The Mandie Collection (35 page)

“All kinds of things,” Celia replied as they stepped into the long hallway that was dimly lighted by a lamp sitting on a table near the stairway. “Sometimes we find her eating food out of the icebox, and sometimes she’s curled up asleep in the parlor. We never know where to look for her.”

“Oh goodness!” Mandie exclaimed as they hurried toward the staircase. “Does she ever go outdoors?”

“Not that we know of,” Celia replied as they rushed down the stairwell.

Mandie picked up a lighted lamp at the foot of the stairs, and the two girls hastily searched the whole downstairs. Mollie was nowhere to be found. All the outside doors were securely locked for the night.

“Unless she went up to the third floor, she must have gone outside, but I can’t imagine how she got outside with all the doors locked,” Mandie said as they stopped in the hallway at the foot of the steps.

“Or she could have gone down in the cellar or up in the attic. You know she’s not afraid of anything,” Celia said.

“In the cellar?” Mandie questioned. “Come on. Let’s go look. The door to the cellar is kept locked.”

Mandie led the way to the cellar door in the back hallway next to the kitchen. She hurried to hold the lamp up so she could see the latch on the door. “She can’t be in the cellar. See? The latch is on, so she couldn’t go inside the cellar and lock the door out here behind her.”

“Well, I’m glad we don’t have to go down there,” Celia remarked as she looked at the locked door.

Suddenly there was a metallic sound at the outside back door that was near where the girls stood. They both heard it and silently stood waiting and listening. Snowball’s ears pricked up as he ran toward the door.

“Somebody is coming in,” Celia whispered as she moved closer to Mandie.

“Whoever it is has a key,” Mandie whispered back as she watched the door.

The door opened quickly and Mr. Jason Bond stepped inside. He stopped in surprise when he saw the girls.

Mandie let out a breath of relief as she said, “Thank goodness that was you, Mr. Jason!”

“What are you two doing down here this time of night?” Mr. Bond asked as he closed the door behind him. Snowball rubbed around his legs.

“We’re looking for Mollie. She’s not in her bedroom,” Mandie explained. “Where have you been this time of night, Mr. Jason?”

“On an errand for your uncle,” Mr. Bond said, coming down the hallway toward them. “Now, we probably ought to find that little girl. I’ll help y’all look for her.” He removed his coat and hat and hung them on the hall tree.

“We’ve already searched this floor and she’s not here,” Mandie told him. “And she can’t be in the cellar because the door is locked. And all the outside doors are locked.”

“Then I suppose we ought to look upstairs,” Mr. Bond told the girls. “But we’re going to have to be awfully quiet so we won’t wake everybody up.” He picked up the lamp burning on the table nearby.

Mr. Bond led the way up the stairs to the second floor, and at the top of the steps he turned and motioned for the girls to be quiet. Snowball padded along with him. Even though Celia and her mother and Mollie were visiting, there were several unoccupied bedrooms, and Mr. Bond opened the door to each one as he came to them, stepped inside with the lighted lamp, and the girls quickly followed.

“We should look everywhere in everything,” Celia whispered to them. “Mollie has a way of hiding in strange places, even under beds and in wardrobes.”

Mandie stooped down to look under the huge bed that was high enough off the floor for someone to scoot under it. “Not there,” she muttered as she backed off and stood up.

Celia had gone to the wardrobe and was opening the huge doors on it while Mr. Bond searched behind some of the massive pieces of furniture in the room. Mandie watched and then led the way out into the hallway and into the next unoccupied room. Finally they came to the last room and still had not found Mollie. And they did not find her in any of the unoccupied rooms on the third floor either.

“I suppose we ought to go up to the attic next,” Mr. Bond said in a low voice to the girls as they stood at the end of the hallway.

“I suppose so,” Mandie said with a sigh. “Mollie has to be in the house somewhere.”

“And it’ll soon be time for everyone to get up,” Celia said. Looking at Mandie, she added, “You wanted to get up early, remember?”

Mandie suddenly realized what her friend was talking about. She had wanted to catch Mr. Bond and ask him about his errand, but here he was and he had practically ignored her question when he first came in the back door. How was she going to find out exactly where he had been? There must be some mystery attached to Mr. Bond’s goings and comings because he and her uncle didn’t seem to want to talk about whatever they were doing.

