The Old Willis Place (11 page)

For weeks afterward, Georgie went to the fence and watched for the truck to come back. I didn't go with him. I knew it would never return.

Finally, Georgie got mad and stopped going to the gate. He said Mother and Daddy had forgotten about us, but he was wrong. No one forgets the people they love. I just wished I knew where they'd gone and what had become of them.

Not long after our parents left, Miss Lilian hired a caretaker, a lazy old man named Jimmy Watts. He spent most of his time drinking whiskey and never fixed anything. He did Miss Lilian's grocery shopping, and that was all.

He lasted maybe a year. Then he quit, and Miss Lilian hired Earl Powers. He stole money, jewelry, anything he thought might be valuable. Miss Lilian fired him.

After that, Georgie and I couldn't keep up with the hired men. They came and went, each one as lazy as the one before. None of them bothered with repairs. Paint peeled, ceilings sagged, the roof leaked.

Years passed. Georgie and I lost count of them. We stayed the ages we'd been when the bad thing happened.

But Miss Lilian got older—and crazier. We helped the process when we could. We flitted through rooms, just out of sight, knocking pictures off walls, throwing things, slamming doors, turning lights on and off. We played the Stein-way in the middle of the night, filling the darkness with half-remembered music, alarming the cats and terrifying the hired men. Poltergeists, said one. Ghosts, said another.

"I know who you are!" Miss Lilian would yell and brandish her cane. "Leave me alone! You'll be sorry for this!"

Georgie and I laughed. The old woman couldn't scare us now. We hated her and she hated us.

Then things changed again.

One winter day we ran through the house as usual, chasing each other up and down the steps, laughing and shouting, daring Miss Lilian to come after us with her broom. For once she didn't respond to our taunts. No shouts, no curses, no threats, no tottering footsteps.

Georgie and I dashed from hiding place to hiding place, searching for the old woman. Cats meowed and darted out of our way. A starling trapped in the house flew up the stairs to the second floor. We heard its wings flutter as it brushed past us.

The door to the front parlor was closed. Behind it, I sensed an odd silence. An emptiness beyond emptiness. Georgie looked at me, suddenly fearful. I slowly opened the door and peered into the darkness. Miss Lilian sat in her chair by the window, its velvet drapes drawn against the daylight. Still, she sat so still. Too still.

"Is she asleep?" Georgie whispered.

"No," I said. "She's dead."

Georgie and I backed away. With shaking hands, I shut the door as soundlessly as possible. We ran out of the house, leaving her to be found by the hired man.

As we raced home to the shed, new rules established themselves in our heads, just as the old ones had:

Rule Three: Stay away from the house.
Rule Four: Do not disturb Miss Lilian's slumber.

A week or so later, a hearse came for Miss Lilian. It was a cold, rainy day, as dreary as you can imagine. The lane was muddy, the weeds were dry and brown, the trees bare. A flock of crows watched from the oak tree, perched on the branches like mourners in a church.

As the undertakers prepared to leave, one said to the other, "Well, that's that. Almost a hundred years old and not a soul to mourn her."

His companion nodded. "It's a sad thing to die alone."

With that, they slammed the hearse doors and drove away, taking Miss Lilian's body with them.

But not her spirit. Miss Lilian remained in the parlor, just as Georgie and I remained on the farm.

Now, thanks to me, the old woman was free. And I was afraid as I'd never been before.

T
HE
D
IARY OF
L
ISSA
M
ORRISON

Dear Dee Dee,

I haven't written to you for a couple of days, but that's because Dad enrolled me in a gymnastics class and I've been busy

I met a girl named Chelsea who told me about something scary that happened at Oak Hill fifty or sixty years ago. Two children disappearedfrom the farm, a boy and a girl. The police searched everywhere, but they were never found. To this day no one knows what happened to them.

Chelsea says their ghosts are still here, along with Miss Willis's ghost. Sometimes teenagers come to the farm late at night. She knows several, including her own brother, who say they've seen Miss Willis looking out the parlor window. Others claim they've seen the children. Just glimpses of them, wild and ragged, flitting through the woods or standing by the gate late at night. Chelsea thinks they're evil, wicked, dangerous, just like Miss Willis. She says she'd never sleep if she lived on the farm. It's way too scary, everyone thinks so. Even her brother, who's not afraid of anything.

