Wait Till Helen Comes (10 page)

"I can't find her," she cried. Her hand went to her throat; her fingers fumbled for the locket. "Where is it?" she cried. "What did you do with it?"

"I gave it back to her!" I peered into the rain, thinking I saw Helen's pale form hovering under a nearby willow tree. "She can't take you if you're not wearing it, can she?"

"How could you do it?" Heather wept. "How could you? My only friend, my only friend."

Struggling to my feet, I half carried, half dragged Heather toward Harper House. To my relief, she seemed to have lost her strength, her will to fight me. Faintly, I could hear Helen crying, but Heather seemed oblivious to everything. As limp as a doll, she allowed me to haul her into the ruins.

Soaked to the skin, shivering with cold, we both needed dry clothes and warmth, but the best I could do was the room Michael and I had found the last time we'd been here. At least the little bit of roof over our heads would protect us from the rain.

"This way, Heather." I guided her through the door, stepping carefully on the floorboards. "Maybe we can find matches here, light a fire or something."

My teeth were chattering so hard I could barely speak, but Heather wasn't listening anyway. Listlessly, she stared straight ahead, walking by my side like a zombie or the victim of a terrible disaster.

Halfway across the floor, I heard a splintering sound. The boards under our feet gave way and the two of us plunged downward, still holding on to each other as we fell, too frightened even to cry out.

14

TANGLED TOGETHER, Heather and I landed on a dirt floor. For a few seconds, neither of us moved nor spoke, too shocked to understand what had happened. Finally I opened my eyes and looked up. Above my head was the hole we had fallen through, its edges ragged. A gray light shone down through it, but all around us was darkness smelling of mold and damp earth and age. Shivering, I turned to Heather. "Are you all right?"

"Helen put us here," Heather whispered. "She hates me now because of you and what you did." She crouched beside me, trembling with fear and cold.

Uneasily I gazed upward at the hole, expecting to see Helen peering down at us, laughing. Nothing was there.

"Why didn't you let me go with her?" Heather sobbed. "It sounded so beautiful. Rainbows every day, unicorns eating roses, mermaids singing—nothing ugly or hateful." Heather began sobbing again, and I put my arm around her, trying to comfort her.

She immediately stiffened and pulled away from me. "Don't touch me," she wept. "Get away from me; I don't want you near me!"

"I didn't know you were so unhappy," I said, thinking how well she'd hidden her misery behind hateful looks and nasty acts. I pulled her back against me, shocked at how small and bony she was. "Like me or not," I said, holding her tightly, "we have to stay close to each other for warmth. People can die of this kind of cold."

"I don't care if I do die," Heather sobbed. "In fact, I hope I do. Then I could be with Helen again and go to her kingdom and be happy."

"But remember, Heather, she told you your father wouldn't be there. You might hate Michael and me and even Mom, but you don't hate him. You love him."

"But what she said is true. If he knew how bad I am, he wouldn't love me anymore."

"Why do you think you're so bad, Heather?" I peered at her small white face, yearning to read the thoughts hidden behind the mask she wore. "What did you do?"

"I can't tell; I can't tell ever. Only Helen understands." She struggled again to break away from me, but when I tightened my grip, she gave up and slumped against my side, her face hidden.

"It has something to do with the fire, doesn't it?" I stared at the dark, wet tangles of hair snaking over her shoulders. "You and Helen. Both of your mothers died in a fire."

"Don't talk about the fire!" Heather's head came up and her eyes met mine, searching, pleading.

"You started the fire." I sucked in my breath, realizing that I must have suspected it all along. "And so did she—that's it, isn't it?"

"No, no, Molly, don't say it, don't say it!" Heather put a cold hand over my mouth, trying to silence me. But it was too late. We clung to each other in the dark.

"I didn't mean to," Heather sobbed. "I was only little; I didn't know about the stove! I thought I could hide; I thought the fire would go away, but it got bigger and bigger, and Mommy was looking for me, calling me, and I didn't answer because I thought she was going to spank me. Then I didn't hear her anymore and there was smoke everywhere. A fireman came and he picked me up and carried me away, but Mommy wasn't anywhere. She wasn't anywhere, and it was all my fault, Molly!"

