Marsh was still in his easy chair, staring morosely into the
cold fireplace, when Alex came into the living
room an hour later. "Dad?"
Marsh looked up, blinking tiredly. "I thought you'd
gone to bed."
I've been studying, but I need to talk to you.
I've
JOHN SAUL
been reading about the brain," Alex began, "and there's
some things I don't understand."
"So you thought you'd ask the family doctor?" He
gestured toward the sofa. "I'm not sure I can
help you, but I'll try. What's the problem?"
"I need to know how bad the damage was to my brain,
was Alex said. Then he shook his head. "No, that's
not really it. I guess what I need to know is how
deep the damage went. I'm not too worried about
the cortex itself. I think that's all right."
The tiredness suddenly drained out of Marsh as he stared
at Alex. "You think that's all right?" he
echoed. "After reading for a couple of hours, you think the
cortex is all right?"
Alex nodded, and if his father's skeptical tone
affected him at all, he gave no sign. "It
seems as though there must have been damage a lot
deeper, but there are some things that don't seem to make
any sense. his
"For instance?" Marsh asked.
"The amygdala," Alex said, and Marsh stared at
him. were' He searched his mind, and eventually
associated the less-than word with a small
almond-shaped organ deep within were' the brain,
nearly surrounded by the hippocampus. Iff he'd
ever known its exact function, he'd long since
forgotten. j
"I know where it is," he said. "But what about it?"
I
"It seems like mine must have been damaged, but 11
don't see how that's possible." j
Marsh leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.
I "I'm not following you," he said. "Why do you
say the! amygdala must have been injured?"' I
"Well, according to this book, what's been happening!
to me seems like it must be associated with the
amygdala. 1 I don't seem to have any
emotions, and we know what! happened to my memory.
But now I'm starting to re-i member things, except
that the way I remember them! isn't the way they
are, but the way they used to be." I
Marsh nodded, though he wasn't exactly sure where

BRAINCHILD

Alex was going. "All right. And what do you think that
means?"
"Well, it seems that I'm having imaginary
memories. I'm remembering things that I couldn't
remember."
"Maybe," Marsh cautioned him. "Or maybe your
memories are just twisted a bit."
"I've thought of that," Alex said. "But I don't
think so. I keep remembering things as they were long
before I was even born, so I must only be imagining
that I'm remembering them."
"And what does that have to do with the amygdala?"
"Well, it says in the book I read that the
amygdala may be the part of the brain that mediates
rearrangement of memory images, and that seems
to be what's happening to me. As though the images are
getting rearranged, and then coming out as real
memories when they're not."
Marsh's brows arched skeptically. "And it seems
to me as though you're jumping to a pretty farfetched
conclusion."
"But there's something else," Alex went on. "According
to this book, the amygdala also handles emotional
memories. And I don't have any of those at all.
No emotions, and no memories of emotions."
With a force of will, Marsh kept his expression
impassive. "Go on."
Alex shrugged. "That's it. Given the combination of no
emotions or memories of emotions, and the imaginary
memories, the conclusion is that my amygdala must have
been damaged."
"If you read that book right, and if its information is
correct-which is a big if, considering how little is
actually known about the brain-then I suppose your
conclusion is probably right."
"Then I should be dead," Alex stated.
Marsh said nothing, knowing all too well that what his
son was positing was absolutely true.
It's too deep," Alex went on, his voice as
steady as if he were discussing the weather. "In order
to damage
JOHN SAUL
the amygdala, practically everything else would have
to be destroyed first: the frontal lobe, the
parietal lobe, the hippocampus, the corpus
callosum, the cingulate gyrus, and probably the
thalamus and the pineal gland too. Dad, if all that
happened to me, I should be dead, or at least a
vegetable. I shouldn't be conscious, let alone
walking, talking, seeing, hearing, and everything else
I'm doing."
Marsh nodded, but still said nothing. Again, everything Alex
had said was true.
"I want to know what happened, Dad. I want
to know how badly my brain was damaged, and how Dr.
Torres fixed it. And I want to know why part of
my brain is doing so well, and other parts aren't
working at all."
Marsh leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes for a
moment as he tried to decide what to say to his
son. At last, though, he made his decision.
Alex might as well know the truth. "I can't
tell you," he said. "In fact, I got curious
about the same things, and today I tried to pull your
records out of our computer. They aren t there
anymore. Dr. Torres has all the information
pertaining to what happened to you in his own
files, and for some reason he doesn't want me or
anyone else to see it."
Now it was Alex who fell silent as he turned his
father's words over in his mind. When he finally spoke,
his eyes met his father's squarely. "It means
something's wrong, doesn't it?"
Marsh kept his voice deliberately neutral.
"Your; mother doesn't think so. She thinks everything
is fine," and Torres is simply protecting the
privacy of his] records."
Alex shook his head. "If that's what she thinks,
then she's wrong."
"Or maybe we're wrong," Marsh suggested. He
kept his eyes on Alex, searching for any sort of
emotional reaction from the boy. So far, there was none.
Alex was only shaking his head.
BRAINCHILD

"No, we're not wrong. If I'm alive, then
what's happening to me shouldn't be happening. And I
am alive. So something's wrong, and I have to find out
what."
"We have to find out," Marsh said softly. He rose
to his feet and went to put his hand on Alex's
shoulder. "Alex?" he said quietly. The
boy looked up at him. "Alex, are you scared?"
Alex was silent for a moment, then shook his head.
"No. I'm not scared. I'm just cunous."
"Well, I'm scared," Marsh admitted.
"Then you're lucky," Alex said quietly. "I
keep wishing I was scared, not just curious ... I
wish I was terrified."
Alex sat alone in his first class the next
morning. He had known something was wrong from the moment
he had stopped by the Cochrans' to walk to school with
Lisa, and discovered that she had already left. It was
Kim who had told him.
"She thinks you're crazy," the little girl had said,
gazing up at Alex with her large and trusting blue
eyes. "She says she doesn't want to go out with you
anymore. But she's dumb." And then Carol
Cochran had appeared, and sent Kim back into the
house.
"I'm sorry, Alex," she told him. "She'll
get over it. It's just that you scared her yesterday when
you told her you thought whoever killed Marty Lewis
was still loose."
"I didn't mean to scare her," Alex said.
"All she did was ask me if I thought Mr.
Lewis did it, and I said I didn't."
"I know what you said," Carol sighed. "And I'm
sure Lisa will get over it. But this morning she just
wanted to go to school by herself. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Alex had replied. He'd said
good-bye to Lisa's mother, then continued on his way
to school. But he wasn't surprised when no one
spoke to him, and he wasn't surprised when the
classroom fell silent when he came in.
JOHN SAUL
Nor was he surprised to see that there was no empty
seat next to Lisa.
He wasn't surprised, but neither was he hurt.
He simply made up his mind that in the future he
would be more careful what he said to people, so they wouldn't
think he was crazy.
He listened to the first few words of the teacher's history
lecture, but then tuned him out, as he had tuned his
parents out the night before. All the material the teacher
was talking about was in the textbook, and Alex had
read it three days earlier.
The entire contents of the history text were now
imprinted on his memory. If he'd been asked
to, he could have written the book down word for word.
Besides, what concerned Alex that morning was not the
history text, but the book about the brain that
he had borrowed from the library. In his mind he
began going over the problem he had discussed with his father
the night before, looking for the answer. Somewhere, he was
certain, he had made a mistake. Either he had
misread the book, or the book was wrong.
Or there was a third possibility, and it was that third
possibility that he spent the rest of the day considering.
The idea came to him late in the afternoon.
His last class had been a study hall, and he'd
decided not to bother with it. Instead, he'd wandered around
the campus, trying once more to find something that jogged
one of his dormant memories to life. But it was
useless. Nothing jarred his memory, and more and more,
everything he saw was now familiar. Each day, there was
less and less in La Paloma that he had not
refamiliarized himself with.
He was wandering through the science wing whenj someone called
his name. He stopped and glanced! through the open door of
one of the labs. At the desk, 1 he recognized
Paul Landry. j
"Hello, Mr. Landry." I
"Come on in, Alex. " I
Alex stepped into the lab and glanced around. J
BRAINCHILD
235
"Recognize any of it?" Landry asked. Alex
hesitated, then shook his head. "Not even that?"
Landry was pointing toward a wooden box with a glass
top covering a table near the blackboard. "What
is it?" Alex asked.
"Take a look. You don't remember it at
all?"
Alex gazed at the crude construction. "Should I?"
"You built it," Landry said. "Last year. It was
your project, and you finished it just before the accident."
Alex walked over to examine the plywood
construction. It was a simple maze, but apparently
he'd made each piece separately, so that the
maze could be easily and quickly changed into a myriad
of different patterns. "What was I doing?"
"Figure it out," Landry challenged. "From what
Eisenberg tells me, it shouldn't take you more than
a minute."
Alex glanced at his watch, then went back to the
box. At one end was a runway leading to a cage
containing three rats, and at the other was a food
dispenser. Built into the front of the box was a timer.
Forty-five seconds later, Alex nodded. "It
must have been a retraining project. I must have
wanted to be able to time the rate at which the
rats learned each new configuration of the maze. But
it looks pretty simpleminded. his
"That's not what you thought last year. You thought it was
pretty sophisticated."
Alex shrugged disinterestedly, then lifted the gate that
allowed the rats to run into the maze. One by one, with
no mistakes, they made their way directly to the
food and began eating. "How come it's still here?"
Landry shrugged. "I guess I just thought you might
want it. And since I was teaching summer school this
year, it wasn't any trouble to keep it."
It was then, as he watched the rats, that the idea
suddenly came into Alex's mind. "What about the
rats?" he asked. "Are they mine too?"
When Landry nodded, Alex removed the glass and
picked up one of the large white rats. It wriggled
for a
JOHN SAUL
moment, then relaxed when Alex put it back in its
cage. A minute later, the other two had joined the
first. "Can I take them home?" Alex asked.
"Just the rats? What about the box?"
"I don't need it," Alex replied. "It
doesn't look like it's worth anything. But I'll
take the rats home."
Landry hesitated. "Mind telling me why?"
"I have an idea," Alex said. "I want to try
an experiment with them, that's all."
There was something in Alex's tone that struck Landry as
strange, and then he realized what it was. There was
nothing about Alex of his former openness and eagerness
to please. Now he was cold, and, though he hated
to use the word, arrogant.
"It's fine with me," he finally said. "Like I said,
they're your rats. But if you don't want the box,
leave it there. You may think it's pretty
simpleminded-which, incidentally, it is-but it still
demonstrates a few things. I've been using it for
my class." He grinned. "And I've also been
telling my kids that this project would have earned the
brilliant Alex Lonsdale a genuine
C-minus. Even last year, you could have done better
work than that, Alex."
"Maybe so," Alex replied, picking up the rat
cage and heading toward the door. "And maybe I would
have, if you'd been a better teacher."
Then he was gone, and Paul Landry was left alone,
trying to reconcile the Alex he'd just talked to with the
Alex he'd known the year before. He couldn't, for there
was simply no comparison. The Alex
he'd known last year had disappeared without a trace.
In his place was someone else, and Landry was
grateful that whoever he was, he wasn't in his
class this year. Before he left that day, he took
Alex's project and threw it into the dumpster.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The kitchen door slammed, and despite herself,
Ellen jumped. "Alex?" she called. "Is that
you? Do you know what time it-was And then, as Alex
came into the living room, she fell silent, her
eyes fixed on the cage he held in his right hand.
"What on earth have you got there?"
"Rats," Alex told her. "The ones from my
science project last year. Mr. Landry still had
them."
Ellen eyed the little creatures with revulsion.
"You're not going to keep, them, are you?"
"I've figured out an experiment," Alex told
her. "They'll be gone in a couple of days."
"Good. Now, let's go, or we'll be late. In
fact," she added, her eyes moving to the clock,
"we already are. And you know how Dr. Torres
feels about punctuality."
Alex started toward the stairs. "Dad and I aren't
sure I ought to keep going to Dr.
Torres."
Ellen, in the midst of struggling into a light coat,
froze. "Alex, what are you talking about?"
Alex's face remained impassive as he
regarded her.
JOHN SAUL
"Dad and I had a talk last night, and we think
maybe something's wrong with me."
"I don't understand," Ellen breathed, although she was
afraid she understood all too well. She and
Marsh had barely spoken to each other this morning, and
today he had, for the first time in her memory, failed
to call her even once. And now, apparently, he was
going to use Alex as a pawn in their battle.
Except that she wasn't going to tolerate it,
particularly when she knew that in the end, the loser would
not be her, but Alex himself.
"I've been doing some reading," she heard Alex
saying.
"Stop!" Ellen said, her voice sharper than
she'd intended. "I don't care what you've been
reading, and I don't care what your father and you have
decided. You're still a patient of Raymond
Torres's, and you have an appointment for this afternoon, which
you're going to keep, whether you want to or
not. his
Alex hesitated only a split second before he
nodded. "Can I at least take this up to my room?"
he asked, raising the cage.
"No. Leave it outside on the patio. his
As they drove down to Palo Alto, neither of them
spoke.
"I thought your husband was coming today, Ellen."
Raymond Torres remained seated behind his desk,
but gestured to the two chairs that Ellen and Alex
normally occupied.
"He's not," Ellen replied. "And I think we'd
better talk about it." Her eyes shifted slightly
toward Alex. Torres immediately picked up her
message.
"I don't think the lab's quite ready for you yet,"
he told Alex. "Why don't you wait in
Peter's office while he sets up?"
Wordlessly Alex left Torres's office, and when
he was gone, Ellen finally sat down and began
telling the doctor what had happened between herself and her
hus-
BRAINCHILD

band the night before. "And now," she finished,
"he's apparently convinced Alex that something's
wrong, too."
Torres's fingers drummed on the desktop for a
moment, then began the elaborate ritual of packing
and lighting his pipe. Only when the first thick cloud
of smoke had begun drifting toward the ceiling did
he speak.
"The problem, of course, is that he's right," he
finally observed. "In fact, today I was going
to tell him that I want to check Alex back into the
Institute."
Ellen suddenly felt numb. "What . . . what
do you mean?"' she stammered. "I thought . . .
well, I thought everything was going very well."
"Of course you would," Torres said. "And for the most
part, it is. But there's something going on that I don't
quite understand. was His head turned slightly, and his gaze
fixed on Ellen. "So Alex will come back here
until I know what's happening, and have decided what
to do about it."
Ellen closed her eyes for a moment, as if by the
action she could shut out the thoughts that were suddenly crowding
in on her. How could she handle Marsh now? If she
left Alex at the Institute, as she knew
Raymond was going to insist upon, what could
she say to Marsh? That he'd been right, that something
was, indeed, wrong with Alex, and that she'd left
him with a doctor who had apparently made a
mistake? But then she realized that that wasn't what
Torres had said. All he'd said was that something was
wrong.
"Can you tell me just exactly what's wrong?" she
asked, unable to control the trembling in her voice.
"Nothing too serious, was Torres assured her, his
voice soothing while his eyes remained locked
to hers. "In fact, perhaps nothing at all. But
until I know just what it is, I'll want Alex
here."
Ellen found herself nervously twisting her wedding ring,
knowing that if he insisted, she would inevitably give
in. "I don't know if Alex will agree to that,"
she said so softly the words were almost whispered.
JOHN SAUL
"But Alex doesn't have anything to say about it,
does he?" Torres pointed out. "Nor, for that
matter, does your husband." Then, when Ellen still
hesitated, he spoke once more. "Ellen, you know
that what I'm doing is in Alex's best interests."
Ellen hesitated only slightly before nodding. "But
can't it wait a day?" she pleaded. "Can't
I at least have a day to try to convince Marsh? If
I go home without Alex this afternoon, I hate even
to think what he might do. His
Raymond Torres turned it over in his mind,
briefly reviewing once again what his lawyer had
told him only that morning: "Yes, in the long run
the release will probably hold up. But don't
forget that Marshall Lonsdale is not only the
boy's father, but a doctor as well. He'll be able
to get an injunction, and keep the boy until the
issue is decided in the courts. And by then, it'll
be too late. I know you hate it, Raymond, but
in this instance, I suggest you try to negotiate. If
you don't try to take the boy, perhaps they'll give
him to you. his
"All right," he said. "For today, I'll just take
some tests, but tomorrow I want you to bring Alex back.
You have twenty-four hours to convince your husband."
Alex had been in Peter Bloch's office next
door to the test lab for almost five minutes before he
saw the stack of orders on the technician's
desk.
On the top of the stack, he found Torres's
neatly typed orders relating to himself. He scanned
the single page, trying to translate the
various abbreviations in his mind, but none of it meant
anything to him.
And then his eyes fell onto a line near the
bottom of the page: "Anesthesia: SPTL. his
He stared at the four letters for several seconds, then
his eyes moved to the old IBM Selectric II
that sat on the desk's return. The idea formed in
his head instantly, and almost as quickly, he made up
his mind. He inserted the page into the carriage, and
carefully lined up the letters with the red guidemarks on
the
BRAINCHILD

cardholder. Thirty seconds later he was
finished, and the line near the bottom of the page was
changed.
"Anesthesia: NONE."
When Peter Bloch came in a few minutes
later, Alex was sitting in a chair next to the
door, thumbing through a catalog of lab equipment.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the
technician go to the desk and pick up the thin stack
of orders.
"Hunh, was Bloch grunted. "Finally talked him
into it, did you?"
Alex looked up, laying the catalog aside.
"Talked him into what?"
Bloch made a sour face, then shrugged. "Never
mind. But if you don't like what happens today,
don't blame me. Blame yourself and Dr.
Brilliant. Come on, let's get started."
Twenty minutes later Alex was strapped
securely to the table, and the electrodes had all
been connected to his skull. "Hope you don't
decide you want to change your mind," Bloch said.
"I don't have any idea what's going to happen
to you, but I can practically guarantee you it isn't
going to be pleasant." Leaving Alex's side, he
stepped to the panel and began adjusting its myriad
controls.
The first thing Alex noticed was a strange odor in
the room. At first it was like vanilla, sweet and
pleasant, but slowly it began mutating into something
else. The sweetness faded away, and was replaced
by an acrid odor, and Alex's first thought was that
something in the lab must be burning. Then the smoky
scent turned sour, and Alex's nostrils suddenly
seemed to fill with the stench of rotting garbage.
It's in my mind, Alex told himself. It's all
in my mind, and I'm not really smelling
anything.
And then the sounds began, and with them the physical
sensations.
The room was heating up, and he could feel himself
beginning to sweat as a shrill screaming noise cut
through his eardrums and slashed into his mind.
JOHN SAUL
The heat increased, and suddenly centered in his groin.
A hot poker.
Someone was pressing into his genitalia with a whitehot
poker.
He could smell the sickly sweetness of burning
flesh, and he writhed helplessly against the bonds that
held him to the table.
The sound in his mind was his own voice screaming in
agony.
The burning stopped, and he was suddenly cold.
Slowly, reluctantly, he opened his eyes, but
saw nothing except the blinding whiteness of
snowflakes swirling around him, while the wind
whistled and moaned in his ears.
Suddenly there was pressure on his left leg.
It was gentle at first, as if something were there, touching
him every few seconds.
Then, its yellow eyes glaring at him through
the blizzard, its fangs dripping saliva, he
saw the face of the wolf.
The image disappeared, and as the beast's hungry
snarl drifted high over the wailings of the wind, he
felt its jaws close on his leg.
His flesh was being torn to shreds, and in the strength of the
wolfs jaws, his bones gave way. His lower leg
went numb, but he could sense his blood spurting from
the severed artery below his knee.
All around him, the blizzard shrieked.
Suddenly the sounds began fading away, and with it the
pain. The blinding whiteness of the blizzard began
taking on tinges of color, and soon he was
surrounded by a sea of soft blue. He felt the
warm waters laving his skin, and a cool breeze
wafted over his face.
He floated peacefully, rocked gently by the motion
of the water, and then began to feel something else in the
back reaches of his mind.
It was indistinct at first, but as he began to focus
on it, it became clearer.
BRAINCHILD

Energy.
It was as if pure energy were flowing
directly into his mind.
And then it stopped, and the cool breezes died out. The
waters around him were no longer moving, and the blueness in
front of his eyes gave way slowly until he was
once more staring at the ceiling of the laboratory.
Peter Bloch loomed over him.
"I almost shut you down," the technician said. "You
started screaming, and twisting around until I was
afraid you were going to hurt yourself."
Alex said nothing for a moment, but kept his eyes
anchored steadily on the lamp above his head as he
fixed everything that had happened in his memory.
"Nothing happened," he said at last.
"Horseshit," Peter Bloch replied. "You
damned near went crazy! What the hell's
Torres trying to prove now?"
"Nothing," Alex repeated. "Nothing happened
to me, and he's not trying to prove anything."
Bloch shook his head doubtfully. "Maybe nothing
happened, but I'll bet you thought something was happening.
Want to tell me about it?"
Alex's eyes finally shifted to the lab
technician. "Don't you know?"
"You think Torres tells me anything?" Peter
countered. "I know we're stimulating your
brain. But what it's all about, I don't know."
"But that is what it's about," Alex said quietly.
"It's about what gets into my brain, and how my
brain reacts." Then his expression twisted into a
strange smile. Except that it's not my brain
anymore, is it?" When Peter Bloch made no
answer, Alex answered his own question.
"It's not my brain anymore. Ever since I
woke up from the operation, it's been Dr.
Torres's brain."
Raymond Torres wordlessly took Alex's test
reports from Peter Bloch's hands and began
flipping through
JOHN SAUL
them. He frowned slightly, then the frown deepened
into a scowl.
"You must have made a mistake," he said finally,
tossing the thin sheaf of papers onto the desk as he
faced his head technician. "None of these results
make any sense at all. These are what you'd get
from a brain that was awake, not asleep."
"Then there's no mistake," Bloch replied, his
face set into a mask of forced unconcern. As always
when dealing with Raymond Torres, he would have
preferred to roll the test results up
tight and shove them down the man's arrogant
throat. But the money was too good and the work too light
to throw it away over something as trivial as his dislike
of his employer, who, he noticed, was now glowering
at him.
"What do you mean, no mistake? Are you telling
me that Alex Lonsdale was awake during this?"
Peter Bloch felt as if the floor had just
tilted. "Of course he was," he said as
forcefully as he could, though he was suddenly certain
he knew exactly what had happened. "You wrote
the order yourself."
"Indeed I did," Torres replied. "And I have
a copy of it right here." He opened his bottom
desk drawer and pulled out a sheet of pink paper,
which he silently handed to Bloch. There, near the
bottom of the page, were the words: "Anesthesia:
SPTL."
Once more, Peter pictured Alex Lonsdale,
his face impassive, sitting thumbing through a
catalog.
And watching him.
How long had he been there? Apparently, long
enough.
"I thought ... I thought it was highly
unusual, sir," he mumbled.
"Unusual?" Torres demanded, his voice
crackling with harsh sarcasm. "You thought it was
unusual to put a patient out with Sodium
Pentothal while inducing hallucinations in his
brain?"
"No, sir," the technician muttered, thoroughly
cowed.
BRAINCHILD

