Help for the Haunted (25 page)

Now, not so many nights later, I listened to the murmur of my parents' voices discussing their work down in the living room while I looked up at that shelf. Inspecting the horses, counting their legs to be sure they were intact, had become a ritual before sleep. The ritual was interrupted when my gaze reached a spotted pony with glimmering brown eyes. Aurora's wooden tail had been snapped off. It took hunting, but I located that tail behind my desk. I felt the urge to march down the hall, to slam my fist against Rose's door, to scream at her that none of this was funny. But I knew she'd only deny it again, doing an even more convincing job the second time around. The obvious solution was to begin locking my door. I locked it then, and found the small hook-shaped piece of metal to lock it from the outside in the future too, before sitting at my desk once more and gluing yet another horse together.

All the while, I heard my parents below. It was not possible to make out their words, but the clipped rise and fall of their speech gave me the sense that the discussion wasn't pleasant. And then, all at once, they fell silent. I heard them climb the stairs and settle into their beds down the hall. By then Aurora was whole again, and though I needed sleep, I stayed at my desk and let my mind wander. For days, I'd been replaying what Rose had said about me ending up like our parents if I didn't pay attention to the real world. Maybe the details about TV shows she tossed out in conversation were meaningless compared to the information in the documentaries we were allowed to watch, but I didn't like the idea of my sister knowing things I did not. That feeling is what led me to unlock my door and sneak downstairs.

Other than a quick glance, I forced myself not to look at Penny in my mother's rocker. I simply pulled a chair close to the TV, turned it on, and lowered the volume. Flipping channels past late-night news stories about Margaret Thatcher and another about Oliver North, I landed on the sort of rerun my parents forbid but Rose might reference:
Three's Company
. It didn't take long to suss out the players and the plot, which had to do with an overheard conversation wildly misinterpreted. Ridiculous as the story was, I kept watching, easing into the unfamiliar sound of canned laughter. During a commercial, I went to the kitchen, where I made myself a sandwich from the leftover roast and poured a glass of milk before returning to the living room. It wasn't until the credits rolled that I looked over at the rocker again. The watery blue light of the television flickered over that chair, over me too, as I stared at the place where Penny sat when I came downstairs.

But Penny was no longer there.

Had she been there when I walked out of the kitchen moments before? I could not be certain. And as I picked over the possibilities, my mind arrived at the same conclusion it did with those horses: my sister was playing tricks on me. I imagined her padding down the steps to watch TV, realizing what I was doing, and getting the idea to move that doll somewhere just to scare me. I moved quietly around the room, peeking behind the sofa and drapes and any other place where Rose and I used to hide. But there was no sign of Penny anywhere, so I gave up and turned off the TV, sliding my chair back into place before climbing the stairs again.

At the end of the hall upstairs, Rose's door was shut. My parents' was cracked open, however, so I peeked inside. The green glow of their alarm clock gave only enough light to make out each of them, lumps in their beds. I thought of the silence that had fallen over them before bed. I rarely heard them argue, and I wondered if they'd gone to sleep angry at each other, which left me with a sudden sense of sadness toward them.

I
n the morning, I woke early to find my sister's door still shut, my parents still lumps in their beds. Downstairs, the doll sat in the rocker again as though she had been there all along. I walked closer, staring at the smudges around her neck, the bracelet around her wrist. That face—one a child might draw with a crayon—was nothing more than a pair of eyes, a triangle nose, and a curled slash for a smile. And yet, looking at it brought a feeling of dread. I stood there, soaking in that feeling, wondering if I'd imagined the entire thing the night before, as that waitress's voice echoed in my mind.

She's just an old Raggedy Ann. A dime a dozen. But this one, well, she feels different somehow . . .

“You girls having a nice morning chat?”

The voice startled me, and I whirled around to see Rose, showered and dressed, walking down the stairs.
Say something,
I told myself.
About the doll. About the horses.
But I just stood there, watching her move through the hall to the kitchen. I heard the fridge open and close. Cabinets and drawers too, followed by the sound of cereal being poured into a bowl.

