Wait Till Helen Comes (9 page)

Without looking at me, Michael shrugged, shoved his hands into his pockets and walked off toward the house. I watched him stop on the porch and pick up his bowl of salamanders before he vanished inside.

I sighed and sat down on the church steps. Michael was thinking about his specimens, I supposed: his butterflies, their wings carefully spread and pinned to the board, each one neatly identified; his grasshoppers and beetles and dragonflies, their fragile, dried shells and delicate wings neatly mounted under glass. It had taken him a couple of years to build his collection; he'd won a blue ribbon at the science fair last winter for the butterflies. No wonder he didn't feel like talking to me.

While I sat there, I saw Heather come out of the graveyard, a smile on her face. I turned away, not wanting to look at her. It scared me that she could summon up something as horrible as Helen and then stand there, safe beside her father, laughing at us. It made her seem as inhuman as Helen.

12

"MOLLY," MOM CALLED from the kitchen door. "Come here, honey."

Reluctantly I walked toward the house. I wasn't ready to see Heather or Dave, but I couldn't sit outside by myself forever. "What do you want?" I asked Mom.

"Let's see what we can do with your room, okay? Dave is helping Michael, and I thought I'd help you."

Unhappily I followed her down the hall, past Michael's door. Glancing in, I saw him sifting through heaps of rubbish while Dave held a black plastic garbage bag, already bulging with things broken beyond repair.

"Where's Heather?" I asked Mom as we stared about the room, wondering where to start.

"Watching television, I guess. I thought it would be best if she stayed out of this. Having her around always increases the tension."

Silently the two of us worked, and after a couple of hours we carried the last garbage bag out. My side of the room was now stripped bare of everything I owned. It looked as impersonal as a motel room; all the things that I had collected were gone. In fact, it seemed to me that my whole personality was gone, destroyed by Helen.

"I'm going to start dinner now, Molly." Mom gave me a hug and kiss, and left me sitting on my bed trying not to cry.

A sound in the hall made me look up. Heather was standing in the doorway, staring at me. Behind her, the hall was dark and full of shadows, and I felt a tiny pinch of fear, imagining that Helen watched me over Heather's shoulder.

"What do you want?" I asked uneasily.

She took her time answering. Twisting a long, black strand of hair around her finger, she walked slowly toward me, her eyes never leaving mine. Stopping a few inches away, her face too close to mine for comfort, she whispered, "Are you going to tell who did it?"

"Who would believe me?" I shrank back against the wall, wanting to put some distance between us.

An awful little smile twitched the corners of Heather's mouth. "You believe it, though, don't you? You saw her; you saw what she wrote on your wall."

"Is she really your friend?" I stared into Heather's huge gray eyes, sure for a moment that I saw fear in them.

"We're just alike," Heather said, her voice quavering a tiny bit. "She understands me, and I understand her. She's my true sister, forever and ever."

The intensity in her face made cold chills run up and down my arms. Even the hair on the back of my neck prickled. "No, Heather," I whispered. "She's not your sister. She's evil and wicked and horrible, and you better stay away from her!" I was sitting up straight now, and my voice was rising. I grasped her thin arms, my fears for myself forgotten. "Don't go near her!"

Heather twisted away, her face pale and anxious. "Shut up, Molly, shut up!" she cried. "Helen is my friend, the only one I've ever had! Don't you dare take her away from me!"

As Heather ran out of the room, she hurled one last threat at me. "I'll tell her to come again," she cried. "And this time, she'll do something worse!"

A few minutes later, Mom called me to dinner. While we ate, I watched Heather pick at her food, eating practically nothing. Every now and then, she lifted her eyes to mine. She neither smiled nor frowned, but gazed at me till I looked away, scarcely able to eat my own chicken.

Later that evening, after the dishes were washed and put away, we all settled down in the living room. While Michael and I watched a National Geographic Special about polar bears, Mom read a novel, and Dave played checkers with Heather. After a couple of games, she climbed into his lap and fell asleep, her thumb in her mouth. With her eyes closed, she looked small and helpless, almost sweet.

