A Curious Tale of the In-Between (9 page)

The aunts opened the door and gasped. They had been certain Pram was safe in her bed, and yet there she was, sleeping in a strange man’s arms. They might have screamed for the police, except that Clarence Blue was there, and from the man’s curly hair it was obvious the strange man must be his father.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Blue said. “When I drove by, she was sleeping on the sidewalk. I’m not sure what happened. Clarence insists she’s a friend of his, and that she belongs to you.”

As
Aunt Nan retrieved Pram from Mr. Blue’s arms, Pram opened her eyes just long enough to get a look at Mr. Blue and whisper, “Are you my father?”

If Mr. Blue had a response to this, it was buried in the nervous laughter of the aunts. “The poor thing is a sleepwalker,” Aunt Dee said.

“Been happening for as long as she could walk,” Aunt Nan said, furthering the lie. After eleven years of caring for Pram, they’d developed a sense of creativity so they could conceal her eccentricities.

“We used to find her in the pantry some mornings, hugging the flour like it was a little teddy bear,” Aunt Dee said. “And always muttering nonsense.”

“Thank you again, and so sorry for the trouble.” Aunt Nan closed the door on Mr. Blue’s startled expression and Clarence’s worried eyes.

The aunts stared at Pram, still wearing Clarence’s coat, and then they stared at each other.

Pram had always been a peculiar child. She had imaginary friends, and she wasn’t frightened of the things little girls ought to be frightened of. But nothing like this had ever happened. The aunts had believed that with enough patience and their best efforts, they could keep Pram safe from a world that would be cruel to her. The world had been crueler to Pram’s mother than Pram would ever know.

But
now they weren’t so sure they could protect her.

They carried her to bed and tucked the blankets to her chin. They made certain the windows were locked and the door downstairs was latched. Aunt Nan took a bear from the shelf and placed it on Pram’s bed.

She looked like a normal girl for the moment, Aunt Nan thought. A normal girl who was safe and asleep and dreaming of ribbons.

She looked like her mother, Aunt Dee thought.

Aunt Dee and Aunt Nan didn’t speak of their younger sister, or the cruel manner of her death, and especially not the part where she nearly took Pram with her. They didn’t speak of the sailor who’d told her nice things and then left. Or the sadness in her eyes and in her heart, or how for the last months of her life she didn’t speak a word.

But while Pram and her mother had both been strange, Pram had never seemed sad. She was gentle and kind and bright, and so the aunts had hope that she would turn into a lovely sort of woman one day. But that night’s actions had the aunts thoroughly afraid. They pinched her cheeks and left her to sleep, and they spent the night whispering at the kitchen table and compiling a list of rules:

No more school—it was clearly too overwhelming.

No more adult books—they gave her too many ideas.

No
more imaginary friends—she had a fine friend in the Blue boy now.

No more pond—this was where Pram spent most of her time talking to herself.

And most importantly:
No more talk of ghosts.

CHAPTER

14

P
ram awoke with sunlight in her eyes and a feeling like she needed to be someplace important.

The flowers in the wallpaper were rustling on a breeze. “Felix?” she said.

One of the flowers spiraled away from the wall and landed on her shoulder. By the time she reached for it, it was gone. How strange, she thought. Felix was the only one who did such things, and she could swear she felt him nearby, but she couldn’t see him. She crawled under the bed to be certain he wasn’t playing a hiding game. “Felix?” She opened her window and called out into the cool morning air, “Felix? I don’t like this game.”

The door opened, but it wasn’t Felix. “Close the window,” Aunt Nan said. “You’ll catch cold.”

Pram
did as she was told, and her worried frown was reflected in the glass.

“Who were you talking to just now?” Aunt Nan asked.

“No one,” she said, distressed to know this was the truth. She watched the tree from her window but saw no trace of her best friend.

“I thought we might have a talk, then, you and me,” Aunt Nan said, sitting on Pram’s bed.

Pram pulled the chair away from her desk and sat. “Am I in trouble?” she asked. She couldn’t think why she would be but felt inexplicably that she was.

“No,” Aunt Nan said. “But I think we should talk about last night.” She looked at Pram and could see in her eyes that she didn’t understand. “Do you remember last night?”

Pram didn’t remember, though she could taste the crisp night air on her tongue. She wasn’t sure how to answer, so she didn’t.

“Do you remember having unusual dreams?” Aunt Nan said.

Pram always had unusual dreams, so she said, “Not especially.” She moved her shoulders uncomfortably. Many things weren’t right about this morning; she wasn’t used to being questioned, and her feet ached, and she wanted to look for Felix.

“
There won’t be any school from now on,” Aunt Nan said, forcing a smile. “That ought to cheer you up, right?”

“No school? Why?”

“Your aunt Dee and I are worried that it’s too much for you,” Aunt Nan said. “We’ll be speaking with Ms. Appleworth and letting her know that you’ll resume home schooling.”

“It isn’t too much for me.” Pram was thinking of Clarence. “Honestly.”

“It’s just that we’re concerned for you,” Aunt Nan said.

“Don’t scare the girl,” Aunt Dee said. She was standing in the doorway with a tray of oatmeal and toast. The aunts had also decided that Pram should no longer have desserts for breakfast and lunch, no matter how guilty they might have felt. “There’s nothing to be concerned about at all. Only growing pains.”

“Growing pains?” Pram asked.

“I had imaginary friends when I was about your age,” Aunt Dee said, setting the tray in Pram’s lap. “It was difficult for me to let them go. But I was much better for it.”

“I don’t have any imaginary friends,” Pram said, feeling wounded.

“Felix, wasn’t it?” Aunt Nan said.

Pram had told her aunts about Felix when she was five years old, too young to realize that certain things should remain a secret. She hadn’t mentioned him in years, but
sometimes,
when she and Felix were talking, she would hear a floorboard creak and suspect someone had been eavesdropping.