Heather clung to me, weeping. "Don't tell Daddy, Molly; please don't tell Daddy. Don't tell him it was me who made Mommy die. He'll hate me; he'll hate me!"

"Oh, Heather, Heather." Cradling her in my arms, I rocked her as if she were a baby. My own tears splashed down on her dark head. "It wasn't your fault, Heather. You were only three years old. Your father would never hate you, never. You didn't mean it to happen."

But she didn't say anything. She kept crying as if she would never stop. As I hugged her, I wished that I had been kinder, more understanding, instead of resenting her so much. But how could I have known she was guarding such an awful secret?

After she cried herself to sleep, I sat still and wondered what we were going to do. It was dark now. The thunder and lightning had faded away like a retreating army, leaving behind a rear guard of rain. Our clothes were beginning to dry, but we were still damp and cold. I could feel Heather shivering in her sleep.

Overhead the ruins creaked and groaned as the wind prowled through the rooms and crept through holes in the walls. Uneasily, I remembered the stones falling from the walls during Michael's and my last visit. Heather had been so sure that Helen was responsible for what happened then—and now. Had Helen really cast us down into this place, trapped us here for some awful purpose?

Heather stirred and moaned in her sleep, and I held her tighter, determined to comfort her. "It's all right, Heather," I whispered.

"I want Daddy." She opened her eyes and looked up at me. "Why hasn't he come to get us?"

"Maybe he and Mom are still in Baltimore."

"But it's dark, Molly." Heather frowned at me. "He loves Jean more than me. He doesn't care what happens to me anymore."

"You know that's not true."

"She took him away from me." Heather's voice was small and cold. She sat up and wiggled out of my embrace.

Not wanting her to slip back into that way of thinking, I shook my head. "Look, Heather, don't you think Michael and I feel the same way sometimes? We were perfectly happy living with Mom after our father left. We didn't want to share her with Dave and you, but she loves him and he loves her. They love us too. Maybe we just have to learn to be a family. All of us. You and Michael and me and Mom and Dave."

She shook her head, unconvinced. "Daddy and I were a family. Just the two of us. And Grandmother."

"Well, Michael and Mom and me were a family, too. But now we're a bigger family."

"But not better." She stuck out her lip, pouting.

"But we'll get better. Starting with you and me, Heather." I reached out and grasped her hand. "I'll be your sister, Heather, if you'll be my sister."

She regarded me soberly, examining my face for signs of deception. "And you won't tell Daddy about the fire?"

"No, I won't tell him." I paused, squeezing her hand tighter. "But I think you should."

"Oh, no, Molly." Heather jerked her hand away. "No, don't make me do that. I can't, I can't."

"But if you tell him, you'll know he loves you." I stood up, following her as she backed away from me.

"No, no," she moaned. "No."

"Come back here, Heather." I reached for her and missed as she slipped away from me, still crying. "I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do. All I'm saying is—" But I didn't get a chance to finish my sentence. As I lunged toward her, eager to explain, I stumbled and nearly fell.

"What's this?" I picked up a round object from a heap of rubble. When I realized what sort of eyes I was staring into, I recoiled in horror and hurled the thing into the darkness. I heard it clatter against something unseen and pulled Heather close to me, feeling her body tremble against mine.

"What was it, Molly?" she whispered.

"A skull," I gasped. "It was a human skull! I saw its eyes!"

Heather pressed her knuckles to her mouth and stared fearfully into the shadows where I had thrown the skull. "It's them," she cried. "It's them!"

"Who?" I clung to her, terrified, imagining that we were buried alive in a hideous family crypt, surrounded by the bones of Helen's victims.

"Helen's mother. And her stepfather. They were trapped in the house in the fire, and nobody ever found their bodies." Heather's voice was shaky too.

