Maybe This Time (22 page)

Andie could see the stone floor flickering through May's skirt as she swished it, and the old vertigo came back with a new surge of terror that this was real, that she wasn't hallucinating, that there were ghosts and one of them was talking to her
right now
and the other was at the foot of Alice's bed, that Alice was there,
she had to get Alice out of there
—

If I were you,
May said,
I'd call North. He ought to be here. He ought to help.

“May,” Andie said, making one last grab for sanity. “You're a dream.”

No,
May said, flipping her skirt again, like a teenager trying to be cool.
That was really me, talking to you. I wanted to see if you were a keeper.

“A keeper,” Andie said, her heart pounding as she looked back at the thing at the foot of the bed, terrible in its immobility, more terrible when it moved.
Gotta get Alice out of here, gotta find out if I'm losing my mind, gotta talk to Dennis, gotta get Alice
out
of here
—

The other nannies were boring,
May said.
You're different. And you're married to North Archer.

Andie kept her eye on the thing. “Listen, if it's all right with you, I'll just move Alice into my bedroom—”

My bedroom
.
That's my bedroom. You're just sleeping there.

“The nursery,” Andie said. The thing at the foot of Alice's bed drifted a little as she watched it, like a sheer drapery caught by a draft, but mostly it just stood and stared at Alice. “We'll both sleep in the nursery and you can have your bedroom back—”

She won't let you take Alice.
May left the doorway and came closer, and Andie backed up a step as more cold hit her.
That wack job'll kill you dead if you try to move Alice. I tried to get the kids out of here, I knew they'd have a better life in Columbus if we went to live with North Archer, and that bitch put me over the gallery railing. Alice saw her do it. You'd think she'd have thought of Alice, wouldn't you? What kind of thing is that for a kid to see, her aunt murdered? But no, she put me over right in front of her.
May swished her skirt again.
Of course, she has no brain, so thinking was probably not part of the picture.

“Jesus,” Andie said, looking at the thing at the foot of Alice's bed with even more horror than before. “Does Alice know she's there? Can Alice see her?”

Of course. She's always been there for Alice.

Andie thought of the little girl, living with that horror her entire life. “Oh, God.”

That's nothing. You know why Carter's sleeping in that room at the front of the house? Crumb thinks he killed me and he might do her next, so she keeps him as far away from her as possible, locks her door at night, and drinks herself unconscious. She dragged my body out to the moat so he wouldn't be suspected because she doesn't want anybody shutting this house down, but she won't talk to him because she thinks he did me in. And he thinks Alice did it because I'd kind of yelled at her right before that. You know Alice, she has a temper.

Andie tore her eyes from the thing to face May. “You didn't tell Mrs. Crumb the truth? You didn't tell Carter?”

She doesn't trust me,
May said, her beautiful lips curving in a beautiful dead smile.
She doesn't like me.

Andie swallowed, trying to process it all. She was having another conversation with a ghost. With May, who was practically a pal at this point, especially in comparison with the horror at the foot of Alice's bed. “The . . . thing at the foot of the bed. The one who watches Alice. What . . . who is that?”

An old governess,
May said, drifting up to stand beside Andie, bringing icy cold with her.
Alice calls her “Miss J.” There's not much left of her. It's been over two hundred years. The humanity kind of evaporates after a while and all that's left is the need, the thing they didn't get while they were alive. For her, it's Alice. All she wants is Alice. Try to take Alice from her, hurt Alice, and she'll get rid of you, but she won't talk. She doesn't have anything to say. She's just . . . a need. A thing. A thing that holds on to Alice.

“She won't hurt Alice,” Andie said, zeroing in on the important part.

Her whole existence is Alice. She's still here because Alice is here. She loves her, as much as a thing like that can love.

