All the Lovely Bad Ones (17 page)

"
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
" The word was in the wind, in the grass, in the leaves, in the song the crickets sang.

I stopped struggling. "
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
" I stopped fighting. "
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
" I didn't care what happened to me. "
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
"

Nearby Corey struggled with Miss Ada. She struck at her, she kicked. "Do something, Travis!" she yelled. "Help me!"

But I just stood there watching my sister. Couldn't she see we
deserved
to be punished?

Keeping a tight grip on Corey, Miss Ada pointed upward. "See the noose up there? It's waiting for you. Climb to that branch, boy.
My
branch. The one
I
chose. Put the noose around your worthless neck and jump."

"No, Travis," Corey cried. "Don't listen to her—don't do it!"

Miss Ada shook my sister. "Be quiet," she said. "You'll be next."

While Corey sobbed, I began to climb slowly, like someone in a dream, hand over hand, from one branch to the next. All around me leaves rustled and sighed. "
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
"They brushed my face softly, tenderly. The tree swayed gently, lulling me. "
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
"

The noose was just above my head. It turned slowly in the breeze. All I needed to do was climb to the next limb and slip it over my head. I boosted myself up carefully. I didn't want to fall. I had to do exactly as Miss Ada said. Follow her instructions. Atone for all the bad things I'd done.

As I reached for the noose, I looked down. Miss Ada stared up at me. Corey huddled at her feet. From this height, they were no bigger than the dolls in my sister's dollhouse.

"No," my sister cried. "Don't do it, Travis!"

I shook my head sadly. "I must," I whispered to myself.

"I must."

I reached out for the noose. The rope was hard, thick, old. It stank of mold. I tried to lift it over my head, but my hands shook so hard I dropped it. I watched it swing back and forth, back and forth, now in moonlight, now in shadow.

At the same moment, the breeze picked up and cool air struck my face. Suddenly, the darkness in my head began to lighten. Corey stood motionless below me, looking up, waiting. If I obeyed Miss Ada and put the noose around my neck, my sister would die, too.

"Do it!" Miss Ada screamed up at me. "Now!"

I shook my head, scared to defy her openly. The noose swayed, and I inched away from it, closer to the tree's solid trunk.

Miss Ada strode to the tree and began to climb. Her ragged dress fluttered, and the moon splashed shadows across her bony face. "You will do as I say, boy!"

Safe on the ground, Corey watched. For her sake as well as mine, I forced myself to say, "No. I won't do it. I won't..."

"You will do as I say." Miss Ada stopped just below me and reached for the noose. "Take it," she said. "Accept your punishment like a man, not a whining boy."

"No," I whispered. But even as I spoke, I found myself weakening. Miss Ada was so near I could smell her earthy odor. Her hair swirled like a black cloud, blocking my view of Corey. I shut my eyes to keep from seeing her, but this close, her power over me began to grow again.

"Caleb," I whispered, "Seth, Ira—where are you?"

Just above my head, the leaves parted, and Caleb peered down at me. Ira and Seth crouched beside him. Over their heads, the shadow children made the branches sway.

"Climb up here!" Caleb whispered. "Don't let her get close."

Grabbing his hand, I scrambled higher into the tree. Miss Ada lunged for me, but even though my legs and arms shook, I managed to outclimb her.

"Come back here, you wicked boy," she cried, "and do as I say."

Nauseated, I held a branch tightly. Part of me still wanted to obey Miss Ada, but a stronger part of me wanted to save Corey. And myself.

"Caleb Perkins, is that you?" Miss Ada yelled.

Caleb poked his head out of the leaves. "Yes, ma'am, it's me, all right."

Ira and Seth peered down at Miss Ada. "We're here, too."

"Go back to the ground where you belong," Miss Ada cried. "The boy and girl are mine now. Do you hear me? Go!"

"We ain't going nowhere," Seth said.

"You have no power to punish the living," Ira put in, his eyes bigger and darker than ever.

Miss Ada reached for a higher limb and began hoisting herself closer to us. "Have you forgotten who I am," she hissed, "and what I can do?"

Caleb looked Miss Ada square in the eye. "Not a one of us has forgotten who you are or what you did to us and ours, but Ira and me have figured something out." He leaned a little closer to her. "Now that we're dead, all our suffering's over. You can't hurt us unless we let you."