The two of us edged back to the middle of the tiny room. A little light still shone through the hole over our heads, making the shadows around us seem darker and more menacing. What other hideous things lurked there, waiting for us?

For a while neither of us spoke. The only sounds were the drip of the rain and the cheep-cheep-cheep of a cricket. The small, cheerful noise seemed very out of place in our grim surroundings.

"Heather," I said, breaking the silence at last. "Did Helen start the fire?"

She nodded. "But she didn't mean to. She was arguing with her stepfather and she knocked an oil lamp over. The tablecloth and the drapes caught fire, and Helen ran out of the room. The fire spread so fast; it trapped her mother and her stepfather. Helen heard her mother calling her, and then the floor caved in. She ran outside, into the pond." Heather hid her face in her hands and wept. "She's been alone ever since, Molly."

"But the other little girls, the ones who drowned in the pond." I leaned toward Heather. "What happened to them? Why aren't they with her?"

"They wouldn't stay. They always faded away and left her. She doesn't know where they went. To their parents maybe. They didn't love her enough to stay." Heather leaned against me, sobbing. "And now I've left her too, and she's still alone."

I stroked her hair and tried to comfort her, wishing Mom were here. Surely she and Dave had returned from Baltimore and noticed that we were missing. Why hadn't they come to rescue us?

"I'm so cold," Heather whimpered. "So cold."

The temperature seemed to be plummeting, and the air smelled more strongly of decay and stagnation. A glimmer of light drew my attention to the hole above us. Helen was kneeling on the floor, peering down at us. The silver chain hung from her neck, the heart slowly turning, reflecting the bluish glow of her skin.

"It was my fault," Helen cried, stretching out her hands. "My fault, Mama."

Heather looked up, then shrank against me, her bony shoulder blades jabbing against my chest. "I don't want to go with her anymore, Molly," she whispered. "Don't let her take me."

I held her tightly. "Don't worry," I whispered. "I'll protect you."

"Mama, Mama, I'm sorry," Helen wailed above us. She looked more tragic than frightening, and I ached with pity for her. She seemed unaware of Heather and me. All that existed for her was her own sorrow. Slowly she dropped down through the hole and glided past us into the shadows where I'd hurled the skull. Dropping to her knees, she whispered, "Forgive me, Mama, forgive me."

She paused. In the glow she cast, I could see two skeletons. Extending her hand, she reached out toward them. "And you too, Papa Robert. I didn't mean for you to die. Nor Mama either. Nor me, nor me."

She knelt motionless by the skeletons, her head bowed, weeping. Heather's hand closed around mine. "Poor Helen," she whispered.

As I watched, another figure appeared in the cellar. From mist it seemed to form itself into a woman wearing a long dress. Smiling, she drew Helen to her feet and embraced her, comforting her, stroking her hair, rocking her gently. For several seconds, the two figures shimmered in the darkness. Then they disappeared as quickly as images on a screen vanish when the projector is turned off. Slowly the terrible cold subsided, and I knew that Heather and I were alone and out of danger.

"It was Helen's mother," I whispered.

Heather squeezed my hand. "She forgave her, Molly; she forgave her." She looked up at me and smiled. "She knew it was an accident; she knew Helen didn't mean for them to die."

"I know." I returned the squeeze, marveling at the tiny bones in her hand.

"Helen isn't alone anymore. She isn't sad." Heather gazed at me. "Do you think my mother has forgiven me?"

"Oh, Heather, she forgave you long ago."

"And Daddy—if I tell him, do you think he'll forgive me?"

"I'm sure he will."

Heather relaxed and leaned against me, her thumb seeking her mouth. "
I
wish he would come and get us," she sighed. "I want to go home."

"So do I." I toyed with her hair, twining it round my finger. It was dry now, silky soft against my skin. Tonight, I thought, when we were safely home, I would brush it for her till it shone.

15

HOURS SEEMED TO PASS while Heather slept. The rain stopped. Above my head, I could see a few stars through the holes in the roof. From somewhere in the woods an owl hooted, and the cricket continued to chirp, safe in his hiding place. Just as I was falling asleep, I heard Michael calling me.