“Oh,” she said. “Felix hasn’t been around for a while.”

“Just as well,” Aunt Nan said. “He was fine when you were little, but you’ve outgrown him now.”

“You should spend more time with the Blue boy,” Aunt Dee said. “He must have other friends he could introduce you to.”

He didn’t, not anymore, but Pram could see that this was important to her aunts, and she didn’t want them to worry. “Okay,” she said, feeling scrutinized. Pram couldn’t know her aunts’ worry; she had spent her entire life worrying that she could never be the woman her mother had been, while her aunts had worried that she would. And now that she was getting taller, and her face more angled, they worried more than ever. And so they did something for Pram that they had never done for their younger sister. They stood and each kissed one of her cheeks, and they said together, “We love you,” for the first and perhaps only time.

The cold taste on Pram’s tongue spread down her throat and into her lungs, and despite her thick sweater, the chill wouldn’t leave her. Her nose was running, and she didn’t
understand
why. She also didn’t understand why her aunts wouldn’t allow her to go outside, or why they’d laid the subtle hint that she should no longer speak to Felix.

When there came a knock at the door, sometime after three o’clock, Pram somehow knew that it would be for her. She raced past her aunts to open the door.

Clarence stood on the front step with his hands in his pockets. His cheeks were flushed, and Pram could tell he’d been running.

She sniffled. “Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” Clarence said. “You weren’t in school, so I came to check on you.”

“Isn’t that nice?” Aunt Dee said. “Pram, don’t stand there gaping. Let the boy in.”

Pram blushed and stepped aside for him. “We’ll be upstairs,” she said. She took Clarence’s hand without giving it a thought, and as she led him up the stairs, she didn’t look back to see the way her aunts smiled at the pair of them. And she didn’t see that the photo of her mother had gone crooked, as though it was trying to tell her something.

Pram led Clarence into her closet. She turned on the light and closed the door.

“Something bad has happened to Felix,” she said.

“What could have happened?” Clarence said. He didn’t know much about ghosts, but he presumed that they couldn’t be kidnapped or killed.

“
I don’t know, but he’s gone,” Pram said. “And my aunts are acting strange. They won’t let me out of the house, and they told me that I had outgrown Felix.” She dabbed her runny nose with her sleeve. “And all day I’ve had a chill, and I don’t know why.”

“You really don’t remember?” Clarence said. “About last night?”

“What’s to remember?” Pram said.

“You were sleepwalking,” Clarence said. “That’s how your aunts explained it when my father and I brought you home.”

Pram went pale with worry. “I dreamed I went to see Lady Savant,” she said. “She said she had been speaking with my mother and that I should visit her again.”

“It must not have been a dream,” Clarence said. “You must have really been to see her.”

Pram chewed on her bottom lip.

“What could it mean?” Clarence asked.

“I don’t know. But there has to be a reason she wants to see me. Maybe it has to do with Felix.”

Clarence thought about Pram lying unconscious on the sidewalk late at night, and it made him uneasy to think Lady Savant could have had something to do with it. Pram was an extraordinary girl—one who thought nothing of speaking to ghosts—and it would be dangerous for the wrong sort of people to know about her. “I don’t like it,” he said.

“
Something strange is happening,” Pram said. “I’ve never sleepwalked, and Felix has never hidden from me like this. I have to see Lady Savant and find out what she wants from me.”

“Didn’t she tell you?” Clarence asked.

“I can’t remember. I thought I was dreaming. When I woke up, what she’d said sort of . . . flew away.”

Clarence frowned. “If you see her, I’m coming with you. I’m the one who took you to her show in the first place.”

Pram squeezed his hands. “Thank you,” she said. “It will have to be after my aunts have gone to bed. They won’t let me outside right now, even if it’s with you.”

“What time, then?” Clarence asked. It would be easy for him to leave in the middle of the night, assuming he didn’t wake the maids.

“Ten thirty,” Pram said. “By the pond.”

CHAPTER

15

C
larence arrived at the pond at ten thirty exactly. It was especially cold, and the remaining leaves of Felix’s tree seemed to be in a state of panic. “Hello, if you can hear me,” Clarence said to Felix. “Pram is very worried, you know.”

He heard footsteps, and he hoped it would be Felix, whom he had never seen. It was strange that he didn’t even know what Felix looked like. But Pram was the one to step out of the shadows.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I had to be sure Aunt Nan was snoring.” She looked up at the leaves and frowned.

“Is he here?” Clarence asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “The other day I had talked to him about moving on, and now I’m afraid he’s gone because of me.”

“
He wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye,” Clarence said.

“No,” Pram said. But she couldn’t help feeling that she was to blame.

They walked toward the center of town. Pram kicked pebbles and said very little.

Above them, the stars shifted in their sky. Neither of them looked up to notice.

“Pram?” Clarence said. “When did you start seeing them? Ghosts, that is.”

“When I was a baby, I think,” she said. “It’s hard to know. It’s like if I asked you when you realized you were human.”

Clarence considered this.

“It’s just a part of me,” she said.

“A gift, then,” Clarence said.

Pram shrugged. “Sometimes it’s nice,” she said. “Sometimes it makes me sad.” She didn’t know about the dogwood tree in front of the hospital, nor did she know that she was brought into the living world as silent and as gray as the ashes in the fireplace. All Pram knew was that she was tethered to the murky place between this world and the one that comes after it. How this came to be wasn’t important to her.

“It sounds like a burden,” Clarence said. “But I think it’s amazing.”

For
the first time all night, a smile shone through Pram’s worried expression. “You’re the only one who hasn’t thought it was strange. It bothers my aunts, so I try to pretend like I’m normal, but they know anyway.”