"What are you talking about? What Maude stories? Why were you scared of her?" My heart pounding, I leaned forward, my eyes on my mother. "Tell me, I want to know!"
"It all started with your grandmother," Mom said.
As she paused, obviously wondering where to begin, I interrupted. "With Grandmother? I thought Maude and Grandmother were friends."
"Friends? Where did you get that idea?" Aunt Grace stared at me, puzzled.
Feeling a little shaky, I said, "Maude told me; she said I looked just like Grandmother, that seeing me reminded her of their friendship, that she wanted toâ" I paused, stopping myself just in time. "She wanted to be my friend," I finished lamely.
"Well, they
were
friends once," Aunt Grace said, smiling at Mom. "Maybe Maude finally decided to forgive and forget. People often mellow as they get older."
"How can you say that?" Mom stared at Aunt Grace. "She told Mother she'd never forgive her and she meant it. You know that Grandmother always blamed her for Mother's death." Mom's voice rose and she got up from the hammock. Pacing around nervously, she added, "And Grandmother said Maude had sworn revenge on all of us, that she said she'd make us all sorry someday."
"Calm down, Andrea, you're scaring Laura. Look at her. She's as white as the frosting on a wedding cake." Aunt Grace put her hand on Mom's shoulder. "Why don't you go lie down for a while? This has been an exhausting day for you."
Mom shook her head and pulled away from Aunt Grace. "Tell Laura about Maude, tell her now. I want her to know why I'm afraid of her. I want her to know why she should stay away from her." Mom sat down on the railing next to me and put an arm around my shoulders.
Aunt Grace sighed and leaned against the railing on the other side of me. It was dark now. The stars were out and the moon hung low over the mountains. Behind me, in the tall grass in the field, a chorus of insects chirped and peeped, and the night air felt cool on my bare arms. But the goose bumps on my skin came from my mother's fear, not from the breeze.
"First of all," Aunt Grace went on, "When your grandmother and Maude were little girls, they were good friends, absolutely inseparable, but as they grew into their teens, Maude got more and more moody. She'd always been very emotional and very domineering. Your grandmother followed her around like a little puppy, doing everything Maude wanted her to do, but she found it harder and harder to get along with Maude. Finally she started avoiding her, and Maude spent more and more time alone, wandering about in the woods by herself, isolating herself from other people, getting stranger and stranger.
"Then Mother heard rumors that Maude had apprenticed herself to an old woman up in the hills who claimed to be a witch. That scared Mother and she stopped seeing Maude altogether." Aunt Grace smiled at Mom. "Do you really want me to go on with this nonsense? I feel so silly talking about it."
Mom nodded, tightening her arm around me. "Tell her about Dad," she said.
Aunt Grace sighed. "Well, probably nothing more would have happened between Mother and Maude if they hadn't both fallen in love with the same man. Your grandfather. When he married Mom, Maude was furious. She visisted the house the night before the wedding and made a horrible scene, vowing all sorts of
things and forcing Grandmother to call the sheriff just to get her out of the house. It must have been like a scene from a fairy tale. At any rate, Mom and Dad left Blue Hollow after the wedding and never came back." Aunt Grace shrugged. "What else is there to say?"
"That Mom and Dad were killed in an automobile crash on their eighth anniversary," Mom said, "and that Grandmother always blamed Maude for their deaths."
"Andrea, you know how superstitious Grandmother was. You're scaring Laura half to death with all this talk about witchcraft. She's trembling." Aunt Grace patted my knee. "Maude's full of spite and ill will, but she's no more capable of putting a curse on someone than I am."
I shook my head, too upset to say anything. What had I done? I'd never felt comfortable around Maude; I'd never really trusted her, yet I'd gone to her house and helped her cast a spell for me. What was I going to do? How could I make Maude undo the spell?
Without saying good-night, I slid off the porch railing and ran upstairs to bed.
Unable to sleep, I lay curled in a ball under my covers, trying not to think about Maude and Jason. But all I saw when I closed my eyes was Maude bending over me smiling, her cold hand gripping my arm, her eyes probing mine, offering her help and lying to me, deceiving me, tricking me into betraying my own family.
Was Jason going to die? If he did, it would be all my fault. I would be a murderer, my own brother's killer. It was a thought so horrible, I began to cry, burying my face in the pillow so no one would hear me and ask me what was wrong.