As I watched Dave carry her off to bed, I promised myself that I would protect her somehow. No matter how much trouble Heather had caused, I couldn't let Helen lead her into Harper Pond. From now on, I'd try to keep an eye on her day and night.

Suddenly uneasy, I glanced at the window and the darkness it framed. A gust of wind tossed the bushes, and their branches scraped across the screen. For a moment, I thought I saw a pale face peering into the living room, silently observing us. I gasped, and the face vanished into the night as quickly as the moon slips behind a wind-blown cloud.

"What's the matter?" Michael turned to me, a piece of popcorn poised halfway to his open mouth.

"Nothing." I moved away from him, ashamed to tell him what I thought I'd seen, and snuggled next to Mom. With my head on her shoulder, I felt safe, especially when she slid her arm around me and gave me a hug.

The sound of Mr. Simmons' mower woke me in the morning. Heather's bed was empty, so I dressed quickly, anxious to keep the promise I'd made last night. She mustn't go off alone, I thought. She mustn't go to the graveyard or to Harper Pond. She mustn't go near Helen.

The kitchen was deserted, so I ate a quick breakfast and ran across the drive to the church. Mom and Dave were hard at work in the loft, trying to salvage at least some of Mom's canvases, and Heather was pouting by the window, drawing pictures in an old sketchbook. It was very hot and stuffy, and no one seemed particularly happy to see me.

"Do you want me to help?" I asked uncertainly.

"No, no," Mom said hastily. "Just take Heather outside. It's much too warm for her to stay cooped up in here."

"I'm not going anywhere with her." Heather scowled at me. "I'm staying right here with my daddy."

"But, honey," Dave said patiently. "There's nothing for you to do here. Wouldn't you rather go somewhere with Molly? You could wade in the creek or go see the cows." Dave's voice had taken on a tone of honeyed pleading. He was begging Heather to be normal, to do what ordinary little girls enjoy.

She merely stuck her lip out farther. "I like it here," she whined. "Don't you want me to be here? Don't you love me, Daddy?"

"Oh, sweetie, of course I love you." Dave left the heap of wood he had been trying to reassemble as an easel and hugged Heather. "I just thought you'd have more fun playing."

"Not with her." Heather gave me a dark look from under a cloud of black tangles. "You know how mean she is."

"Go on outside, Molly," Mom said. "Maybe you can find Michael. He said something about going down to the swamp to catch insects for a new collection."

As I left the church, I saw Mr. Simmons pushing a wheelbarrow full of grass clippings toward the compost heap. "Good morning, Molly," he called. "Is it hot enough for you?"

I nodded. It wasn't even ten o'clock and I was perspiring. "Have you seen Michael?"

He shook his head. "I brought the fishing stuff with me, hoping he might be around, but your mother told me he left the house early to catch bugs. Quite the young naturalist, isn't he?"

Coming to a halt beside me, Mr. Simmons set the wheelbarrow down. "Do you know anything about this?" He held up a peanut butter jar full of fresh daisies. "I found them under the oak tree by that little tombstone. Third time I've seen them there."

"Heather does it," I said slowly. "She puts them there every day."

"I thought I told you kids to stay away from that end of the graveyard. Didn't I warn you about the snakes and the poison ivy?" Dumping the daisies into the wheelbarrow, Mr. Simmons paused to light his pipe. "I hear you folks had a lot of trouble here yesterday. Were robbed or something. Bob Greene says he never saw anything like it."

I stared at the flowers lying limply on top of the grass clippings. "It was horrible," I said softly. "But I don't think they'll ever catch the one who did it."

"Why not?" Mr. Simmons puffed on his pipe, waiting for me to answer.

"Well," I said, glancing toward the graveyard. "Remember the day we saw you at Harper House, and we talked about ghosts?" I searched his face, expecting him to laugh. When he didn't, I went on. "I think this graveyard is haunted too."

"I've heard folks say that. My own sister was scared to death of it, wouldn't go near it after dark. But she was always fearful, afraid of her own shadow."

I smiled; Mr. Simmons' sister sounded like me. "The policeman said people don't like to drive by here late at night." I picked up one of the daisies and twisted its green stalk around my finger.