"I thought it was unusual not to. I should . . .
well, I should have called."
Torres was fairly trembling with rage now.
"What, exactly, are you talking about?"
Exactly three minutes and twenty-two seconds
later, when Bloch had returned to his office,
Torres knew. His eyes fixed on the altered
anesthesia prescription for several long seconds,
then shifted slowly to the technician.
"And you didn't think you ought to call me about this?" he
asked, his voice deceptively low.
"I ... well, the kid told me a long time ago
he wanted to take the test without the Pentothal. I
thought he'd finally talked you into letting him try."
Raymond Torres rose to his feet,
and leaned across the desk so that his face was close
to Peter Bloch's. When he spoke, he made no
attempt to keep his fury under control. "Talked
me into it?" he shouted. "We never even discussed such
a thing! Do you have any idea of exactly what goes
on in those tests?"
"Yes, sir," Peter Bloch managed.
"Yes, sir," Torres mimicked, his tone icy.
"We deliberately induce pain, Mr. Bloch.
We induce physical pain, and mental pain, and of the
worst sort. The only thing that makes it tolerable
at all is that the patient is unconscious. Without
the anesthetic, we are at risk of driving a
patient insane."
"He's ... he seems to be all right," Bloch
stammered, but Torres froze him with a look.
"And perhaps he is, was Torres agreed. "But if
he is, it is only because the boy has no emotions.
Or, as you have so inelegantly put it in the past,
because he's a zombie." his
Bloch flinched, but stood his ground. "I was going
to shut it off," he insisted. "I was watching him
carefully, and if it looked like it was getting too
bad, I was going to shut it off in spite of your
orders."
Not good enough," Torres replied. "If you had
any questions about those orders, you should have called
JOHN SAUL
me immediately. You didn't. Well, perhaps you will do this:
go to your lab and begin packing anything that is personally
yours. Then you will wait there for a security guard to come
and escort you out of the building. Your check will be sent
to you. Is that clear?"
"Sir-was
"Is that clear?" Torres repeated, his voice
rising to drown out the other man.
"Yes, sir," Bloch whispered. A moment later
he was gone, and Raymond Torres seated himself
once more, then waited until his breathing had
returned to its normal rhythm before picking up the
sheaf of test results.
Perhaps, he reflected, it will be all right after all.
The boy hadn't cracked under the battering his brain
had absorbed. With any luck at all, Alex's
brain had been so busy dealing with the chaos of
stimulation that he hadn't consciously noticed what
else had been happening.
Or had he?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"But he didn't say what was wrong, did
he?" Marsh asked. He folded his napkin
precisely-a gesture Ellen immediately recognized
as a sign that his mind was irrevocably made up-and
placed it on the table next to his coffee cup.
"That's why he wants Alex back," Ellen said
for the third time. Why, she wondered, couldn't Marsh
understand that there was nothing sinister in Raymond's
wanting Alex to come back to the Institute for a few
days? "Besides," she went on, "if he thought it was
anything serious, he wouldn't have let Alex come
home with me this afternoon. He could have just kept him there."
"And I would have had an injunction by tomorrow morning,"
Marsh pointed out. "Which I'm sure he knows. In
spite of that release, I'm still his father, and unless he
tells us the details of the surgery, and tells us
exactly what he thinks has gone wrong, Alex
doesn't go back there again." He pushed his chair
back and stood up, and though Ellen wanted to argue
with him further,
JOHN SAUL
she knew it was useless. She would just have to do what she
knew was best for Alex, and deal with Marsh after she'd
done it. As Marsh left the dining room, she began
clearing the dishes from the table and loading them into the
dishwasher.
Marsh found Alex in his room. He was at his
desk, one of Marsh's medical texts in front of
him, opened to the anatomy of the human brain, while
one of the white caret rats poked inquisitively
around among the clutter that! surrounded the book. I
"Anything I can help you with?" bar
Alex looked up. "I don't think so."
"Try me," Marsh challenged. When Alex still
hesitated, he picked up the rat and scratched it
around its ears. The little animal wriggled with
pleasure. "Mind telling me what you're going
to use to dissect this little fellow's brain with?" I
Alex's eyes met his father's. "How did you know?"
I
"I may not be a genius," Marsh replied, "but
last! night you told me that considering the damage that
was! done to your brain, you ought to be dead. Now I
find! you studying the anatomy of the brain, and white
ratsl are not exactly unheard of as subjects for
dissection." I
"All right," Alex said. "I want to see what
happens tol the rat if I cut as far into its
brain as Dr. Torres had tol cut into mine."
I
"You mean you want to see if it dies,"
Marsh replied.! His son nodded. "Then I think
we'd better go down tol the Center, and I think
you'd better let me help you.8I
"You mean you will?" Alex asked.
"If I don't, your rats won't survive the
first cut."
When they came downstairs a few minutes later,
Ellen glanced at them from her place at the kitchen
sink, then, seeing the rat cage, smiled
appreciatively. "Well, at least we agree
that the house is no place for those things," she offered,
hoping to break the tension that had spoiled dinner.
"We're taking them down to the lab," Marsh told
BRAINCHILD

her. "And we may hang around awhile, if anything
interesting's going on."
Ellen frowned. "Interesting? What could be interesting
in the lab at this hour? There won't even be anyone
there."
"We'll be there," Marsh replied. Then, while
Ellen wondered what was going on, her husband and
son disappeared into the patio. A moment later she
heard the gate slam closed.
The fluorescent lamps over the lab table
cast a shadowless light, and as Marsh prepared
to inject the anesthesia into the rat's vein, he
suddenly wondered if the creature somehow knew what
was about to happen. Its little eyes seemed wary, and he
could feel it trembling in his hand. He glanced at
Alex, who stood at the other side of the table,
looking on impassively. "It won't survive
this, you know," Marsh told his son.
"I know," Alex replied in the emotionless voice
Marsh knew he would never get used to. "Go
ahead."
Marsh slid the needle under the rat's skin and
pressed the plunger. The rat struggled for a few
seconds, then gradually went limp, and Marsh
began fastening it to the dissecting board. When he was
done, he studied the illustration he'd found in one
of the lab books, then deftly used a scalpel
to cut the skin away from the rat's skull, starting just
behind the left eye and slicing neatly around to the
opposite position behind the right eye, then folding the
loose flap of skin forward. Then, using a tiny
saw, he began removing the top of the skull itself.
He worked slowly. When he was done, the rat's
brain lay exposed to the light, but its heartbeat and
breathing were still unaffected.
"This probably isn't going to work," Marsh said.
"We should have much smaller tools, and proportionally,
much more of a rat's brain than a human's is used
to keep its vital functions going."
Then let's just cut away a little bit at a time, and
see how deep we can go."
JOHN SAUL
Marsh hesitated, then nodded. Using the smallest
scalpel he had been able to find, he began peeling
away the cortex of the rat's brain.
An hour later, all three of the rats were dead. In
none of them had Marsh succeeded in reaching the inner
structures of the brain before their heartbeats had
ceased.
"But they didn't have to die," he pointed out. "I
could have gone in with a probe, and destroyed part of the
limbic system without doing much damage to anything
else. His
Alex shook his head. "It wouldn't have meant
any-1 thing, Dad. When you cut away their brains
the way! Torres had to cut away mine, the rats
died. So whyj didn't I?"
"I don't know," Marsh confessed. "All I know
is that you didn't die."
Alex was silent for a long time, staring at the
three small corpses on the lab table. "Maybe
I did," he said at last. "Maybe I'm really
dead. his
Valerie Benson looked up from her knitting.
Across the room, Kate Lewis was curled up on
the sofa, her eyes on the television set, but
Valerie was almost sure she wasn't watching the
program.
"Want to talk about it?" she asked. Kate's
eyes remained on the television. I "Talk about
what?" I "Everything that's bothering you." I
"Nothing's bothering me," Kate replied. "I'm
okay." I "No," Valerie replied, "you're not
okay." She put her I knitting aside, then
got up and turned off the television I set.
"Are you planning to go back to school tomorrow?" I "I
... I don't know." I I should have had children,
Valerie thought. If I'd I had children of my own,
I'd know what to do. Or would I she? Would she
really know what to say to a teenage girl whose father had
killed her mother? What was
BRAINCHILD

there to say? And yet, Kate couldn't just go on
sitting in front of the television set all
day and all evening, moping.
"Well, I think it's time you went back,"
Valerie ventured. Then, sure she knew what was
really going on in Kate's mind, she went on:
"What happened wasn't your fault, Kate, and
none of the kids are going to hold it against you."
Kate turned to stare at Valerie. "Is that what
you think?" she asked. "That I'm afraid of what the
kids might think?"
"Isn't it?"
Kate slowly shook her head. "Everybody knew
all about Dad," she said so quietly Valerie had
to strain to hear her. "I always talked about what a
drunk he is so no one else could do it first."
Valerie went to the sofa and sat close to Kate.
"That couldn't have been easy."
"It was better than having everybody gossip."
Her eyes met Valerie's for the first time. "But he
didn't kill Mom," she said. "I don't care
how it looks, and I don't care if he doesn't
remember what happened after I left. All I
know is they used to fight every time he got drunk, but
he never hit her. He yelled at her, and sometimes
he threatened her, but he never hit her. In the end,
he always let her take him to the
hospital. his
"Then you should be out with your friends, letting them know
exactly what you think."
Kate shook her head silently, and her eyes
filled with tears. "I ... I'm scared," she
whispered.
"Scared? Scared of what?"
"I'm afraid of what might happen if I
leave. I'm afraid I might come back and find
you . . . find you ..." Unable to say the words,
Kate began sobbing softly, and Valerie held her
close.
"Oh, honey, you don't have to worry about me. What
on earth could happen to me?"
"But someone killed Mom, was Kate sobbed. "She
was by herself, and someone came in and . . . and ..."
Your father killed her, Valerie thought, but she knew
JOHN SAUL
she wouldn't say it out loud. If Kate didn't
want to believe the evidence, she wouldn't try to force
her to, at least not yet. But after the trial, after
Alan Lewis was convicted . . . She cut the
thought off, telling herself that she should at least try
to keep an open mind. "No one's going to do anything
to me," she said. "I've been living by myself
in this house for five years now, and there's never been
any trouble at all. And I'm not going to let you
become a prisoner here." She stood up
briskly, went to pick up the telephone that sat
on the table next to her chair, and brought it to the
coffee table in front of the sofa. "Now you call
Bob Carey and tell him you want to go out for a
pizza or something."
Kate hesitated. "I can't do that-was
"Of course you can, was Valerie told her. "He
comes by every day and drops off your homework, doesn't
he? So why wouldn't he want to take you out?" She
picked up the phone. "What's his number?"' ,
Kate blurted it out before she could think, and Valerie
promptly punched the numbers. When Bob himself
answered, she said only, "I have someone here who
wants to talk to you," and handed the phone to Kate.
Kate sniffled, but took the phone.
Forty-five minutes later, Valerie stood at the
front door. "And no matter what she says, I
don't want her back a minute before eleven," she
told Bob Carey. "She's been cooped up too
long, and she needs a good time." When Bob's car
had disappeared down the hill, she closed the door,
then went back to her knitting.
Ellen was about to call the Medical Center when she
heard the patio gate slam once more. Then the
door opened, and her husband and son came in. She
dropped the receiver back on the hook just as the dial
tone switched over to the angry whine of a forgotten
phone, and didn't try to conceal the irritation she was
feeling. "You might have told me how long you were going
to be gone. What on earth have you been doing?"
"Killing rats," Alex said.
BRAINCHILD

Ellen paled slightly, and her eyes moved to her
husband. "Marsh, what's he talking about?"
"I'll tell you later," Marsh replied, but the
look on Ellen's face told him that she was going
to demand an explanation right now. He sighed, and
hung his jacket in the armoire that stood opposite
the front door. "We were dissecting their brains,
to see how much damage they could sustain before they
died."
Ellen's stomach turned queasy, and she had
to struggle to keep her voice steady. "You killed
them?" she asked. "You killed those three helpless
creatures?"
Marsh nodded. "Honey, you know perfectly
well that rats die in laboratories every day. And
there was something both Alex and I wanted to know." He
stepped past Ellen and moved into the living room, then
glanced at Alex. "Why don't you make yourself
scarce?" he asked. Then he smiled tiredly.
"I have a feeling your mother and I are about to have another
fight. was Alex started toward the stairs, but Marsh
stopped him, fishing in his pocket for his car keys.
"Why don't you go find some of your friends?" he
asked, tossing the keys to his son.
Ellen, watching, felt a chill go through her. Something
had happened between her husband and her son. She was
certain that an alliance had somehow formed between them that she
was not a part of. A moment later, when Alex spoke
again, she knew she was right.
"You mean do what we were talking about?" he asked, and
Marsh nodded. And then something happened that Ellen
hadn't seen since the night of the prom last spring.
Alex smiled.
It was a tentative smile, and it didn't last
long, but it was still a smile. And then he was gone.
Ellen stared after him, then slowly turned to Marsh,
her anger evaporating.
"Did you see that?" she breathed. "Marsh, he
smiled. He actually smiled!"
Marsh nodded. "But it doesn't mean anything," he
JOHN SAUL
said. "At least it doesn't mean anything yet."
Slowly he tried to explain the conversation he and
Alex had had on the way home, and what they had
decided Alex should do.
"So you see, the smile didn't really mean anything
at all," he finished fifteen minutes later.
"He doesn't feel anything, Ellen, and he knows
it, which is making it even worse. He told me
he's starting to wonder if he's even human
anymore. But he said he can mimic emotions if
he wants to, or at least mimic emotional
reactions. And that's what he did. He
intellectually figured out that he should be happy that
he gets to go out for the evening and use my car, and he
knows that when people are happy, they smile. So he
smiled. He didn't feel the smile, and there was
nothing spontaneous about it. It was like an actor
performing a role. his
The growing chill Ellen had been feeling as Marsh
talked turned into a shudder. "Why?" she whispered.
"Why should he want to do such a thing?"
"He said people are beginning to think he's crazy,"
Marsh replied. "And he doesn't want
that to happen. He said he doesn't want to be
locked up until he knows what's wrong with him."
"Locked up?" The room seemed to be spinning,
and for a moment Ellen thought she might faint. "Who would
lock him up?"
"But isn't that what happens to crazy people? was Marsh
asked. "You have to look at it from his point of view.
He knows we love him, and he knows we care for
him, but he doesn't know what that means. All he
knows is what he's read, and he's read about mental
institutions." His voice suddenly broke.
"Hell," he muttered. "He reads damned near
everything, and remembers it all. But he just doesn't
know what anything means."
Maria Torres shifted the heavy weight of her
shopping bag from her right hand to her left, then sighed and
lowered it to the sidewalk for a moment.
Ramon had promised to come that evening and take
BRAINCHILD

her shopping, but then he'd telephoned and said he
wasn't coming. Something had come up with his patient, and
he had to stay in his office. His patient, she thought
bitterly. His patient was Alejandro, and there was
nothing wrong with the boy. But Ramon couldn't
see that, not for all his schooling. Ramon had
forgotten. Forgotten so much. But someday he would
understand. Someday soon, Ramon would know that all the
hatreds she had carefully nursed in him were still there.
But for now, he still pretended to be a gringo.
And tonight, the shopping still had to be done, even though she
was tired after working all day, so she'd walked the
five blocks to the store, which wasn't too bad.
It was the five blocks home, with the full shopping
bag, that was the hard part. Her arms aching with
arthritis, she picked up the bag and was about to continue
on her way when a car pulled up to the curb next
to her. She glanced at it with little interest, then looked
again as she recognized the driver.
It was the boy.
And he was returning her gaze, his eyes studying
her. He knew who she was, and the saints-her
saints-had sent him. It was an omen: though Ramon
had not come to her tonight, Alejandro had. She stepped
forward, and bent down to put her head through the open
window of the car.
"Vdtnos," she whispered, her rheumy eyes
glowing. "Vdmos a matar."
The words echoed in Alex's ears, and he understood
them. We go to kill. Deep in his mind, a
memory stirred and the mists began gathering around him
once again. He reached across the front seat and pushed
the door open. Maria Torres settled herself into the
seat beside him, and pulled the door closed. As the
old woman whispered to him, he put the car in gear
and started slowly up into the hills above the town.
Fifteen minutes later, he parked the car, still
listening to the words Maria was whispering in his ears. And
then he was alone, and Maria Torres was walking
slowly
JOHN SAUL
away from the car, her bag of groceries clutched
close to her breast.
Only when she had finally disappeared around a bend in
the road did Alex, too, leave the car, and step
through the gate into Valerie Benson's patio.
In the dark recesses of his throbbing brain, the
familiar voices took up Maria's ancient
litany . . .
Venganza . . disvenganza . . .
Vaguely he became aware of another sound, and
turned to see a woman standing framed in the light of
an open doorway.
"Alex?" Valerie Benson asked. "Alex, are
you all right?"
She'd heard the gate open, and waited for the
doorbell to ring. When it hadn't, she'd gone to the
door and pressed her eye to the peephole. There,
standing in the patio, she'd seen Alex Lonsdale,
and opened the door. But when she'd spoken, he
hadn't replied, so she'd stepped outside and
called to him.
Now he was looking at her, but she still wasn't sure
he'd heard her words.
"Alex, what is it? Has something happened?"
"Ladrones," Alex whispered. "Asesinos . .
."
Valerie frowned, and stepped back, uneasy.
What was he talking about? Thieves? Murderers?
It sounded like the ravings of a paranoiac.
"K-Kate's not here, was she stammered, backing
toward the front door. "If you're looking for her,
she's gone out."
She was inside and the door was halfway closed when
Alex hurled himself forward, his weight slamming into the
door, sending Valerie sprawling to the floor while
the door itself smashed back against the wall.
Valerie tried to scramble away across the red quarry
tile of the foyer, but it was too late.
Alex's fingers closed around her neck, and
he began to squeeze.
"Venganza . . ." he muttered once more. And then
again, as Valerie Benson died: "Venganza ..."
BRAINCHILD

Alex stepped through the door of Jake's and glanced
around. In the booth in the far corner, he saw
Kate Lewis and Bob Carey sitting with Lisa
Cochran and a couple of other kids. Carefully
composing his features into a smile, he crossed the
room.
"Hi. Is it a private party, or can anybody
join?"'
The six occupants of the booth fell silent.
Alex saw the uneasy glances that passed between them,
but he kept his smile carefully in place. Finally
Bob Carey shrugged and squeezed closer to Kate
to make room at the end of the booth. Still no one said
anything. When the silence was finally broken, it was
Lisa, announcing that she had to go home.
Alex carefully changed his expression, letting his
smile dissolve into a look of disappointment. "But
I just got here," he said.
Lisa hesitated, her eyes fixing suspiciously
on Alex. "I didn't think you'd care
if I stayed or not, was she said. "In fact, none
of us thought you cared about anything anymore."
Alex nodded, and hoped that when he spoke his voice
would have the right inflection. "I know," he said. "But
I think things are starting to change. I think ..."
He dropped his eyes to the table, as he'd seen other
people do when they seemed to be having trouble saying something.
"I think I'm starting to feel things again." Then,
making himself stammer slightly, he went on. "I
... well, I really like you guys, and I'm sorry
if I hurt your feelings."
Once again the rest of the kids glanced at each other,
their self-consciousness only worsening at Alex's
words.
It was Bob Carey who broke the embarrassed
silence. "Hey, come on. Don't go all weird
on us the other way now."
And suddenly everything was all right again, and Alex
knew he'd won.
They'd believed his performance.
But slowly, as the conversation went on, he began to
JOHN SAUL
wonder, for Lisa Cochran still seemed to be
avoiding talking to him.
Lisa herself was not about to tell him that she was
wondering exactly what he was up to.
Long ago, before the accident, she'd heard Alex
stammer and seen him look away when he was talking
about his feelings.
And always, when he did that, he'd blushed.
This time, everything had been fine except for that one
thing.
This time, Alex hadn't blushed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
"Come in with me."
Bob Carey couldn't see Kate's face in the
darkness, but the tremor in her voice revealed that she
was frightened. His eyes moved past her silhouette,
focusing on the house beyond. Everything, he thought,
looked normal. Except for the gate.
The patio gate stood open, and both he and Kate
clearly remembered closing it when they had left
earlier in the evening.
"Nothing's wrong," he assured her, trying to make
his voice sound more confident than he was actually
feeling. "Maybe we didn't really latch it."
"We did," Kate breathed. "I know we did."
Bob got out of the car and went around to open the other
door for Kate, but instead of getting out, she only
gazed past him at the ominously open
gate. "Maybe
. . maybe we ought to call the police, was she
whispered.
"Just because the gate's open?" Bob asked with a
bravado he wasn't feeling. "They'd think we were
nuts."
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"No they wouldn't," Kate argued. "Not after ..."
She fell silent, unable to finish the thought.
Bob wavered, telling himself once more that the open
gate meant nothing. The wind could have done it, or
Mrs. Benson might have gone out herself and left the
gate open. In fact, she might not even be home.
He made up his mind.
"Stay here," he told Kate. "I'll go see."
He went through the open gate into the patio and looked
around. The lights flanking the front door were on,
and the white walls of the patio reflected their glow so
that even the shadowed areas of the little garden were clearly
visible. Nothing seemed to be amiss, and yet as he
stood in the patio, he sensed that something was wrong.
Bob told himself the growing uneasiness he felt was
only in his imagination. As soon as he rang the
bell, Mrs. Benson would come to the door and everything
would be all right.
But when he rang the bell, Mrs. Benson did not
come to the door. Bob rang the bell once more,
waited, then tried the door. It was locked.
Slowly he backed away from the door, then hurried
to the car.
"She's not here," he told Kate a few
seconds later. "She must have gone somewhere." But
even as he spoke the words, he knew they weren't
true. He started the car.
"Where are we going?"
"We're going to call the police, just like you wanted
to. It doesn't feel right in there."
Fifteen minutes later they were back. Bob parked
his Porsche behind the squad car, then got out and went
to the patio gate.
"Stay in your car," one of the cops at the front
door told him. "If there's a creep in here, I
don't want to have to worry about you." Only when
Bob had disappeared did Roscoe Finnerty reach
out and press the bell a second time, as Bob himself
had done only a few minutes earlier. "She
probably just took off somewhere,"
BRAINCHILD

he told torn Jackson, "but with these
two, I guess we can't blame them for being
nervous." When there was still no answer, Finnerty
moved to a window and shone his flashlight through into the
foyer. "Shit," he said softly, and torn
Jackson immediately felt his stomach knot.
"She there?" he asked.
Finnerty nodded. "On the floor, just like the other
one. And if there's any blood, I don't see
it. Take a look."
torn Jackson dutifully stepped to the window and
peered into the foyer. "Maybe she's just
unconscious," he suggested.
"Maybe she is," Finnerty replied, but both men
knew that neither of them believed it. "Go ask the
Lewis girl if she's got a key, but don't
tell her what we've seen. And when you ask for the
key, see how she reacts."
Jackson frowned. "You don't think-was
"I don't know what I think," Finnerty growled.
"But I sure as he bar like know Alan Lewis
didn't do this one, and I keep thinking about the shit that
came down in Marin a few years back when that
girl and her boyfriend killed her folks, then went out
and partied all night. So you just go see if she has
a key, and keep your eyes open."
"Is she all right?" Kate asked when Jackson
approached the car.
"Don't even know if she's here, was Jackson
lied. "Do you have a key? We want to take a
look around."
Kate fumbled in her purse for a moment, then
silently handed Jackson a single key on a ring.
"Stay here," Jackson ordered. He started back
to the house, wondering what he was supposed to have been
looking for. Whatever it was, he hadn't seen
it-all he'd seen were two kids who'd had a
horrible experience only a few days ago, and were
now very frightened.
"Well?" .
Jackson shrugged. "She just gave me the key when
I asked for it. Asked if the Benson woman's
okay. his
"What'd you say?"
JOHN SAUL
"I lied. Figured we should both be there when we
tell them."
Finnerty nodded, and slid the key into the lock, then
pushed the door open and led his partner into the silent
house. One look at Valerie Benson's open
eyes and grimace of frozen terror told
him she was dead. He called the station and told the
duty officer what had happened, then rejoined
Jackson. "Might as well tell them."
From then on, the long night took on a feeling of
eerie familiarity, as Finnerty replayed the scene
he'd gone through less than a week earlier when the
same two kids had found the body of Martha
Lewis.
The dusty road wound steadily up the hill, and
Alex looked neither to the left nor to the right. He
knew every inch of these hills, for he'd ridden over them
with his father ever since he was a little boy. Now, though,
he walked, for along with his father's land, the gringos had
taken the horses as well. Indeed, they'd taken
everything, even his name.
Still, he hadn't left La Paloma-would never
leave La Paloma until finally the gringos had
paid with their lives for the lives they had taken.
He came to a house, opened the gate, and stepped
through into the patio. Not too long ago he'd been in
this patio as an honored guest, with his parents and his
sisters, attending and fiesta. Now he was here for
another reason.
For a few centavos, the new owners would let him
take care of the plants in their patio.
Idly he wondered what they would do if they knew
who he really was.
As he worked, he kept a watchful eye on the
house, and one by one the people left, until he knew that
the woman was alone. Then he went to the front
door, lifted the heavy knocker, and let it fall
back against its plate. The door opened, and the
woman stood in the cool gloom of the foyer, looking
at him uncertainly.
He reached out and put his hands around her neck.
BRAINCHILD

