The changeling

The horror struck and drove all thought of anything else out of iTLftht following Friday and six o’clock in the evening.  Something was very wrong, I knew.

“What is it, Leah?” I asked with trepidation.

“It’s Miss Belinda. She’s not here”

“Not here? Then where?”

“Lucie says she went out Leah shook her head. I told her she should they had been talking about. “

“And she’s not come back?”

Leah shook her head My grandmother was in the hall. I said: “Belinda’s missing ...”

“Out alone? and this hour?|

“I didn’t know she’d gone,” said Leah. “I would never have let her go alone. Lucie says ...”

“Where is Lucie?”

“Lucie!” I called. “Lucie!”

I heard Lucie’s voice at the top of the stairs.

“Come here quickly, Lucie.”

She came. She was breathless and looked startled.

“Where did Belinda go?”

“To take a book to Mary.”

“At this hour?”

“I said wait till morning but she said no.”

“How long ago?”

“Well, half an hour or more. It was about five o’clock.”

“We’d better go down to the village,” said my grandmother. “Let Mr. Hanson be told.

We’d better get people looking for her.”

At that moment Belinda burst in. She ran to me and threw herself into my arms. Her dress was torn and blood mingled with the soil on her face and hands. “Oh Rebecca,” she cried. “It was awful. He frightened me. He was horrible ... horrible ... different. I didn’t know what to do. I kicked ... and I screamed ... but no one came and he held me ... I couldn’t get away ...”

“Who ... who?” I cried.

I saw the horror dawning on my grandmother’s face.

I said: “Belinda, it’s all right now. You’re here with me ... with us all. You’re all right now. There’s nothing to be afraid of any more. Just tell us what happened.”

“I was taking a book to Mary. I said I would ... in the morning ... but I took it today. It was near the pool. It was quiet there and then I saw him. He said Hello and I was a nice little girl and he liked nice little girls. It was all right at first. Then he pulled me down and I was lying on the ground ...” I felt sick. She hid her face on my shoulder. “He looked different, Rebecca. I didn’t know him any more. He tried to pull my frock off. I was right on the ground ... and he pulled at my skirt. It was all torn ...” I stroked her hair. I kept saying: “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

“Then I hit him ... I hit him as hard as I could. And I jumped up and I ran ... I ran all the way home.”

My grandfather had appeared. His face was white. I had never seen him so angry. “Did you know this man, Belinda?” he said. She nodded but could not speak for sobbing. “Who ... ?” demanded my grandmother. “It was ... Pedrek,” she said. When I look back it is like a series of nightmares from which I fought desperately to escape. There was no escape. I had to face this terrible thing in the clear light of day, and I knew that I had to accept it.

I could not believe that of Pedrek. How could he, who had always been so kind, so gentle, so courteous, so caring for others, have behaved so? I could not conceive it in any way. And yet there was the evidence of my own eyes. I had heard Belinda’s horrific account of what had happened. I had seen the terror in her eyes. All that night we had sat up ... my grandparents and I ... talking ... endlessly.

I kept saying: “I can’t believe it. I can’t.”

My grandmother said: “Nor I. But the child is so certain. How would she know of such things? How ... if she had not experienced them? Could it have been a moment of madness?”

“No ... no,” I cried. “Not Pedrek.”

I thought of my recent experience with Jean Pascal. In fact when Belinda had been telling her story, my thoughts had immediately gone to him ... and when she had mentioned Pedrek’ s name my entire happiness had collapsed about me. I think that was the worst moment I had ever lived through.

How long the night seemed, but we knew it was no use trying to sleep. We had to sit there talking ... saying the same thing over and over again ... trying to tell each other that there had been some terrible mistake.

What could we do? How could we question Belinda further? She was distraught. Leah gave her a small dose of sedative which she kept in her medicine cupboard. At least, she said, it would help the child sleep. She was so disturbed and kept crying out. So there we sat ... the three of us ... trying to tell ourselves it was not true ... that we should wake up suddenly and find it was only an evil dream.

Leah had taken Belinda into her room. She said the child might wake up in the night and the memory of what she had undergone come back to her. Leah must be there to comfort her ... to assure her that she was safe now.

At last the morning came-but it brought no comfort.

We were all waiting for the arrival of Pedrek as he usually came about ten o’clock on Saturday morning.