"And what do you think, Molly?" Mr. Simmons regarded me through a cloud of sweet-smelling pipe smoke. "Have you seen anything?"

I looked down at the daisy and began to strip its petals away, one by one. She's real, she's not real, I thought as I watched the petals drift to the ground. Raising my eyes to his, I said, "I've seen Helen. And so has Heather." I paused, waiting for him to laugh, to tell me I was crazy. When he didn't say anything, I went on.

"Heather says Helen is her friend. She told Michael and me that Helen would come and make us sorry for being mean to her. It was Helen who wrecked our things yesterday. She came, just like Heather said she would." My voice was shaking now, and I had to stop. Tossing the last petal to the ground, I realized that I had ended with "She's real."

For a few seconds Mr. Simmons and I were silent. All around us, birds sang and insects chirped their summer songs, but no breeze blew. The leaves of the trees hung limply, and the sun was hot on my head and shoulders.

Finally, Mr. Simmons cleared his throat. "Why would Heather tell you something so awful?" he asked me.

"Because she hates us," I said dully, feeling ashamed, as if it were my fault somehow. "She hates Mom for taking Dave away from her, and she hates Michael and me for being Mom's children. Didn't the policeman tell you that only our stuff was destroyed? Nothing that belonged to Heather or Dave was touched."

"This is a very strange story, Molly," Mr. Simmons said. "And if I hadn't heard something like it before, I'd think you made it all up. But my own sister was convinced that our cousin Rose was led to her death in Harper Pond by the very spirit you've described to me. I didn't believe it at the time, but my sister went to her grave convinced that Rose was possessed by Helen Harper."

I stared at him, my heart thumping. "Do you think Heather is in danger?" I asked.

He fidgeted with his pipe. "Oh, it all sounds so crazy," he said. "Especially standing here in the sunlight."

"But I've seen her," I said. "I've seen Helen."

He picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and began pushing it toward the compost heap. "All I can say is, keep Heather away from this graveyard. Don't let her near Harper House or the pond."

For a moment I stood still, watching Mr. Simmons walk away. Then I shoved open the graveyard gate and ran toward the oak tree. Overhead, a breeze sprang up, chasing sunlight and shadows across Helen's small stone. Instinctively, I stretched my hands toward the grave and whispered, "Leave Heather alone, leave her alone."

Nothing happened. A crow flew out of the branches over my head, cawing harshly; the breeze made a dry, whispery sound in the leaves, and then all was still.

I stared at the earth mounded over Helen's grave. Beneath it was her coffin. In her coffin were her bones. I imagined her skeleton lying on its back, her skull staring up into darkness, held fast by the earth, cradled in the oak tree's roots, trapped forever.

I looked at my own arms, still outstretched, and saw the veins running blue under my skin, the bones beneath them. My skeleton. My bones. Someday they would be all that was left of me. They would lie all alone in the dark and the cold while the years spun past, years I would never see.

I wouldn't feel the sun on my back anymore; I wouldn't hear the wind rustling the leaves; I wouldn't smell the sweet scent of honeysuckle; I wouldn't see the green grass growing over me. I wouldn't think about what I would do tomorrow. I wouldn't write any poems or read any books. All my memories would die with me, all my thoughts and ideas.

I backed away from Helen's grave. It was horrible to die, horrible. Just to think of myself ending, being gone from the earth forever, terrified me. As a shadow slanted across the tombstone, I wondered if it might not be better to live on as a ghost; at least some part of Helen remained.

Turning my back on the oak tree, I ran out of the graveyard, anxious to get away from the bones buried under my feet, but knowing I couldn't get away from the bones under my skin. No matter how fast I ran, they would always be there, always, even when I would no longer be alive to feel them.

13

TO CALM MYSELF DOWN, I took a long walk beside the creek. Although I went all the way back to the swamp, I saw no sign of Michael. Gnats and mosquitoes buzzed in clouds around my head, biting me everywhere, even through my tee shirt. I turned around and headed home, thinking Michael must have been driven away from the swamp too.