“What's wrong with you?” she asked, coming back into the living room with her breakfast, crunching away.

“Nothing.” I turned again from Penny's smiling face to see my sister's more serious one. “Where are you going?”

“Hate to break it to you, Sylvie, but there's this place called high school where I have to be in a bit. Another place called junior high where you have to be soon too. That's something I wouldn't expect an egghead like you to forget.”

Above us, floorboards creaked. Our parents were getting ready to start their day too. Rose rolled her eyes. “For once I'm actually looking forward to it,” she said. “I mean, anything to get me out of this joint for a while.”

In the mornings, Rose left the house first, since the high school bus came before the one I took to junior high. But that day, I asked if I could walk with her to the stop in hopes of finding a moment to confront her about the games she was playing with me. After I hurried to dress and gather my books, we headed out the door together. On the way, Rose stopped to pick up rocks, tossing them into the empty foundations and doing her best to hit those rusted fireplace rods at the bottom, which gave a loud
clank
and elicited a “Yes!” from her whenever she was successful. At the end of the lane, she pulled a cigarette from her sock, just like she'd done in that desolate park on Orchard Circle. As she sucked on one end, blowing a hearty puff into the morning air, I heard the rumble of an engine not far down the road. “I don't think what you're doing is funny,” I blurted, worrying that the bus must be approaching.

Rose rolled her eyes and let out a groan. “Oh, please, Sylvie. The last thing I need is a lecture from you about smoking. I get enough lectures from Mom and Dad.”

“I'm not talking about smoking. I'm talking about my horses and the—”

“Your horses? You're back on that? I told you, I didn't do it.”

“I don't believe you.” Instead of the bus, a truck rumbled past. But I pressed on with the conversation anyway. “Why should I?”

“Why should you? I don't know. First, you're the only one in our family treating me decently right now. Second, I know those horses actually mean something to you. I wouldn't mess with them. In fact, you can take mine if you want. They're under my bed. Looking at them only makes me think of Howie, which is something I'd rather not do.”

“I thought you liked Uncle Howie?”

“
Liked
. Past tense.”

“What changed?”

“What changed is that I called and asked if I could come live with him.”

“In Tampa?”

“Last I checked that's where he lives, knucklehead.”

Just the thought that Rose might actually find some way to leave home caused an unexpected longing to stir inside, because I was not ready to lose her. “Why would you do that?”

“
Why?
Sylvie, open your eyes. In case you haven't noticed, things aren't exactly working out for me here in Holy Roller Hell. I figured it might be better if I stayed with him. You know, finished up school down there then figured out what to do with my life.”

As we spoke, Rose ran a thumb over the dial on her lighter. Once in a while, she did it hard enough that a flame reared up. She took another puff of her cigarette, blew smoke between us. “Well, I wouldn't like that,” I said.

“And why not?”

I felt silly saying the words, but I said them anyway: “Because I'd miss you.”

My sister looked away from me, back down our street at those old foundations where we used to play, before turning to me again. “Oh. Well, I'd miss you too, kid. But it doesn't matter. Our dear old uncle blew me off. Said he didn't know how long he'd even be in Tampa since he had other plans.”

“What plans?”

“Pipe dreams, really. Crap he blames Dad for getting in the way of all these years. Anyway, who cares? The point is, I'm not a fan of Howie. So the horses in my room, they're yours if you want them.”

“What about Penny?”

“The doll? Well, you can have that too. But you might want to check with the thing's new parents. Mom and Dad, I mean.”

I told her that's not what I was asking, then took a breath and explained what happened the night before. But once I was done with all those details, the most Rose had to say was, “
Three's Company,
huh? Now that's a dopey show. Though I'd like living near the beach in California.”

In the distance, I heard the sound of an engine again. This time, I looked to see that it really was the bus rolling in our direction. Before it got closer, I said, “Tell me you came downstairs and hid Penny on me last night.”