I didn't tell her Id been inside the house, and I didn't tell her I'd seen Miss Willis. I had a funny feeling Diana didn't want me blabbing about the ghost. It's kind of a secret, even though I never promised not to tell. Even Dad doesn't know about Miss Willis.

So I just said in this really casual way, "Oh, I've never seen a thing. Your brother must be making that up to scare you"

Of course, down deep inside, I was so scared I couldn't look Chelsea in the eye. Sometimes I try hard to believe Dad's right about me imagining stuff, and that's all Miss Willis was—a figment of my imagination. But if Chelsea's brother and his friends have seen Miss Willis—well, then, she must be real.

And I never knew about the two kids going missing. Maybe that's why the policeman said I shouldn't be wandering in the woods by myself.

As for the ghosts of the kids, I guess Chelsea's brother saw Diana and Georgie running around in the woods the way they always do. I'd better tell them to be more careful or they'll be caught and then there'll be real trouble.

Oh, Dee Dee, I just had the strangest thought—I've got goose bumps all over. What if Diana and Georgie are the ghosts! That couldn't be, could it? I've touched Diana plenty of times, and she's just as solid and real as I am. So's Georgie. Of course, Miss Willis looked pretty real, but I bet if I'd touched her she wouldn't have been solid. Brrr—not that I ever want to see her or touch her!

I haven't seen Diana since the day we went inside the old Willis place. I think she's probably mad at me for dragging her in there. I
can't really blame her. It was so stupid. I must have been crazy that day.

I
haven't seen Miss Willis, either, thank goodness. I'm hoping she's gone back to being dead, resting in peace or whatever. But sometimes I swear I hear someone playing a piano. It's always the same thing—the
Moonlight
Sonata over and over again. I tell myself it can't be Miss Willis, but who else could it be?

Dad's never heard it, so naturally he thinks it's my imagination or maybe a car's radio as it goes past the farm. Which is ridiculous beyond belief. The road's too far away to hear car radios no matter how loud they are. And why would it always be the same music? I swear, Dee Dee, sometimes I worry I'm losing my mind. I wish I'd never gone inside that house! Nothing's been the same since.

I miss Diana. She might be a little strange, but she's much more interesting than Chelsea—who's not very smart and never reads a book unless her teacher makes her. She can do better cartwheels than I can, though, and she loves to show off her backbends. She wants to be a cheerleader. Not me. I'm going to be an Olympic champion—if I can just get better at backbends and cartwheels.

I really need to talk to Diana. She ought to know people have seen her and Georgie on the farm. I think I'll go to those houses across the highway and look for her. Maybe if I apologize again, we can make up and befriends like before. I could teach her how to do cartwheels and backbends and we could practice together and soon I'd be better than Chelsea.

Love, Lissa

***

Later the very same day

Guess what, Dee Dee? I went to those houses like I said I would. It was a long walk, but it was a sunny day and not too cold. It's a nice neighborhood. Lots oj trees and a pretty little pond with a path that goes around it. I saw ducks and geese, mothers with strollers, people walking their dogs, joggers, some boys riding bikes. I wished Dad and I lived there. I noticed a house for sale, which
I
plan to tell him about.

But I didn't see Diana or Georgie. After a while I went up to a group of kids sitting on a little dock. They looked friendly, so I asked them if they knew a girl named Diana or her little brother, Georgie.

They said no, they'd never heard of them. I talked to them a long time, but they were absolutely positive Diana and Georgie didn't live in their neighborhood. They said they knew everybody with kids. No one was homeschooled. Everybody went to public school—except one boy named John, who went to St. Mary of the Mills.

What do you make of that, Dee Dee? It's very odd, isn't it? Now I have more questions than ever for Diana, the mystery girl. Or is she just a compulsive liar? I read a book once about a girl like that—she made up stories all the time to impress people. Take Miss Willis,for instance. Diana must be lying about her. Like I said, how can somebody hate you if they died while you were still a baby????? Nothing about that girl makes sense!