“Okay,” Andie said, not really reassured but taking what she could get. Her left side was icy cold because May was standing there, but it seemed rude to move away, and until she had a grasp on what the hell was going on, she wasn't doing anything rude. She looked back at the thing. It was still drifting at the foot of Alice's bed, its hands folded at its waist, watching her. “So, listen, I need to go see a friend of mine.”

You need to call North. Things are going to get a lot worse now that all these people are here.

“People.”

There's a lot of energy here now,
May said, stretching like a cat.
Lots of emotion. You know that little blonde who came here with your friend? She's sleeping with the other guy, the one with the camera. And he's jealous of your friend. He had a fight with her earlier tonight. It was fabulous, all that emotion. Perked us all right up.

“Oh, hell,” Andie said, believing every word of it.

No, no, it's good. Makes us stronger. She's probably gonna sleep with your friend tonight, that'll be good for a recharge because the other guy's really jealous. And then when your friend finds out he's being cheated on, we'll really be cooking.
May smiled at Andie.
It was harder when it was just you. You were too calm with the kids, the other nannies went crazy, but you just kept plugging away. We got stronger whenever you talked to North, though. I can't believe you left him. You should call him now, have him come here.

“I'm marrying somebody else,” Andie lied.

May laughed.
Nobody believes that. Even
she
doesn't believe that
—she nodded to the thing at the end of Alice's bed—
and she doesn't have a brain anymore. It's North who makes you hot. Bring him here and we'll all be happy.

“I'm having a hard time with this,” Andie said, holding onto the raveling edges of her sanity while she stared at the thing. It was a ghost. It was definitely a ghost. She was talking to a ghost. They were both ghosts. There were ghosts.
We have ghosts.

May nodded.
Hey, I understand. I didn't even know there were ghosts when I was alive. You're ahead of the game.

“Yay,” Andie said.

Call North. Alice is safe here. Go.

“Right.” Andie looked once more at Alice, wrapped in her comforter and sound asleep, and at the hollow-eyed thing at the end of her bed.

Alice is safe,
May said again.
That thing has been with her since she was born. Go call North.

“Okay,” Andie said. “I'll be back. Don't . . . do anything.”

Then she escaped into the warmth of the hall and ran for Dennis.

 

Half an hour later, after a visit to Alice's room where Dennis failed to see or feel anything out of the ordinary even though the thing was right there at the foot of the bed, Andie stood in the hall just outside
Alice's door listening to him give several non-ghostly explanations for what she'd seen while she kept her eye on the thing. He could talk as long as he liked, but she'd passed from wavering on the ghost question to being a true believer. “There are
ghosts
here,” she told Dennis. “I can't leave Alice alone in there with that thing.” She looked through the door to where Alice slept peacefully under the dead gaze of a dead governess. “I should be in there with her.
She's
in there with her.”

“Okay.” Dennis smiled at her as if she were a stubborn undergraduate. “Let's assume there are ghosts.”

“Yes,
let's.
”

He gave her a stern look. “Hysteria will not help. You're starting to sound like Kelly. Has this ghost ever hurt Alice before?”

“The one at the foot of the bed? No. The other ghost, May, says Alice is safe.”

“Then she is,” Dennis said.

“Dennis, you don't know that, you don't even believe in her. I can't leave my baby in there with her.”

“Alice is not a baby. Alice is an extremely intelligent, extremely adept little girl. Leave her be and go to bed. You're exhausted and hallucinating.”

“Go to bed?
There are ghosts in this house.
I have to do something about this. The séance. My mother said you can ask ghosts to leave in a séance. Is that true?”

“Well, you can ask, but séances are superstition and chicanery,” Dennis said, his basset-hound eyes practically rolling. “You'll just be fueling a charlatan's ego and reputation.”

“Good, we'll do that,” Andie said, and went out into the main hall and headed down the stairs to the second floor to find where Kelly was sleeping.

But Kelly wasn't in her room, and it wasn't until Andie looked over the gallery railing that she found her in the darkened Great Hall, talking in low tones to Bill, the cameraman.