Rose snuffed her cigarette on the bottom of her sneaker before stashing what was left of it in her sock. She reached in her pocket for a stick of gum, folding it into her mouth. The smell of smoke mingled with mint, same as in the park. “That night at the truck stop, when you woke to find the yarn in your hand, remember that?”

“I do.”

“I admit to putting it there. I was just messing with you. Having some fun.”

“I knew it. And the same goes for last night?”

The bus bore down upon us, lumbering to a stop just feet away with a loud squeal of brakes and the roar of teenage voices laughing and hollering inside. The driver, a vest-wearing woman with a ratty ponytail, swung a lever and the door sandwiched open.

“Sorry, Sylvie. Can't cop to that one. Ever since I heard Mom hacking her guts out, I steer clear of that thing. I wasn't kidding when I said it might have germs.”

“Well, then I don't—”

“Are you coming?” the driver called.

My sister moved toward the door, climbed onto the first step. I stood watching, not wanting her to leave just yet. Before disappearing inside, Rose turned back. “We can talk about it later, Sylvie. I've got my own ideas about things that go on inside that house. If you keep your mouth shut, I might tell you.”

With that, the door closed. Through the windows, I saw my sister walk clumsily down the aisle in search of an empty seat as the bus began rolling away. After she was gone, I waited for my bus to arrive. Then I waited all day for school to be done, and for the hours of homework and dinner to pass. A day passed. Two. Three. A week. Another week. Never once did Rose give me so much as a hint of the things we talked about that morning. I could have escorted her to the bus stop again and tried to prod her, but I figured she had made up her mind not to tell me anything after all. Meanwhile, things seemed to return to normal at home, or normal as they could be with that doll smiling from my mother's rocker every time I stepped into the living room.

A
nd then came a day when I walked the packed hallways between classes with Gretchen and Elizabeth. We were discussing an upcoming English exam that had us nervous, since the teacher always threw in a trick question. Last time, it amounted to a simple vocabulary word—
exigency
—that not one of us knew the meaning of. In the middle of our guessing what it would be this time, a voice shouted, “I saw your sister!”

Laughter erupted, and as I was looking around to figure out what was going on, Brian Waldrup stepped in front of me. “I mean you, Wednesday. I saw your sister.”

“That's not my name,” I told him, thinking of the way my mother hated being the center of attention. This was why, I realized, things could turn on you in an instant.

“It's your name now. And I saw your sister.”

“I don't— You saw Rose?”

“No. Penny. That's what you freaks call her, right?”

For just a moment, all the noise and commotion in that hallway seemed to cease. There was Brian with his buzzed hair and ripped jeans. There was Gretchen with her mouth full of braces. There was Elizabeth with her horsey face. I stood, watching as their eyes and so many others fell upon me. “She's not my—I mean, it's not my sister. And I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I think you do,” Brian said, laughing. “So does anyone who looked at today's paper.”

Rather than respond, I started moving again, telling myself I'd go to the library the first chance I got to find the paper he was talking about. Gretchen and Elizabeth followed, though that did not stop Brian from calling after me, saying that name over and over: “Penny! Penny! Penny!” I tried to keep my two friends from hearing any more by talking loud and walking fast. It was some made-up story, I said; he exaggerated things, and it was better to just ignore him. But even as I said those words, I detected something flimsy in my voice. They must have sensed it too, because I glanced over to see a mix of curiosity and confusion on their faces, and I knew then that whatever germs my sister spoke of—real or imagined—had spread, irreversibly, to school now too.

When I arrived home, I found my father in the living room, curio hutch wide open as he inspected the books inside. The phone rang and rang, but he made no move to answer it. I'd long since returned the “history” book, but the sight of him there worried me anyway.
Don't
bring up the article,
I told myself, sensing that it would be better to discuss it with my mother. “What are you looking for?” I asked, trying to sound casual.