"And you can't hurt Travis and Corey unless
they
let you," Ira said.

Caleb's hand held mine tightly, pulling me toward him, away from Miss Ada.

She glared up at the bad ones. "Whatever I did to you was your own fault," she said. "You defied me, you were never satisfied, never grateful. You
made
me punish you, you
made
me hurt you."

As Miss Ada ranted, the shadow children surged down from the treetop, laughing and mocking her. Limb by limb, branch by branch, they drove her down the tree.

"Old lady witch," they chanted, "lives in a ditch, counts every stitch, wants to be rich."

On the ground once more, Miss Ada shook her fist at the bad ones. "Everything I did was for your own good. You had to learn your place in the world!"

While she hurled anger and spite at them, the shadow children dropped to the ground, barely visible in the moonlight, and circled the woman. One reached out and drew Corey into their midst. Ira, Caleb, Seth, and I scrambled down and joined them.

Holding hands, we whirled Miss Ada into a wild dance. Arms flailing, rags flying, hair tossing, she stumbled gracelessly as she reeled.

"Old lady witch," the shadow children sang, "go home to your ditch, scratch your itch, you'll never be rich!"

"Let me go," she cried. "Or—"

"Or what?" the shadow children jeered. "Your cane can't hurt none of us no more. We never eat, so you can't starve us. We don't feel the cold, so you can't freeze us."

"And you can't kill us," Seth shouted, "'cause we're already dead!"

With that, the shadow children retreated, still laughing. Corey dodged Miss Ada's outstretched hands, and the woman fell to the ground in a heap.

I put an arm around Corey and stared at the motionless bundle of rags and bones. "Is she gone now?"

Seth shook his head. Poking Miss Ada with his toe, he said, "Best get up, old lady."

Slowly, the rags stirred. Miss Ada raised her head but remained where she'd fallen. The moon cast the noose's shadow across her face. Exhaustion hung from her shoulders like a heavy weight.

The three boys stood in a row and stared at her. Behind them, the shadow children watched her silently.

"How dare you look at me like that." Miss Ada stood up slowly and faced us, unsteady on her feet but as full of pride and anger as ever. Her hair blew around her face like dead grass, and her mouth opened like a dark hole. "Go back to your resting places."

The shadow children murmured to each other, filling the air with a sound like the rustling of leaves in an autumn breeze. But none of them moved. All kept their eyes on the woman.

"Why do you defy me?" she cried.

"Tell us you're sorry," Ira said, and the shadow children's voices grew louder. "
Yes, yes, yes, say you're sorry.
"

"Sorry?" Miss Ada stared at the bad ones. "
Sorry
? You should apologize to
me
, not I to you!"

"It's the only way to save yourself," Ira said calmly.

"You'd better think of saving yourself," Miss Ada said in a voice deadly with scorn. "You deserved everything I did to you—and more!"

"Are you sure you're not sorry?" Ira asked.

"Not even a little bit?" Caleb added.

"How can the likes of her be sorry?" Seth asked. "She's got no heart. Never did. Never will. She'll be howling in the grove till the world ends."

"Old lady witch," the shadow children jeered again, "dead in her ditch, dead from the itch, never to be rich."

Ira stretched out his hand and touched the woman's shoulder. She jerked away, wincing as if he'd hurt her. "Don't you dare lay your filthy hands on me!"

"Say you're sorry for all you did to us," he pleaded, "not just us children but all the folks who lived and died on this farm."

"I told you, I have nothing to be sorry for." Miss Ada's bony hands clenched and unclenched the rags of her once fine silk dress. Her dull hair fell down her back, uncombed and matted with dirt and weeds. "I had a job to do, and I did it as I saw fit."

"If you weren't sorry," Caleb asked, "then why did you kill yourself?"

Seth started to say something, but Caleb put his hand over the little boy's mouth. "Shh," he whispered.

"Sorry had nothing to do with it," Miss Ada muttered. "My brother had taken our money and deserted me. I was ruined. Why live? They would have sent me to jail or ... or ... to a poor farm."

Seth jerked away from Caleb and laughed in Miss Ada's face. "I would've dearly loved to see you eating the stale bread you fed us!"

Miss Ada turned away to stare across the lawn at the inn. A man stood there, as still as death itself, barely visible in the darkness. "Cornelius," she whispered, "is that you?"

The man said nothing, but he raised his hand and gestured for her to join him.