As he began squeezing her life away, he felt
her terror, felt all the emotions that racked her
spirit. He felt her die, and began to sweat. . . .
He woke up with a start, and sat up. The dream
ended, but Alex could still see the face of the woman
he'd strangled, and his body was damp with the memory
of fear.
And he knew the woman in the dream.
It was Valerie Benson.
But who was he?
The memory of the dream was clear in his mind, and he
went over it piece by piece.
The road hadn't been paved. It had been
a dirt road, and yet it hadn't seemed strange
to him.
And he didn't have a name.
They'd stolen his name.
He knew who "they" were, just as he knew why
he'd strangled Valerie Benson.
His parents were dead, and he was taking vengeance on the
people who had killed them.
But it still made no sense, for his parents were asleep
in their room down the hall.
Or were they?
More and more, the line between what was real and what was not was
becoming indistinct.
More and more the odd memories of things that couldn't be were
becoming more real than the unfamiliar world he lived
in.
Perhaps, that very night, he had killed his parents, and
now had no memory of it. He glanced at the
clock by the bed; the fluorescent hands read
eleven-thirty. He had been in bed only half
an hour. There hadn't been enough time for him to go
to sleep, then wake up, kill his parents, go back
to sleep, then dream about it.
He went back over the evening, step by step, and all
of it was perfectly clear in his memory,
except for one brief moment. He'd parked across the
street from Jake's when Maria Torres had
spoken to him.
Spoken to him in Spanish.
JOHN SAUL
The next thing he remembered was going into Jake's,
and that, too, was very clear: he'd gotten out of the car,
locked it, and walked from the parking lot into the pizza
place.
The parking lot.
He distinctly remembered parking his car on the
street across from the pizza parlor, but he also
remembered entering Jake's from the parking lot, which was
next to the restaurant.
The two memories were in direct conflict, but were
equally as strong. There must, therefore, have been two
events involved. He must have gone to Jake's
twice.
He was still trying to make sense out of his memories,
and tie them to the dream, when he heard the wailing of a
siren in the distance. Then there was another sound, as the
telephone began to ring.
Alex got out of bed and put on his robe, then went
down the hall to his parents" room. Though their
voices were muffled by the closed door, he
could still make out the words.
"They don't know," he heard his father say. "All
they know is that they're bringing her in, and that they think
she's a DOA. His
"If you're going down there, I'm going with you," his
mother replied. "And don't try to argue with me.
Valerie and I have been friends all our lives. I
want to be there."
"Honey, neither of us is going anywhere. I'm not on
call tonight, remember? They called because they knew
Valerie was a friend of ours."
Slowly Alex backed away from the closed door and
returned to his own room.
Valerie. He searched his memory, hoping there was
another Valerie there, but there wasn't. It had to be
Valerie Benson, and she was dead.
Then, though he had no conscious memory of it at
all, he knew why he had arrived at Jake's
twice.
He'd gone there once, and then left. After Maria
Torres had spoken to him in Spanish, he'd
driven away
BRAINCHILD

and gone to Valerie Benson's house, and
he'd killed her. Then he'd gone back
to Jake's, and sat down at the table with Kate and
Bob and Lisa, and talked for a while.
And then he'd come home and gone to bed and dreamed about
what he'd done.
But he still didn't know why.
His parents were still alive, and he'd hardly even known
Valerie Benson. He had no reason to kill
her.
And yet he had.
He got back in bed, and lay for a while staring up
at the ceiling in the darkness. Somewhere in his mind he was
sure there were answers, and if he thought about the problem
long enough, he would figure out what those answers
were.
He heard a door open and close, then footsteps
in the hall. It was his mother. He heard her going
downstairs, then, a little later, he heard his father
following her.
For a few minutes he toyed with the idea of going
downstairs himself, and telling them about his dream, and that
he was sure he'd killed Valerie Benson, and
probably Mrs. Lewis too. But then he
rejected the whole idea. Unless he could tell them
why he'd killed the two women, they
surely wouldn't believe he'd done it.
Instead, they'd just think he was crazy.
Alex turned over and pulled the covers snugly
around him. He let his mind run free.
And, as he was sure they would, the connections began
to come together, and he began to understand what was happening
to him.
A few minutes later, he was sound asleep. Through
the rest of the night his sleep was undisturbed.
"I'm telling you, torn, the kids did it,"
Roscoe Finnerty said as he and Jackson sat in
the police station the next morning.
Neither of them had had any sleep, and all torn
Jackson really wanted to do was go home and go to bed,
but if Finnerty wanted to talk-and Finnerty usually
JOHN SAUL
did-the least he could do was listen. In fact, with
Finnerty, listening was all he really had to do, since
Finnerty was as capable of posing the questions as he was of
coming up with the answers.
"Lookit," Finnerty was saying now. "We got
two killings, same M.o. And we got the same
two kids discovering both bodies. What could be
simpler? And don't tell me there's no previous
record of trouble with these kids. They were
both up at that bash last spring, when the Lonsdale
kid smashed up his car, and they were both drunk-was
"Now, wait a minute, Roscoe, was Jackson
interrupted. "Let's at least be fair. Did you
give any of those kids a test?"
"Well, no, but-was
"Then don't tell me you're going to stand up in
court and tell a judge they were drunk, 'cause you
ain't! Now, why don't we just go home and let the
plainclothes guys do their job?"'
Finnerty stared at his partner over the edge of his
coffee cup for several long seconds. "You think
we ought to just forget it?"
Jackson sighed, and stretched his tired muscles.
"I'm not saying to forget it. I'm just saying we've
got a job to do, and I think we oughta do it, and not
butt in where! we aren't invited." I
"And leave that poor drunken slob locked up for
I something he obviously didn't do." I
"Whoa up, buddy!" Jackson said, deciding that enough
I was enough. "You forgetting that the two events might
I not be connected at all? That we just might have two
I different perps here?" I
"Oh, sure. Both of them apparently let into the
house! by the victims, and both of them
strangled. And both of I them discovered by the same
girl, who happens to livej in the houses where the
crimes are committed. You ask I me, that's just a
bit too much." I
"So what are you suggesting?" Jackson asked, know-
BRAINCHILD

ing full well that whatever it was, it wasn't going
to involve going home and going to bed.
"For openers, I think we might have a talk with the
other kids that were down at Jake's last night, and
see if they noticed anything funny about their friends."
Her eyes puffy from lack of sleep, Carol
Cochran stared at the two policemen on the front
porch, then glanced at her watch. Though it was a
few minutes past seven, it felt much earlier. But
despite her exhaustion, she was sure she knew
why they were here.
"It's about Valerie Benson, isn't it?" she
asked.
The two officers exchanged a glance, then Finnerty
nodded. "I'm afraid so. We . . . well,
we'd like to talk to your daughter."
Carol blinked. What on earth were they talking about?
What could Lisa have to do with what had
happened to Valerie? "I ... I'm sorry," she
stammered, "but I don't know what you're talking
about." Jim, she thought. Call Jim. He'll know
what to do. As if he'd heard her thought, her husband
emerged from the kitchen.
"Something wrong, honey?" she heard him ask, and
managed to nod her head.
"They . . . they want to talk to Lisa ..."
Jim Cochran stepped out onto the porch, pulling
the door closed behind him. "Now, what's this all
about?" he asked. As briefly as they could,
Finnerty and Jackson explained why they were there.
Reluctantly Jim invited them into the living room
and asked them to sit down. "If she wants to talk
to you, it's all right," he said. "But she doesn't have
to, you know."
"I know," Finnerty replied. "Believe me,
Mr. Cochran, we don't suspect her of
anything. All we want to know is if she noticed
anything last night."
"I find it impossible to believe that Kate
Lewis and Bob Carey would kill anyone," Jim
said, his voice tight. Let alone two people. his
JOHN SAUL
"I know, sir," Finnerty said. "But
I'd still like to talk to your daughter, if you dont
mind."
"What is it?" Carol asked when Jim came into the
kitchen a moment later. Jim glanced around the
room, but only his wife and older daughter were there.
Kim was nowhere to be seen. "I sent Kim up to her
room and told her not to come down again until I
came up for her. Now, what do they want?"
"It's crazy, if you ask me," Jim replied.
"For some reason, they think maybe Kate and Bob
killed Valerie, and they want to talk to Lisa about
what happened last night. They want to know if she
noticed anything strange about either one of them."
"Oh, God," Carol groaned. She sank into a
chair, her fingers suddenly twisting at the tie of her
bathrobe. Lisa, her eyes wide, was shaking her
head in disbelief.
"They think Kate killed Mrs. Benson?" she
asked. "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."
"I know, sweetheart," Jim said. "It doesn't
seem possible, but apparently that's what they think.
And you don't have to talk to them if you don't want
to."
But Lisa stood up. "No," she said. "It's
all right. I'll talk to them. And I'll
tell them just what a dumb idea they've come up
with."
She went into the living room, and the two officers
rose to their feet, but before they could speak, Lisa
began talking.
"Kate and Bob didn't do anything," she said.
"And if you want me to say they were acting funny
last night, I won't. They were acting just like they
always act, except that Kate was a little quieter
than usual."
"Nobody's saying anyone did anything, Lisa,"
Finnerty interjected. "We're just trying to find out
what happened, and if the kids could have had any part in
it at all."
"Well, they couldn't," Lisa replied. "And I
know why you're asking questions about them. It's those kids
in Marin, isn't it?"
Finnerty swallowed, and nodded.
BRAINCHILD

"Well, they were creeps. They were doing drugs all
the time, and drinking, and all that kind of stuff. And
Bob and Kate aren't like that at all."
"Honey, take it easy," Jim Cochran said,
stepping into the room and putting his arm around his
daughter. "They just want to ask some questions. If you
don't want to answer them, you don't have to, but
don't try to keep them from doing their job."
As Lisa turned to gaze into her father's eyes, her
indignation dissolved into tears. "But, Daddy, it's so
awful. Why would they think Kate and Bob would do such
a thing?"
"I don't know," Jim admitted. "And maybe
they don't. Now, do you want to talk to them, or
not?"
Lisa hesitated, then nodded, and dabbed at her
eyes with the handkerchief her father handed her. "I'm
sorry," she apologized. "But nothing happened
last night."
"All right, was Finnerty said, taking out his
notebook. "Let's start with that."
Slowly Lisa reconstructed the events of the evening
before. She'd gone to Jake's by herself, and, as usual,
a lot of the kids had been there. Then, when Bob and
Kate came in, the three of them had taken a table
together, and sat sipping Cokes and talking about nothing
in particular. Then Alex Lonsdale had joined
them for a while, and eventually they had all left.
"And there wasn't anything odd about Kate or
Bob? They didn't seem nervous, or
worried, or anything?"
Lisa's eyes narrowed. "If you mean did they
act like they'd just killed someone, no, they didn't.
In fact, when they left, Kate even wondered if
they ought to call Mrs. Benson and tell her they were
on their way." Then, when she saw the two
policemen exchange a glance, she spoke again.
"And don't try to make anything out of that, either.
Kate always called her mom if she was going to be
late. She always said her mom had enough to worry about with
her dad being a drunk and shouldn't have to worry about
her, too."
Finnerty closed his notebook and stood up.
"All right,"
JOHN SAUL
he said. "I guess that's it, if you can't think of
anything else-anything out of the ordinary at all."
Lisa hesitated, and once more Finnerty and
Jackson exchanged a glance.
"Is there something?" Jim asked.
"I ... I don't know," Lisa replied.
"It doesn't matter what it is," Finnerty
told her, reopening his notepad.
"But it doesn't have anything to do with Kate and
Bob," Lisa said.
Jackson frowned. "Then what does it have to do with?
One of the other kids?"
Again Lisa hesitated, then nodded. "With . . . with
Alex Lonsdale," she said.
"What about Alex?" Jim asked. "It's all
right, honey. Just tell us what happened with Alex."
"Well, nothing, really," Lisa said. "Ever since
the accident, he's so strange, but last night he
said he was getting better, and for a while I thought he
was. I mean, he was smiling, and he laughed at
jokes, and he seemed almost . . . well, almost like
he used to be." She fell silent, and Finnerty
finally asked her what, exactly, had happened.
"I don't know," Lisa confessed. "But finally
Bob started teasing Alex about something, and Alex
didn't blush."
"That's all?" Finnerty asked. "The strange thing
was that he didn't blush?"
Lisa nodded. "Alex always used to blush. In
fact, some of the kids used to say things to him just
to watch him get embarrassed. But last night, even
though he was smiling, and laughing, and all that, he still
wasn't blushing. his
"I see," Finnerty said. He closed his
notebook for the last time and slid his pencil
back in his pocket. A few minutes later, when
they were outside, he turned to Jackson. "Well,
what do you think?"
"I still think we're barking up the wrong tree,"
Jackson replied. "But I guess we might as
well have a talk with the Lonsdale boy."
BRAINCHILD

"Yeah," Finnerty agreed. Then he rolled his
eyes. "Kids amaze me," he said. "They spend
a whole evening together, and the only odd thing the girl can
remember is that her boyfriend didn't blush.
Isn't that something?"
Jackson frowned. "Maybe it is important,"
he said. "Maybe it's very important."
Marsh Lonsdale sat listening as the two officers
interviewed Alex about the events of the night before, but
i found himself concentrating much more on the manner bar in
which his son spoke than on the words themselves. They were in
the living room, gathered around the j fireplace, and
at the far end-huddled alone in a chair right-brace
as if she wanted to divorce herself from everything- His:
Ellen seemed not to be listening at all.
"Everything," Finnerty had said an hour ago. "We
want you to tell us everything you remember about
last night, just the way you remember it." j
And ever since, Alex had been speaking, his voice
" steady and expressionless, recounting what he
remem- j bered of his activities the night before,
from the time! he left the house to go to Jake's, to the
moment he! returned. It was, Marsh realized,
almost like listening! to a tape recorder. Alex
remembered what everyone! had said, and repeated it
verbatim. After the first twenty! minutes, both
Finnerty and Jackson had stopped taking!
272 I
BRAINCHILD

notes, and were now simply sitting, listening. When,
at last, Alex's recitation was over, there was a
long silence, then Roscoe Finnerty got to his
feet and went to the mantel. Resting most of his
weight on the heavy oak beam that ran the width of the
fireplace, he gazed curiously at Alex.
"You really remember all that?" he asked at last.
Alex nodded.
"In that kind of detail?" Finnerty mused aloud.
"His memory is remarkable," Marsh said, speaking
for the first time since the interview had begun. "It
seems to be a function of the brain surgery
that was done after his accident. If he says he
remembers all of what he just told you, then you can
believe he does."
Finnerty nodded. "I'm not doubting it," he said.
"I'm just amazed at the detail, that's all." He
turned back to Alex. "You've told us everything that
happened at Jake's, and you've told us everything
everyone said. But what I want to know is if you
noticed anything about Kate Lewis and Bob
Carey. Did they act ... well, normal?"
Alex gazed steadily at Finnerty. "I don't
know," he said. "I don't really know what normal
is anymore. What you're asking me to do is
describe how they appeared to be feeling, but I
can't do that, since I don't have feelings anymore.
I had them before the accident- or at least everyone
says I did-but since the accident I don't. But
they acted just like they always have. was Suddenly he grinned
uncomfortably. "Bob was teasing me a little."
"I know," torn Jackson said. "Your girlfriend
told us about that. And she said you didn't blush."
"I don't think I can blush. I might be able
to learn how, but I haven't yet."
"Learn how?" Jackson echoed blankly. "But you
just smiled."
Alex glanced at his father, and Marsh nodded. "I've
been practicing. I'm not like other people, so I'm
practicing being like other people. It seemed like I ought to
JOHN SAUL
grin before I admitted that Bob was teasing me, so I
did."
"Okay," Finnerty said, staring at the boy and
feeling chilled. "Is there anything else you
remember? Anything at all?"
Alex hesitated, then shook his head. A few
minutes later, Finnerty and Jackson were gone.
"Alex?" Marsh asked. "Is there something else you
remember about last night that you didn't tell them?"
Once again, Alex shook his head. Everything he
remembered, he'd told them about. But they hadn't
asked him if he knew who killed Valerie
Benson. If they had, he would have told them, though
he wouldn't have been able to tell them why she died, or
why Mrs. Lewis died, either. But when he'd
awakened this morning, the last pieces had fallen
into place, and it had all come together in his mind. He
understood his brain now, and soon he would understand
exactly what had happened.
He would understand what had happened, and he would know who
he was.
"Why, Alex," Arlette Pringle said, her plain
features lighting up with a smile, "you're becoming quite
a regular here, aren't you?"
"I need some more information, Miss Pringle," Alex
replied. "I need to know more about the town."
"La Paloma?" Miss Pringle asked, her
voice doubtful. "I'm afraid I just don't have
much. I have the book I showed you a couple of days
ago, but that's about it." She shrugged ruefully.
"I'm afraid not much ever happened here. Nothing
worth writing about, anyway."
"But there has to be something," Alex pressed.
"Something about the old days, when the town was mostly
Mexican."
"Mexican," Arlette repeated, her lips
pursing thoughtfully as her fingers tapped on her
desktop. "I'm afraid I just don't know
exactly what you want. I have some information about the
Franciscan fathers, and the mis-
BRAINCHILD

sions, but I'm not sure there's much that's
specifically about our mission. La Paloma just
wasn't that important. his
"What about when the Americans came?"
Again Arlette shrugged. "Not that I know of. Of
course, there are the old stories, but I don't
pay any attention to them, and I don't think they're
written down anywhere."
"What stories?"
"Oh, some of the older Chicanos in town still talk
about the old days, when Don Roberto de
Melendez y Ruiz still had the hacienda, and about
what happened after the treaty was signed." She leaned
forward, and her voice dropped confidentially.
"Supposedly there was a massacre up there."
Alex frowned slightly, as a vague memory
stirred on the edges of his consciousness. "At the
hacienda?"
"That's what they say. But of course, the stories have
been passed down through the generations, and I don't
suppose there's, much truth to any of them, really.
But if you really want to know about them, why don't you
go see Mrs. Torres?"
"Maria?" Alex asked, his voice suddenly
hollow. For the first time since his operation, a pang of
genuine fear crashed through the barriers in his mind, and
he felt himself tremble. It fit. It fit
perfectly with the idea that had begun forming in his mind
last night, then come to fruition this morning.
Arlette Pringle nodded. "That's right. She still
lives around the corner in a little house behind the
mission. You tell her I sent you, but I warn you,
once she starts talking, she won't stop." She
wrote an address on a slip of paper and handed it
to Alex. "Now, don't believe everything she
says," she cautioned as Alex was about to leave the
library. "Don't forget, she's old, and she's
always been very bitter. I can't say I blame her,
really, but still, it's best not to put too much stock in
her stories. I'm afraid a lot of them have been
terribly exaggerated."
JOHN SAUL
Alex left the library, and glanced at the address
on the scrap of paper, then crumpled it and threw it
into a trash bin. A few minutes later he was a
block and a half away, his eyes fixed on a tiny
frame house that seemed on the verge of falling in
on itself.
Home.
The word flashed into his mind, and images of the little
house tumbled over one another. He knew, with all
the certainty of a lifetime of memories, that he had
come home. He pushed his way through the broken gate
and made his way up onto the sagging porch.
He knocked at the front door, then waited. As
he was about to knock again, the door opened a crack,
and the ancient eyes of Maria Torres peered out at
him.
A sigh drifted from her throat, and she opened the
door wider.
"M-Mama?" Alex stammered uncertainly.
Maria gazed at him for a moment, then slowly shook
her head. "No," she said softly. "You are not my
son. You are someone else. What do you want?" :
"M-Miss Pringle sent me." Alex faltered.
"She said' you might be able to tell me what happened
here a long time ago."
There was a long silence while she seemed to con- be
sider his words. "You want to know?" she asked at
last, g her eyes narrowing to slits. "But you already
know. You! are Alejandro." 1
Alex frowned, suddenly certain that the familiar
sear-" ing pain was about to rip through his mind and that the
voices were about to start whispering to him. He could almost
feel them, niggling around the edges of his consciousness.
Doggedly he fought against them. "I ... I just want
to know what happened a long time] ago," he
managed to repeat. were'
Maria Torres fell silent once more,
regarding himi thoughtfully. At last she nodded.
"You are Alejandro," she said again. "You should know
what happened." She be held the door wide, and
Alex stepped through into the eerily familiar confines
of a tiny living room furnished
BRAINCHILD

only with a threadbare couch, a sagging easy chair,
and a Formica-topped table surrounded by four worn
dining chairs.
All of it was exactly as it had been in his
memories a few moments before.
The shades were drawn, but from one corner a color
television suffused the room with an eerie light.
Its sound was muted.
"For company," the old woman muttered. "I
don't listen, but I watch." She lowered herself
carefully into the easy chair, and Alex sat gingerly
on the edge of the sofa. "What stories you want
to hear?"
"The thieves," Alex said quietly. "Tell me
about the thieves and the murderers."
Maria Torres's eyes flashed darkly in the dim
light. "For que?" she demanded. "Why do you want
to know now?"
"I remember things," Alex said. "I remember
things that happened, and I want to know more about them."
"What things?" The old woman was leaning forward now,
her eyes fixed intently on Alex.
"Fernando," Alex said. "Tio Fernando. He's
buried in San Francisco, at the mission. his
Maria's eyes widened momentarily, then she nodded,
and let herself sag back in the chair once again.
"Su tio," she muttered. "Si, es la verdad
. . ."
"The truth?" Alex asked. "What's the truth?"
Once again the old woman's eyes brightened.
"Habla usted espanol?"
"I ... I don't know," Alex said. "But I
understood what you said."
The old lady fell silent again, and examined
Alex closely through her bleary eyes. In the
light of the television set, his features were
indistinct, and yet, she realized, the coloring was
right. His hair was dark, and his eyes were blue, just as
her grandfather had told her Don Roberto's had
been, and as his own had been. Making up her mind,
she nodded emphatically.
JOHN SAUL
"Si," she muttered. "Es la verdad.
Don Alejando ha regresado ..." j
"Tell me the stories," Alex said again.
"Please just; tell me the stories."
"They stole," Maria said finally. "They came and
they stole our lands, and murdered our people. They went
right-brace up into the canyons first, and murdered the
wives of j the overseers while the men were out on the
land.! Then they went to the hacienda and took Don
Robert less-than Just away and hanged him." m
Alex frowned. "The tree," he said. "They
hanged hinfl from the big tree." 1
"Si," Maria agreed. "And then they went back
to the" hacienda, and they killed his family. They
killed Dona Maria, and Isabella, and
Estellita. And they would have killed Alejandro,
too, if they had found him."
"Alejandro?" Alex asked.
"El hijo," Maria Torres said softly. "The
son of Don Roberto de Melendez y Ruiz.
Dona Maria told them she had sent him
to Sonora, and they believed her. But he stayed.
He hid in the mission with his uncle, who was the
priest, and they fled to San Francisco. And bar
then, when Padre Fernando died, Alejandro
returned bar to La Paloma." to 
"Why?" Alex asked. "Why did he come back?"
Maria Torres stared at him for a long time. When
she spoke, her voice was barely audible, but
nonetheless her words seemed to fill the room.
"Venganza," she said. "He came for vengeance on
the thieves and the murderers. Even when he was dying,
he said he would never leave. From beyond the grave, he
said. From beyond the grave, venganza."
Alex emerged from the little house into the blazing sun of the
September morning. He began walking through the
village, pausing here and there, turning over the bits
and pieces of the story Maria Torres had told
him, examining them carefully, searching for the flaw. His
mind told him that the answer he had come
BRAINCHILD

up with was impossible, but still the pieces of the story
matched his strange memories too well. He
knew, though, where he would find the ultimate truth,
and what he would do once he found it.
The phone on his desk jangled loudly. For a moment
Marsh was tempted to let it ring. Then he realized the
call was coming in on his private line. Only a
few people knew that number, and even they used it only
when it was an emergency.
"I trust you aren't going to force me to implement the
provisions of the release," Raymond Torres's
cold voice said.
"How did you get this number?"
"I've had this number since the moment I took on
your son's case, Dr. Lonsdale. Not that it
matters. The only thing that matters is that your wife
was to bring Alex to me today."
"I'm afraid that won't be possible, Dr.
Torres," Marsh replied. "We've discussed the
matter, and it's my decision that you can do Alex no
more good. I'm afraid he won't be coming back there
anymore."
There was a long silence, and when Torres's voice
finally came over the line again, its tone had hardened
even further. "And I'm afraid that's not your
decision to make, Dr. Lonsdale."
"Nonetheless," Marsh replied, "that's the decision I
ve made. And I wouldn't advise you to try to come and
get him, or have anyone else try to come and get him
either. I'm his father, Dr. Torres, and despite
your release, I have some rights."
"I see," Torres said, and Marsh thought he heard
a sigh come through the phone. "Very well, I'm willing
to strike a compromise with you. Bring Alex
down this afternoon, and I will explain to you exactly what
my procedures have been up until now, and why I
think its necessary that he come back to the Institute."
Not a chance. Until I know exactly what you've
done, you won't see Alex again."
JOHN SAUL
In the privacy of his office, Raymond Torres
slumped tiredly behind his desk. Too many hours of
too little sleep had finally taken their toll, and he
knew he was no longer thinking clearly. But he also
knew that letting Alex leave the Institute
yesterday had been a mistake. Whatever the
consequences, he had to get him back. "Very well,"
he said. "What time can I expect you?"
Marsh glanced at his appointment book. "A couple
of hours?"
"Fine. And after you've heard what I have to say,
I'm sure you'll agree that Alex should be back
here." The line went dead in Marsh's hand. j
Alex paused at the garden gate, and stared at the
high vine-covered wall that separated the patio from the
street. Then, making up his mind, he went into the
patio, then into the house. The house, as he had
hoped it would be, was empty. He went to the garage
and began searching through the mound of boxes that still
sat, unpacked, against the back wall. Each of them
was neatly marked with its contents, and it didn't take
him long to find the two he was looking for.
The hedge clippers were at the bottom of the first box.
As Alex worked them loose from the tangle of other
tools, lie wondered if he was doing the right thing.
And yet, he had to know. The vines covering the garden
wall were part of the pattern, and he had to see J for
himself if he was right. right-brace
The book, after all, might have been wrong. i
The clippers in hand, he left the garage and walked
down the driveway to the sidewalk. Then, working
slowly and deliberately, he began cutting the
vines off as close to the ground as the strength in his
arms and the thickness of the trunks would allow. He worked
his way slowly up the hill until the last stems
had been cut; then, going the other way, he tore the
thickly matted vegetation loose, letting it pile
on the sidewalk at his feet. When he was done,
he stepped back and looked at the wall once more.
BRAINCHILD