Nudging Heather awake, I jumped to my feet. "Down here!" I yelled. "We're down here!"

I heard someone enter the room above us. "Careful," I shouted, "the floor's weak. Heather and I fell through."

A flashlight beamed down on Heather and me, and Michael yelled, "Dave, here they are!"

In a moment, Dave was lowering himself cautiously through the hole. Embracing Heather, he cried, "You're all right, thank God you're all right."

"Molly saved me," Heather said, clinging to him. "I almost drowned in the pond, and she saved me."

Dave put an arm around me and hugged me against his side, with Heather between us. "We've been so worried. What were you doing here?"

Before I could answer, I heard Michael gasp, "There's bones down there!" He was crouching above us, beaming his flashlight into the corner where the skeletons lay. In the circle of light, we saw them huddled together, still wearing the rags of their clothing.

"They've been here ever since the fire," I told Dave.

"They're Helen's parents," Heather added. "You don't have to worry, Daddy; they won't hurt you."

Dave did look a little edgy, I thought. "Let's get you home," he said to Heather. "You too, Molly." He hoisted Heather onto the floor above us, and Michael helped her to her feet. Then Dave boosted me up, and pulled himself up after me.

"Oh, Molly." Mom was kneeling in the doorway, her arms around Heather. She reached out for me and I ran to her, clinging to her as shamelessly as a baby. "I've been so scared," Mom said, hugging me tightly.

Dave picked up Heather and turned back to Michael. "Come on," he said. "The girls need to get home and have a nice hot bath."

Michael was still peering into the darkness of the cellar, playing the beam of his flashlight on the bones. "Isn't it against the law to leave bones lying around unburied?" he asked Mom.

She moved cautiously to his side and looked over his shoulder. "They were buried," she said uncertainly, "till now."

"I'd guess that nobody knew the cellar was there," Michael mused. "Most of the ceiling fell down and blocked this room. If you all hadn't fallen through the floor, those bones would have lain there forever."

Dave nodded. He was still standing in the doorway, holding Heather. "I'll call the police when we get back to the church," he said. "They ought to be given a decent burial."

"Couldn't I keep them?" Michael asked. "I could study them, learn all about them. It would be a great science project!"

"Michael!" Mom stared at her offspring, obviously shocked.

"Well, they have bones in science class. And medical students study them. Why can't I? It's scientific."

"They have to be buried with Helen," Heather said. "Families are always buried together."

"Like the Berrys," I said, walking out of the house with Mom.

"What are you two talking about?" Dave asked.

"You know that little tombstone in the graveyard?" I watched Michael, waiting for him to make a derogatory remark about ghosts. But he was absorbed in shining his flashlight far ahead, watching its beam fan out into a circle as he played it across the woods.

"Well," I went on, "Helen Harper is buried there. She lived in this house, and when it burned down, her parents died. Their bones are in the cellar, but they should be buried with Helen, like Heather says."

Heather and I looked at each other, firmly united. "Please, Daddy, tell the police so they'll know," she said.

"It's very important to you, isn't it?" Dave hugged Heather and she nodded.

"It's important to Helen, too," she said. "And Molly."

Dave smiled at me. "Is this some sort of an alliance?"

Slipping my arm around Mom's waist, I smiled back. "It sure is," I said.

When we got home, Heather and I each had a hot bath and steaming cups of herb tea before we went to bed. After Dave and Mom said goodnight and left us alone in the dark, Heather said, "I'm sorry I told Helen to wreck your things, Molly. If I could, I'd make her come back and fix everything. Your stuff, and Michael's and Jean's, too."

"It's all right, Heather. It wasn't your fault. Helen possessed you, I think."

"But not anymore," Heather said.

"No, she's gone now."

"With her mother." Heather yawned.

"And her stepfather," I added. "They're a family now." A little whisper of a breeze puffed the curtains away from the window and set the leaves to murmuring.

