Scarecrow (28 page)

I paused outside Franny’s room, my pulse quickening.

Girlie was standing in the doorway, silhouetted there against the waning light.

She took a step toward me, cut in half by a shadow. It angled down across her face, showing one huge eye that pulled me to her with its sorrowful intensity.

“What is it?” I murmured, though somehow in that split instant, I
knew
—I
knew
what I didn’t even want to suspect—or believe—I
knew
—and there was no escaping it now—no hope.

“Franny’s gone.” Her lip trembled, her one eye glowing with slow, brimming tears. “Franny won’t come back.”

And I pushed past her into the room, my eyes sweeping over the bed, the shoes, the tumbled covers as if someone had struggled, blankets tossed about as if someone had fought for her life and couldn’t escape, the covers and the empty silent room and
my God my God why didn’t I think of it before oh Franny oh God help us
—

And I fell upon the wooden chest and twisted the latch, tearing my fingers, not feeling the catch slippery with my blood, and I finally, finally pulled it free…flinging up the lid…crying out in pain and rage—

She wasn’t dead.

She was lying there, curled and stiff, like a baby in its mother’s womb.

But her eyes were open in a vacant stare, her mouth in a silent, endless scream…

There was mud on her face…in her hair…all over her torn nightgown.

Dried mud.

Bloodstains.

And straw.

G
IRLIE SEEMED TO FIND
a refuge within herself that Rachel and I didn’t possess. She sat and played quietly with her toys for the rest of the evening. She didn’t eat. She wouldn’t talk. Except for her total silence it was as if nothing had happened to upset her small, safe world.

With Rachel and me, it was different. We couldn’t just carry on and pretend as though nothing had happened. Not with everything crumbling down around us.

Between the two of us we managed to lift Franny into the bed. She didn’t even bend as we lifted her. Every joint was locked into place, and she lay there in that horrid fetal position as Rachel piled on blankets to keep her warm. In the back of my mind I could hear Rachel’s sharp, quick gasps, “My Lord…oh my Lord…” but she sounded faraway, and when her hand clamped onto my arm I jumped at the coldness of it.

“She’s in shock,” Rachel told me. “She doesn’t even see us.”

I’d been sitting beside Franny for a long time now, speaking to her in low tones, rubbing her clenched fists, trying to unpry the fingers that wouldn’t loosen.

“Franny…Franny…we’re here,” I mumbled, but Rachel shook her head.

“She can’t hear you. Her mind is someplace else.”

Someplace else…
Franny’s eyes, wide and staring, bore into my face but were fixed on a nightmare. Quick, cruel images battered at my brain—Franny terrified, Franny screaming, Franny trying to get away—I thought of how she must have suffered, how nobody had come to help her…

“But I didn’t hear anything,” I said under my breath, and Rachel, shaking out another blanket, glanced at me, baffled.

“What?”

“I said I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t hear her scream—and I was sitting there all night—”

“Pamela, what are you talking about?”

“I thought I’d imagined it, I’d had too much to drink—you said yourself the whiskey could cause nightmares—”

“Yes, but I don’t—”

“And I thought I dreamed the whole thing, don’t you see? But maybe it was real—”

“Pamela—” Rachel gave me a shake. “Pamela, I don’t know what’s happening here, but please don’t fall apart on me now. I need you!” Her voice rose, tinged with hysteria. My fingers closed over her own. “Pamela, what’s wrong with you? You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“Those noises, Rachel…” My voice sounded empty, I knew, and I felt her eyes on me, apprehensive, waiting. “You remember those awful noises you told me about the other day—the shuffling sounds you said you heard?” I knew she understood me now, for her puzzled expression gave way to suspicion, then fear, and though I knew I shouldn’t say anything more to upset her, I couldn’t stop myself. “I told you they weren’t anything, but I lied. I heard them before—the night you found me outside by the barn—and last night I heard them here—in the house.”

“You…heard…”

“In the hall outside my room.”

Her hand flew to her breast. I looked up at her, babbling again. “I thought it had to be a dream, Rachel, like you said. I’d woken up, so hot and queasy. I thought it was the whiskey, and remembering what you and I had talked about yesterday…” My words tumbled out helplessly. “I was terrified in the barn that night—and Franny had heard the sounds, too—and then you admitted you’d heard them—and everyone tells me what Girlie’s capable of doing—I
wanted
it to be a dream,” I said again, and saw my dread mirrored in Rachel’s eyes. “But—oh God—”

“What are you saying?” her voice trembled. “What are you telling me?”

