The Northwoods Chronicles Read Free Page B

obsess over, maybe she’d leave him alone.
“Okay,” he said, but cringed as he did so, as if he were sentencing
his poor, unborn and as-yet unconceived child to a dreadful
life.
    Regina caught her breath in disbelief.
“Really?”
    “Really.”
    “Right now, ” she said, and climbed on top
of him. As demanding as she was, he found that strangely
stimulating and he responded in spite of himself. When he cried
out, “Oh God,” at the critical moment, he meant it.
    The next moment, to his surprise, she got up,
showered, fixed herself up a little bit, then sat, prim and proper
at the breakfast table. She took small bites of the omelet he made,
ate her toast dry, drank a big glass of water, and wiped her mouth
daintily on a paper napkin, which she then folded and laid next to
her plate.
    “Are you all right?”
    “I’m going to have a baby,” she said. “I need to
go shopping.”
    Pearce extracted a twenty from his wallet and
gave it to her, and she jumped up and hugged him with childlike
enthusiasm. Then she smoothed her dress, tucked the twenty into her
little purse, and sat down to wait for the stores to open.
Strangely pleased, Pearce went into his study and began to prepare
Sunday’s sermon.
    He heard her leave, and he enjoyed the silence.
Regina was accustomed to leaving him to himself when he was in his
study, but it had taken him many years to train her to leave him
alone, and, while she finally agreed, she never understood. He
always felt her hurt feelings seeping through the cracks around the
door. But when she was out of the house, he felt truly free. In
fact, he resented having to spend this time working. He could watch
television, or read a book in the living room, or just be alone in
the house, without her jumping into his lap or trying to attract
his attention in a million different ways.
    She was a joy, she was his joy, but she was also
a burden.
    He worked in peace, and about the time he
stretched and was beginning to consider making a pot of coffee, he
heard the front door slam. A moment later, she threw open the door
to his den and stood at the threshold, staring at him with an
accusatory glare made up of pain and hurt and wildfire.
    “Honey?”
    “I hate you,” she said, turned on her heel and a
moment later, he heard the bedroom door slam.
    Oh lord.
    He counted to one hundred very slowly, then got
up and went to the bedroom. Instead of the soggy, sopping, sobbing
mess he expected to find on the bed, she was sitting on the edge,
her knees together, her hands folded in her lap. Her face was tear
stained, but composed.
    “Hi,” he said.
    “I can’t hate you,” she said. “It’s not good for
the baby.”
    “Why would you hate me?”
    “For bringing me here. For letting me think I
could have a baby.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “You know what goes on here. You know about the
babies disappearing. You never wanted to have any kids, and your
way of getting around that was by bringing me here so I could have
babies and they’d disappear so that you wouldn’t have to have them
around. It wouldn’t be your fault.” She hiccupped, but kept her
actions under control.
    “Honey, I don’t have any idea what you’re
talking about. We’re going to have a baby, I said so. If it didn’t
work last night, we’ll try again tonight. Don’t worry.”
    “They disappear, Pearce, the babies in this
place disappear.”
    “Disappear?”
    “Magic. Evil magic. Witch stuff. That’s why the
church sent us here, don’t you know? They want us to kill the evil
here.”
    “Did you have lunch?” he asked. “Let’s go wash
your face, have a little something to eat, then we’ll investigate
this thing about the babies.” He sat down on the bed next to her.
“Nothing’s going to happen to our baby, Regina. I love you and I
love that baby, and we’re going to be a nice little family, the
three of us.”
    She looked up at him with trusting, childlike
eyes, and he nodded. A big tear tripped over