Though it was covered with the collected dust and dirt of the
years, and its whitewash had long since disappeared,
the tiles remained.
The wall looked exactly as he had thought it should
look when he had first come home from the Institute.
He went back into the garage and opened the second
box. His father's shotgun was on top, neatly
packed away in its case. He opened the case and
methodically began putting the pieces together. When the
gun was fully assembled, he took five shells
from a half-full box of ammunition and put them in
his pocket. Carrying the gun easily in the crook
of his right arm, he left the garage and walked once
more down the driveway, then turned to the right and started
the long climb up toward the hacienda. . . .
It had been a bad morning for Ellen, and as she
started up Hacienda Drive she was beginning
to wonder if she was going to get through the next few
days at all.
She'd spent most of the morning with Carol Cochran,
and none of it had been easy. Part of the time they'd
simply cried, and part of the time they'd tried to make
plans for Valerie Benson's funeral. And over
it all hung the question of who had killed Valerie.
And then there had been Carol's oddly phrased questions
about Alex:
"But is he really getting better? I mean,
Lisa keeps telling me about strange
things he says. his
"No, I don't really remember what"-though
Ellen was quite sure she did, and simply didn't
want to tell her. "But Lisa really seems very
worried. In fact, I think she's just a little
frightened of Alex."
Ellen had become increasingly certain that after
Valerie's funeral, the Cochrans and the
Lonsdales would be seeing a lot less of each
other.
She came around the last curve, swinging wide
to pull into the driveway, when she suddenly slammed
on the brakes. Piled on the sidewalk, nearly
blocking the
JOHN SAUL
driveway itself, lay the ruins of the masses of
morning glory that had covered the patio wall only
two hours ago.
"I don't believe it," she whispered aloud, though
she was alone in the car. Suddenly the sound of a horn
yanked her attention away from the tangle of vines,
and she jerkily pulled into the driveway to make
room for the car that was coming down the hill. She sat
numbly behind the wheel for a moment, then got out of the car
and walked back down the drive to stare
once more at the mess on the sidewalk.
Who would do such a thing? It made no sense-no
sense whatever. It would take years for the vines to grow
back. She surveyed the wall, slowly taking in the
streaked and stained expanse of plaster, and the
intricate patterns of tile that were now all that
broke its forbidding expanse. And then, behind her, a
voice spoke. Startled, she turned to see one of the
neighbors standing on the sidewalk looking glumly
at the vines. Ellen's mind suddenly blanked and
she had to grope for the woman's name. Then it came
back to her. Sheila. Sheila Rosenberg.
"Sheila," she said. Then, her bewilderment showing in
her voice: "Look at this. Just look at it!"
Sheila smiled ruefully. "That's kids," she
said. I
Ellen's expression suddenly hardened. "Kids?
Kids I did this?" caret
Now it was Sheila Rosenberg who seemed at a
loss.
*8I meant leave the job half-done." She
sighed. "Well, I
suppose you know what you're doing, but I'm going to
miss the vines, especially in the summer. The
colors
were always so incredible-was
"What I'm doing?" Ellen asked. "Sheila,
what on earth are you talking about?"
Finally the smile faded from Sheila's face.
"Alex," she said. "Didn't you ask him to cut the
vines down?"
Alex? Ellen thought. Alex did this? But... but
why? Once again she surveyed the wall, and this time
her
BRAINCHILD

eyes came to rest on the tiles. "Sheila," she
asked, "did you know that wall had tiles inlaid in
it?"
The other woman shook her head. "Who could know?
Those vines were two feet thick, at least. No
one's seen the wall itself for years." Her eyes
scanned the wall, and her brows furrowed
speculatively. "But you know, maybe you did the
right thing. If you put in smaller plants, and
maybe some trellises, it could be very pretty."
"Sheila, I didn't ask Alex to cut down those
vines. Are you sure it was him?"
Sheila stared at her for a moment, then nodded her head
firmly. "Absolutely. Do you think I
would have let a stranger do it? I saw him a couple
of hours ago, and then I got busy with something
else. The next time I looked, the vines were all
down, and Alex was gone. I thought he must be having
lunch or something."
Ellen's gaze shifted to the house. "Maybe that's
what he's doing," she said, though she didn't
believe it. For some reason greater-than she was sure
that Alex was not in the house. "Thanks, Sheila,"
she said abstractedly. "I ... well, I guess
I'd better find out what's going on." Leaving
Sheila Rosenberg standing on the sidewalk, she
went through the patio into the house. "Alex? Alex,
are you here?"
She was still listening to the silence of the house when the phone
began ringing, and she snatched the receiver off the hook and
spoke without thinking. "Alex? Alex, is that you?"
There was a moment of silence, and then Marsh's voice
came over the line. "Ellen, has something else
happened?"
Something else? Ellen thought. My best friends are being
murdered, and I don't know what's happening to my
son, and you want to know if something else is wrong?
At that particular moment, she decided, she hated
her husband. When she spoke, though, her
voice was eerily calm. "Not really," she said.
"It's just that for some reason Alex cut all the
vines off the patio wall."
JOHN SAUL
Again there was a silence; then: "Alex is supposed
to be at school."
"I know that," Ellen replied. "But apparently he
isn't. Apparently he left school-if he even
went-and came home and cut down the vines. And now
he's gone. Don't ask me where, because I don't
know."
In his office, Marsh listened more to the tone of his
wife's voice than to her words, and knew that she was
on the edge of coming apart.
"Take it easy," he said. "Just sit down and
take it easy. I'm on my way home to get you,
and then we're going down to Palo Alto."
"Palo Alto?" Ellen asked vacantly.
"Why?"
"Torres has agreed to talk to us," Marsh
replied. "He'll tell us what's happening
to Alex."
Ellen nodded to herself. "But what about Alex?" she
asked. "Shouldn't we try to find him?"'
"We will," Marsh assured her. "By the time
we get back from Palo Alto, he'll
probably be home."
"What . . . what if he's not?"
"Then we'll find him."
Now, Ellen thought. We should find him now. But the
words wouldn't come. Too much was happening, and too much
was closing in on her.
And maybe, she thought, as she sat waiting for Marsh
to come for her, maybe finally Raymond would be able
to convince Marsh to let him help Alex.
Half a mile away, on the hill above the
hacienda, Alex, too, was waiting.
He wasn't yet sure what he was waiting for, but
he knew that whatever it was, he was prepared for it.
In his arms, cradled carefully against his chest, was the
now loaded shotgun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Cynthia Evans glanced nervously at her watch.
She was running late, and she hated to run late.
But if she hurried, she could get the shopping done,
swing by the school and pick up Carolyn, and still be
home in time for her three-thirty appointment with the
gardener. She pulled the front door closed behind
her, and moved quickly toward the BMW that stood just
inside the gates to the courtyard. As she was
about to get into the car, a flash of reflected
sunlight caught her eyes, and she looked up
onto the hillside that rose beyond the hacienda
walls.
He was still sitting there, as he had been since a little
past noon.
She knew who it was-it was Alex Lonsdale.
She'd determined that much when she'd first seen him, then
gotten her husband's binoculars to take a better
look. If it had been a stranger, she would have
called the police immediately, especially after what had
happened to Valerie Benson last night. But
to call the police on Alex
JOHN SAUL
was another matter. Alex-and Ellen as well-had
had enough troubles lately, without her adding to them. If
he wanted to sit in the hills, he probably had
his reasons.
Even so, she was starting to get annoyed. When they
bought the hacienda, why had they not bought the surrounding
acreage as well? It was far too easy for people
to climb up the hillside and gaze down over the
walls, as Alex had done today, invading the
privacy they had spent so much money to achieve.
For a moment Cynthia was tempted to call the
police anyway, and to hell with the Lonsdales"
feelings. The only reason she didn't, in fact,
was the time.
She was running late, and she hated to run late.
She started the BMW, put it in gear, and raced out
of the courtyard and down Hacienda Drive, not even
taking the time to make sure the security gates had
closed behind her.
Alex watched the car disappear from sight, and knew the
house was empty now. He rose to his feet and
began scrambling down the hill, holding the shotgun
in his left hand, using his right to steady himself on the
steep slope. Five minutes later he was at the
gates, staring into the courtyard.
The gates were wrong.
They should have been wooden. He remembered them as being
made of massive oaken planks, held together
by wide wrought-iron straps ending in immense hinges.
And the courtyard itself wasn't right, either. There should be
no pool, and instead of the flagstone paving, there should
only be packed earth, swept of its dust by the
peones each day. Silently, his memories coming
clearer, Alex moved through the gates, across the
courtyard, and into the house.
Here, things were better. The rooms looked
as he remembered them, and there was a comforting
familiarity. He wandered through them slowly, until
he bar came to the room that had been his. He had
been?
BRAINCHILD

happy when he had lived in this room, and the house had
been filled with his parents and his sisters, and everyone
else who lived on the hacienda.
Before the gringos came.
Los ladrones. Los ladrones y los
asesinos.
The pain that always filled him when the memories came
surged through him now, and he left the room on the
second floor and continued moving through the house.
In the kitchen, nothing was right. The old fireplace
was there, but the cooking kettle was gone, and there were new
things that had never been there in the old days. He
left the kitchen and went back to the foyer.
He stopped, frowning.
There was a new door, a door he had never seen
before. He hesitated, then opened it.
There were stairs down into a cellar.
His house had never had a cellar.
Clutching the gun tighter, he descended the
stairs, and gazed around him.
All along the wall, there was a mirror, and in
front of the mirror, on glass shelves, were
masses of bottles and glasses.
All of it wrong, all of it belonging to the thieves.
Raising the shotgun, Alex fired into the mirror.
The mirror exploded, and shards of glass flew
everywhere, then the shelves of glasses and bottles
collapsed on themselves. A moment later, all that was
left was wreckage.
Alex turned away, and started back up the
stairs. He would wait in the courtyard for the
murderers, as his mother and sisters had waited before.
Now, at last, he would have his vengeance. . . .
"Darling, how would I know why Alex was up there?
All he was doing was sitting, looking down at the
house."
"Well, you should have called the police," Carolyn
complained. "Everybody knows Alex is crazy. his
JOHN SAUL
Cynthia shot her daughter a reproving glance.
"Carolyn, that's unkind. his
"It's true," Carolyn replied. "Mom, I'm
telling you- he's acting weirder and weirder all the
time. And Lisa says he told her he
didn't think Mr. Lewis killed Mrs.
Lewis and that he thought someone else was going to get
killed. And look what happened to Mrs. Benson
last night."
Cynthia turned left up Hacienda Drive.
"If you're trying to tell me you think Alex
killed them, I don't want to hear it. Ellen
Lonsdale is a friend of mine-was
"What's that got to do with anything? I don't care
if she's the nicest person in the world-Alex is a
fruitcake!"
"That's enough, Carolyn!"
"Aw, come on, Mom-was
"No! I'm tired of the way you talk about people, and I
won't hear any more of it." Then, remembering her
own impulse just before she'd left the house an hour
ago, she softened. "Tell you what. You promise
not to talk about him like that anymore, and I promise
to call the police if he's still there when we get
back. Okay?"
Carolyn shrugged elaborately, and they drove on
up the ravine in silence. They came around the last
curve, and as Cynthia scanned the hillside, she
heard Carolyn groaning.
"Now what's wrong?"
"The gates," Carolyn said. "If I'd left
them open, you'd ground me for a week."
Cynthia swore under her breath, then reminded herself
that she'd only been gone an hour, and it was the
middle of the afternoon. Besides, the courtyard was empty.
She drove inside and got out of the car. "Well,
j at least we don't have to call the police," she
observed,! her eyes scanning the hills once more.
"He's gone. was J
"Thieves," a soft voice hissed from the shadows of
thfl wide loggia in front of the house.
"Murderers." I
Cynthia froze. I
"Who . . . who's there?" she asked. I
BRAINCHILD

"Oh, God," she heard Carolyn whimper.
"It's Alex. Mama, it's Alex."
"Quiet," Cynthia said softly. "Just don't
say anything, Carolyn. Everything will be all right."
Then, her voice louder: "Alex? Is that you?"
Alex stepped out of the shadows, the shotgun held
firmly in his hands. "I am Alejandro," he
whispered.
His face was dripping blood from a cut
above his left eye, and his shirt was stained darkly from
another on his shoulder, but if he felt any pain,
he gave no sign. Instead he walked slowly
forward.
"There, was he said, gesturing with the gun toward the south
wall. "Over there."
"Do as he says, Carolyn," Cynthia said
softly. "Just do as he says, and everything will be all
right."
"But he's crazy, Mama!"
"Hush! Just be quiet, and do as he says." She
waited for what seemed like an aeon, praying that
Carolyn wouldn't try to get back in the car or
bolt toward the gates. Then, out of the corner of her
eye, she saw her daughter begin to move slowly
around the end of the car until she was standing at her
side. Cynthia took the girl's hand in her own.
"We'll do exactly as he says," she said again.
"If we do as he says, he won't hurt us."
Slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on Alex, she
began backing around, pulling Carolyn with her.
"What is it, Alex?" she asked. "What do you
want?"
"Venganza," Alex whispered. "Venganza para
mi familia."
"Your family, Alex?"
Alex nodded. "St." Again he began moving forward,
backing Cynthia and Carolyn Evans slowly
toward the wall.
He could see the wall as it had been that day, even
though they'd plastered over the damage and tried to wash
away the blood of his family. But the pits from the
bullets were still there, and the red stains were as
JOHN SAUL
bright as they had been on the day he'd watched his
family die.
And now, the moment was finally at hand.
He wondered if the gringa woman would face death
with the bravery of his mother, crying out her defiance even as
the bullets cut the life out of her.
He knew she wouldn't.
She would die a gringas death, begging for mercy.
Even now, he could hear her.
"Why?"' she was saying. "Why are you doing this? What
have we done to you?"
What did my mother and my sisters do to deserve to die
at the hands of your men? he thought, but it was not the time for
questions.
It was the time for vengeance.
He squeezed the trigger, and the quiet of the
afternoon exploded with the roar of the shotgun.
The gringas face exploded before his eyes, and new
blood was added to the courtyard wall. Then, as with his
mother before her, the woman's knees gave way, and she
sank slowly to the ground as her daughter watched,
screaming.
As Alex squeezed the trigger a second time, his
only wish was that the courtyard was as it should have been, and
he could have watched as the blood of the gringas disappeared
into the dust of the hacienda.
Jose Carillo turned up Hacienda Drive,
and shifted his battered pickup truck into low gear.
Listening to the transmission's angry grinding, he
hoped the truck would last long enough for him to begin the
job at the hacienda. With the amount of money that one
job would produce, he would be able to afford a new
truck. But he was already late, and worried that he
might lose the job before he ever got it. He
pressed on the gas pedal, and the old truck coughed,
then reluctantly surged forward.
It was on the second curve that he saw the boy coming
down the road, a shotgun cradled in his arms,
BRAINCHILD

his face and shirt covered with blood. He
braked to a stop and called out to the boy. At first the
boy hadn't seemed to hear him. Only when Jose
called out a second time did the boy look up.
"You okay?" Jose asked. "Need some help?"
The boy stared at him for a moment, then shook his head
and continued down the road. Jose watched him until
he disappeared through the gate in the wall whose vines had
just been torn down-something Jose's gardener's eyes
had noticed as he'd come up the hill. Then he
forced the truck back in gear.
He was already inside the courtyard before he saw the
carnage that lay against the south wall.
"Jesus, Jose, y Maria," he muttered.
He crossed himself, then fought down the nausea in his
gut as he hurried into the house to find a
telephone.
Alex stared at himself in the mirror. Blood still
oozed from the cut over his eye, and his shirt was growing
stiff.
He'd already examined the shotgun, and knew that he'd
fired three shells.
The last two were now in the chambers.
And though he had no conscious memory of it, he
knew where he'd been when the voices began whispering
to him and the images from the past began to flood
his mind. He also knew where he'd been when it had
ended.
When it began, he'd been on the hillside
overlooking the hacienda, remembering Maria
Torres's stories of the past.
And when it ended, he'd been walking away from the
hacienda, and the smell of gunpowder was strong, and he
was bleeding, and though his body was in pain, in his soul
he felt nothing.
Nothing.
But tonight, he was sure, he would dream again, and see
what he had done, and feel the pain in his soul.
JOHN SAUL
But it was the last time it would happen, for now he .
knew why it had happened, and how to end it.
And he also knew that he, Alex, had done none of
it.
Everything that had been done, had been done
by Alejandro de Melendez y Ruiz. Now all
that was left was to kill Alejandro. J
He changed his shirt, but didn't bother to bandage
backslash the cut on his forehead. were'
Picking up the shotgun, he went back downstairs
and bar found the extra set of keys to his mother's car
in the kitchen drawer.
He went out to the driveway and started the car. He
shifted the gear lever into reverse, then kept his foot
on " the brake as a police car, its siren
screaming, raced up backslash the hill past the
house.
He was sure he knew where it was going, and he was
sure he knew what its occupants would find when
they reached their destination. But instead of following the
police car and trying to explain to the officers what
he thought had happened, Alex went the other way.
His mind suddenly crystal clear, he drove down
the hill, through La Paloma, and out of town. It would
take him thirty minutes to reach Palo Alto. be
"I'm telling you, something's wrong," Roscoe
Finnerty had been saying when the phone on the kitchen
wall suddenly rang, and he decided it could damned
well ring until he'd finished what he was saying.
"The kid said he parked across the street from
Jake's. It's right j bar here in my notes."
"And my notes say he parked in the lot next
door," bar torn Jackson replied. He nodded
toward the phone. bar "And we're in your kitchen, so
you can answer the ft phone. was bar bar
"Shit," Finnerty muttered, reaching up and grabbing
I the receiver. "Yeah?" He listened for a
few seconds, % and Jackson saw the color
drain from his face. "Aah, shit," he said again.
Then: "Yeah, we'll go up." He hung up the
phone and reluctantly met his partner's
BRAINCHILD

eyes. "We got two more," he said. "The chief
wants us to take a look and see if it looks like
the other two. From what he said, though, it doesn't.
This time, it's messy."
But he hadn't counted on its being as messy as it
actually was. He stood in the courtyard wondering
if he should even try to take a pulse from the two
corpses that lay against the wall. On one of them, the
face was gone, and most of the head as well. Still, he
was pretty sure he knew who it was, because the other
corpse had taken the shotgun blast in the chest, and the
face was still clearly recognizable.
Carolyn Evans.
The other one, judging from what Finnerty could see,
had to be her mother. "Call the Center," he muttered
to Jackson. "And tell them to bring bags, and not
to bother with the sirens." Then he turned his attention
to Jose Carillo, who was sitting by the pool,
resolutely looking away from the corpses
and the bloodstained wall they rested against.
"You know anything about this, Jose?" Finnerty asked,
though he was almost certain he knew the answer.
He'd known Jose for almost ten years, and the gardener
was known only for three things: his industriousness and his
honesty and his refusal to involve himself in violence
under any circumstances.
Jose shook his head. "I was coming up for a job.
When I got here ..." His voice broke off, and
he shook his head helplessly. "As soon as I
found them, I called the police."
"Did you see anything? Anything at all?"
Jose started to shake his head, then hesitated.
"What is it?" Finnerty urged.
"I forgot," the gardener said. "On the way up, I
saw a boy. He looked like he'd been fighting, and
he was carrying a gun. his
"Do you know who he was?"
The gardener shook his head again. "But I know where he
went."
JOHN SAUL
Finnerty stiffened. "Can you show me?"
"Down the road. It's right down the road."
Finnerty glanced toward the squad car, where
Jackson was still on the radio. "Let's
take your truck, Jose. You feel good enough
to drive?"
Jose looked uncertain, but then climbed into the
cab, and while Finnerty yelled to Jackson that
he'd be right back, pressed on the starter and prayed
that now, of all times, the truck wouldn't finally give
up. The engine sputtered and coughed, then caught.
Half a mile down the hill, Jose brought the
truck to a stop and pointed. "There," he said. "He
went in there."
Finnerty stared at the house for several seconds.
"Are you sure, Jose? This could be very serious."
Jose's head bobbed eagerly. "I'm sure.
Look at the mess. They cut the vines off the
wall and didn't even clean them up. I don't
forget things like that. That's the house the boy went into.
His
Even with the vines off the wall, Finnerty
recognized the Lonsdales" house. After all,
it had been little more than eight hours since he'd
been there himself.
He got out of the truck, and noted the empty
garage. "Jose, I want you to go back up to the
hacienda and send my partner down with the car. Then
wait. Okay?"
Jose nodded, and maneuvered the truck through a
clumsy U-turn before disappearing back up the
hill. Finnerty stayed where he was, his eyes on
the house, though he had a growing feeling that it was
empty. A few minutes later, Jackson
arrived, and at almost the same time, a woman
appeared from the house across the street and a few yards
down from the Lonsdales'.
"There isn't anyone there," Sheila Rosenberg
volunteered. "Marsh and Ellen left two hours
ago, and I saw Alex leave in Ellen's car a
few minutes ago." bar
"Do you know where they went? The parents, II mean?"
J
"I'm sure I haven't a clue," Sheila
replied. "I don'ji keep track of everything that
happens in the neighbor*!
BRAINCHILD

hood, you know." Then her voice dropped
slightly. "Is something wrong?"
Finnerty glared at the woman, certain that she did,
indeed, keep track of everything her neighbors were
doing. "No," he said. If he told her the
truth, she would be the first one up the hill.
"We just want to get some information, that's all."
"Then you'd better call the Center," Sheila
Rosenberg replied. "I'm sure they'll know where
to find Marsh."
Despite Sheila Rosenberg's assertion that the
house was as empty as he thought it was, Finnerty
searched it anyway.
In the bedroom he was sure was Alex's, he found
the blood-soaked shirt and carefully put it in a
plastic bag Jackson brought from the squad car.
Then he called the Medical Center.
I know exactly where he went," Barbara Fannon
told him after he'd identified himself. "He and
Ellen went down to Palo Alto to talk to Dr.
Torres about Alex. Apparently he's having some
kind of trouble." And that, Finnerty thought grimly as
Barbara Fannon searched for the number of the
Institute for the Human Brain, is the understatement
of the year.
Marsh felt his patience slipping rapidly away.
They had been at the Institute for almost two hours,
and for the first hour and a half they had cooled their heels
in the waiting room. This time, Marsh had ignored the
journals, in favor of pacing the room. Ellen,
however, had hardly moved at all from her
place on the sofa, where she sat silently, her
face pale, her hands folded in her lap.
And now, as they sat in Torres's office, they were
being fed double-talk. The first thing Torres had done
when he'd finally deigned to see them was show them a
computer reconstruction of the operation.
It had been meaningless, as far as Marsh could tell.
It had been speeded up, and the graphics on the
monitor
JOHN SAUL
were not nearly as clear as they had been when Torres
had produced the original depiction of Alex's
injured brain.
"This is, of course, an operating program, not a
diagnostic one," Torres had said smoothly.
"What you're seeing here was never really meant for
human eyes. It's a program designed to be
read by a computer, and fed to a robot, and the graphics
simply aren't important. In fact, they're
incidental."
"And they don't mean a damned thing to me, Dr.
Torres," Marsh declared. "You told me you'd
explain what's happening to Alex, and so far, all
you've done is dodge the issue. You now have a
choice. Either get to the point, or I'm
walking out of here-with my wife- and the next time you see
us we'll all be in court. Can I make it any
clearer than that?"
Before Torres could make any reply, the
telephone rang. "I said I wasn't to be
disturbed under any circumstances," he said as soon
as he'd put the phone to his ear. He listened for a
moment, then frowned and held the receiver toward Marsh.
"It's for you, and I take it it's some sort of
emergency."
"This is Dr. Lonsdale," Marsh said, his voice
almost as impatient as Torres's had been. "What
is it?"
And then he, too, listened in silence as the other
person talked. When he hung up, his face was
pale and his hands were trembling.
"Marsh ..." Ellen breathed. "Marsh, what is
it?"
"It's Alex," Marsh said, his voice suddenly
dead. "That was Sergeant Finnerty. He says he
wants to talk to Alex."
"Again?" Ellen asked, her heart suddenly pounding.
"Why?"
When he answered, Marsh kept his eyes on
Raymond Torres.
"He says Cynthia and Carolyn Evans are
both dead, and he says he has reason to think that
Alex killed them."
As Ellen gasped, Raymond Torres rose
to his feet.
BRAINCHILD

"If he said that, then he's a fool," Torres
rasped, his normally cold eyes glittering
angrily.
"But that is what he said," Marsh whispered. Then, as
Torres sank slowly back into his chair, Marsh
spoke again. "Please, Dr. Torres, tell me
what you've done to my son."
"I saved him," Torres replied, but for the first
time, his icy demeanor had disappeared. He met
Marsh's eyes, and for a moment said nothing. Then he
nodded almost imperceptibly.
"All right," he said quietly. "I'll tell you
what I did. And when I'm done, you'll see why
Alex couldn't have killed anyone." He fell
silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, Marsh was
almost sure he was speaking more to himself than to either Marsh
or Ellen. "No, it's impossible. Alex
couldn't have killed anyone."
Speaking slowly and carefully, he explained
exactly what had been done to Alex Lonsdale.
Ellen tried to still her trembling hands as her eyes
searched her husband's face for whatever truth might'
be written there. But Marsh's face remained
stonily bar impassive, as it had been all through
Raymond Torres's;] long recitation. "But .
. . but what does it all mean?" : she finally
asked. For the last hour, at least, she had no :
longer been able to follow the details of what
Torres had been saying, nor was she sure the
details mattered. What was frightening her was the
implications of what she had heard.
"It doesn't matter what it means, " Marsh
said, "because it's medically impossible. his
"Think what you like, Dr. Lonsdale," Raymond
Torres replied, "but what I've told you is the
absolute truth. The fact that your son is still
alive is the proof of it. " He offered Marsh a
smile that was little more than a twisted grimace. "The
morning after the operation, I believe you made
reference to a miracle. You were, I bar assume,
thinking of a medical miracle, and I chose not!
298 1
BRAINCHILD

to correct you. What it was, though, was a
technological miracle."
"If what you're saying is actually true," Marsh
said, "what you've done is no miracle at all.
It's an obscenity. his
Ellen's eyes filled with tears, which she made no
attempt to wipe away. "But he's alive,
Marsh," she protested, and then shrank back in her
chair as Marsh turned to face her.
"Is he? By what criteria? Let's assume that
what Torres says is true. That Alex's
brain was far too extensively damaged even
to attempt repairs. was His eyes, flashing with
anger, flicked to Torres. "That is what you said,
isn't it?"
Torres nodded. "There was no brain activity
whatever, except on the most primitive level.
His heart was beating, but that was all. Without the
respirator, he couldn't breathe, and as far as we
could tell, he made no response to any sort of
stimulation. His
"In other words, he was brain dead, with no hope of
recovery?"
Again Torres nodded. "Not only was his
brain dead, it was physically torn beyond repair.
Which is the only reason I went ahead with the
techniques I used. his
"Without our permission, was Marsh grated.
"With your permission, was Torres corrected. "The
release clearly allowed me to use any methods
I deemed necessary or fit, whether they were proven or
unproven, traditional or experimental. And they
worked. was He hesitated, then went on. "Perhaps I
made a mistake, was he said. "Perhaps I should have
declared Alex dead, and asked that his body be donated
to science."
"But isn't that exactly what you did?" Marsh
demanded. "Without, of course, the niceties of
telling us what you were doing?"
Torres shook his head. "For the operation to be a
complete success, I wanted there to be no question that
Alex is still Alex. Had I declared him dead,
what I have done would have led to certain questions I was not
yet Prepared to deal with."
JOHN SAUL
Suddenly Ellen rose to her feet. "Stop it! Just
stop it!" Her eyes moved wildly from Marsh
to Raymond Torres. "You're talking about Alex
as if he no longer exists!"
"In a way, Ellen," Torres replied, "that's
exactly the truth. The Alex you knew doesn't
exist anymore. The only Alex that is real is
the one I created."
There was a sudden silence in the room, broken at
last by Marsh's voice, barely more than a whisper.
"That you created with microprocessors? I still can't
believe it. It just isn't possible."
"But it is," Torres said. "And it isn't nearly
as complicated as it sounds, except physically.
It's the connections that are the most difficult.
Finding exactly the right neurons to connect to the
leads of the microprocessors themselves.
Fortunately, the brain itself is an aid there.
Given an opportunity, it will build its own
pathways and straighten out most of the human errors
by itself. His
"But Alex is alive," Ellen insisted. "He's
alive. his
"His body is alive, " Torres agreed.
"And it's kept alive by seventeen separate
microprocessors, each of which is programmed
to maintain and monitor the various physical
systems of his body. Three of those
microprocessors are concerned with nothing
except the endocrine system, and four more handle the
nervous system. Some of the systems are less
complicated than those two, and could be lumped together in
a single chip with a backup. Four of the chips are
strictly memory. They were the easy ones."
"Easy ones?" Ellen echoed, her voice weak.
Torres nodded. "This project has been under way
for years, ever since I became interested in
artificial intelligence-the concept of building a
computer that can actually reason on its own, rather than
simply make computations at an incredibly rapid
speed. And the problem there is that despite all we
know about the brain, we still have no real concept of how the
process of original thought takes place. It very
quickly became
BRAINCHILD