Mr. Bond started down the hallway toward the steps to the attic. He stopped and looked back at the girls. “Now, if y’all don’t want to go up to the attic with me, I can look around up there by myself.” He paused and grinned at them as he added, “I’m not afraid.”

Both the girls laughed softly.

“I’m not afraid of the dark old attic,” Mandie said in a low voice. “Let’s go.”

“And neither am I,” Celia added.

The three slowly and carefully ascended the stairs to the attic. Mandie knew some of the steps creaked, and she tried to avoid them. She certainly didn’t want her mother or Uncle John or Celia’s mother to wake and come to see what was going on.

Mandie was still carrying the lamp she had picked up at the foot of the main staircase, and Mr. Bond had the one he had brought from the downstairs hallway. Together the lamps illuminated the huge dark attic enough for them to walk around between the many, many boxes, trunks, pieces of furniture, and other items in the room.

“Mollie,” Mandie softly called as she went to one side and Mr. Bond investigated the other part. Celia stayed close to Mandie. Snowball had followed them, and he playfully pounced about.

Mr. Bond stepped over to Mandie’s side to say, “Don’t forget. Liza and Aunt Lou have rooms beneath here.”

“Right,” Mandie agreed in a whisper. She continued on around the room.

After a while Mr. Bond motioned to the two girls to follow him as he went toward the door. Mandie and Celia caught up with him, and he said in a low whisper, “That little girl is not here. Let’s go back down to the first floor. And please be quiet.”

“Yes, sir,” the two girls spoke in unison as they followed him out of the attic, down the stairway, all the way to the first floor. He stopped at the bottom of the staircase. Snowball ran on down the hallway toward the front of the house.

“I am going to the kitchen to find a bite to eat since I missed supper last night,” Mr. Bond told them. “I don’t know what to say about the little girl. She’s just not in this house. Maybe she’ll come back on her own. I’ll look around after I eat.” He went toward the back hallway.

“We’ll go to the parlor and wait for you, Mr. Bond,” Mandie told him.

Mandie and Celia sat down on a settee in the parlor after Mandie had placed the lighted lamp on a table. The fire in the fireplace the night before had turned to cold ashes and the room was chilly. The girls curled up in their long heavy robes and discussed the situation. Snowball was already there sitting on the hearth.

“This is unbelievable,” Celia remarked. “How could Mollie disappear with all the doors locked?”

Mandie suddenly had an idea. “Oh, Celia, I know of one possibility,” she said quickly. “Maybe Mollie went to somebody’s room and got in the bed with them—your mother, or even Aunt Lou. Maybe she got scared all by herself in that room we put her in.”

“I don’t believe she’s ever done that before, but then this is a strange house to her,” Celia replied. “But, Mandie, we certainly can’t go looking in people’s rooms while they’re asleep.”

“No, I guess not,” Mandie agreed. “But this has me really puzzled.”

“I think we should go back to bed. We’ve done the best we can to find her, and we do need a little more sleep before breakfast time,” Celia said.

Mandie yawned in spite of herself. “I know, but I was hoping Mr. Jason would come in here before he goes to bed,” she said. “And maybe he’ll tell us where he’s been.”

“Mandie, I don’t think he’s going to tell us a single thing,” Celia said. “He didn’t explain anything when he told us he had been on an errand. Why don’t we just go back to bed?”

“You go ahead. I’ll go after Mr. Jason comes back in here,” Mandie told her friend.

Snowball suddenly jumped up from his place on the hearth and meowed loudly. He raced across the room and jumped up on a table by a window that was on the front of the house.

Mandie quickly stood up and said, “Snowball, get down from there!” She ran over to the table as she called to Celia. “Look! Look!”

Celia hurried after her.

“There’s Mollie!” Mandie exclaimed as she saw the little girl outside on the porch trying to raise the window. “And she must have gone out through this window!” She reached up and locked it as Mollie watched. “I’ll let her in through the front door.” She motioned for Mollie to go on down the porch.

When Mandie opened the front door, Mollie was standing there in her nightgown and was terribly excited about something. “Come to the parlor,” Mandie told her as she went back down the hallway. Mollie followed.

“Mollie, where have you been?” Celia asked as she met them in the doorway to the parlor.