“The floor was dry this morning,” I said, knowing it sounded insane. “I checked the hall and it was dry, too, and there wasn’t anything on the floor. It—the dream thing—tried to open my door. But the doorknob was clean.”

Silence hung endlessly between us.

“It can’t be,” Rachel said at last, sinking down beside me on the bed. “No…no…it can’t be…”

“Look at her nightgown, Rachel. The mud on her face.
How the hell did it get there
?”

“I don’t know!” She jumped up again, covering her face with her hands. “Oh, Lord,
I don’t know
!”

The room plunged into silence. Like statues we clenched our fears to us, her at the window, me on the bed, the darkness closing us in, closing us off from reality. Franny lay there, staring and empty, trapped in a darkness of her own.

After a long, long while Rachel’s voice ventured out of the shadows. “You think…it’s Girlie.”

“I don’t know what to think. My God,
listen
to me. I don’t want to believe any of this at all.”

“But you
heard
something—”

“Something, yes, I
thought
I heard something, but my mind was all fuzzy…” Nothing was making sense anymore. I buried my face in my hands. I forced myself to be calm. “I heard something. I checked the hall. I sat there till morning.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

I sighed, meeting her eyes reluctantly. “I was scared, Rachel. Scared out of my mind. I don’t remember ever being that scared in my whole life.”

I heard her move to my side. Her hand went gently to my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said.

I nodded, covering her hand with my own. “Rachel, if it really
did
happen—if I really
was
awake—I never heard Franny scream. I never heard another thing.”

“Maybe she couldn’t scream.”

The implication was grim. I glanced at Franny’s mouth, a stiff circle of fear. If she
had
screamed, someone could have helped her…saved her…she’d still be with us now, laughing, mischievous…
Oh, Franny, what did you see?

“I’m scared, Pamela,” Rachel said.

Again I nodded, squeezing her hand, a desperate bond flowing between us.

“What can we do for Franny?” I asked wearily.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Keep her warm. Talk to her. I’ll brew her some herb tea. It might help, if she can just swallow it.”

I stared at the deathly white face, the soulless eyes.
Dear God…she looks like a scarecrow.

“I told her not to put that idea in Girlie’s head,” Rachel said hollowly “I
told
her—” Abruptly she broke off and hurried from the room.

I sat for a long while, chafing Franny’s tight fists, her cold wrists, talking to her, reassuring her as if she could hear. I didn’t want to think about the horrors that were gathering around me—the impossibilities all too quickly closing in, with their changing faces of stark, ugly truth.
Oh, Seth, where are you
?

For the first time I was beginning to feel the power of this place, the unchecked power of broken rituals that had seemed childish and laughable before. Had it really started with that scarecrow? My mind reeled, pulling events together in a sort of crazy puzzle. I had nearly been killed. Micah had been restrained in the nick of time. I had seen the secret burying ground in the cave, been let in on the family’s terrible shame. Dewey hadn’t shown up. There had been a snowfall uncommon for this time of year. All three of us—Rachel, Franny, and myself—had heard unearthly sounds that had frightened us. Girlie had promised Franny that she would bring something back. Something had entered the barn that night. I had been found in a place I couldn’t remember going to. Seth had disappeared. Girlie had shown me a picture of myself and confided her wish to me. Something had tried my door—changed its mind for some reason—then sent Franny into a state of semideath.
Micah can’t sleep…poor Micah…

But what about the straw? Frowning, I pulled a slender piece of it from Franny’s matted hair and examined it closely. For a brief moment I could actually hear Franny’s voice again, teasing, as she’d wished her scarecrow back to life so that he could love her always…

The memory repelled me. I flicked the straw away as if it were alive, and turned to the bloodstains on her gown, my frown deepening.

Then I remembered.