It was well after two when I walked into the kitchen to fix myself a sandwich. A note on the table told me that Mom and Dave had gone to Baltimore to shop for a new easel and replenish Mom's art supplies. They expected to be gone most of the day. "Heather is in the living room watching TV," Mom had written. "She's promised to stay in the house till you or Michael come home."

I could hear a cartoon blasting away, but when I went to ask Heather if she wanted a sandwich, I saw Bugs Bunny popping out of a magician's hat without an audience. I checked our bedroom, thinking she might be taking a nap, but she wasn't there either. Or anywhere else in the house. So much for keeping her promise, I thought as I pushed open the screen door and called her.

Instead of Heather, I saw Michael coming across the grass toward the house. He was carrying a large mayonnaise jar, and, when he saw me, he brandished it. "Look at the praying mantis I caught," he yelled. "Isn't he beautiful?"

As he thrust the jar at me, I cringed. "Get that thing away from me!"

"This is one of man's best friends." Michael gazed at me reproachfully. "He eats harmful insects. In fact, I'm going to catch some beetles for him right now. Do you want to watch him eat them?"

"Yuck." I backed away from the creature in the jar. "That's the most disgusting invitation I've ever had."

Michael shrugged. "Your loss, Molly."

"Wait a minute," I called after him. "Mom and Dave have gone to Baltimore, and I can't find Heather. Have you seen her?"

He shook his head and smiled at the praying mantis. "Maybe this little guy thought she was a bug and ate her."

"Very funny." Angrily I watched him run off, clutching his jar, leaving me to find Heather by myself.

Although I didn't want to go back to the graveyard, I thought I might find her there. Reluctantly, I shoved the gate open and walked as far as the Berrys' marble angel. From the shelter of his outstretched wings, I saw a new jar of daisies on Helen's grave. Of Heather herself, I saw no sign.

There was, of course, only one other place to look. Harper House. Running toward the compost heap, I called Michael, thinking I could persuade him to go with me, but he had already disappeared.

As I followed the path across the field, I noticed that the horizon was ringed with clouds. They were thunderheads growing taller and darker, looming over the trees like a fleet of pirate ships. Despite the heat, I began to run. I was sure a storm was coming, and I wanted to find Heather before the thunder and lightning started.

When I reached Harper Pond, I was gasping, out of breath from running. I paused at the bottom of the hill, trying to catch my breath and ease the ache in my ribs. Above me, the ruins seemed empty, desolate. The sky showed blue behind the empty windows, and the vines billowed in a gust of wind. Uncertain of the wisdom of calling her name out loud, I scanned the walls, searching for signs of Heather: a flash of color, a sudden movement, the sound of a voice. Seeing nothing, I began climbing the hill, wishing that Michael were with me.

As I approached the house, a towering cloud drifted in front of the sun and cast everything into shadow. At the same time, a gust of wind flipped the leaves, revealing their white undersides. I knew the rain wasn't far off, and I forced myself to run toward the shelter of the bushes crowding against the ruined walls.

Burrowing through the undergrowth like a rabbit, I found myself wondering what I was doing. Heather hated me; she'd made that clear hundreds of times. And I certainly didn't love her. Or even like her. So why was I here, scrambling around in the bushes, getting scratched by thorns, scared to death of confronting a ghost? Why didn't I go home and leave Heather to Helen? After all, it was Helen she wanted, not me.

Thunder rumbled in the distance; the sky continued to darken, and the wind blew harder. Crouching in the brambles, I peered at the racing clouds, but before I could run for home, a sound from inside the house stopped me. At first I thought it was only the wind funneling through the cracks in the walls, but the eeriness of it raised goose bumps on my arms and legs. Raising my head cautiously, I peered through the leaves screening a window just above me.

I saw Heather first. She was standing a few feet away from me, her profile turned to the window. "But I thought Daddy would be with us too," she was saying.

Scarcely daring to breathe, I peered into the shadows and saw Helen. Wearing a stained and ragged white dress, she seemed less transparent than she had in the graveyard. Her dark, lusterless hair cascaded down her back, contrasting harshly with her pale, skull-like face. Her feet were bare, and she cast no shadow. When she moved closer to Heather, she made no sound. Nothing bent or rustled when she stepped on it, and her eyes were terrible—dark and glittering and fixed upon Heather. She reminded me of a cat about to spring upon a sparrow. Merciless, without compassion or sympathy, thinking only of its own hunger.