Just as I was about to fall asleep, my door opened and I sat up, half expecting to see Maude standing by my bed.
"Why, Laura, I thought you'd be asleep by now." Mom sat down on my bed and I threw myself at her, holding her tight, tears running down my face.
"Laura, Laura, what is it? What's wrong?" Mom hugged me and patted me the way she used to when I was little. "Did you have a bad dream, honey?"
"Is Jason going to die, Mommy? Is he?" I sobbed.
"No, Laura, no. I'm sure he's going to get well." She held me so tight I could hardly breathe, but I could hear the fear in her voice.
"Why don't they know what's wrong with him?"
Mom shook her head. "One of the doctors thinks it could be a rare virus of some sort, hard to identify." Her voice trailed off indecisively and she stroked my hair back from my face. "He'll be all right, I know he will."
"But suppose someone put a curse on him? Can doctors cure curses?"
"Oh, Laura, Grace was right. I never should have made her bring up that stuff about Maude. We really frightened you, didn't we?" Mom looked at me closely, her face pale and worried.
Picking at a design in my quilt, I said, "But you told Aunt Grace you believed it; you said your grandmother thought Maude made your parents get killed. Couldn't Maude put a curse on Jason?"
Mom shivered. "Let's not think about it, Laura." Looking past me at the black night outside my window, she shook her head. "Spells, witchcraft, it's too much on top of everything else. I can't deal with it, Laura, I can't."
Cuddling closer to her, I grasped her hand. "Will you stroke my arm till I fall asleep the way you did when I was little?"
"Of course." Mom took my arm and stroked it lightly with her fingertips, up and down, soft and gentle. "Do you want me to sing too?" she whispered. "I still know the words to 'Now the Day is Over.'"
"No, you don't have to sing, but I wish you could sleep here with me."
She smiled. "Just relax and go to sleep, Laura. If you need me, I'll be right down the hall."
She kept on stroking my arm, stroking and stroking, till I began to relax and feel safe. I must have drifted off to sleep while she sat on my bed, because I never knew when she stopped stroking my arm or when she left my room.
When I woke up, the sun was shining in my eyes and the house was quiet. No Jason talking in the kitchen, no Jason running up the stairs to wake me, no Jason asking me to help him button his overall straps or tie his shoes. Missing him, I dressed quickly and ran downstairs, suddenly afraid that something awful might have happened while I was asleep.
"Good morning, Laura." Aunt Grace was sitting at the table drinking a cup of coffee. "Your mother and father have already gone to the hospital and Carol is still sleeping. Do you want something to eat?"
I shook my head. "Just juice and coffee." Pouring myself a glassful of orange juice, I sat down across from my aunt. "Jason isn't worse, is he?"
She shook her head. "I don't think so. Your mother said she'd call me around eleven and let me know how he's doing."
I stared at the ceiling at a circle of light, trying to figure out what it was bouncing off. Moving a few things around, I decided it must be the shiny top of the salt shaker. I slid the shaker back and forth on the table, watching the circle of light dart across the ceiling.
Aunt Grace distracted me from my little game, by getting up, coffee mug in hand. "I'm going to have a refill, Laura. How about you?"
"No, thanks." I turned the shaker upside down and sprinkled a few grains of salt on the tabletop. Pushing them about with the tip of my finger, I made little patterns, swirls and circles, wondering all the time what I could do about Maude.
"Well, I guess everybody was an early bird except me." Carol entered the kitchen, as perfectly made-up as she had been the night before. She was wearing a light blue polo shirt with an alligator sewn on the front and a pair of white jeans. "Mmmmm, that coffee smells just wonderful." She smiled as Aunt Grace handed her a steaming mug.
Although Aunt Grace was wearing her hair piled in a knot on the top of her head, a faded pair of Levi's, and an old blue work shirt, I thought she looked much more interesting than Carol. Maybe it was her bones or the little wrinkles around her eyes.
"You look so cute this morning, Laura," Carol said as she sat down next to me. "You're so lucky to have all that natural curl in your hair. You'll never need a permanent or anything."
I forced myself to smile at her as I got up to rinse my coffee mug. Just then the phone rang.
"That must be your mom." Aunt Grace picked up the receiver.