obvious to me that until we understood the process in
the human brain, we couldn't hope to duplicate it
in a machine. And yet, we want machines that can
think like people."
"And you found the answer," Marsh said, his voice
tight.
Torres ignored his tone. "I found the answer.
It seemed to me that since we couldn't make
a machine that could think like a man, perhaps we could
create a man who could compute like a machine.
"A man with the memory capacity of a computer.
"The implication was obvious, and though the technology
was not there ten years ago, it is today. The answer
seemed to me to involve installing a high-capacity
microprocessor inside the brain itself, giving the
brain access to massive amounts of information, and
enormous computational abilities, while the brain
itself provides the reasoning circuits that are not yet
feasible."
"And did you do that?" Marsh asked.
Torres hesitated, then shook his head. "The
risks seemed to me to be entirely too great, and the
stakes too high. I had no idea what the
results might be. That's when I began work on the
project of which Alex is the end result." He
smiled thinly. "It's no accident that the Institute
for the Human Brain is in the heart of Silicon
Valley, you know. All our work is highly
technical, and extremely expensive. And we have
very little to show for it, despite all those articles out in
the lobby." Marsh seemed about to interrupt him, but
Torres held up a restraining hand. "Let me
finish. As I said, my work is highly
technical, and very expensive, but this is one area of the
country that has an abundance of money available to just
such work. And so I took my proposed solution to the
problem to certain companies and venture
capitalists, and managed to intrigue them to the point
where they have been willing to fund my research. And
what my research has been, for the last ten years,
is nothing more or less than reducing the monitoring
and operation of every system in the human
JOHN SAUL
body to language a computer can understand, and then
programming that information into microprocessors."
"If it's true," Marsh breathed, "that's quite
incredible. his
"Not quite as incredible as it is useless, " Torres
replied. "At first glance, it might seem quite
marvelous, with all kinds of applications, but I'm
afraid that isn't the case. Usually, when a
system goes bad in the human body, the
dysfunction is caused by disease, not a failure of the
brain. And good as my programs are, they can only
function with healthy systems. What they don't need
is a healthy brain.
"You see, was he said quietly, "I decided
years ago that I couldn't experiment on
someone who had a normal life ahead of him. I was
only willing to work with a hopelessly brain-damaged
case-someone who would unquestionably die unless I
tried installing my processors-but whose body was
basically intact. And that meant that the memory and
computation chips wouldn't be enough. So I spent ten
years developing all the systems-maintenance
programs as well."
Raymond Torres opened the top drawer of his
desk and pulled out a Lucite block, which he
pushed across the desk to Marsh. "If you're
interested," he said, "that block contains
duplicates of the processors that are in Alex's
brain."
Marsh picked up the block of Lucite-only a
couple of inches on a side-and gazed into the
transparent plastic. Floating in the apparent
emptiness were several tiny specks, each no bigger
than the head of a pin. "Those," he heard Torres
saying, "are the most powerful microprocessors
available today. They're a new technology, which I
don't pretend to understand, and they can operate
perfectly on the tiny amount of current generated
by the human body. Indeed, I'm told they
require less electrical energy than
the brain itself."
Finally, as he stared at the tiny chips held
prisoner in the lucite, Marsh began to believe
what Raymond Torres had been telling him, and
when he finally shifted
BRAINCHILD

his gaze to the other doctor, his eyes were brimming with
tears.
"Then Alex was right," he said, his voice unsteady.
"When he told me last night that he thought maybe
he hadn't really survived the operation-that maybe he
really was dead-he was right."
Torres hesitated, then reluctantly nodded.
"Yes," he agreed. "Certainly, in one sense,
at least, Alex is dead. His body isn't dead,
and his intellect isn't dead, but almost certainly, his
personality is dead."
"No!" Ellen was on her feet, and she took a
step toward Torres's desk. "You said he was all
right! You said he was getting better!"
"And part of him is," Torres replied.
"Physically and mentally, he's been getting better
every day."
"But there's more," Ellen protested. "You
know there's more. He ... he's starting to remember
things-was
"Which is exactly why I wanted him to come back
here," Torres said smoothly. Until this moment,
he had told them the truth.
Now the lies would begin.
"He's remembering things that he couldn't possibly
remember at all. Some of them are things that
happened-if they happened at all-long before he was
born."
"But he is remembering things, was Ellen insisted.
Torres only shook his head. "No, he's not,"
he said flatly. "Please listen to me, Ellen.
It's very important that you understand what I'm about
to tell you." Ellen looked uncertain, then lowered
herself back into her chair. "There are some things you still
aren't accepting, and although I know it's difficult, you
have to accept them. First, Alex has no memories
of what happened before his accident. All he knows is
what was programmed into the memory banks I
installed during the operation, together with whatever
experiences he's had since then. Basically, when
he woke up he had a certain amount of data that were
readily accessible to him. Vocabulary,
recognition of certain images-that sort of
JOHN SAUL
thing. Since then, he has been taking in data and
processing it at the rate of a very large computer. Which
is why," he went on, turning to Marsh, "he
appears to have the intelligence of a genius." Torres
picked up the little block of lucite and began toying
with it. "What he actually has is total recall
of everything he's come in contact with since the operation,
plus the ability to do calculations in his head at an
astonishing rate, with total accuracy, plus the very
human ability to reason. Whether that makes him a
genius, I don't know. Frankly, what Alex
is or is not is for other people to decide, not me.
"But he has limitations, as well. The most
obvious one is his lack of emotional response.
was For the first time that afternoon, Torres picked up his
pipe, and began stuffing it with tobacco. "We know a
great deal about emotions. We even know from which areas of the
brain certain of them spring. Indeed, we can create
some of them by stimulating certain areas of the brain. But
in the end, they aren't anything I've been able
to write programs for, which is why Alex is
totally lacking them. And that," he added, almost
incidentally, "brings us back to the reason why I've
told you all this at all." As he lit his
pipe, his eyes met Marsh's, and held them
steadily. "If you accept the truth of what I've
been telling you, then I think you'll agree that
Alex is quite incapable of murder."
"I'm afraid I don't see that at all,"
Marsh replied. "From what you've said, it would seem
to me that Alex would make the most ideal killer in the
world, since he has no feelings."
"And he would, " Torres agreed. "Except that
murder is not part of his programming, and he's only
capable of doing what he's programmed to do.
Murdsr, as I'm sure you're aware, is most
often motivated by emotions. Anger, jealousy,
fear-any number of things. But they are all things of
which Alex has no knowledge or experience. He's aware
that emotions exist, but he's never experienced them.
And without emotions, he would never find himself prey to the
urge to kill."
BRAINCHILD

"Unless," Marsh replied, "he were programmed
to kill."
"Exactly. But even then, he would analyze the
order, and unless the killing made intellectual
sense to him, he would refuse the order."
Marsh tried to digest Torres's words, but found
himself unable to. His mind was too filled with
conflicting emotions and thoughts. He felt a numbness
of the spirit that he abstractedly identified as shock.
And why not? he thought. He's dead. My son is
dead, and yet he's not. He's somewhere right now,
walking and talking and thinking, while I sit here being
told that he doesn't really exist at all, that
he's nothing more than ... He rejected the word that
came to mind, then accepted it: nothing more than some
kind of a machine. His eyes moved to Ellen, and he
could see that she, too, was struggling with her emotions.
He got to his feet and went to her, kneeling by her
chair.
"He's dead, sweetheart," he whispered softly.
"No," Ellen moaned, burying her face in her
hands as her body was finally racked by the sobs she had
been holding back so long. "No, Marsh, he can't
be dead. He can't be. ..." He put his arms
around her and held her close, gently stroking her
hair. When he spoke again, it was to Raymond
Torres, and his words were choked with anger and grief.
"Why?" he asked. "Why did you do this to us?"
"Because you asked me to," Torres replied. "You
asked me to save his life, any way I
could, and that's what I did, to the best of my
ability." Then he sighed heavily, and carefully
placed his pipe back on his desk. But I did it
for myself, too," he said. "I won't deny that. I
had the technology, and I had the skill." His
eyes met Marsh's. "Let me ask you something.
If you had been in my position, would you have done what
I did?"
Marsh was silent for a full minute, and he knew that
Torres had asked a question for which he had no answer.
When he at last spoke, his voice reflected
nothing
JOHN SAUL
except the exhaustion he was feeling. "I don't
know," he said. "I wish I could say that I wouldn't
have, but I don't know." Shakily he rose to his
feet, but kept his hand protectively on
Ellen's shoulder. "What do we do now?"
"Find Alex," Torres replied. "We have
to find him, and get him back here. Something happened
yesterday, and I don't know what effect it might have
had on Alex. There was . . . well, there was an
error in the lab, and Alex underwent some tests without
anesthesia." Briefly he described the tests,
and what Alex must have experienced. "He
didn't show any effects afterward, which indicates that
there was no damage done, but I'd like to be sure.
And there's still the problem of the memories he thinks
he's having."
Marsh stiffened as he suddenly realized that for all his
carefully worded explanations, Torres was still holding
something back. "But he is having them," he said.
"How can that be?"'
"I don't know," Torres admitted. "And that's
why I want him back here. Somewhere in his memory
banks there is an error, and that error has to be
corrected. What seems to be happening is* that
Alex is becoming increasingly involved in finding the
source of those memories. There is no source,"
Torres said, and paused as his words penetrated the
Lonsdales like daggers of ice. When he discovers
that, I'm not sure what might happen to him."
Marsh's voice hardened once more. "It sounds to me,
Dr. Torres, as if you're implying that Alex
might go insane. If that has indeed happened,
isn't it possible; that you're entirely wrong, and
Alex could, after all,! have committed murder?" 1
"No," Torres insisted. "The word doesn't
apply. Com-f puters don't go insane. But
they do stop functioning." bar
"A systems crash, I believe they call it,"
Marsh saidl coldly, and Torres nodded. "And in
Alex's case, may 12ar assume that would be
fatal?" j
Again Torres nodded, this time with obvious reluc-
BRAINCHILD

tance. "I have to agree that that is quite possible, yes."
Then, seeing the look of fear and confusion on
Ellen's face, he went on: "Believe me,
Ellen, Alex has done nothing wrong. In all
likelihood, I'll be able to help him. He'll
be all right."
"But he won't," Marsh said quietly, drawing
Ellen to her feet. "Dr. Torres, please
don't try to hold out any more false hope to my
wife. The best thing she can do right now is try
to accept the fact that Alex died last May. As of
this moment, I do not know exactly who the person is
who looks like my son and has been living in my
house, but I do know that it is not Alex." As
Ellen began quietly sobbing once more, he led her
toward the door. "I don't know what to do now,
Dr. Torres, but you may rest assured that should
Alex come home, I will call the police
and explain to them that Alex-or whoever he is-is
legally in your custody, and that any questions they have should be
directed to you. He is not my son anymore,
Dr. Torres. He hasn't been since the day
I brought him to you." He turned away, and led
Ellen out of the office.
They were halfway back to La Paloma before Ellen
finally spoke. Her voice was hoarse from her crying.
"Is he really dead, Marsh?" she asked. "Was
he telling us the truth?"
"I don't know," Marsh replied. It was the same
question he'd been grappling with ever since they'd left
the Institute, and he still had no answer. "He was
telling us the truth, yes. I believe he did
exactly what he says he did. But as for
Alex, I wish I could tell you. Who knows what
death really is? Legally, Alex could have been declared
dead before we ever took him down to Palo Alto.
According to the brain scans, there was no activity, and
that's a legal criterion for death."
"But he was still breathing-was No, he wasn't. Not
really. Our machines were breathing for him. And now
Raymond Torres has invented new machines, and
Alex is walking and talking. But I
JOHN SAUL
don't know if he's Alex. He doesn't act
like Alex, and he doesn't think like Alex, and he
doesn't respond like Alex. For weeks now,
I've had this strange feeling that Alex wasn't
there, and apparently I was right. Alex isn't there.
All that's there is whatever Raymond Torres
constructed in Alex's body."
"But it is Alex's body," Ellen insisted.
"But isn't that all it is?" Marsh asked, his
voice reflecting the pain he was feeling. "Isn't
it the part we bury when the spirit's gone? And Alex's
spirit is gone, Ellen. Or if it isn't, then it's
trapped so deep inside the wreckage of his brain
that it will never escape."
Ellen said nothing for a long time, staring out into the gathering
gloom of the evening. "Then why do I still love him?"
she asked at last. "Why do I still feel that he's
my son?"
"I don't know," Marsh replied. Then: "But
I'm afraid I lied back there. I was angry,
and I was hurt, and I didn't want to believe
what I was hearing, and for a little while, I wanted
Alex to be dead. And part of me is absolutely
certain that he is. was He fell silent, but Ellen
was certain he had more to say, so she sat
quietly waiting. After a few moments, as if there
had been no lapse of time, Marsh went on. "But
part of me says that as long as he's living and
breathing, he's alive, and he's my son. I
love him too, Ellen."
For the first time in months, Ellen slid across the seat
and pressed close to her husband. "Oh, Godj
Marsh, " she whispered. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," he confessed. "In fact,
I'm not sure! there's anything we can do, except
wait for Alex tm come home. was I
He didn't tell Ellen that he wasn't at all
sure Aleij would ever come home again. I
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It was not a large house, but it was set well back
from the street. Though he couldn't read the address,
Alex knew he was at the right place. It had been
simple, really. When he'd come into Palo Alto,
he'd shut all images of La Paloma out of his
mind, then concentrated on the idea of going home.
After that, he'd merely followed the impulses his
brain sent him at each intersection until he'd
finally come to a stop in front of the Moorish-style
house he was now absolutely certain
belonged to Dr. Raymond Torres. He studied
it for a few moments, then turned into the driveway,
parking the car on the concrete apron that widened out behind
the house.
From the street, the car was no longer visible.
Alex got out of the car, closed the driver's door,
then opened the trunk.
He picked up the shotgun, holding it in his right hand
while he used his left to slam the trunk lid.
Carrying the gun almost casually, he crossed to the
JOHN SAUL
back door of the house and tried the knob. It was
locked.
He glanced around the patio behind the house, uncertain
of what he was looking for, but sure that he would
recognize it when he saw it.
It was a large earthenware planter, exploding with the
vivid colors of impatiens in full bloom. In
the center of the planter, wrapped neatly in aluminum
foil and well-hidden by the profuse foliage, he
found the spare key to the house. Letting himself
inside, he moved confidently through the kitchen and dining
room, then down a short hall to the den.
This, he was sure, was the room in which Dr. Torres
spent most of his time. There was a
fireplace in one corner, and a battered desk that was
in stark contrast to the gleaming sleekness of the desk
Torres used at the Brain Institute. And in
equal contrast to the Institute office was the clutter
of the den. Everywhere were books and journals, stacked
high on the desk and shoved untidily onto the
shelves that lined the walls. Most were medical
books and technical journals relating
to Torres's work, but some were not. Resting the gun on
its butt in the corner behind the door, Alex began
a closer examination of the library, knowing already what
he was looking for, and knowing that he would find it.
There were several old histories of California,
detailing the settling of the area by the
Spanish-Mexicans, and the subsequent ceding of the
territory to the United States. Tucked between two
thick tomes was the thin leather-bound volume, its
spine intricately tooled in gold, that Alex was
looking for. Handling the books carefully, he
removed it from the shelf, then sat down! in the worn
leather chair that stood between the fire-bar place and the
desk. He opened it to the first page, and! examined the
details of the illuminations that had been!
painstakingly worked around the ornate lettering. bar
It was a family tree, detailing the
history of the family
BRAINCHILD

of Don Roberto de Melendez y Ruiz, his
antecedents, and his descendants. Alex scanned
the pages quickly until he came to the end.
The last entry was Raymond Torres, son of
Maria and Carlos Torres.
It was through his mother, Maria Ruiz, that Raymond
Torres traced his lineage back to Don
Roberto, through Don Roberto's only surviving
son, Alejandro. Below the box containing Raymond
Torres's name, there was another box.
It was empty.
Alex closed the book and laid it On the hearth in
front of the fireplace, then moved on
to Torres's desk. Without hesitation, he pulled
the bottom-right-hand drawer open, reached into its
depths, and pulled out a nondescript notebook.
In the notebook, neatly penned in a precise
hand, was Raymond Torres's plan for creating the
son he had never fathered.
It was getting dark when Alex heard the car pull
up. He retrieved the gun from the corner behind the
door. When Raymond Torres entered the
den a few moments later, it lay almost carelessly in
Alex's lap, though his right forefinger was curled around
the trigger. Torres paused in the doorway,
frowning thoughtfully, then smiled.
"I don't think you'll kill me," he said.
"Nor, for that matter, do I think you have killed
anyone else. So why don't you put that gun down,
and let us talk about what's happening to you."
"There's no need to talk, " Alex replied.
"I already know what happened to me. You've put
computers in my brain, and you've been programming
me. his
"You found the notebook."
"I didn't need to find it. I knew where it was.
I knew where this house was, and I knew what
I'd find here."
Torres's smile faded into a slight frown. "I
don't think you could have known those things."
JOHN SAUL
"Of course I could," Alex replied. "Don't
you understand what you've done?"
Torres closed the door, then, ignoring the gun,
moved around his desk and eased himself into his chair.
He regarded Alex carefully, and wondered
briefly if, indeed, something had gone
awry. But he rejected the idea; it was
impossible. "Of course I understand," he finally
said. "But I'm not sure you do. What, exactly,
do you think I've done?"
"Turned me into you," Alex said softly. "Did you
think I wouldn't figure it out?"
Torres ignored the question. "And how, exactly,
did I do that?"
"The testing," Alex replied. "Only you weren't
testing me, really. You were programming me."
"I'll agree to that," Torres replied, "since
it happens to be absolutely true. Incidentally,
I explained it all to your parents this afternoon."
"Did you? Did you really tell them all of it?"
Alex asked. "Did you tell them that it wasn't just
data you programmed in?"
Torres frowned. "But it was."
Alex shook his head. "Then you don't understand, do
you?"
"I don't understand what you're talking about, no,"
Torres said, though he understood perfectly. For the
first time, he began to feel afraid.
"Then I'll tell you. After the operation, my brain
was a blank. I had the capacity to learn, because of the
computers you put in my brain, but I
didn't have the capacity to think."
"That's not true-was
"It is true," Alex insisted. "And I think you
knew it, which is why you had to give me a
personality as well as just enough data to look like I was
. . . What? Suffering from amnesia? Was I
supposed to remember things slowly, so it would look
like I was recovering? But I couldn't remember
anything, could I? My brain-Alex
BRAINCHILD

Lonsdale's brain-was dead. So you gave me
things to remember, but they were the wrong things."
"I haven't the vaguest idea what you're talking
about, Alex, and neither have you," Torres declared
icily.
"It's strange, really," Alex went on,
ignoring Torres's words. "Some of the mistakes were
so small, and yet they set me to wondering. If it
had only been the oldest stuff-was
"The 'oldest stuff?" Torres echoed archly.
"The oldest memories. The memories of the
stories your mother used to tell you. his
"My mother is an old woman. Sometimes she gets
confused."
"No," Alex replied. "She's not confused, and
neither are you. The memories served their purpose, and
all the people died. You used me to kill them, and I
did. And, as you wished, I had no memory of what
I'd done. As soon as the killings were over, they were
wiped out of my memory banks. But even if I
had remembered them, I wouldn't have been able to say
why I was killing. All I would have been able to do is
talk about Alejandro de Melendez y Ruiz and
venganza. Revenge. I would have sounded crazy,
wouldn't I?"
"You're sounding crazy right now," Torres said,
rising to his feet.
Alex's hands tightened on the shotgun. "Sit
down,"
he said. Torres hesitated, then sank back
into his chair.
But it was revenge you wanted, was Alex went on.
"Only
not revenge for what happened in 1848. Revenge for
what happened twenty years ago."
Alex, what you're saying makes no sense." But
it does," Alex insisted. "The school. That was
dgne of your mistakes, but only a small one.
I remembered the dean's office being in the
wrong place. But it Wasn't the wrong place-I
was just twenty years too late. When you were at La
Paloma High, the dean's office was where the
nurse's office is now."
Which means nothing."
JOHN SAUL
"True. I could have seen the same pictures of the
school in my mother's yearbook that I saw in yours."
Torres's eyes flickered over the room, first to the
bookshelf where his family tree rested, then to the
notebook that still lay on top of his desk where
Alex had left it.
Next to it, lying open, was the annual from his senior
year at La Paloma High. It was open to a
picture he had studied many times over the years.
As he looked at it now, he felt once more the
pain the people it depicted had caused him.
All four of them: Marty and Valerie and Cynthia
and Ellen.
The Four Musketeers, who had inflicted wounds
on him that he had nursed over the years;-never
allowing them to heal-until finally they had festered.
And as the wounds festered, the planning had begun, and
then, when the opportunity finally came, he had
executed his plan.
The memories had been carefully constructed in
Alex- the memories of things he couldn't
possibly remember- so that when he finally got
caught, as Torres knew he eventually would, all
he would be able to do was talk of ancient wrongs and the
spirit of a long-dead man who had taken possession of
him.
The truth would be carefully shielded, for Torres
had programmed no memories in Alex of the
hatred he felt toward the four women who had
looked down on him so many years ago, ignored him
as if he didn't exist.
Even now, he could hear his mother's voice talking about
them:
"You think they even look at you, Ramon? They are
gringos who would spit on you. They are no different
than the ones who killed our family, and they will
kill you too. You wait, Ramon. Pretend all
you want, but in the end you will know the truth. They hate
you, Ramon, as you will hate them." I
And in the end, she had been right, and he ha
less-than bar hated them as much as she did. I
BRAINCHILD

And now it was over. Because Raymond
Torres had created Alex, he knew what
Alex was going to do. Oddly, he could even accept
it. "How did you figure it out?"
"With the tools you gave me," Alex replied. "I
processed data. The facts were simple. From the
damage done to my brain, I should have died.
"But I wasn't dead.
"The two facts didn't match, until I
realized that there was one way I could make them match.
I could still be alive, if something had been done
to keep my body functioning in spite of the damage
to my brain. And the only thing capable of doing that was a
system of microprocessors performing the functions
of my brain.
"But then I had to fit the memories in.
"Alex Lonsdale has no memories. None
at all, because he's dead. But I was remembering
things, and the answer had to be the same. What I was
remembering had to have been programmed into me too,
along with all the rest of the data. From there, it
wasn't hard to figure out who I really am."
"My son," Torres said softly. "The son I
never had."
"No," Alex replied. "I am not your son,
Dr. Torres. I am you. Inside my
head are all the memories you grew up with.
They're not my memories, Dr. Torres.
They're yours. Don't you understand?"
"It's the same thing," Torres said, but Alex
shook his head.
No. It's not the same thing, because if it were, I
would be about to kill my father. But I'm you, Dr.
Torres, so I guess you are about to kill yourself."
His hands steady, Alex raised the shotgun,
leveled it at Raymond Torres, and squeezed
the trigger. Alex watched as Raymond
Torres's head was nearly torn from his body by the
force of the buckshot that exploded from the gun's
barrel.
As he left Torres's house, the phone began
ringing, but Alex ignored it.
JOHN SAUL
Getting into Torres's car-his own car, now-he
started back toward La Paloma.
All of them were dead-Valerie Benson, Marty
Lewis, and Cynthia Evans. All of them dead,
except one.
Ellen Lonsdale was still alive.
Roscoe Finnerty carefully replaced the phone
on its hook, and turned to face the
Lonsdales once more.
Ellen, as she had been since they got home, was
sitting on the sofa, her face pale, her hands
trembling. Her eyes, reddened from weeping, blinked
nervously, and she seemed to have become incapable of
speech.
Marsh, on the other hand, wore a demeanor of calm
that belied the inner turmoil he was feeling. Befj
beginning to answer Finnerty s questions, he had triedl
to think carefully about what he should say, but in the! end
he'd decided to tell the officers the truth. I
First, they had asked about the gun, and Marsh hacl led
them to the garage, and the box where he was sure! his
shotgun was still stored. I
It was gone. I
Once more, he remembered Torres's words:
"Alex isl totally incapable of killing anyone. was
I
But up the street, Cynthia and Carolyn Evans
hacfl both been cut down by a shotgun, and someone
match-l ing Alex's description had been seen
carrying a shotgun! into this house. I
Torres had been wrong. I
Slowly Marsh began telling the two officers,
Finnertyl and Jackson, what Torres
had told him only an hour orl so earlier.
They'd listened politely, then insisted onl checking
Marsh's story with Raymond Torres. When!
they'd called his office, they'd been told the
director ofl the Institute had left for the day.
Only after identifying! themselves had they been able
to obtain Torres's homel phone number. I
"Well, he's not there either," Finnerty said. Then:!
"Dr. Lonsdale, I don't want to seem to be
pushing yeaful but I think the most important thing right
now is to find!
BRAINCHILD