"We don't need your father," Helen murmured. "We don't need anyone."

As she spoke, the air in the house seemed to waft toward me—cold and smelling of damp earth and stagnant water. I shivered, suddenly aware of the sound of my heart pounding loudly with fear. I couldn't abandon Heather, not now. I had to save her from Helen—whether she wanted to be saved or not, whether I wanted to save her or not.

Through my shield of leaves, I watched Helen stretch an almost fleshless hand toward Heather, a smile on her lips, death in her eyes. "Come," she said softly. "Leave this world where you are so unhappy, where no one loves you as you want to be loved. We'll go together, you and I."

Heather slowly put her hand in Helen's. "You're so cold, Helen," she whispered. "Why are you so cold?"

"Because I am alone, because nobody loves me." Helen clung to both of Heather's hands as ivy clings to oak, sending its roots beneath the bark, sucking out the tree's life. "Promise you'll never leave me; promise you'll always love me best," she whispered fiercely.

"But what about Daddy?" Heather's eyes filled with tears. "I can't love you more than I love him. I can't!"

"He betrayed you, just as my mother betrayed me. He found someone he loves more than he loves you—
their
mother!"

The hatred in Helen's voice chilled me. I wanted to leap up and run away from Harper House to escape her, but I forced myself to stay where I was, too frightened to speak or move.

"No!" Heather wailed. "No! He loves me best; I know he does!"

"Then give me my locket," Helen hissed. "I'll find someone else to give it to, someone who will love me." She held out her hand, reaching for the silver chain. "Someone who won't betray me."

Heather's fist closed over the little heart. "I want to be with you," she said, "but I want to be with Daddy, too."

"He doesn't understand you as well as I do, does he?" Helen's voice grew sweeter. "If he knew what I know, he wouldn't love you, would he?"

Heather whimpered and covered her face with her hands. Her body shook with sobs. "But I'm afraid to go in the water, Helen. I'm afraid."

"There's nothing to fear." Helen took Heather's hand. "If you don't come now, I'll go away and you'll never see me again. Never. Then what friend will you have? Michael? Molly? You know they'll never be your friends. They don't care about you. They hate you as much as you hate them."

Heather nodded her head, still sobbing, her face hidden by her hair.

"But I know all about you, Heather. Don't I? And / love you." Helen led Heather slowly toward the door, as if she were guiding a blind person. "It's time to go, Heather. The mermaids in the crystal palace are waiting to welcome us, to make us one of them. We'll ride on enchanted seahorses in a kingdom where the rain never falls and the rose never dies. Unicorns, elves, dragons—you'll see all the creatures I've told you about. We'll be so happy there, two princesses in our glass tower."

As I watched Helen and Heather vanish into the gloom, I yearned to enter Helen's world too. Mermaids and unicorns, crystal palaces—how I longed to see them. Eager to hear more, I pushed my way out of the bushes, heedless of the brambles scratching my legs and tangling in my hair. "Wait," I sobbed, "wait for me! Don't leave me here!"

A crash of thunder brought me to my senses. As startled as someone awakening from a beautiful dream, I cringed from the lightning that forked across the sky. As the rain began falling, I caught sight of Helen and Heather walking hand in hand toward the pond.

"Heather," I cried, but the rain fell harder, forming a silver curtain between me and the pond, hiding Heather and Helen from me.

Running down the hill, slipping and sliding on the wet grass, I reached the pond in time to see Helen leading Heather into the water. The wind blew harder, and the thunder rumbled continuously, muffling my cries.

"No, Heather, no!" I shouted as Helen led her farther from shore. Kicking off my shoes, I splashed toward them. The water was cold, and the lightning terrified me, but I plunged in deeper, trying to keep Heather in sight. It was like chasing someone into a waterfall.

When I was almost in reach of her, I tripped on a tangle of roots and splashed facedown in the pond. Sputtering and gasping, I struggled to free my feet, then looked for Heather. She was nowhere in sight. All around me, the rain poured down, and the water rose and fell in tiny waves, hiding both Heather and Helen.