Although she didn't say much more than yes, I knew it was bad news. I could tell by the expression on her face, by the way she held the phone, by her tone of voice.
"He's worse, isn't he?" I asked as she hung up. Don't let him be dead, don't let him be dead, I prayed silently, vowing I'd go to Maude's at once and tell her to make him better.
Aunt Grace shook her head. "He's not really worse,
but he isn't better either and they still don't know what's wrong with him. Nothing they do seems to have any effect." Ignoring Carol's little clucks of sympathy, Aunt Grace sat down at her drawing table and stared at the picture of the squirrel, still unfinished. "What's really bothering your mother is Jason's incessant begging that she and your father stay married. He keeps saying, 'Don't get a divorce, don't get a divorce.' Andrea doesn't know what to do. She thought you all had adjusted to the divorce, that you understood."
I shook my head, not knowing what to say. I didn't want to think about Jason lying in a hospital bed, sick and scared, begging Mom and Dad to love each other. It was horrible. Edging toward the door, I told her I was going over to Wanda's for a while.
Aunt Grace looked a little puzzled, but she let me go. Not wanting to waste any time, I took the shortcut through the woods. If I hadn't been in such a hurry, I probably would have seen Maude step out from the trees in front of me, but I was going so fast I had no chance to avoid her. Skidding to a stop to prevent myself from crashing into her, I stared at her, my knees weak, still panting from running.
"Well, well, Laura Adams, we meet again, and in the sun's light." Maude chuckled and grasped my arm and Soot peered at me from her shoulder. "As I promised, I've brought your parents together, have I not? Your wish is about to come true, my dear, just as I said it would."
"You made Jason sick to do it," I whispered. "I didn't want you to do that."
She chuckled. "It was the only way, Laura. They don't love each other, your mother and father, but they'll stay
together now because of Jason. Like ivy binding two trees together, he'll hold them till they rot. And they'll be miserable, Laura, miserable. They'll hate each other more and more every day till there's nothing left of them but their hate."
I tried to pull away, but her grip was too strong. "Not so fast, Laura Adams, not so fast! Aren't you going to thank me for making your wish come true?"
"Please undo it, please!" I cried.
"No, no, what's done cannot be undone, Laura Adams!" She stepped closer to me. "Do you know how long I've waited for this moment? Over fifty years. Since your grandmother took John Randall away from me, I've waited for my revenge. If I'd had the power then that I have now, she'd never have gotten him. He would have married me!"
Maude chuckled. "She didn't have him long, though, did she? It took me eight years, but I got her, and now I'm going to see all her descendants suffer too. Your mother will be chained to a man who doesn't love her and your aunt will never paint again. Her skill is gone along with the brush you stole. And Jason will never recover; crippled for life he'll be. And you, Laura, what's your punishment to be, eh?"
She shook me and then let go of me so quickly that I reeled away from her and fell into the bushes beside the path. As I scrambled to my feet, she smiled at me. "Knowing you made my revenge possible is your punishment, Laura Adams." She bowed her head, still smiling. "Thank you, my dear, thank you so much."
Chuckling, Maude stepped into the woods and disappeared, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the path.
"No!" I screamed after her. "No! You have to undo it, you have to!"
Overhead a crow cawed, loud and mockingly. There was no other answer.
Forgetting my fear, I plunged into the woods after her, heedless of brambles clawing my bare legs and catching in my hair, ignoring the branches slapping my face. "Come back! Come back!" I cried, begging her to stop, to make Jason well, to forgive our family.
Although the woods rang with my cries, there was no answer. Once or twice, I thought I saw her, toiling along ahead of me, slowly and steadily, but it was never Maude I saw. Only a twisted tree hung with vines or a tall rock shaggy with ferns and moss. Never the old woman herself. Like a true witch, she seemed to have vanished, leaving no sign behind.
When I was too tired to go on, I collapsed against a tree and sobbed. I didn't care whether I lived or died and I couldn't bear the thought of going home to my aunt. If Wanda hadn't found me, Lying in the ferns at the foot of the tree, I don't know what would have happened to me.
"There must be something you can do, Laura, there must be!" Wanda ran her hands through her hair, ruffling it up all over her head. She had listened to the whole story, helping me along with a few pats on my arm, and was now trying desperately to convince me that the two of us could undo Maude's spell.