Without knowing why, I cringed in fear. There was danger here. Corey sensed it, too, and drew closer to me. I could hear her breathing fast and shallow.

But Miss Ada gave a glad cry and took a step toward the shadowy figure.

To my surprise, Ira seized her arm. "Don't go—"

Furious, Miss Ada slapped his hand away. "Out of my way, boy. My brother has come for me at last."

"No!" Ira made another futile effort to stop her. "Look again!"

Caleb touched Ira's shoulder. "Let her go where she must go. We can't give her eyes to see what she won't see."

"Let her go to the devil hisself!" Seth clapped his hands and laughed out loud.

The shadow children giggled. "Old lady witch," they chanted, "old lady witch, dead in the ditch."

Too scared to move or speak, Corey and I watched Miss Ada make her way across the lawn to the waiting man.

"I thought you'd left me to take all the blame," she called to him.

The figure in the shadows said nothing, but he held out his arms to her. At the same time, he grew taller and more menacing. In her eagerness to join him, Miss Ada didn't notice the change until she'd almost reached him.

Stopping a few feet away, she stared up into his face. "You're not Cornelius," she whispered, "You—you are—"

He reached out to embrace her, but with a desperate cry, Miss Ada turned and ran back to the grove. "I won't go with you. I won't!"

The man followed her silently. His shadow glided before him, engulfing everything in darkness.

To my horror, Miss Ada grabbed Corey. My sister screamed and struggled to escape, but her captor held her tight.

"Let her go!" I flung myself at the woman, but she dodged aside, leaving me holding nothing but a scrap of her dress.

"Take the girl!" Miss Ada thrust Corey toward the man. "Take her brother, too. Take all of them!" Her voice rose to a shriek. "But leave me be!"

"It's you I want, Ada." The man shoved Corey aside. "Not her," he said in a low, chilling voice. "Not him. Not the others. Just you!"

"No, no, I implore you! Haven't I suffered enough?" Miss Ada wrung her hands in prayer. "Please, have mercy, don't take me!"

"Mercy?" The man laughed with scorn. "Mercy?"

"I didn't do anything," she whispered. "It was Cornelius.
He
made me do what I did. As for them"—she pointed at the bad ones—"if they'd done what I told them, if they'd obeyed me, if they'd respected me—"

"If." The man shook his head. "Such a little word to make such a big difference."

When he reached for her, Miss Ada tried again to escape, but no matter which way she moved, the man blocked her path. She wept, she cried, she begged, but he was implacable.

"Enough!" he shouted. With one swift move, he lifted her off her feet and into his arms. She kicked, she beat him with her fists, she cried for help, but he carried her out of the grove as if she were a child. Their shadows swept across the lawn, darkened the inn for a moment, and at last vanished into a darkness blacker than the night.

In the terrible silence that followed, I put my arm around Corey's trembling shoulders, glad for her human warmth. For a minute, maybe more, we stood as still as stones, staring at the empty lawn. As much as I'd feared and hated Miss Ada, I couldn't help pitying her.

Beside me, Ira whispered, "Poor soul."

Caleb sighed. "We tried to save her, but—"

"She weren't worth saving," Seth said. "Truth to tell, I'm glad she's gone where she's gone."

The shadow children echoed Seth. "Gone, gone, gone."

"But what happened to her?" Corey asked. "Who took her? Where did she go?"

"Don't fret yourself," Caleb said quietly. "It doesn't matter where she went or who took her."

"All you got to know is she ain't coming back," Seth said with a grin. "She's been exorcised but good."

"Soon we'll be gone, too," Ira said in his melancholy way.

"But not where she went," Seth added hastily.

"All we need now is that stone," Caleb said, "with our names and dates on it. Then we'll be free of this place."

Surrounded by the shadow children, the boys huddled together in the dark grove, their faces pale and weary of waiting.

"The stone will be ready soon," I promised—but I hoped not too soon. I wanted the bad ones to stay a while, even though I knew that they, too, had to go where they had to go.

A week or so after Miss Ada left Fox Hill, Corey and I were sitting on the patio, drinking lemonade and reading. The bad ones had gone off somewhere the way they often did now, saying nothing, just disappearing. Ira had told us it was getting wearisome to stay visible, so we supposed they were resting somewhere—maybe in the grove, maybe at the burial ground, maybe someplace we didn't even know about.