"Should I tell Daddy about the fire tomorrow?" Heather asked quietly.

"I think you'll feel better if you do."

"Will he still love me?" Her voice quivered.

"I know he will. You saw Helen's mother, the way she hugged her and comforted her. She forgave her. And she hadn't stopped loving her."

Heather sighed and turned over noisily. "I'm glad you're my sister, Molly," she said, her voice slurry with sleep.

"Me, too, Heather." I meant it. For the first time, she seemed like a real, true sister instead of an enemy camping in our home, making me and everyone else miserable.

The next morning, Dave called the police and told them about the skeletons in Harper House. Although he had to do a lot of explaining, he finally succeeded in convincing Officer Greene that the bones should be buried in Saint Swithin's Churchyard, as close to Helen's as possible. When he hung up the phone, Heather ran to his side and slipped her hand in his.

"Will you go for a walk with me, Daddy?" she asked. "I need to talk to you about something."

I could hear the fear in her voice, but Dave didn't seem to notice. "Sure, honey," he said. "I've got work to do in the carriage house, but I can spare you a few minutes before I get started."

I stood at the back door and watched them walk across the yard together, her face turned up to his, his bent down toward hers. Mom stood behind me, looking over my shoulder.

"I don't know why," she said, "but Heather seems happier this morning. And last night she really surprised me. She actually let me hug her. Maybe your adventure together at Harper House was just what this family needed to pull it together."

I leaned against her, enjoying the feel of her arms around me. "Would you still love me no matter what I did?"

"What do you mean?" Mom asked.

"Well..." I watched a monarch butterfly fly toward the zinnias growing in a tub near the porch. "Suppose I did something really horrible and I told you about it a long time afterward? Would you hate me?" I pulled away from her so I could see her face.

Mom smiled, but she seemed a little puzzled. "Are you about to confess to committing a heinous crime?" She made it sound as if she were joking. "
You
were the one who broke your grandmother's priceless Ming vase all those years ago!" she laughed.

"No, Mom. I'm serious." I studied her eyes, trying to read the expression in them. "Suppose I caused somebody to die. I didn't mean to; it was an accident. But I was scared to tell you. What would you do if I confessed?"

Mom brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes, her hand touching me gently. "Molly, you're not making any sense," she said slowly.

"Would you still love me? Would you forgive me?" I heard my voice rise like a child's. "That's all I want to know. Do parents love their children no matter what they do?"

Mom put her arm around me and hugged me. "I'll always love you, Molly, always—no matter what. You should know that by now."

"But how about Dave? Would he?"

"Dave?" Mom hesitated as if she weren't sure how Dave fit into all this.

"Not me. Heather. If Heather did something awful, would he still love her?"

"Molly," Mom said, sucking her breath in hard, her eyes darkening with concern. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"The fire—Heather started it by accident, but she thinks it's her fault her mother died." The words flew out of me as if a dam had burst. "She's afraid Dave will hate her if she tells him."

"Oh, my God." Mom leaned against the door frame, her hands pressed to her mouth. "That poor little girl, that poor, poor child. To keep something like that bottled up inside all these years. No wonder she's been so closed off and untouchable."

"She was playing with the stove," I told Mom. "Somehow a fire started. She hid, and her mother died looking for her, I guess. She told me about it last night when we were trapped in the cellar. I thought she should tell Dave."

"Is that why she wanted to go for a walk?" Mom stepped out on the porch and gazed across the lawn. "I don't see them anywhere," she said.

"I gave her the right advice, didn't I?" I looked past Mom's still figure toward the graveyard, imagining Heather and Dave sitting near Helen's grave as she told him about the fire.

Mom turned back to me, embracing me fiercely. "Of course you did, Molly. Dave will understand."

Releasing me, she shook her head. "I never even suspected," she said, more to herself than to me. "She must have thought we'd all hate her if we knew."

"That's exactly what she did think."

"And the ghost—it must have been a projection of her own guilt," Mom said.