Love, Lissa

Chapter 13

A few days later, Georgie and I were perched on a branch in our favorite tree. Without
Lassie
to read, I'd fallen back on
Clematis.
I had a feeling he wasn't listening to anything but the sound of my voice, a comforting background noise as meaningless as a cicada's song.

Annoyed, I gave him a sharp poke in the side. "You haven't heard a word I've said."

Startled from his thoughts, Georgie looked at me. "Do you ever get tired of being twelve, Diana?"

I closed
Clematis,
keeping my place with my finger. Oddly enough, it was a subject I'd given some thought to lately. I supposed it had something to do with meeting Lissa. She'd be thirteen next year, then fourteen, fifteen, and so on. Someday she'd probably get married and have children. But I'd remain twelve. Year after year after year. Just as Georgie would remain eight.

I reached up to stroke Nero, who was now entering his fifteenth year. He was showing a few signs of age, a white hair here and there in his coat, a certain stiffness in his gait. He was one of a long line of cats we'd owned, each growing old and dying, leaving us to find a new one.

"Sometimes," I admitted.

"I was trying to figure it out," Georgie said. "In real life, I'd be almost seventy now. It's hard to be sure when you never have a proper birthday."

"I'd be seventy-two." I laughed. "That's old enough to be Lissa's grandmother. Isn't that funny?"

Georgie didn't laugh. His face solemn, he gazed past me, across the brown fields to the bare trees beyond. "I get so bored doing the same old things over and over and over again. Fish. Catch tadpoles. Climb trees. Swim in the pond. Wade in the creek. We've explored every inch of the farm. There's nothing new to see, nothing new to do."

I tried to think of a good answer, but I couldn't. I was bored, too. "That's one reason I wanted to be friends with Lissa," I told him. "She was new and different."

Georgie frowned at the mention of Lissa, but he didn't say anything about her. Instead, he busied himself peeling loose bark from the tree. "Read some more," he said. "I like to hear your voice."

I hadn't read more than two pages when I heard a twig snap. In the woods, branches swayed, and dry weeds rustled. Georgie grabbed my arm. "She's coming," he whispered. "It's her. Miss Lilian."

We froze, terrified. Should we run? Or stay still and hope she wouldn't see us?

Before we'd decided what to do, Lissa stepped out from the bushes. MacDuff followed her. He fixed his attention on Nero, who lay draped over a branch, tail twitching, eyes on the dog.

"What do you want?" I asked. It was a rude way to greet her, but I was still mad about what she'd done.

Georgie scowled down at her. "Go away!"

Lissa ignored him. She seemed close to tears. "Please don't hate me, Diana." She held up
Lassie Come-Home.
"I brought this back. I thought maybe—"

"It's a dumb story." Georgie folded his arms across his chest and frowned at the sky. "I hate Lassie."

"Come on, Georgie," I said softly. "Let me finish reading it to you. You're bored stiff with
Clematis."

He didn't say yes and he didn't say no, so I leaned out of the tree and Lissa handed me the book.

"He can have the bear, too." Lissa held up Alfie. I could tell it was hard for her to give him up.

Georgie refused to look at Lissa, but I sensed he wasn't quite as mad as he had been. I reached down for the bear and sat him on a limb near Georgie. He ignored Alfie just as he'd ignored the book, but if I knew Georgie, he was secretly pleased Lissa had returned them.

"Can I climb up there with you?" Lissa asked me.

I shrugged. "If you like. It's not my personal tree or anything. I don't own it."

She scrambled clumsily up the trunk and slung a leg over the branch below mine. After she'd made herself comfortable, she said, "I have to talk to you about something, Diana."

I looked at her and waited. She seemed unsure how to begin. Finally, she said, "I'm taking a gymnastics class at the Y. This girl named Chelsea asked me where I lived, and when I told her, she said Miss Willis isn't the only ghost here. There are two children. They disappeared a long time ago. No one knows what happened to them. But people say they still haunt the farm."

I gazed at Lissa, envying her pretty face and her shiny hair and her right to live in the world as an ordinary girl. What would she say if I told her the truth about those two children?

"Chelsea says some teenagers came here one night and saw Miss Willis looking out the window of the front parlor," Lissa went on. "They've seen the children, too. Just glimpses of them in the woods or at the gate. They say they're evil spirits."