“The séance tomorrow,” Andie called to her over the rickety railing. “Bring on your medium, I'm all for it.”

“Wonderful!” Kelly called back. “Oh, Andie . . . honey . . . that's
wonderful
. Bill and I were just
talking
about that . . . hoping you'd change your mind, and
we're so glad
.” She treated Andie to a flash of teeth in the dim light and then went on, her voice a little unsteady, as if she were drunk. “I'll call Isolde to confirm now that
you're on board
.” Her smile morphed into manufactured sympathy. “You look really wiped out . . . all these
unexpected
guests. You go back up to bed and
get some rest
now.”

“Right,” Andie said, and went back up to Alice's room, sparing a thought about warning Southie that Kelly was two-timing him. And when he asked why, she could tell him that a ghost told her. One crisis at a time.

When Andie went in, the old ghost was still standing at the end of the bed, her hands folded in the flounces of her skirt, her eyes still empty pits, and Alice was still fast asleep. May had been waltzing around in the hall by the bathroom, but she came back in when Andie went in.

Did you call North?

“No,” Andie said, as she felt Alice's forehead for fever or any other signs of distress.

Alice smiled in her sleep and then rolled over.

Alice is fine. I told you, that nightmare has been watching her since birth.

Andie turned on May. “She's a nightmare? What does that make you?”

Hey,
May said.
All I ever did was ask you questions.
She swished her skirts again.
You were sleeping in my bedroom. You owed me that much. When are you going to call North?

“Tomorrow,” Andie lied, sitting down on the floor next to Alice's bed. “It's too late, he'll be in bed now.”

He won't care if it's you.

“No.” Andie leaned her head against Alice's mattress. She wasn't calling North, that was the last thing she needed, North here feeding May's fantasies, not to mention her own. No, she was going to have a séance, tell the ghosts to leave, and then get the kids the hell out of Dodge and back to Columbus. There might be ghosts in Columbus, too, but she was damn sure they weren't in North's house. If they fed on emotion, they'd starve to death there.

Call him tomorrow then,
May said and left, and Andie wrapped her arms around herself against the cold from the thing at the end of the bed and settled down to watch through the night until Alice woke up.

 

When Alice woke up the next morning, she looked at Andie, half asleep with her head on the side of the bed, and said, “What are you doing?”

Andie straightened to get the crick out of her neck and checked out the foot of the bed. Nothing there. “I was worried.”

Alice looked down at her, perplexed. “Why?”

“Because there was a ghost at the end of your bed.”

“There aren't any such things as ghosts.”

“I saw her, Alice,” Andie said, pretty sure it was the right thing to say. “Your aunt May told me all about her. I can see them just like you can.”

Alice stared at her for a long moment, and Andie thought,
She doesn't see ghosts, she thinks I'm crazy, she thinks she's trapped with a crazy person,
and then Alice said, “That's just Miss J. She doesn't hurt me.”

“Miss J.” Andie was torn between relief that Alice saw the ghosts, too, and horror that Alice saw the ghosts, too. “Good to know. We're moving into the nursery anyway.” Andie got up slowly as her muscles screamed. “You and me. There are two beds in there. We'll be roommates.”

Alice shrugged. “Miss J can go in there, too.”

“Yeah, but in there I have a bed,” Andie said, and went to take a shower and face her day.

It began with cornering Carter in the library where he was reading in the window seat, ignoring the storm that still raged outside.

“I talked to your aunt May last night,” she said to him, and watched his eyes freeze on the page. “She said Mrs. Crumb thinks you killed her, but it was the ghost at the foot of Alice's bed who pushed her through the railing because she was going to take Alice away. I don't know how ghosts can push humans, but May says that's what happened.”

He kept his eyes on his book.

“She thinks you think Alice did it.”

He was still for a long time, and she was about to turn away when he said, “Alice wouldn't hurt anybody.”