Alex. Do you have any idea where he might have
gone? his
Marsh shook his head. "If he didn't go
to Torres, I haven't any idea at all. his
"What about friends?" Jackson asked, and again Marsh
shook his head.
"He . . . well, since the accident, he
doesn't really have any friends anymore." His eyes
filled with tears. "I'm afraid-I'm afraid that
the longer time went on, the more the kids decided that there
was something wrong with Alex. Besides the obvious
problems, I mean," he added.
"Okay. We're going to put a stakeout on the
house," Finnerty told him. "I've already got
an APB out on your wife's car, but frankly, that
doesn't mean much. The odds of someone spotting it
are next to none. And it seems to me that eventually,
your son will come home. So we'll be out there in an
unmarked car. Or, at least, someone will. Anyway,
we'll be keeping an eye on this place."
Marsh nodded, but Finnerty wasn't sure he'd
been listening. "Dr. Lonsdale?" he asked, and
Marsh met his eyes. "I can't tell you how sorry
I am about this, was Finnerty went on. "I keep
hoping that there's been a mistake, and that maybe your
boy didn't have anything to do with this."
Marsh's head came up, and he used his handkerchief
to blot away the last of the tears on his cheeks.
"It's all right, Sergeant," he said. "You're just
doing your job, and I understand it." He hesitated,
then went on. "And there's something else I should tell
you. I ... well, I don't think there's been a
mistake. I think you should be aware that Alex may
be very dangerous. Ever since the operation, he hasn't
felt anything-no love, no hate, no anger,
nothing. If he's started killing, for whatever
reason, he probably won't stop.
Nor will he care what he does."
There was a short silence while Finnerty tried to
JOHN SAUL
assess Marsh Lonsdale's words. "Dr.
Lonsdale," he finally asked, "would you mind
telling me exactly what you're trying to say?"
"I'm trying to say that if you find Alex, I think
you'd better kill him. If you don't, I
suspect he won't hesitate to kill you."
Jackson and Finnerty glanced at each other.
Finally, it was Jackson who spoke for both of them.
"We can't do that, Dr. Lonsdale," he said
quietly. "So far, it hasn't been proven that your
son has done anything. For all we know, he might
have been up in the hills shooting rabbits, and hurt
himself some way."
"No," Marsh said, his voice almost a whisper.
"No, that's not it. He did it."
"If he did, that will be for a court to decide,"
Jackson went on. "We'll find your son,
Dr. Lonsdale. But we won't kill him."
Marsh shook his head wearily. "You don't understand,
do you? That boy out there-he's not Alex. I don't
know who he is, but he's not Alex. ..."
"Okay," Finnerty said, in the gently
soothing voice he'd long ago developed for
situations in which he found himself dealing with someone who was
less than rational. "You just take it easy for a
while, Dr. Lonsdale, and we'll take care of
it." He waited until Marsh had settled himself
onto the sofa next to Ellen, then led Jackson out
of the house. "Well? What do you think?"
"I don't know what to think."
"Neither do I, was Finnerty sighed. "Neither dp
I."
"I don't believe any of this," Jim Cochran
declared. His glance alternated between his wife and his
elder daughter, neither of whom seemed willing to meet
his gaze. Only Kim seemed to agree with him, and
Carol had insisted she be sent up to her room five
minutes ago, when it became obvious a fight was
brewing. "Ellen and Marsh and Alex have been friends of
ours for most of our lives. And now you don't even
want me to call them?"
BRAINCHILD

"I didn't say that," Carol protested, though she
knew that even if she hadn't said the words, certainly
that was what she had meant. "I just think we should leave
them alone until we know what's
happened."
"That's not you talking," Jim replied. "It's
someone else."
"No!" Carol exclaimed. "After today, I just can't
stand any more."
"And what about Marsh and Ellen? How do you think they
feel? They're the ones whose lives are falling
apart, Carol, not us."
Carol tried to close her ears to the words that were so much
an echo of what she herself had said to Lisa only
weeks ago. But weeks ago, no one had died.
"And what if Alex comes home?" Carol demanded.
"No one knows where he is, or what he's doing, but
according to Sheila Rosenberg, he murdered Cynthia and
Carolyn Evans this morning, and probably
murdered Marty and Valerie as well."
"We don't know that," Jim insisted. "And you both
know that Sheila is the worst gossip in this town."
"Daddy!" Lisa said. "Alex didn't care about
what happened to Mrs. Lewis, and he didn't
think Mr. Lewis killed her. He told me so.
He even said he thought someone else might get
killed. his
"That doesn't mean-was
"And he's been acting weirder and weirder
ever since he came home. Are you going to tell me
that's not true, too?"
"It's not the point," Jim insisted. "The point is
that people stick by their friends, no matter what happens.
And I don't accept that Alex has killed
anyone."
"Then I'm afraid you're burying your head in the
sand," Carol replied. "If he hasn't done
anything, then where is he?"
"Anywhere," Jim said. "Who knows? He could have
gone up into the hills, and had another accident."
"Daddy-was
"No," Jim said. "I've heard enough. I'm
calling Marsh,
JOHN SAUL
and finding out what's going on. And if they need me,
I'm going up there." He left the kitchen, and a
few seconds later, Carol and Lisa heard him
talking on the phone.
"I don't want to go up there, Mom," Lisa said
quietly, her eyes beseeching. "I'm scared of
Alex."
Carol patted Lisa's hand reassuringly. "It's
all right, honey. We're not going anywhere. I'm .
. . well, I'm just as frightened as you are.
was Suddenly Jim appeared in the doorway, and
Carol's attention was diverted from her daughter to her
husband.
"I just talked to Marsh," Jim told them, "and he
wasn't making much sense. And Ellen's not talking
at all. He says she's just sitting on the sofa,
and he's not sure she's even hearing what anyone
says."
"Anyone?"' Carol asked. "Is someone else
there?"
"The police were there. They just left."
There was a silence. Carol sighed as she came to a
decision. "All right," she said quietly. "If you
think you have to go, we'll all go. I guess you're
right-we can't just sit here and do nothing." She stood
up, but Lisa remained seated where she was.
"No," she said, her eyes flooding. "I can't go.
his
And finally, seeing the extent of his daughter's fear,
Jim relented. "It's okay, princess," he said
softly. "I guess I can understand how you're
feeling." His eyes moved to his wife, and he
offered her a tight smile. "I guess that lets you
off the hook, too. his
Carol hesitated, then nodded. "I'll
stay here." Guiltily, she hoped the relief she
was feeling didn't show, but she was sure it did.
"I won't stay long," Jim promised. "I'll
just see if there's anything I can do, and let them know
they're not alone. Then I'll be back. Okay?"
Again Carol nodded, and walked with her husband to the
front door, where she kissed him good-bye. "I'm
be sorry, was she whispered. "I'm sorry I've
lost my nerve, were but I just have. Forgive me?"
"Always," Jim told her. Then, before he closed the
BRAINCHILD

door, he spoke again. "Until I get back,
don't open the door for anyone."
Then he was gone, and Carol went back to the kitchen,
to wait.
Darkness was falling as Alex made the turn off
Middlefield I Road, and as he started up into the
hills on La Palomal Drive, he reached
down and turned on the headlights I of Raymond
Torres's car. He wondered if he would I
dream about Dr. Torres tonight-if he chose to live
I that long-and wondered if, in whatever dreams he
I might have, he would feel the same emotional pain
I again, as he had when he dreamed about
Mrs. Lewis I and Mrs. Benson. With Dr.
Torres, he decided, he I wouldn't.
Torres's death was very clear in his memory, I and
he felt no pain when he thought about it. I
But he would dream about Mrs. Evans, and
Carolyn, I too, and then the pain would come. I
There was, he had finally come to believe, still somel little
fragment of Alex Lonsdale still alive, deep
within I the recesses of his central brain core.
It was that frag-1 ment of Alex who was having the
dreams, and feeling I the pain of what he had done.
But when he was awake, I there was none of Alex
left. Only . . . who? I

BRAINCHILD

Did he even have a name?
Alejandro.
That was the name Dr. Torres had chosen for him, and
then carefully built the memories of Alejandro
into him. But the emotions that went with Alejandro's
memories were Raymond Torres's, and those he
had carefully left out.
It had, Alex realized, avoided confusion. When
he saw the women-the women Torres
hated-in the environment of Alejandro's memory,
they had become other people from other times, and Alejandro
had killed them.
And why not? To Alejandro, they were the wives of
thieves and murderers, and as guilty of those crimes
as their husbands.
But in the darkness of night, in the visions generated by the
remnants of Alex Lonsdale's
subconscious, they were old friends, people he had known
all his life, and he mourned them.
And that had been Torres's mistake.
For his creation to have been perfect, there should have been
none of Alex Lonsdale left.
Ahead of him, the headlights picked up the sign
for the park that lay on the outskirts of the village.
Alex pulled into the parking lot and shut off the
engine.
His father had told him that when he was a boy, he'd
played here often, yet he still had no memory of it.
His only memory was Raymond Torres's
memory of standing on the street, pleading with his mother
to take him to the swings and push him as the other mothers were
pushing their children.
"No, was Maria Torres would mutter. "The park
is not for us. It is for los gringos.
Mira!" And she would point to the sign dedicating the
park to the first American settlers who had come to La
Paloma after the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo had been signed. Then she would take
Ramon by the hand and drag him away.
Alex got out of the car and began making his way across
the empty lawn toward the swings. Tentatively
JOHN SAUL
he settled himself into one of them, and gave an
experimental kick with his foot.
The movement had the vaguest feeling of familiarity
to it, and Alex began pumping himself higher and higher.
As the air rushed over his face and he felt the
slight lurch in his stomach at the apex of each arc,
Alex realized that this must have been what he'd done as
a boy, this must be what he'd loved so much.
He stopped pumping, and let the swing slowly die
until he was sitting still once again.
Then, knowing he had much to do before he went to the house
on Hacienda Drive where the people who thought they were his
parents lived, he left the swingjj and returned
to his car. I
He drove on into La Paloma, and turned left
befl he got to the Square. Two blocks further
on, he came tol the plaza. In the
flickering lights of the gas lamps, the! memories
of Alejandro began creeping back to him, but!
Alex forced them out of his consciousness, keeping! himself
in the present. Only when he drove around the!
village hall to the mission graveyard did he
let the! memories come back. I
Was this where they would bury him, or would they! take him
up into the hills above the hacienda and buryl him with
his mother and his sisters? I
No. I
They would bury him here, for they would be bury-1 ing
Alex, not Alejandro. Again he got out of the car,
I and slipped into the little graveyard. Tucked away
in a I dusty corner, he found the grave he was
looking for. I
Alejandro de Melendez y Ruiz I
1832-1926 I
His own grave, in a way, and already sixty years
old. I There were flowers on the grave, though, and
Alex I knew who had put them there. Old
Maria Torres, still I honoring her grandfather's
memory. Alex reached down I and picked one of the
flowers, breathing in its fra-l
BRAINCHILD
325
grance. Then, taking the flower with him, he went back
to the car.
In the Square, he stepped over the chain around the
tree, and stood for a long time under the spreading
branches. Alejandro's memories were strong again,
and Alex let them spread through his mind.
Once more he saw his father's body swinging limply from
the hempen noose knotted around his neck, and felt
the unfamiliar sensation of tears dampening his cheeks.
He took the flower from Alejandro's grave and
laid it gently on the ground above his father's grave.
Then he turned away, knowing he'd seen the great
oak tree for the last time.
Lisa and Carol Cochran were still sitting in the friendly
brightness of the kitchen when they heard the car pull up
outside, and a door slam. Carol hesitated, then
pulled the drawn shades just far enough back to allow her
to peer out into the street. A car she didn't
recognize sat by the curb, and it was too dark
to see who had gotten out of it. She dropped the
shade back into position, and went to the stove, where she
nervously poured herself yet another cup of coffee.
As soon as Jim had left the house, she had
given up any idea of sleeping that night.
"Who was it, Mom?" Lisa whispered, and
Carol forced a grin that held much more confidence than
she was feeling.
"It's no one. I've never seen the car before, and I
don't think anyone's in it. Whoever it was must have
gone across the street. was But even as she spoke, she
had the uncanny feeling that she was wrong, and that whoever
had arrived in the car was still outside.
At that moment, the doorbell rang, its normally
friendly chime taking on an ominous tone.
"What shall we do?" Lisa asked, her voice
barely audible.
"Nothing," Carol whispered back. "We'll just
sit here, and whoever it is will go away. his
JOHN SAUL
The doorbell sounded again, and Lisa seemed to shrink
away from the sound.
"He'll go away," Carol repeated. "If we
don't answer it, he'll go away."
And then, as the bell rang for the third time, there was a
pounding of feet on the stairs, and through the dining room
Carol could see Kim, apparently having leapt from
the third step, catching herself before crashing headlong
into the door. Knowing what was about to happen, she rose
to her feet. "Kim!"
But it was too late. Over her own cry,
she heard Kim's exuberant voice demanding to know
who was outside before she opened the door.
"Don't open it, Kim, was she cried, but Kim
only turned to give her an exasperated glare.
"Don't be dumb, Mommy," Kim called.
"It's only Alex." She reached up and turned the
knob, then pulled the door open wide.
Carrying the shotgun in his right hand, Alex stepped
into the Cochrans' foyer.
"How long we going to sit here?" Jackson asked.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a
cigarette, then cupped his hand over his lighter as a
brief flame illuminated the dark interior of the car
they had parked fifty feet up the hill from the
Lonsdales'.
"As long as it takes, was Finnerty growled,
shifting in the seat in a vain attempt to ease the
cramps in his legs. He'd been up too many
hours, and exhaustion was beginning to take its toll.
"What makes you so sure the kid's going to come
back here at all?"
Finnerty shrugged stiffly. "Instincts. He
doesn't really have any place else to go. Besides,
why shouldn't he come back here?"
Jackson glanced across at his partner, and
took a deep drag on his cigarette, hoping perhaps
the smoke might drive away the sleepiness that was
threatening to overwhelm him. "Seems to me that if I
were in his shoes,
BRAINCHILD

this is the last place I'd come. I think I'd be
heading for Mexico right about now."
"Except for one thing, was Finnerty growled. "According
to the kid's dad, the kid couldn't have done anything,
remember?"
"You believe that shit?"
"We saw Alex Lonsdale the night he
wrecked himself, remember? By rights, that kid should have
been dead. Jesus, torn, half his head was caved
in. But he's not dead. So who am I to say how
they saved him? Maybe they did exactly what
Doc Lonsdale says they did."
"All right," Jackson replied. Though he still
wasn't accepting the strange tale they'd heard,
he was willing to go along with it for the sake of conversation.
"So what's your idea?"
"That maybe the kid was programmed to kill after
all, and was also programmed to forget what he'd
done, after he'd done it."
"Now you're reaching, was Jackson replied.
"Except it accounts for the discrepancy in our
notes. Remember how you wrote down that Alex
said he parked across from Jake's last night, and I
wrote down that he said he parked in the lot next
door?"
"So? One of us heard wrong. his
"What if we didn't? What if we both heard
it right, and we both wrote it down right? What if
he told us both things?"
Jackson frowned in the darkness. "Then he was lying.
his
"Maybe not," Finnerty mused. "What if he
went down to Jake's, parked across the street, then
changed his mind and went up to Mrs. Benson's?
He kills her, then goes back to Jake's, and
parks in the lot. But he forgets what he did in
between the two arrivals, because that's what he's been
programmed to do. When he tells us everything he
remembers about last night, he remembers parking
both places, so that's what he tells us. We
didn't make any mistakes, and he didn't
"every. He just doesn't remember what he did. his
JOHN SAUL
"That's crazy-was
"What's happening in this town is crazy,"
Finnerty rasped. "But at least that theory fits the
facts. Or at least what we think are the
facts."
"So he'll come home, because he doesn't remember
what he's done?"
"Right. Why shouldn't he come home? As far as he
knows, nothing's wrong."
"But what if he does remember?" Jackson
asked. "What if he knows exactly what he's
doing, and just doesn't care?"
"Then," Finnerty said, his voice grim, "we
might have to do exactly what his father suggested. We
might have to kill him."
Jackson took two more nervous drags on his
cigarette, then stubbed it out in the ashtray.
"Roscoe? I don't think I could do it, " he
said finally. "If it comes down to it, I'm just not
sure I could shoot anyone."
"Well, let's hope it won't come down to that,"
Roscoe Finnerty replied. Then, giving in to his
exhaustion, he slid deeper in his seat and closed
his eyes. "Wake me up if anything happens."
"Kim!"
Carol Cochran tried to make the word
commanding, but her voice cracked with fear. Nonetheless,
Kim turned to gaze at her curiously. "Come
here, Kim," she pleaded. Still Kim hesitated, and
gazed up at Alex, her face screwed into a
worried frown.
"Did you hurt yourself, Alex?" she asked, her
eyes fixing on the cut over his eye.
Alex nodded.
"How?"
"I ... I don't know," Alex admitted, then
turned to look into the kitchen, where Carol and Lisa
seemed frozen in place. "It's all right,"
Alex said. "I'm not going to hurt you."
As he spoke the words, Carol took a step
forward. "Kim, I told you to come here!"
BRAINCHILD

Kim glanced uncertainly from her mother to Alex, then
back to her mother. She backed slowly into the dining
room, then turned and dashed on into the kitchen.
When her younger daughter was in her arms, Carol's
strength seemed to come back to her. "Go away,
Alex," she said, the steadiness in her voice
surprising even herself. "Just go away and leave us
alone. His
Alex nodded, but moved slowly through the dining room
until he came to the kitchen door, the gun still
clutched in his right hand.
From her chair, Lisa watched Alex's eyes, and
her fear, instead of easing, only grew. There was an
emptiness to his eyes that she'd never seen before. It
was far beyond the strange blankness she'd almost grown
used to over the last few months. Now his eyes
looked as if they might be the eyes of a dead man.
"Go away," she whispered. "Please, Alex, just
go away."
"I will," Alex replied. "I just ... I just
wanted to tell you I'm sorry for what's
happened."
"Sorry?" Lisa echoed. "How can you be-was And
then she broke off her own words, as her eyes
suddenly fell on the shotgun. Alex followed her
gaze with his own eyes, and his expression became almost
puzzled.
"I didn't kill anyone, was he said softly.
"I mean . . . Alex didn't kill anyone.
It was the other."
Lisa and Carol glanced nervously at each other,
and Carol shook her head almost imperceptibly.
"I'm not Alex, was he went on. "That's
what I came to tell you. Alex is dead."
"Dead?" Lisa echoed. "Alex, what are you
talking about?"
"He's dead," Alex said again. "He died in the
wreck. That's all I came to tell you, so you
wouldn't think he'd done anything." His eyes fixed
on Lisa, and when he spoke again, his voice was
strangled, as if the very act of speaking the words was
painful for him. "He loved you," he whispered.
"Alex loved you very much. I ...
1 don't understand what that means, but I know it's
JOHN SAUL
true. Don't blame Alex for what I've
done. He couldn't stop it." I
Suddenly his eyes filled with tears once again.
"He I would have stopped it," he whispered. "If so
much of 1 him hadn't died-if just a little more of him had
lived-I less-than were' know he would have stopped it."

Carol Cochran shakily rose to her feet.
"What, Alex?" J she whispered. "What would you
have stopped?" m
"Not me," Alex breathed. "Him. Alex would have
fl stopped what Dr. Torres did. But I
didn't know. hell wouldn't let me
remember, so I didn't know. But Alexfl found
out. What was left of him found out, and he's jfl
trying to stop it. He's still trying, but he might not be
able to, because he's dead." His eyes suddenly took
on m a wildness as they focused on Lisa once
more. "Don't fl you understand?" he begged. "Alex
is dead, Lisa!" Thert m he turned, and
shambled back through the dining room fl and out into the
night. A moment later, Carol heard a car door
slam and an engine start. And then she heard Kim,
and felt the little girl tugging at her arms.
"What's wrong with him?" she asked. "What's
wrong with Alex?"
Carol swallowed hard, then held Kim close.
"He's sick, honey," she whispered. "He's very
sick in his head, that's all." Then she released
Kim, and started toward the phone. "I'd better
call the police," she said.
"No!" Carol turned back to see Lisa standing
up, her expression suddenly clear. "Let him go,
Mama," she said softly. "He won't hurt
anyone else now. Don't you understand? That's what
he was trying to tell us. All he wants to do now
is die, and we have to let him. " She knelt
down, and pulled Kim close. "That
wasn't Alex that was just here, Kim," she said
softly. "That was someone else. Alex is dead.
That's what he was telling us. That he's dead, and we
should remember him the way he used to be. The way
he was the night he took me to the dance." She
hesitated, as her eyes floodedJB-JUST with tears.
"Do you remember that night, Kim?" backslash fl
Kim nodded, but said nothing. S
BRAINCHILD

I
"Then let's remember him that way, sweetheart.
Let's remember how he looked all dressed up
in his dinner jacket, and let's remember how good
he was. All right?"
Kim hesitated, then nodded, and Lisa's gaze
shifted to her mother. "Let him go, Mama.
Please?" she begged. "He won't hurt anyone.
I know he won't. his
Carol stood silently watching her daughter for
several long seconds, then, at last, moved toward
her and embraced her.
"All right, was she said softly. Then: "I'm
sorry. His
"I am too, " Lisa replied. "And
so is Alex."
"You're sure there's nothing I can do?" Jim
Cochran asked.
Marsh opened the front door, and gazed out into the
night as if expecting Alex to appear, but there was
nothing. "No," he sighed. "Go on back to Carol
and the girls. And tell them I understand why they
didn't come," he added.
Jim Cochran regarded his friend shrewdly. "I
don't believe I told you why they didn't come.
his
"You told me," Marsh replied with a tight smile.
"Maybe not in words, but I understood." He glanced
back over his shoulder to the living room, where Ellen
was still sitting on the couch. "I'd better get back
in," he went on. "I don't think she can stand
to be by herself very long."
During the hour that Jim Cochran had been there,
Ellen had finally begun to speak, but she was still
confused, as if she wasn't exactly sure what
had happened.
"Where's Carol?" she had asked half an hour
ago. Then she'd peered vacantly around the room.
"She's home," Jim had told her. "Home with the
girls. Kim's not feeling too well. his
"Oh," Ellen had breathed, then fallen silent again
before repeating her question five minutes later.
"She'll be all right," Marsh had assured him.
"It's a kind of shock, and she'll pull out of it."
I

JOHN SAUL
But even as he was about to leave, Jim wasn't sure
he should be going at all. To him, Marsh didn't
look much better than Ellen.
"Maybe I'd better stay-was
"No. If Alex comes home, I don't know
what might happen. But I know I'd rather nobody was
here. Except them. was He gestured past the patio
wall and up the road in the direction of the car Jim
knew was still parked there, waiting.
"Okay. But if you need me, call me. All
right?"'
"All right." And then, without saying anything more, Marsh
closed the door.
Jim Cochran crossed the patio, and let himself out
through the gate. As he got into his car, he waved
toward the two policemen, and one of them waved
back. Finally he started the engine, put the car in
gear, and backed out into the street.
Thirty seconds later, as he neared the bottom
of the hill, he passed another car going up, but it was
too dark for him to see Alex Lonsdale behind its
wheel.
Alex pulled the car off the road just before he rounded
the last curve. By now, he was sure, they would be
looking for him, and they would be watching the house. He
checked the breech of the shotgun. There was one shell
left. disong
It would be all he needed. I
He got out of the car and quietly shut the door, them
left the road and worked his way up the hillside,
cir-l cling around to approach the house from the rear.
Inl the dim light of the moon, the old house looked
as ill had so many years ago, and deep in his
memory, thel voices-Alejandro's voices-began
whispering to him! once more. I
He crept down the slope into the shadows of thel
house itself, and a moment later had scaled the wall and
bar dropped into the patio. I
He stood at the front door. I
He hesitated, then twisted the handle and pushedj
BRAINCHILD

the door open. Twenty feet away, in the
living room, he saw his father.
Not his father.
Alex Lonsdale's father.
Alex Lonsdale was dead.
But Ellen Lonsdale was still alive.
"Venganza . . . venganza . . ."
Alejandro de Melendez y Ruiz was dead, as was
Raymond Torres.
And yet, they weren't. They were alive, in Alex
Lonsdale's body, and the remnants of Alex
Lonsdale's brain.
Alex's father was staring at him.
"Alex?"
He heard the name, as he'd heard it at the
Cochrans' such a short time ago. But it wasn't
his name.
"No. Not Alex," he whispered. "Someone else.
his
He raised the shotgun, and began walking slowly
into the living room, where the last of the four women-
Alex's mother-sat on the sofa, staring at him in
terror.
Roscoe Finnerty's entire body twitched, and his
eyes jerked open. For just a second he felt
disoriented, then his mind focused, and he
turned to his partner. "What's going on?"
"Nothin," Jackson replied. "Cochran took
off a few minutes ago, and since then, nothing."
"Unh-unh," Finnerty growled. "Something woke
me up."
Jackson lifted one eyebrow a fraction of an
inch, but he straightened himself in the seat, lit another
cigarette, and scanned the scene on Hacienda
Drive. Nothing, as far as he could see, had
changed.
Still, he'd long since learned that Finnerty sometimes
had a sixth sense about things.
And then he remembered.
A few minutes ago, there'd been a glow, as if
a car had been coming up the hill, but it had stopped
before coming around the last curve.
JOHN SAUL
He'd assumed it had been a neighbor coming home.
"God damn!" he said aloud. He told his partner
what had happened, and Finnerty cursed softly, then
opened the car door.
"Come on. Let's take a look."
Both the officers got out of the car and started down the
street.
Ellen's eyes focused slowly on
Alex. It was like a dream, and she was only able
to see little bits at a time.
The blood on his forehead, crusting over a deep
gash that almost reached his eye.
The eyes themselves, staring at her unblinkingly, empty
of all emotion except one.
Deep in his eyes, she thought she could see a
smoldering spark of hatred.
The shotgun. Its barrels were enormous-black
holes as empty as Alex's eyes-and they seemed
to be staring at her with the same hatred as Alex.
Suddenly Ellen Lonsdale knew she was not
looking at her son.
She was looking at someone else, someone who was going
to kill her.
"Why?" she whispered. "Why?"
Then, as if her senses were turning on one by one, she
heard her husband's voice.
"What is it, Alex? What's wrong?"
"Venganza ..." she heard Alex whisper.
"Vengeance?" Marsh asked. "Vengeance for what?"
"Ladrones . . . asesinos . .
"No, Alex," Marsh said softly. "You've got
it wrong." Wildly Marsh searched his mind for something
to say, something that would get through to Alex.
Except it wasn't Alex. Whoever it was, it
wasn't Alex.
Where the hell were the cops?
And then the front door flew open, and Finnerty and
Jackson were in the entry hall.
Alex's head swung around toward the foyer, and
Marsh used the moment. Lunging forward, he grasped
the
BRAINCHILD

shotgun by the barrel, then threw himself sideways,
twisting the gun out of Alex's hands. The force of his
weight knocked Alex off balance, and he staggered
toward the fireplace, then caught himself on the
mantel. A moment later, his eyes met Marsh's.
"Do it, was he whispered. "If you loved your son,
do it."
Marsh hesitated. "Who are you?" he asked, his
voice choking on the words. "Are you Alex?"
"No. I'm someone else. I'm whoever I was
programmed to be, and I'll do what I was
programmed to do. Alex tried to stop me, but he
can't. Do it ... Father. Please do it for me."
Marsh raised the gun, and as Ellen and the two
policemen looked on, he squeezed the
trigger.
The gun roared once more, and Alex's body, torn
and bleeding, collapsed slowly onto the hearth.
Time stood still.
Ellen's eyes fixed on the body that lay in
front of the fireplace, but what she saw was not her
son.
It was someone else-someone she had never known- who had
lived in her home for a while, and whom she had tried
to love, tried to reach. But whoever he was, he was
too far away from her, and she had not been able to reach
him.
And he was not Alex.
She turned and faced Marsh.
"Thank you," she said softly. Then she rose and
went to hold her husband.
One arm still cradling the shotgun, the other around his
wife, Marsh finally tore his eyes away from the
body of his son and faced the two policemen who
stood as if frozen just inside the front door.
"I ... I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice
breaking. "I had to . . dis8He seemed about to say
something else, but didn't. Instead, he let the gun
fall to the floor, and held Ellen close. "I just
had to, that's all."
Jackson and Finnerty glanced at each other for a
split second, and then Finnerty spoke.
"We saw it all, Dr. Lonsdale," he said,
his voice
JOHN SAUL
carefully level. "We saw the boy attacking you
and your wife-was
"No!" Marsh began, "he didn't attack us-was
But Finnerty ignored him. "He attacked you, and
you were struggling for the gun when it went off." When Marsh
tried to interrupt him again, he held up his hand.
"Please, Dr. Lonsdale. Jackson and I
both know what happened." He turned to his partner.
"Don't we, torn?"
torn Jackson hesitated only a second before
nodding his head. "It's like Roscoe says," he said
at last. "It was an accident, and we're both
witnesses to it. Take your wife upstairs, Dr.
Lonsdale."
Without looking again at the body on the hearth, Ellen
and Marsh turned away and left the room.
EPILOGUE
Maria Torres drew her shawl close around her
shoulders against the chill of the December morning, then
locked the front door of her little house and
slowly crossed the street to the cemetery behind the old
mission.
The cemetery was bright with flowers, for no one in La
Paloma had forgotten what had happened three
months earlier. All of them were buried here.
Valerie Benson only a few yards from Marty
Lewis, and Cynthia and Carolyn Evans, side
by side, a little further north. All their graves,
as they were every day, were covered with fresh flowers.
In the southeast corner, set apart from the other
graves, lay Alex Lonsdale. On his grave
only a single flower lay-the white rose delivered
each day by the florist. Maria paused at Alex's
grave, and wondered how long the roses would come, how
long it would be before the Lonsdales, three months
gone from La
JOHN SAUL
Paloma, forgot about their son. For them, Maria was
sure, there would be other children, and when those children came, the
roses would stop.
Then it would be up to her. Long after his parents had
stopped honoring his memory, she would still come and leave
a flower for Alejandro.
She moved on into the oldest section of the cemetery,
where her parents and grandparents were buried, and
where now, finally returned to his family, her son
lay as well. She stood at the foot of
Ramon's grave for several minutes, and, as she
always did, tried to understand what part he had played in
what she had come to think of as the days of vengeance.
But, as always, it was a mystery to her. Somehow, though,
the saints had touched him, and he had fulfilled his
destiny, and she honored his memory as she honored
the memory of Alejandro de Melendez y
Ruiz. She whispered a prayer for her son, then
left the cemetery. For her, there was still work to be
done.
She trudged slowly through the village, feeling the
burden of her age with every step, pausing once more in the
Square, partly to rest, but partly, too, to repeat
one more prayer for Don Roberto. Then, when she was
rested, she went on.
She turned up Hacienda Drive, and was glad
that! today, at least, she needn't climb all the way
up to the I hacienda. It was empty again, and now she
only wentl there once a week to wipe the dust
away from its I polished oaken floors and
wrought-iron sconces. Thel furniture was gone,
but she didn't miss it. In her mind's I eye it
was still as it had always been. Her ghosts werel
still there. Soon, she was sure, she would go to join I
them, and though her body would lie in the cemetery, I
her spirit would return to the hacienda which had al-l
ways been her true home. I
Today, though, she would not go to the hacienda. I Today
she would go to one of the other houses-thel house where
Alejandro had died-to speak to the newl people. I
BRAINCHILD