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. Teenagers often sneaked onto the farm to drink beer and smoke and kiss each other. Georgie and I loved to sneak up to their cars and make scary sounds. It was hilarious to see them start the engines and roar away, terrified. We'd been doing it for years, so it was no wonder kids talked about us. We were famous, I guessed.

"Have you ever seen the children's ghosts?" Lissa asked.

I caught Georgie 's eye. He had his hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. I knew he loved the part about our being evil spirits.

"No." I kept my voice as low as hers and tried to sound scared. "Are they dangerous?"

"I don't think so," Lissa said slowly. "They're just children."

"Children can be just as wicked as old ladies." Georgie swung by his knees from his branch, his face inches from Lissa's.

She backed away from him. "You'd better be careful. If you fall, you could break your neck."

"And die?"

"Maybe." Lissa glanced at me, as if she were unsure what to make of Georgie's behavior.

Georgie hung there, his face red, and laughed. Suddenly, he let himself fall. He hit the ground and lay sprawled in the weeds like a broken doll.

Lissa screamed and covered her face.

"He's all right," I told her. "Look."

Slowly Lissa uncovered her eyes. Georgie sat ten feet below, laughing up at her. He'd knocked the feathers in his hair crooked, but otherwise he was unscathed.

"That was so stupid," Lissa shouted, angry now. "You could have killed yourself!"

"Could I?" Still laughing, Georgie stood up. "What if I'm already dead? What if I'm a ghost?"

I wanted to tell him to stop before Lissa guessed the truth about us, but he was in one of his moods. He'd quit when he felt like it. I gave him a warning look, which he, of course, ignored.

"You're crazy." Lissa's voice was still shaky from the sight of Georgie plummeting out of the tree.

"Boooooo!"
Georgie made a scary, google-eyed face at her and ran off. Nero and MacDuff watched him go. The cat remained on his branch and the dog remained on the ground, as if neither wanted to yield to the other.

"Your brother hates me." Lissa looked at me sadly. In a low voice she added, "Maybe you do, too."

"No." I flipped through
Clematis,
ruffling the pages like leaves. "But I don't see how we can be friends."

"Why not?" Lissa leaned toward me, her face earnest. "I told you I'm sorry. I promise I'll never go near that house again as long as I live."

I sighed and continued to flip the pages. "That's not why we can't be friends. There's so much you don't know about Georgie and me, stuff you'd never understand or even believe."

Lissa studied me intently, her forehead furrowed beneath a tumble of dark hair. "I know more than you think," she said slowly. "Yesterday I walked to those houses across the highway. I was looking for you. After a while I met some kids by the pond."

She paused to look at me closely. Unable to meet her eyes, I pulled a crimson leaf from a branch and twirled its stem in my fingers.

"They told me you don't live there," Lissa went on. "They know everybody, but they've never heard of you. Or Georgie."

"So? I told you we're not allowed to have friends." I shredded the leaf as I spoke. "I don't know them, either."

Lissa inched closer, till her face was inches from mine. "Want to hear what I think?"

I slid out on the limb until it dipped beneath my weight. My mouth felt dry. Had Lissa guessed the truth?

"I think you live right here on the farm," she said. "Like squatters. Maybe your parents are hippies or survivalists or even fugitives. Maybe they belong to a weird cult. I don't know and I don't care. You're my friend. That means your secrets are my secrets, too. I'll never tell anyone the truth about you—or your parents. Especially not Dad."

I shifted my position and the limb swayed. If only everything were as simple as Lissa thought.

"The thing is—" I cut myself off and stared past Lissa at the brown field and the house beyond. With most of the trees' leaves gone, I could see the roof and tall chimneys. How could I explain myself to an ordinary girl like Lissa?

"What's the matter, Diana?" She reached out to touch my hand. "I can keep a secret. Do you live in one of the old barns? Or—"

"It doesn't matter where we live," I said slowly. "We won't be here much longer." As soon as I spoke, I knew it was true.

Lissa's eyebrows rose, giving her face a tense, worried look. "Is it because of me? Did your parents find out we're friends?"

I shook my head and felt the heavy weight of my braid shift. "No, it's not because of you. Or your dad. It's time to go, that's all."