Before I could think of a good answer, I saw Heather and Dave walking toward us. He was still holding her hand, and they were smiling at each other. When she saw us, Heather pulled away and ran to me, her eyes shining with tears. As Mom hurried to Dave's side, Heather smiled at me.

"I told him everything, Molly," she whispered, "and he still loves me. He knows it was an accident." Burying her head in my stomach, she knotted her skinny arms around me and squeezed till it hurt.

A few days later, Plummer's Funeral Parlor sent a hearse to Saint Swithin's Graveyard. For the first time in almost forty years, the crows in the oak tree had a funeral to watch.

Mr. Simmons himself had supervised the digging of the graves. The minister from the new church was there, Bible in hand, and a number of people from Holwell, including a reporter for the
Journal.
It was almost a festive occasion, I thought, as I listened to the conversations around me. Most of these people knew nothing of the terrible unhappiness that the burial was bringing to an end.

At the conclusion of the service, everyone stepped forward, picked up a handful of earth and tossed it into the graves. I heard several of them comment on Heather's tears.

"What a sensitive child she must be," a stout lady observed, adjusting the angle of her large straw hat.

Her companion nodded. "You'd think she knew the poor souls personally."

"She's probably too young to be exposed to something as tragic as a funeral," the woman in the straw hat said. "I've never thought little children should be told about death. Why frighten them? Let them keep their innocence as long as they can."

The two of them walked to their car and drove off, leaving us alone, except for Mr. Simmons. "Glad to see this settled," he said, heaping the earth over the graves. "She'll rest in peace now, like them." He waved the shovel toward the Berry Patch. "She's with her own."

Heather gazed at the marble angel poised on his pedestal above the Berrys, his wings uplifted. "Daddy should make Helen one of those," she said to me. "I think she'd like to have one, don't you?"

"It would look very pretty," I said, watching Mr. Simmons pat the freshly-turned earth with his shovel.

By September, a small marble angel guarded Helen's grave, and two stones flanked hers. Her own name, not just her initials, marked her burial place, and English ivy softened the mounds of earth over her parents' graves. The cemetery had lost its gloom, and I no longer feared it.

One afternoon in early October, Michael, Heather, and I were sitting in a sunny spot not far from Helen's grave. It was a warm, sweet-smelling day, more like spring than fall. Michael was watching a huge wood beetle crawling around in its glass-jar prison, and I was reading
The Borrowers
to Heather.

"Do you want me to read the next chapter?" I was sure she wouldn't want me to leave poor Stainless facing certain capture, but when I looked at her I realized she hadn't been paying much attention to the story.

She was lying on her back, chewing on a blade of grass and staring up at the clouds drifting slowly across the incredibly blue sky. "Do you think she can see us from where she is?" she asked dreamily, her mind apparently far from Stainless' plight.

"I don't know," I said, guessing that she was thinking of Helen. It was the first time in weeks that she had mentioned her. "Wherever she is, though, she's happy," I added. "I'm sure of it."

"Me too," Heather agreed. She sat up and gazed at the angel under the oak tree. He gazed back serenely, seeming to return her smile. Suddenly she grasped my arm, her nails biting through the sleeve of my shirt. "Molly," she whispered. "Look."

She got to her feet and ran toward the angel, and I ran after her, seeing what she saw. Something shiny dangled from the angel's outstretched hand: a silver locket turning slightly in the breeze.

Before I could stop her, Heather snatched the chain from the angel's stiff fingers. As I watched, it seemed to pop open by itself in her outstretched palm. On one side was a picture of Helen. On the other was a folded piece of paper. With trembling fingers, Heather slipped it out of the frame and spread it flat. We both read the message, written in the same hand I had once seen scrawled on my bedroom wall: "With love from Helen," it said. "Do not forget me."

Heather and I looked at each other. The sun warmed our backs as it shone down through the oak's reddening leaves. Bees buzzed in the goldenrod and a grasshopper bounded away from Michael as he approached us.

"Where did you get that old thing?" he asked, looking at the locket. "I thought you lost it last summer."