They had only come to La Paloma last week, and
she had heard that they needed a housekeeper.
She came to the last curve before the house would come
into view, and paused to catch her breath. Then she
walked on, and a moment later, saw the house.
It was as it should have been. Along the garden wall,
neatly spaced between the tile insets, were small
vines, well-trimmed and espaliered. From the
outside, at least, the house looked as it had
looked a century ago.
Maria stepped through the gate into the little patio, then
knocked at the front door and waited. As she was
about to knock again, the door opened, and a woman
appeared.
A blond woman, with bright blue eyes and a smiling
face.
A gringo woman.
"Mrs. Torres?" the woman asked, and Maria
nodded. "I'm so glad to meet you," the woman went
on. "I'm Donna Ruiz."
Maria felt her heart skip a beat, and her legs
suddenly felt weak. She reached out and steadied herself
on the door frame.
"Ruiz ..." she whispered. "No es posible . .
The woman's smile widened. "It's all right,"
she said. I know I don't look like a Ruiz.
And of course I'm not. I was a Riley before I
married Paul." She took Maria's arm and drew
her into the house, closing the door behind her. A moment
later they were in the living room. "Isn't this
wonderful? Paul says it's exactly the kind of
house he's always wanted to live in, and that it's
really authentic. He says it must be over a
hundred years old."
"More," Maria said softly, her eyes going to the
hearth where Alejandro had died so short a time ago.
It was built for one of the overseers."
Donna Ruiz looked puzzled. "Overseers?"
"From the hacienda, before the . . . before the
atnericanos came."
JOHN SAUL
"How interesting," Donna replied. "It sounds like
you know the house well."
"Si," Maria said. "I cleaned for Senora
Lonsdale."
Donna's smile faded. "Oh, dear. I
didn't know . . . Perhaps you'd rather not work here. his
Maria shook her head. "It is all right. I worked
here before. I will work here again. And someday, I will go
back to the hacienda."
The last of Donna Ruiz's smile disappeared, and
she shook her head sadly. "It must have been awful.
Just awful. That poor boy." She hesitated; then:
"It almost seems like it would have been better if he'd
died in the accident, doesn't it? To go through all he
went through, and end up . . ." Her voice trailed
off; then she took a deep breath and stood up.
"Well. Perhaps we should go through the house, and I can
tell you what I want done. his
Maria heaved herself to her feet and silently followed
Donna Ruiz through the rooms on the first floor,
wondering why the gringo women always assumed that she
couldn't see what needed to be done in a house.
Did they think she never cleaned her own house? Or
did they just think she was stupid?
The rooms were all as they had been the last
time she had been here, and Senora Ruiz wanted the
same j things done that Senora Lonsdale had
wanted.
The cleaning supplies were where they had always been, as
were the vacuum cleaner and the dust rags, the mops and the
brooms.
And all of it, of course, was explained to her in
detail, as if she hadn't heard it all a
hundred times before, hadn't known it all long before these
women were even born.
At last they went upstairs, and one by one Donna
Ruiz showed her all the rooms Maria Torres
already knew. Finally they came to the room at the end
of the hall, the room that had been Alejandro's. They
paused, and Donna Ruiz knocked at the door.
BRAINCHILD