"Do you want to leave?" she asked softly.

"Sort of." I fingered my braid. It was beginning to loosen, and I supposed I needed to redo it. "We've been here for ages.

"Lucky you." Lissa sighed. "Dad and I never stay anywhere long."

"Lucky," I echoed softly. If only she knew.

"But where will you go? If it's not too far, maybe we could still see each other." Lissa's face brightened.

I watched a long loose line of geese zigzag across the sky. Their loud cries rang out like the barking of dogs. They were leaving, too. "I think it will be much too far for us to see each other."

Lissa looked at me sadly. "Well, we can always write. And then maybe someday—"

I shook my head. "No. We won't be allowed to tell you where we are."

Lissa looked down at her feet. "More rules, I guess."

"Yes."

Lissa sighed. "Can you at least tell me when you're leaving? Tomorrow? Next week, next month?"

"I'm not sure." I listened to the thoughts in my head and tried to put them into words. "Georgie and I have to do something first."

"What do you mean—do something?"

"You ask too many questions, Lissa." I didn't know the answer myself. Not yet, at least. Exasperated, I tossed the books out of the tree. Grabbing a branch, I swung after them and landed on my feet as lightly as Nero.

Lissa looked down at me. "I'm scared to jump from here," she said. "It's too high. I could break my leg."

"Then climb down," I said impatiently.

I watched her make her way from branch to branch until she was low enough to drop to the ground. "You and Georgie must have rubber bones or something," she said. "I'd never have the nerve to jump that far."

"We've been jumping out of trees since before you were born."

Lissa laughed as if I were joking. "Oh," she said suddenly, "we forgot the bear." She pointed at Alfie, still perched on his branch.

"Don't worry," I said. "Georgie will come back for him and the books."

Lissa shook her head, still puzzled by my brother 's behavior. "I hope you don't leave for a long time," she said. "I'll really miss you, Diana."

Maybe I'd miss her. Maybe not. She might fade like a forgotten dream after Georgie and I left. Who knew what we'd remember?

We crossed the field to the trailer. A curl of smoke rose from the chimney and the smell of soup met us at the door. Mr. Morrison looked up from the pot he was stirring and smiled. "Well, well, look what the wind blew in," he said cheerfully. "You're just in time for a big hot bowl of chicken soup with noodles, made from scratch, the best you ever tasted."

"Yum." Lissa sat at the table and patted the chair beside her. "Sit here, Diana. Dad is the world's greatest soup chef."

Before I could protest, Mr. Morrison set down two bowls and fixed a third for himself. The fragrance reminded me of my mother's soup. She'd made it from Miss Lilian's leftovers, thick and hearty, a treat for all of us, served with chunks of homemade brown bread and cheese.

I pushed the chair back and stood up. "I'm sorry, I can't stay. I have to go home. I promised Georgie—"

"But can't you eat your soup first?" Mr. Morrison asked. "Or bring Georgie back here for lunch? You look like you could use a nice hot meal."

"No, thank you." I edged away. "I really can't stay. I'm sorry."

"Some other time, then," Mr. Morrison said, his face as worried as Lissa's. "The soup's always on, and you're more than welcome to join us for a meal. You and your brother need to put some meat on your bones. You're so thin and pale, both of you."

"Dad," Lissa began, obviously embarrassed by her father's words. He'd meant well, I supposed, so I interrupted her.

"Thanks. That's very kind of you, Mr. Morrison." I opened the door and cold air rushed in. "But Georgie and I have all the food we need."

Safe outside, away from their questions and concerns, I ran with the wind across the field. Being with real live people was just too hard.

I found Georgie in the shed. With Alfie on one side and Nero on the other, he was leafing through
Lassie,
studying the pictures. A shaft of autumn sunlight lit his hair and face. He
was
pale, I realized. And thin. Surely he hadn't always looked so fragile.

"Read some more, Diana." Georgie held the book up. "Here's where you left off."

Grateful for something to do, I took the book and began chapter eleven, "The Fight for Existence." The picture showed Lassie, all bones and wet fur, running along with a dead rabbit in her mouth. I knew the dog had to eat, but I wished the artist hadn't shown her intended meal.