Terrified, I swam toward the place I had last seen her, then dove beneath the surface, groping for an arm, a leg. Twice I came up for breath, then plunged again into the murk. Finally my fingers tangled in something I thought was an underwater weed, then recognized as Heather's hair. Grasping the long strands, I yanked her upward, struggling to get her head above water.

Holding her up, I peered through the rain, searching for the shore. I got no help from Heather. She lay still: her eyes closed, her lips blue, her hair floating around her head in dark strings.

As I got my bearings and started swimming, towing Heather, I heard a weeping sound. It wasn't the wind in the trees; it wasn't the lapping of the water—it was Helen. In front of me, behind me, to the right, to the left, sobbing and moaning, clutching at Heather with icy fingers, she begged me to give her back.

"She's mine, she's mine," Helen wept. "Don't take her from me!"

I felt a terrible chill as her fingers seized my ankles. "Give her back to me, or I'll take you both to the bottom of the pond!" she cried.

"Get away!" I kicked her viciously. "Leave us alone!"

"Give her to me!" Helen was in front of me now, so close I could see right into her horrible eyes. "You must! She has my locket and she's mine! Mine!"

"No!" My feet found the bottom, and I fumbled for the chain twisted around Heather's neck. Snapping it with my fingers, I hurled the silver heart as far as I could. As it disappeared into the rain, I cried, "There, take your locket! But not Heather—you can't have her!"

Helen moaned and turned from us to pursue the locket. Without her to slow me down, I was soon dragging Heather out of the pond. Laying her down on the ground, I crouched beside her. She was so still, so pale. "Don't be dead, Heather," I whispered. "Please don't be dead."

Covering her mouth with mine, I tried to remember what we had learned in school about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Breathe, I thought, breathe! Finally she gasped and choked, opened her eyes, and stared at me. For a moment, she didn't seem to recognize me; then her eyes filled with shock. "Molly," she whispered, "Molly, what are you doing here? Where is Helen?" She twisted her head frantically from side to side, trying to locate Helen.

"She's gone," I said, glancing fearfully over my shoulder. The rain hid the pond, hid Helen—forever, I hoped.

"No," Heather cried. "No, she can't be gone. She promised to take me with her! Helen," she called out, "Helen!"

"She's gone!" I whispered, trying to hush her. "Gone!"

Heather struggled against me, trying to get up. "Let me go, Molly! I want to be with Helen, not you. Let me go!"

The rain poured down my face, blinding me, but I held on to Heather's skinny little body. Dragging her to her feet, I began climbing the hill toward the house. I had to get Heather out of the rain; I had to warm her somehow, dry her off. The church was too far away, but if I got her into Harper House we would have at least a little shelter.

"Helen, Helen," Heather shrieked. "Don't leave me." Again she tried to break away, struggling so fiercely that I could feel the bones in her arms twisting in my grip. "Let me go with my friend, my only friend," she wept piteously, suddenly collapsing against me.

"She's not your friend!" I yelled. "She tried to kill you!"

"No! No! She just wanted to take me with her. She loves me; she loves me best of all! She doesn't hate me like you do!"

"I don't hate you!" I gripped her arms tightly, my face inches from hers. "I wouldn't have pulled you out of the pond if I hated you. I'd have let you drown!"

Heather continued to sob. "If you knew me, really knew me, you'd hate me. Even Daddy would hate me if he knew everything about me." Heather looked behind her at the pond. "But she doesn't hate me. She knows everything, and she understands. We're just alike, she and I, just alike." Heather's tears mingled with the rain on her face.

"Heather," a cry came from somewhere in the rain, blown to us in the wind, a chilling and terrible cry. "Heather, where are you?"

Despite my grip, Heather broke free and ran toward the pond. "I'm coming, Helen, I'm coming!" she cried as I ran after her.

Catching up with her at the water's edge, I tackled her and threw her flat on her face in the weeds. She fought me, her wet clothes and skin making it hard to hold on to her, but she finally gave up and lay still, weeping, her body shaking with sobs.