"It's okay," a voice called from within. "Come on
in, Mom."
Donna Ruiz opened the door, and Maria gazed
into the room. All the furniture was still
there-Alejandro's desk and bed, the bookshelves and the
rug, all as they had been when the Lonsdales
left.
Sitting at the desk, working on a model
airplane, was a boy who looked to be about
thirteen. He grinned at his mother, then, seeing that she
wasn't alone, stood up. "Are you the cleaning
lady?" he asked.
Maria nodded, her old eyes studying him. His
eyes were dark, and his hair, nearly black, was
thick and curly. "Como se llama?" she asked.
"Roberto," the boy replied. "But everybody
calls me Bobby."
"Roberto," Maria repeated, her heart once again
beating faster. "It is a good name."
"And he's fascinated with history," Donna
Ruiz said. She turned to her son. "Maria
seems to know all about the house and the town. I'll
bet if you asked her, she could tell you everything that's
ever happened here. his
Bobby Ruiz turned eager eyes toward Maria.
"Could you?" he asked. "Do you really know all about the
town?"
Maria hesitated only an instant, then nodded.
"Si," she said softly. "I know all the old
legends, and I will tell them all to you." She
smiled gently. "I will tell them to you, and you will
understand them. All of them. And someday, you will live in
the hacienda. Would you like that?"
The boy's eyes burned brightly. "Yes," he
said. "I'd like that very much."
"Then I will take you there, was Maria replied. "I
will take you there, and someday it will be yours. His
A moment later, Maria was gone, and Bobby Ruiz
was alone in his room. He went to his bed and lay
down on his back so that he could gaze at the ceiling,
but he
JOHN SAUL
saw nothing. Instead, he listened to the sounds in his
head, the whisperings in Spanish that he had been
hearing since the first time he came into this room. But
now, after talking to Maria Torres, he understood the
whisperings.
Soon, he knew, the killings would begin again. . .
.
ENTER THE TERRIFYING WORLD OF JOHN
SAUL
A scream shatters the peaceful night of a sleepy
town, a mysterious stranger awakens to seek
vengeance. . . . Once again, with expert, chillingly
demonic skill, John Saul draws the reader
into his world of utter fear. The author of fifteen
novels of psychological and supernatural
suspense-all million copy New
York Times bestsellers- John Saul is
unequaled in his power to weave the haunted past and the
troubled present into a web of pure, cold terror.
THE GOD PROJECT
Something is happening to the children of,stbury,
Massachusetts . . . something that strikes at the
heart of every parent's darkest fears. For Sally
Montgomery, the grief over the sudden death of her
infant daughter is only the beginning. For Lucy
Corliss, her son Randy is her life. Then one
day, Randy doesn't come home. And the terror begins
. . .
A horn honked, pulling Randy out of his reverie, and
he realized he was alone on the block. He
looked at the watch his father had given him for his ninth
birthday. It was nearly eight J-hjrty. If
he didn't hurry, he was going to be late for
school. Then he heard a voice calling to him.
"Randy! Randy Corliss!"
A blue car, a car he didn't recognize, was
standing by the
curb. A woman was smiling at him from the driver's
seat. He approached the car hesitantly,
clutching his lunch box.
"Hi, Randy," the woman said.
"Who are you?" Randy stood back from the car,
remembering his mother's warnings about never talking
to strangers.
"My name's Miss Bowen. Louise Bowen. I
came to get you." I
"Get me?" Randy asked. "Why?"
"For your father," the woman said. Randy's heart beat
faster. His father? His father had sent this woman? Was it
really bar going to happen, finally? "He wanted me
to pick you up at home," he heard the woman
say, "but I was late. I'm sorry."
"That's all right," Randy said. He moved closer
to the car. "Are you taking me to Daddy's house?"
The woman reached across and pushed the passenger door
open. "In a little while," she promised. "Get
in."
Randy knew he shouldn't get in the car, knew he
should turn around and run to the nearest house, looking for
help. It was things like this-strangers offering to give you
a ride-that his mother had talked to him about ever since he
was a little boy.
But this was different. This was a friend of his father's. Her
brown eyes were twinkling at him, and her smile
made him feel like she was sharing an adventure with
him. He made up his mind and got into the
car, pulling the door closed behind him. The car moved
away from the curb.
"Where are we going?" Randy asked.
Louise Bowen glanced over at the boy sitting
expectantly on the seat beside her. He was every bit
as attractive as the pictures she had been shown,
his eyes almost green, with dark, wavy hair framing
his pugnacious, snub-nosed face. His body was
sturdy, and though she was a stranger to him, he
didn't seem to be the least bit frightened of her.
Instinctively, Louise liked Randy Corliss.
"We're going to your new school."
Randy frowned. New school? If he was going to a
new school, why wasn't his father taking him? The
woman seemed to hear him, even though he hadn't
spoken out loud.
"You'll see your father very soon. But for a few days,
until he gets everything worked out with your mother, you'll
be staying at the school. You'll like it there," she
promised. "It's a special school, just for little
boys like you, and you'll have lots of new friends.
Doesn't that sound exciting?"
Randy nodded uncertainly, no longer sure he should
have
gotten in the car. Still, when he thought about it,
it made sense. His father had told him there would be
lots of problems when the time came for him to move
away from his mother's. And his father had told him he would
be going to a new school. And today was the day.
Randy settled down in the seat and glanced out the
window. They were heading out of Eastbury on the road
toward Langston. That was where his father lived, so
everything was all right.
Except that it didn't quite feel all right. Deep
inside, Randy had a strange sense of something being very
wrong.
For two very different families haunted by very
similar fears, THE GOD PROJECT has
only just begun to work its lethal conspiracy of
silence and fear. And for the reader, John Saul has
produced a mind-numbing tale of evil unchecked.
NATHANIEL
Prairie Bend: brilliant summers amid
golden fields, killing winters of razorlike
cold. A peaceful, neighborly village,
darkened by legends of death . . . legends of
Nathaniel. Some residents say he is simply
a folk tale, others swear he is a terrifying
spirit. And soon-very soon-some will come to believe that
Nathaniel lives . . .
Shivering, Michael set himself a destination now and
began walking along the edges of the pastures, the
woods on his right, climbing each fence as he came
to it. Sooner than he would have expected, the woods
curved away to the right, following the course of the river
as it deviated from its southeastern flow to curl around
the village. Ahead of him he could see the
scattered twinkling lights of Prairie Bend.
For a moment, he considered going into the village, but
then, as he looked off to the southeast, he changed his
mind, for there, seeming almost to glow in the moonlight,
was the hulking shape of Findley's barn.
That, Michael knew, was where he was going.
He cut diagonally across the field, then darted
across the
deserted highway and into another field. He moved
quickly now, feeling exposed in the emptiness with the
full moon shining down on him. Ten minutes later
he had crossed the field and come once more to the
highway, this time as it emerged from the village. Across
the street, he could see Ben Findley's
driveway and, at its end, the little house, and the barn.
He considered trying to go down the driveway and around
the house, but quickly abandoned the idea. A light
showed dimly from behind a curtained window, and
he had a sudden vision of old man Findley, his
gun cradled in his arms, standing in silhouette at the
front door.
His progress slowed as he plunged into the
weed-choked pastures that lay between the house and the
river, but he was determined to stay away from the fence
separating Findley's property from their own until
the old man's barn could conceal him from the same
man's prying eyes. It wasn't until he was
near the river that he finally felt safe enough to slip
between the strands of barbed wire that fenced off the
Findley property and begin doubling back toward the
barn that had become his goal.
He could feel it now, feel the strange sense of
familiarity he had felt that afternoon, only it was
stronger here, pulling him forward through the night. He
didn't try to resist it, though there was something
vaguely frightening about it. Frightening but exciting. There
was a sense of discovery, almost a sense of memory.
And his headache, the throbbing pain that had been with him
all evening, was gone.
He came up to the barn and paused. There should be a
door just around the corner, a door with a bar on it.
He didn't understand how he knew it was there, for
he'd never seen that side of the barn, but he
knew.
Around the corner, just as he knew it would be, he
found the door, held securely shut by a heavy
wooden beam resting in a pair of wrought-iron
brackets. Without hesitation, Michael lifted the
bar out of its brackets and propped it carefully
against the wall. As he pulled the door open, no
squeaking hinges betrayed his presence. Though the barn
was nearly pitch dark inside, it wasn't the kind of
eerie darkness this caret woods by the river had held,
at least not for Michael. For Michael, it was an
inviting darkness.
He stepped into the barn.
He waited, half expectantly, as the darkness
seeped into him, enveloping him within its folds. And
then something reached out of the darkness and touched him.
Nathaniel's call to Michael Hall, who has
just lost his father in a tragic accident, draws the
boy further into the barn and under his spell. There-and
beyond-Michael will faithfully follow Nathaniel's
voice to the edge of terror.
BRAINCHILD
One hundred years ago in La Paloma a
terrible deed was done, and a cry for vengeance pierced the
night. Now, that evil still lives, and that
vengeance waits . . . waits for Alex
Lonsdale, one of the most popular boys in La
Paloma. Because horrible things can happen-even
to nice kids like Alex . . .
Alex jockeyed the Mustang around Bob Carey's
Porsche, then put it in drive and gunned the
engine. The rear wheels spun on the loose
gravel for a moment, then caught, and the car shot
forward, down the Evanses' driveway and
into Haci: enda Drive.
Alex wasn't sure how long Lisa had been
walking-it seemed as though it had taken him forever
to get dressed and search the house. She could be almost
home by now.
He pressed the accelerator, and the car picked up
speed. He hugged the wall of the ravine on the first
curve, but the car fishtailed slightly, and he had
to steer into the skid to regain control. Then he hit a
straight stretch and pushed his speed up to seventy.
Coming up fast was an S curve that was posted at
thirty miles an hour, but he knew they always
left a big margin for safety. He slowed
to sixty as he started into the first turn.
And then he saw her.
She was standing on the side of the road, her
green dress glowing brightly in his headlights, staring
at him with terrified eyes.
Or did he just imagine that? Was he already that close
to her?
Time suddenly slowed down, and he slammed his foot
on the brake.
Too late. He was going to hit her.
It would have been all right if she'd been on the
inside of the curve. He'd have swept around her, and
she'd have been safe. But now he was skidding right
toward her . . .
Turn into it. He had to turn into it!
Taking his foot off the brake, he steered to the right,
and suddenly felt the tires grab the pavement.
Lisa was only a few yards away.
And beyond Lisa, almost lost in the darkness, something
else.
A face, old and wrinkled, framed with white
hair. And the eyes in the face were glaring at him with
an intensity he could almost feel.
It was the face that finally made him lose all
control of the car.
An ancient, weathered face, a face filled with
an unspeakable loathing, looming in the darkness.
At the last possible moment, he wrenched the
wheel to the left, and the Mustang responded, slewing
around Lisa, charging across the pavement, leading for the
ditch and the wall of the ravine beyond.
Straighten it out!
He spun the wheel the other way.
Too far.
The car burst through the guardrail and hurtled over the
edge of the ravine.
"Lisaaaa ..."
Now Alex needs a miracle and thanks to a
brilliant doctor, Alex comes back from the
brink of death. He seems the same, but in his heart
there is a coldness. And if his friends and family could
see inside his brain, they would be terrified. . . .
HELLFIRE
Pity the dead . . . one hundred years ago
eleven innocent lives were taken in a fire that
raged through the mill. That day the iron doors
slammed shut-forever. Now, the powerful Sturgiss
family of the sleepy town of Westover,
Massachusetts is about to unlock those doors to the
past. Now comes the time to pray for the living.
The silence of the building seemed to gather around her, and
slowly Beth felt the beginnings of fear.
And it wasn't just her friends.
Her eyes shifted away from the group of children gathered
around the computer to the small grandstand that faced the pool
from the other side.
Sitting on the benches were at least fifty of the
college students, and they were watching her, too.
Amy felt herself burning with embarrassment. were all
these people really here just to watch her? But why? What was
going to happen?
Behind her, she heard Hildie's voice. "Are you
all right, Amy? Do you want to go ahead?"
What Amy wanted to do was fall through the concrete and
have the earth swallow her up. Why were all these people here?
Why wasn't it just the kids in the seminar, who were at
least people she knew? And what would happen if she
turned around and ran back into the locker room?
They would laugh at her.
All of them. They would know she was a coward, and even
though they might not laugh out loud, inside they would be
laughing at her.
Tonight, in the dining room, she would hear the clucking as
all the rest of the kids made chicken sounds.
Even her friends would laugh at her, and she would feel
just like she had back in public school, when everyone
acted as if she was some kind of freak or something.
No!
She wouldn't let it happen. Somehow, she would get
through it.
She took a deep breath, then slowly let it out.
"I- I'm okay," she managed to say, but even
she could hear the trembling in her voice. "I just
didn't-who are all those people?"
Hildie smiled reassuringly at her. "They're
from one of the psychology classes. Dr. Engersol
invited them to watch the experiment."
"But he didn't tell me," Amy wailed.
Sensing what was going through the little girl's
JL
She listened, and after a moment, as the darkness began
closing in on her, the sound repeated itself.
Panic surged through her. All her instincts told
her to run, to flee back up the stairs and out into the
daylight. But when she tried to move, her legs
refused to obey her, and she remained where she was,
paralyzed.
Once again the sound came. This time, though it was almost
inaudible, Beth thought she recognized a word.
"Beeetthh . . ."
Her name. It was as if someone had called her name.
"D-Daddy?" she whispered again. "Daddy, is that
you?"
There was another silence, and Beth strained once more
to see into the darkness surrounding her.
In the distance, barely visible, she thought she could see
a flickering of light.
And then she froze, her voice strangling as the sound
came again, like a winter wind sighing in the trees.
"Aaaammmyyyy ..."
Beth gazed fearfully into the blackness for several
long seconds. Then, when the sound was not repeated,
her panic began to subside. At last she was able
to speak again, though her voice still trembled. "Is
someone there?"
In the far distance, the light flickered again, and she
heard something else.
Footsteps, approaching out of the darkness.
The seconds crept by, and the light bobbed nearer.
And once more, the whispering voice, barely audible,
danced around her.
"Aaaammmyy . . ."
For Beth Rogers, the voice seems like a
nightmare, yet not even a little girl's fears can
imagine the unearthly fury that awaits her in the
old, deserted mill. Soon all of Westover will
be prey to the forces of darkness that wait beyond those
padlocked doors.
THE UNWANTED
Cassie Winslow, lonely and frightened, has come
to False Harbor, Cape Cod to live with her
father-whom she barely
knows-and his family. For Cassie, the strange,
unsettling dreams that come to her suddenly are merely
the beginning . . . for very soon, Cassie will come to know
the terrifying powers that are her gift.
Cassie awoke in the blackness of the hours before
dawn, her heart thumping, her skin damp with a cold
sweat that made her shiver. For a moment she didn't
know where she was. Then, as she listened to the
unfamiliar sound of surf pounding in the distance, the
dream began to fade away, and she remembered where
she was.
She was in False Harbor, and this was where she lived
now. In the room next to her, her stepsister was
asleep, and down the hall her father was in bed with her
stepmother.
Then why did she feel so alone?
It was the dream, of course.
It had come to her again in the night. Again she had seen
the strange woman who should have been her mother but was not.
Again, as Cassie watched in horror, the car burst
into flames, and Cassie, vaguely aware
that she was in a dream, had expected to wake up, as
she had each time the nightmare had come to her.
This time, though she wanted to turn and run, she stood
where she was, watching the car burn.
This time there had been no laughter shrieking from the
woman's lips, no sound of screams, no noise
at all. The flames had risen from the car in an
eerie silence, and then, just as Cassie was about to turn
away, the stranger had suddenly emerged from the car.
Clad in black, the figure had stood perfectly
still, untouched by the flames that raged around her.
Slowly, she raised one hand. Her lips moved and a
single word drifted over the crowded freeway, came
directly to Cassie's ears over the faceless
mass of people streaming by in their cars.
"Cassandra ..."
The silence of the dream was shattered then by the blaring of a
horn and the screaming of tires skidding on pavement.
Cassie looked up just in time to see a truck
bearing down on her, the enormous grill of its
radiator only inches from her face.
As the truck smashed into her she woke up, her own
scream of terror choked in her throat.
Her heartbeat began to slow, and her shivering stopped.
I
Now the room seemed to close in on her, and she
found it hard to breathe. Slipping out of bed, she
crossed to the window at the far end of the narrow room and
lifted it open. As she was about to go back to bed, a
movement in the darkness outside caught her eye.
She looked down into the cemetery on the other side
of the back fence. At first she saw nothing. Then she
sensed the movement again, and a dark figure came
into view. Clad in black, perfectly silent, a
woman stood in the shadows cast by the headstones.
Time seemed to suspend itself.
And then the figure raised one hand. Once more
Cassie heard a single word drift almost
inaudibly above the pounding of the surf from the beach a
few blocks away.
"Cassandra..."
Cassie remained where she was, her eyes closed
as she strained to recapture the sound of her name, but
now there was only the pulsing drone of the surf. And when
she reopened her eyes a few seconds later and
looked once more into the graveyard, she saw nothing.
The strange figure that had stepped out of the shadows was
gone.
She went back to her bed and pulled the covers
close around her. For a long time she lay
still, wondering if perhaps she'd only imagined it all.
Perhaps she hadn't even left the bed, and had only
dreamed that she'd seen the woman in the graveyard.
But the woman in the graveyard had been the woman in
her dream. But she didn't really exist.
Did she?
Cassie's dreams will alienate her from the other
kids, as will her strange bond with crazy old
Miranda Sikes-for both feel unwanted. And in the
village of False Harbor, nothing will ever be the
same as John Saul spins his supernatural
spell.
THE UNLOVED
The splendid isolation of a picturesque island off
the South Carolina coast seems like paradise, but for
Kevin Devereaux-
who returns with his family to help care for his aged
and ailing mother, Helena-homecoming will mean a frightening
descent into his darkest nightmares . . .
"Why are you here?" he heard her demand. "You know
I don't want you here!"
He tried to think, tried to remember where he was.
He looked around furtively, hoping the woman
wouldn't see his eyes flickering about as if he might
be searching for a means to escape.
The room around him looked strange-unfinished-the
rough wood of its framing exposed under the tattered
remains of crumbling tarpaper. He'd been in this
place before-he knew that now. Still, he didn't know
where the room was, or what it might be.
But he knew the woman was angry with him again, and in
the deepest recesses of his mind, he knew what was
going to happen next.
The woman was going to kill him.
He wanted to cry out for help, but when he opened his
mouth, no scream emerged. His throat constricted,
cutting off his breath, and he knew if he couldn't
fight the panic growing within him, he would strangle
on his own fear.
The woman took a step toward him, and he cowered,
huddling back against the wall. A slick sheen of
icy sweat chilled his back, then he felt cold
droplets creeping down his arms. A shiver passed
over him, and a small whimper escaped his lips.
His sister.
Maybe his sister would come and rescue him.
But she was gone-something had happened to her, and he was
alone now.
Alone with his mother.
He looked fearfully up.
She seemed to tower above him, her skirt held
back as if she were afraid it might brush against him
and be soiled. Her hands were hidden in the folds of the
skirt, but he knew what they held.
The axe. The axe she would kill him with.
He could see it then-its curved blades glinting in
the light from the doorway, its long wooden handle
clutched in his mother's hands. She wasn't speaking
to him now, only staring at him. But she didn't need
to speak, for he knew what she wanted, knew what
she'd always wanted.
M caret
"Love me," he whispered, his voice so
tremulous that he could hear the words wither away as
quickly as they left his lips. "Please love me
..."
His mother didn't hear. She never heard, no matter
how many times he begged her, no matter how often he
tried to tell her he was sorry for what he'd done.
He would apologize for anything-he knew that. If
only she would hear him, he'd tell her whatever she
wanted to hear. But even as he tried once more, he
knew she wasn't hearing, didn't want to hear.
She only wanted to be rid of him.
The axe began to move now, rising above
him, quivering slightly, as if the blade itself could
anticipate the splitting of his skull, the crushing
of his bones as they gave way beneath the weapon's
weight. He could see the steel begin its slow
descent, and time seemed to stand still.
He had to do something-had to move away, had to ward off
the blow. He tried to raise his arms, but even the
air around him seemed thick and unyielding now, and the
blade was moving much faster than he was. . . .
He opened his mouth and, finally, screamed-
The horror is a dream, only a dream. Or so
Kevin thinks. Until Helena, suddenly,
horribly, dies inside the locked nursery. And
now there is no escape, as tortured spirits from the
sinister past rise up to tell the true terror ostthe
unloved.
CREATURE
A terrible secret lurks beneath the wholesome
surface of Silverdale, Colorado, where
well-behaved students make their parents and teachers
proud, and the football team never-ever- loses. But
soon, some of the parents in Silverdale will begin
to uncover the unimaginable secret that can turn a
loving child murderous . . .
"It's two in the morning, Chuck. And
Jeff isn't home yet." Chuck groaned.
"And for that you woke me up? Jeez, Char, when I was
his age, I was out all night half the time."
"Maybe you were," Charlotte replied tightly.
"And maybe
your parents didn't care. But I do, and I'm about
to call the police."
At that, Chuck came completely awake. "What
the hell do you want to do a thing like that for?" he
demanded, switching on the light and staring at
Charlotte as if he thought she'd lost her mind.
"Because I'm worried about him," Charlotte flared,
concern for her son overcoming her fear of her
husband's tongue. "Because I don't like what's been
happening with him and I don't like the way he's been
acting. And I certainly don't like not knowing where he
is at night!"
"Maybe he stayed overnight with a friend," Chuck
began, but Charlotte shook her head.
"He hasn't done that since he was a little boy. And
if he had, he would have called." Even as she
uttered the words, she knew she didn't believe
them. A year ago-a few months ago; even a
few weeks ago-she would have trusted Jeff to keep
her informed of where he was and what he was doing.
But now? She didn't know.
Nor could she explain her worries to Chuck,
since he insisted on believing there was nothing wrong;
that Jeff was simply growing up and testing his wings.
As she was searching for the right words, the words to express
her fears without further rousing her husband's anger,
the front door opened and Jeff came in.
He'd already closed the door behind him and started up the
stairs when he caught sight of his parents standing in the
den in their bathrobes, their eyes fixed on him.
He gazed at them stupidly for a second, almost as
if he didn't recognize them, and for a
split-second Charlotte thought he looked stoned.
"Jeff?" she said. Then, when he seemed to pay no
attention to her, she called out again, louder this time.
"Jeff?"
His eyes hooded, her son turned to gaze at her.
"What?" he asked, his voice taking on the same
sullen tone that had become so familiar to her
lately.
"I want an explanation," Charlotte went on.
"It's after two a.m., and I want to know where you've
been."
"Out," Jeff said, and started to turn away.
"Stop right there, young man!" Charlotte
commanded. She marched into the foyer and stood at the
bottom of the stairs, then reached out and switched on the
chandelier that hung in the stairwell. A bright flood
of light bathed Jeff's face, and Charlotte
gasped. His face was streaked with dirt, and on his
cheeks there were smears of blood. There were black
circles
under Jeff's eyes-as if he hadn't slept in
days-and he was breathing hard, his chest heaving as he
panted.
Then he lifted his right hand to his mouth, and before he
began sucking on his wounds, Charlotte could see that
the skin was torn away from his knuckles.
"My God," she breathed, her anger suddenly
draining away. "Jeff, what's happened to you?"
His eyes narrowed. "Nothing," he mumbled, and once
more started to mount the stairs.
"Nothing?" Charlotte repeated. She turned
to Chuck, now standing in the door to the den, his eyes,
too, fixed on their son. "Chuck, look at him.
Just look at him!"
"You'd better tell us what happened, son,"
Chuck said. "If you're in some kind of trouble-was
Jeff whirled to face them, his eyes now blazing with the
same anger that had frightened Linda Harris
earlier that evening. "I don't know what's wrong!"
he shouted. "Linda broke up with me tonight, okay?
And it pissed me off? Okay? So I tried
to smash up a tree and I went for a walk. Okay?
Is that okay with you, Mom?"
"Jeff-was Charlotte began, shrinking away from her
son's sudden fury. "I didn't mean ... we
only wanted to-was
But it was too late.
"Can't you just leave me alone?" Jeff shouted.
He came off the bottom of the stairs, towering over
the much smaller form of his mother. Then, with an abrupt
movement, he reached out and roughly shoved Charlotte
aside, as if swatting a fly. She felt a sharp
pain in her shoulder as her body struck the wall, and
then she collapsed to the floor. For a splitsecond
Jeff stared blankly at his mother, as if he was
puzzled about what had happened to her, and then, an
anguished wail boiling up from somewhere deep within him,
he turned and slammed out the front door.
Secret rituals masked in science . . . hidden
cellars where steel cages gleam coldly against the
dark ... a cry of unfathomable rage and pain . .
. In Silverdale no one is safe from . . .
Creature.
DARKNESS
The Andersons left the town at the edge of the swamp
long ago, meaning never to return. There was something not
quite
right about the vast cruel lowlands ofVillejeune . .
. something murky, menacing, hostile . . . an
influence too malevolent to be natural.
Darkness wrapped around Amelie Coulton like a
funeral shroud, and only the sound of her own
heartbeat told her that she was still alive.
She shouldn't have come here-she knew that now, knew it
with a certainty that filled her soul with dread. She should
have stayed at home, stayed alone in the tiny shack that
crouched only a few feet above the dark waters of the
swamp. There, at least, she would have been safe.
She would have been safe, and so would the baby that now
stirred restlessly within her body, his feet kicking
her so hard she winced with pain.
But Amelie hadn't stayed at home. Now,
huddled silently in the darkness, she could feel
danger all around her, danger she knew her baby
could feel, too. . . .
As Amelie watched, the Dark Man held out his
arms.
"Give me what is mine!" His voice
boomed across the water, the words striking Amelie like
hammer blows.
Silently, Tammy-Jo placed her newborn
babe in the hands of the Dark Man, who turned and
laid the baby on the altar like an offering, unfolding
the blanket in which it was wrapped, until its pale
body was uncovered in the candlelight.
From the folds of his robes the dark man withdrew an
object. Amelie couldn't quite make it out, until
the light of the tapers reflected from it as from the blade
of a knife.
"Whose child is this?" the Dark Man asked, the blade
held high above the baby's naked body.
"Yours," Tammy-Jo replied, her voice
flat, her eyes fixed on the Dark Man.
Though his face was invisible, the girl in the canoe
shivered as she felt the Dark Man's cold
smile.
She wanted to turn away, but knew she couldn't.
Fascinated with the black-clad image of the Dark
Man, she watched unblinking as he raised the
instrument in his hands high, poising it over the tiny
infant on the altar. The candlelight flickered, and
tiny brilliant stars flashed from the tip of the
instrument.
It began to arc downward.
It hovered for a moment, just over the child's breast.
There was a short scream from the infant as the tip of the
blade entered its chest, a scream that was cut off
almost as quickly as it began.
The glinting metal sank deep into the child's body.
Involuntarily, a shriek rose in Amelie's
throat, a small howl of pure horror that she
cut off almost as quickly as the Dark Man had cut
off the infant's scream.
The Dark Man looked up, gazing out over the fire
and the water, and Amelie imagined that his unseeable
eyes were boring into her, fixing her image on his
mind.
My baby, she thought. He wants my baby,
too.
Silently she dipped her paddle into the water and
backed the canoe away. But even as she moved
noiselessly through the black shadows, she could still feel
the eyes of the Dark Man following her, reaching out
to her, grasping at her.
No.
Not at her.
At the baby within her.
As she turned the canoe, intent on
fleeing into the darkness, she heard the Dark Man
speak once again.
"George Coulton," the heavy voice uttered.
"When will you bring me what is mine?"
There was a moment of silence before Amelie heard her
husband reply. When at last he spoke,
George's flat, expressionless voice was clear.
"The night he's born. The night he's born,
I be bringin' him to you."
Now the Andersons' return has completed a
circle of destiny begun long ago. Now they must
face a deadly drama of unholy ceremony and
secret horror, of ancient greed preying upon young
life, of unutterable depravity. For, like the other
children of Villejeune-children without mercy or
tears-sixteen-yearold Kelly Anderson is about
to be drawn into a darkness so terrible it spares no
life, no soul.
John Saul is "a writer with the touch for raising
gooseflesh," says the Detroit News, and
bestseller after bestseller has proved over and over
his mastery for storytelling and his genius at creating
heart-stopping suspense. Enter his chilling world, and
prepare to realize your own hidden fears ...
Available wherever Bantam paperbacks
are sold!
And now, turn the page for an exciting preview of
John Saul's masterpiece of terror,
SHADOWS.
They call it The Academy.
Housed in a secluded, cliff-top mansion
overlooking the rugged and picturesque Pacific
coast, it is a school for special children. Children
gifted-or cursed-with extraordinary minds. Children
soon to come under the influence of an intelligence even
more brilliant than their own-and unspeakably evil.
For within this mind a dark, ingenious plan is taking
form. A hellish experiment meant to probe the
ultimate limits of the human brain.
A novel of unrelenting, nerve-jangling
suspense, Shadows is John Saul's most
terrifying tale to date . . . now, here is a
chilling glimpse of what awaits you in the ...
SHADOWS
Amy looked up at the clock on the wall.
Only five more minutes until her last class
of the day ended.
She wished it would go on for the rest of the afternoon, right up
until dinnertime, for every minute that went by brought her
one minute closer to the experiment.
"But he said you don't have to do anything you don't
want to do," Josh had insisted when she'd talked
to him an hour ago, during the break between history and
math. "What are you so scared of?"
Instead of answering his question, Amy had said nothing at
all, for the image in her mind was still the one of the cat in
the cage, wired to the computer, being subjected
to electrical shocks, frightening sounds, and the stinking
odor of the skunk.
Her trepidation hadn't been eased at all when
Mrs. Wilson, her math teacher, had handed her a
note at the beginning of the hour, instructing her
to appear at the gym at three-thirty.
The note had been signed by Dr. Engersol.
Why did he want her at the gym? Was that where the
experiment was going to be held?
"Amy? Amy, are you listening at all?"
The voice of Enid Wilson, the math teacher,
punched through the worries that were churning through the little
girl's head. Startled, Amy automatically sat
up straight in her chair.
"Haven't you been listening at all, Amy?"
Mrs. Wilson, a tall, angular woman whose
gray hair was pulled back into a severe bun
pinned at the back of her neck, was glaring
at her over the rims of her glasses. The
stridency in her voice made Amy cringe.
"I-I was thinking about something else," she said, her
voice trembling.
"Obviously," Enid Wilson replied, her
voice crackling. "But when you're in my
classroom, I ex-
pect you to pay attention to me." She rapped the
pointer in her hand on the chalkboard behind her. "Can you
solve this equation, or not?"
Amy stared at the complicated algebraic equation that
was written out on the board, knowing that she should be able
to solve it in her head. She concentrated, her eyes
squinting and her brow furrowing as she began to do the
calculations, visualizing the numbers in her mind as
clearly as if she were working with a pencil and a scratch
pad.
"Come now, Amy, it's not that difficult," Mrs.
Wilson prodded. "It's really nothing more than a
simple reduction!"
Amy swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump that had
suddenly formed in her throat. In her mind, the
numbers faded away, and she lost her place in the
equation. "I-I can't do it," she breathed.
The teacher's eyes fixed on her, making
her want to sink through the floor. "Then perhaps you can do
some extra homework this evening," Mrs. Wilson
told her while the rest of the class tittered at her
discomfort. "If you're not going to pay attention in
class, you'll simply have to do the work in your room."
Smiling thinly, Mrs. Wilson addressed the rest
of the class. "Work out the first fifteen problems at the
end of Chapter Three," she told them. "Amy
Carlson will do the rest of them for you."
Amy's eyes widened. If Chapter Three were like
the first two, there were fifty problems to be solved.
And she had a chapter of history to read, and a story
to write for Mr. Conners. How would she ever do it?
And all because she hadn't been able to solve one
stupid equation!
The bell rang. As the rest of the students hurried
toward the door, intent on getting out into the afternoon
sunshine, Amy lingered where she was. When the room
was at last empty save for herself and the teacher, Mrs.
Wilson finally gazed questioningly at her.
"Is there something you want to talk to me about, Amy?"
she asked.
For a second Amy wondered if it would do any good
to tell Mrs. Wilson how much other studying she
had to do that night. She decided it wouldn't.
Mrs. Wilson wasn't like Mr. Conners, who was
always willing to listen to his students' problems.
Mrs. Wilson didn't seem to care how much work
they had to do for their other classes. "It's simply
a matter of planning your time," she'd told Brad
Hinshaw last week, when he'd complained that the
assignment was too long. "You're all gifted children,
and we're here to challenge your intellects, not
coddle the habits you developed in public
school. I know everything has always been easy for
all of you, but life isn't like that. You must learn to do
what is asked of you without cornplaining."
"She's sure a bitch," Brad had muttered as
they'd left her room that day. When some of the other
kids had giggled, Mrs. Wilson had recalled
them to the classroom and demanded to know what they were
laughing about.
And then she'd doubled Brad's assignment.
"n-No, Mrs. Wilson," Amy finally said as
the teacher's eyes bored into her. "I'm okay.
I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention."
Enid Wilson's lips relaxed into a semblance
of a smile. "Very well," she said. "Your apology
is accepted. As," she added, the smile disappearing,
"will your homework be tomorrow. Now I suggest you
get about your business. Dr. Engersol doesn't like
to be kept waiting, you know."
Nodding quickly, Amy pulled her book bag out from
under her desk and left the room. Emerging from the
building, she turned left and started toward the gym
on the other side of the campus.
She paused in front of the door to the women's
locker room, screwing her face into her habitual
tight squint of concentration.
What if she changed her mind right now?
Was it possible the experiment had already started?
She glanced around. There were a few of the college
students lying around under the trees and walking along the
sidewalks, but no one seemed to be paying any
attention to her.
And she didn't have that creepy feeling on the back
of her neck that she always got when she felt like she was
being watched.
Sighing, she decided the experiment hadn't begun
yet, and walked on into the locker room. It was
empty except for Hildie Kramer, who stood
up as Amy came into the humid room.
"I was starting to wonder if you were going to show up at
all," Hildie said, smiling. "Dr. Engersol
wants you to put on a bathing suit and go out
by the pool."
Amy's lips pursed. "The pool? Is that where the
experiment is?"
Hildie nodded. "Do you have your own bathing suit
here?"
Amy shook her head. "It's in my room.
Nobody said I should bring it. Should I go get it?"
She had already started toward the door when Hildie
stopped her. "It's all right, Amy. We have
plenty of bathing suits. I'll bring you one."
Amy went to her locker and started undressing, and a
minute later Hildie reappeared, carrying with her
one of the shapeless maroon tank suits with which the gym
was stocked. "Yuck," Amy said, eyeing the suit with
distaste. "I hate those things!"
Hildie chuckled. "Doesn't everyone? But I
tried to find one that doesn't look too worn-out."
Amy took the suit from Hildie, then finished
stripping off her clothes and pulled it on. Poking
her arms through the straps and wriggling, she pulled the
piece of material over her body, then looked
hopefully up at Hildie. "Is it really
awful?"
Hildie cocked her head critically. "Well,
I don't suppose you'd win the Little
Miss America contest,
but it could be a lot worse. At least it fits, and
it doesn't have any holes in it. Ready?"
"I guess," Amy agreed. She followed
Hildie through the locker room to the showers, then into the
foot bath that filled a shallow pan sunk into the
concrete in front of the door to the pool. Suddenly
Amy's nerves got the best of her. She gazed
pleadingly up at Hildie. "Can't you please
tell me what the experiment is?" she begged.
Hildie's warm laugh filled the locker room, the
sound itself making Amy feel a little bit better.
"Why don't you just stop worrying about it?" she
asked. "You know I'm not going to tell you anything about
it, except that it's not going to hurt you at all. And
if you don't want to take part in it, you don't have
to. As soon as you know what it is, you can turn
around and walk away, if that's what you want to do."
Amy took a deep breath and considered the situation.
Should she trust Hildie? Hildie had been on
her side over the animal experiments, after all.
So whatever this experiment was, it couldn't be too
bad. She stepped through the door to the pool.
And stopped, startled by what she saw.
At the far end of the pool, a curtain had
been hung, so the diving boards were completely
invisible.
Ten feet away from her, sitting near the pool, was
a chair. Next to the chair was a table on which sat a
computer and what looked like some kind of headset.
There were video cameras in various places around the
pool, all of them trained on the empty chair.
Dr. Engersol was sitting in a second chair,
facing the computer screen. Seated around him were the other
members of the seminar.
Did they all know what was going to happen? Was she the
only one who wasn't in on it?
She felt betrayed.
Her first impulse was to turn around and run back through
the door, but her friends were already watching her, staring at
her as if they were sure she was going to chicken out before it
even began.
And then she began to feel something else.
Once again, she felt that strange certainty that the
mill was not empty.
"D-Daddy?" she called softly, stepping through the
door. "Are you here?"
She felt a slight trickle of sweat begin
to slide down her spine, and fought a sudden trembling
in her knees.
Then, as she listened to the silence, she heard something.
A rustling sound, from up above.
Beth froze, her heart pounding.
And then she heard it again.
She looked up.
With a sudden burst of flapping wings, a pigeon
took off from one of the rafters, circled, then soared
out through a gap between the boards over one of the windows.
Beth stood still, waiting for her heartbeat to calm.
As she looked around, her eyes fixed on the top
of a stairwell at the far end of the building.
He was downstairs. That's why he hasn't heard
her. He was down in the basement.
Resolutely, she started across the vast emptiness
of the building. As she reached the middle of the floor,
she felt suddenly exposed, and had an urge
to run.
But there wach"nothing to be afraid of. There was nothing
in the mill except herself, and some birds.
And downstairs, her father.
After what seemed like an eternity, she reached the top
of the stairs, and peered uncertainly into the darkness below.
Her own shadow preceded her down the steep flight of
steps, and only a little spilled over the staircase
to illuminate the nearer parts of the vast
basement.
"Daddy?" Beth whispered. But the sound was so
quiet, even she could barely hear it.
And then there was something else, coming on the heels of her
own voice.
Another sound, fainter than the one her own voice
had made, coming from below.
Something was moving in the darkness.
Once again Beth's heart began to pound, but she
remained where she was, forcing back the panic that
threatened to overcome her.
Finally, when she heard nothing more, she moved slowly
down the steps, until she could place a foot on
the basement floor.
mind, Hildie knelt down and took Amy's hands
in her own. "It's all right, Amy. Nothing's going
to happen to you. They're just here to watch. They're not
going to say anything, or do anything. It's going to be
all right."
"Which-What am I supposed to do?"
"Just go over and sit in the chair," Hildie told
her. "Come on. I'll go with you."
Holding Amy's hand, the housemother led her over to the
chair, and Amy perched nervously on its edge.
Then, at last, Dr. Engersol explained
what was going to happen.
"We're going to attach electrodes to you, Amy,"
he explained. "But they don't do anything except
measure your physical responses. I promise
you, you won't feel anything at all. All we're
going to be doing is recording changes in your
heartbeat, and your breathing, and your brain-wave
patterns. The cameras will be recording your facial
expressions and any movements of your body. So
all you have to do is sit there."
"But why me?" Amy asked. "What am I
supposed to be doing?"
"You'll see in a minute," Engersol told her.
"And remember, you can leave anytime you want to, just
like I promised."
And have everyone laugh at me, Amy thought silently.
She sat still on the chair as Dr. Engersol
attached the electrodes to her body. Soon she was
even more festooned with wires than the cat had been that
morning. At last Dr. Engersol placed a
helmet over her head, and she felt a mass of
tiny points press against her scalp.
"Does that hurt?" Dr. Engersol asked her.
"It shouldn't, and if it does, I can make
adjustments so it won't. The electrodes
should touch your head, but there shouldn't be much
pressure."
"I-It's all right," Amy managed to say. Then
her eyes met Engersol's, and he could see the fear
in
them. "Something's going to happen, isn't it?" she
asked. was Something awful.""
"Nothing awful at all," Engersol reassured
her. He checked over the electrodes once more,
then went around to the computer screen. On its display,
Amy's respiratory rhythm, heartbeat, and
brain-wave patterns were clearly visible,
reflecting a body under a certain amount of mental
stress.
But nothing out of the normal ranges.
"All right," he said. "We're about to begin. All
I'm going to do is ask you to make a decision."
At the far end of the pool the curtain was suddenly
pulled away. Next to the high diving board, a
scaffolding had been erected. From the scaffolding
hung the knotted rope, the same one she had tried
to climb in the gym last week.
Tried to climb, and failed.
"I want you to pick one of them, Amy," Dr.
Engersol told her. "Which would you rather do?
Climb the rope? Or jump off the high diving
board?"
Amy stared at him. Was he kidding? Did she really
have to do one of those things?
But he'd said she didn't! He'd said she didn't
have to do anything at all! All she had to do was sit
here.
Her heart sank.
Already she could hear the laughter that would erupt from her
friends when they figured out she was terrified of both the
rope and the diving board.
The cat.
He was doing to her what he'd done to the cat this
morning.
A double negative.
Make a choice between two things she hated, or let
everyone know how terrified she was.
Let them know, and put up with them teasing her.
Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat, Amy is a
scaredy-cat!
Though no one had uttered the words, she could already hear
them ringing in her ears.
She tore her eyes away from the rope and the diving
board and looked at the faces of her classmates,
who were gathered around the computer, some of them
watching the screen, some of them watching her.
Jeff Aldrich was grinning, already figuring out how
scared she was.
What would he do? Would he just tease her?
Or would it be worse? Maybe he'd hold her out
the window, dangling her above the sidewalk, threatening
to let her fall.
Her thoughts began to race. What was worse? To have
everyone laugh at her and tease her, or to make a
choice and try to get through the terror that always seized
her when she was more than a few feet off the ground?
But Dr. Engersol had told her she just had
to choose! She didn't actually have to do anything!
Except it wouldn't be enough. If she said she'd
chosen one or the other, and then didn't go through with it,
they'd all know!
Trapped.
Even after all his promises, he'd trapped her.
Which?
The rope?
She remembered freezing up there, terrified that she
was going to fall, clinging to the rope until the coach
climbed up and got her.
And she hadn't even been able to make herself climb the
ladder to the high board.
A ladder and a rope! How could she be afraid of a
stupid ladder and a dumb rope!
But what if she fell?
If she fell off the rope, she'd break a leg
at least.
But she might not fall off the ladder, not with bars
to hang onto and steps for her feet. And when she
got to the top, all she had to do was walk out to the end
and jump off.
Just the thought of standing on the narrow board three meters
above the pool made her stomach feel hollow and her
groin tighten with fear.
But it was only ten feet! What could happen to her?
Surely being terrified for a few seconds was
better than having everyone laugh at her because she was
chicken.
"I-I made up my mind," she whispered. "I'm
going to jump off the diving board."
Immediately, Dr. Engersol left his chair and came
to remove the helmet from her head while two
graduate students detached the electrodes from her
body. But the cameras, which had been recording her every
facial expression, every movement of her body, were still
running.
And everyone was still watching.
She approached the ladder that led to the diving board and
gripped the handrails tightly. She put her foot
on the bottom step and started climbing.
She was halfway up when she looked down, and
froze.
Do it! she told herself. Just climb up, walk out
on the board, and jump.
Then, as she stared down at the concrete beneath her, her
terror of heights welled up in her and she knew
she couldn't do it.
Don't look, she commanded herself.
She forced herself to look up, and there, looming above
her, was the board itself.
No!
She couldn't do it, couldn't possibly walk out on
it! It was too narrow. She'd fall before she took
even a single step.
As she felt the last of her nerve slipping away from
her, she began to sob. Tears streaming down her
face, she scrambled back down off the ladder and
fled toward the locker room, covering her face with
her hands, already imagining she could hear the laughter
following her. Then she was inside the locker room,
scurrying across the empty shower room. By the time she
came to her locker, the bathing suit was already
half off, and she jerked it the rest of the way, hurling
it into a corner and pulling on her clothes as fast as
she could. Leaving her locker standing open, sobs of
humiliation racking her body, Amy Carlson fled
from the gym.
By the time Hildie Kramer came looking for her, the
locker room was empty, but Hildie was almost
certain she knew where Amy had gone.
As she, too, left the gym, every trace of the warm and
kindly expression she habitually wore when she
spoke to either the children or their parents was gone from her
face, replaced by a look of harsh determination.
Before anyone else saw Amy Carlson again,
Hildie Kramer intended to find her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Saul is the author of twenty-seven
novels, each a million-copy-plus national
bestseller: Suffer the Children, Punish tlie
Sinners, Cry for the Strangers, Comes the Blind
Fury, When the Wind Blows, The God
Project, Nathaniel, Brainchild,
Hellfire, The Unwanted, The Unloved,
Creature, Sleepwalk, Second Child,
Darkness, Shadows, Black Lightning, The
Homing, Guardian, The Presence, The
Right Hand of Evil, and The Blackstone
Chronicles. John Saul lives in Seattle,
Washington.
The Pulse-Pounding National Bestseller
"Fast-paced thrillers
don't get any better than this."
-Give Cussler
"A killer of a thriller... one of the best to come
along in ages." -Entertainment Weekly
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