That day in the cellar, when Girlie had been so intent on showing me something, how I’d inspected those awful chains again, and found them caked with human flesh. Again I saw Girlie, kneeling, scratching through the straw—
the straw
—and the rusty brown stains—and the damp, clotted straw—
the straw…the blood…that’s where I saw them before…

And the idea was in my head before I even realized, before I even let go of Franny’s nightgown and sat back, surveying her with mingled sorrow and a love that ached inside me…

There was only one way, really, to be sure.

I knew what I had to do.

I
DON’T KNOW HOW
I got through the rest of the night.

Somehow I went through the motions of fixing supper, of eating, of washing up. Girlie went to bed, and Rachel and I sat, each of us wrapped in our own little cocoons of fear, starting at every noise, looking hopefully at the door, only to fall back, disappointed, into our worst imaginings.

I looked in often on Franny, but there was no change. The look of terror remained, and what was left of the girl I’d known kept itself hunched in a ball on the bed, fists knotted to fend off perpetual darkness.

“There isn’t anything you can do,” Rachel told me, glancing up sadly from the untouched sewing in her lap.

But I could be there. Whether Franny knew it or not, I could be there with her, where I should have been when she needed me most. I felt that I’d failed her.

“It’s not your fault,” Rachel said at length, as I dragged myself downstairs and back into the parlor for the fifth time.

“I should have heard her—”

“But you said she didn’t scream.”

“No…she didn’t scream…”And I felt the confusion closing in around me, choking off all sense of logic. No, she didn’t scream…
but maybe she did scream and I just didn’t hear her…

“I would have heard her.” Rachel’s words broke into my thoughts, reading them as she so often seemed able to do. “My room’s closer than yours. If she’d screamed, I’d have heard her.”

“But you didn’t hear the noises—something in the hall?”

“No,” Rachel dropped her eyes again. “No, I didn’t hear anything like that.”

And so we sat. And the hours ticked by. And I willed myself to stay awake because there was still so much I had to do…

It was nearly one when Rachel rose from her chair. She pulled her shawl listlessly around her shoulders and began to bank the fire.

“Something’s happened to him,” she said tonelessly. “I know it. He wouldn’t stay gone this long if something wasn’t wrong.” She turned to face me, placing the poker back on the hearth. “I’m going out to look for him.”

“I’ll go with you,” I promised. “As soon as it’s light, we’ll go.” I put my arm around her; together we went up the stairs. “Try to sleep,” I urged her. “You’ll feel better if only you can rest.”

“I’ll try.” She attempted a smile but her face was empty of emotion. “Good night, Pamela. I’m glad you’re here.”

I nodded, waiting until her door closed. Then I slipped in to check on Franny. There was no change. I wondered if she had found some temporary release somewhere behind her wide-open eyes. I pulled her door shut and went to my room.

Time crawled endlessly. I sat stiffly at the foot of my bed, trying to count off minutes in my head. The house creaked around me, noises I’d never noticed before.
Would it come back?
My eyes fixed themselves on the doorknob though the image was blurry from shadows and my own weariness. Had that thing claimed Franny and gone away unsatisfied? Would it lurch back along the hall tonight and try for me again? I prayed that Rachel had fallen asleep, that she wasn’t sitting as I was, analyzing the night, trying with every bit of willpower to keep Seth out of my mind. I couldn’t let myself think about him now. I couldn’t let Rachel know that I shared her fears, that I felt in my heart that something was terribly wrong or he’d be home with us now.

I couldn’t think about what might be waiting…or happening.

I needed all my wits about me, to do what I had to do.

At long last I decided to move. There had been no sound from Rachel’s room, and I figured enough time had passed by now that she would be asleep. I had to move quickly and quietly. I had no idea how long my task would take, or how soon morning might come. There was no time to lose.

Scarcely daring to breathe, I put my ear against my door and listened. The house, for the moment, seemed to have tired of its restlessness, and was filled with deep silence. Gritting my teeth, I eased through the narrow crack and slipped out into the hall.

I kept to the middle, guiding myself purely by instinct now. I couldn’t risk even the telltale brush of my fingertips against the wall. Outside Girlie’s door I paused to listen. Nothing. Franny’s door…now Rachel’s…inch by painstaking inch I trusted my memory to steer me. I clamped my hand over my mouth, to keep my heart from leaping out, not stopping until I reached the door in the kitchen. This was better—I had done this successfully before—and with a welcome surge of confidence I found myself out in the yard, able to breathe at last.