“I be seein’ one of them angel people like me aunt Lou told me about,” Mollie said, rushing excitedly about the room. “Me aunt Lou was right. They do be angel people, all white like she be sayin’. The angel people kin talk, too. But the angel people flew away while I be watchin’. All white and—”

“Mollie, come here and sit down,” Mandie told her as she grasped the little girl’s hand and led her to the settee, where the three of them sat down. Snowball meowed loudly and jumped up between Mollie and Celia.

“But, Mandie, I be sayin’—”

“Mollie!” Mandie said loudly. “Please be quiet a minute. I want to ask you some questions.” She still held the little girl’s hand.

Mollie jerked her hand out of Mandie’s and said, “I be quiet if’n ye don’t be squeezin’ me hand.” She flexed her fingers, pretending to be hurt.

Mandie quickly reached down and kissed the little girl’s hand. “I’m sorry, Mollie, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said. “Now let’s begin at the beginning. Where have you been? We’ve looked the house over for you, and it’s the middle of night. We all need to be in bed and asleep.”

Mollie looked up at her with her bright blue eyes and said, “But, Mandie, I was in the bed, and this angel people—I really be sure it was a leprechaun angel, that it was—it came to me bed and asked me to follow it. So I—”

“You must have been dreaming, Mollie,” Celia said. “The house was all locked up and nobody could get in.”

Mollie looked at Celia and said, “Oh, but mistaken ye be. All the doors was locked, but this leprechaun angel showed me the way to the window over there. It was open, it was. And it says to me real softlike, ‘follow, follow,’ and I follow. I be thinkin’ this leprechaun angel may be takin’ me to its pot o’ gold, so I go out the window—”

“Where did you go when you went out the window, Mollie?” Celia asked.

“There be a house back there with horses in it, there is,” Mollie told her. “I be followin’ this leprechaun angel, and it went into this house, and I followed just like it told me, but then I couldn’t find it, I couldn’t. It went plumb away, bless Pat, plumb away, gone.” She shook her head sadly.

“You were gone a long time, Mollie, because we have been searching the whole house for you,” Mandie told her.

“I be gone a long time because I be lookin’ to find the leprechaun angel, but that I could not do,” Mollie explained. “I looked and looked and looked, in all the bushes and behind all the trees, but it went away, it did.”

“What did this thing, or person, look like? Was it tall or short? A man or a woman? Did it say anything else to you?” Mandie asked as she studied the little girl’s face.

“It was tall—taller than you, Mandie,” Mollie explained. “But I don’t be knowin’ what it might be lookin’ like ’cause it didn’t have a face. It was covered up all over with white linen, just like me mither made in Belfast Mill, and it said nary a word to me but ‘follow, follow,’ and so I followed. But it floated away, sure it did, and I looked and looked and could not find it. Why do ye be supposin’ it told me to follow it and then it would not let me find it agin?” She looked at Mandie and then at Celia with a puzzled expression on her face.

Mandie and Celia looked at each other over her head, neither one knowing what to make of this tale.

At that moment Jason Bond came into the parlor. He smiled when he saw Mollie. “So you found her, did you?” he said to Mandie and Celia. He sat down in a chair.

“No, not exactly,” Mandie replied, and she explained what had taken place. “So now we don’t know exactly what happened.”

“At least she’s back, safe and sound,” Mr. Bond said. Lowering his voice he added, “You might try turning the key, you know, tonight.” He made a motion to indicate locking the door.

“If I can figure out how to do that without a loud protest,” Mandie replied. She noticed that Mollie was listening to every word, but she doubted that the little girl would understand what they were saying.

Jason Bond stood up and said, “I believe it’s time for me to get a little sleep. Gotta get up early again in the morning.” He started toward the doorway.

“Mr. Jason, do you have to go on another errand for my uncle?” Mandie asked quickly.

Mr. Bond stopped to look back at her and to say, “Now, you know your uncle’s business is confidential and I can’t discuss it with anyone, so I think you shouldn’t worry your pretty little head over such things. And I also think you girls, all three of you, should crawl back in your beds and get some sleep. Otherwise y’all are going to be awfully sleepyheaded tomorrow. Night, night, now.” He went out into the hallway.

“Guess we might as well,” Mandie said as she rose from the settee. “Come on, Mollie, we’re all going back to bed.”

“Are ye sure we must go to bed?” Mollie asked, standing up.