Naked, on the Edge (5 page)

Anna balled her fists in her lap. She was not good at numbers. If Greta would only give her an easy problem.

"You," said Greta to William. She held up a card that read "5 + 12."

"Tell me, what is the answer to this?"

William rolled his lips in over his teeth. The tick in his cheek was vivid. Then he said, "Seventeen."

Greta had to check the back of the card, and said, "Yes, good." She put that card down and held up the next. To Susanne she said, "Tell me this answer."

Susanne looked at the card. It said, "18 – 9”

"The answer is nine," Susanne said immediately. She was good with math.

Greta checked. "Fine," she said. Then she looked at Joseph. "Your hair looks nasty."

Anna looked at Joseph. His hair, where his fingers had clutched and pulled, sat up in pointed strands. Joseph flinched and began to rub it down again.

"No, no, no, no," said Greta. "I think it needs doing again. I think you've played with it and ruined the cut. I best cut it over."

Joseph rubbed harder, trying the flatten the spikes against his scalp. The bright twitching of his eye had become a nervous flutter. His mouth opened as if to say, "No," but it closed again then, silently.

Margarette said, "I can do a problem. Please show me one."

Greta stood, the cards falling to the sooty floor. She said, "Joseph, come here and I'll do your haircut again."

Joseph looked from Anna to Greta to Margarette. His teeth began to clap together.

"Please let me do a problem," said Margarette.

Greta opened the chest by the window and took out the sewing kit. She lifted the lid and stared inside.

Joseph licked his lips. William's tic picked up speed. Susanne looked in confusion between the friends. Margarette folded her hands and trembled. Anna's heart leapt into a fear-driven arrhythmia.

Greta stared into the open sewing case. Then she slowly lowered the lid. She turned to face the friends.

Margarette said, "Please, let me do a problem. I like numbers."

Greta said, "You have all been my friends for many weeks now. I've brought you good food and have taught you good lessons." She pressed her fingertips together into a steeple of consideration and control. "Music lessons, art lessons, things other children of your station would beg for."

Greta walked to her low chair and sat, smoothing down the hem of her green dress with the white collar. "If not for me, you would not have learned to listen, you would not have learned manners at a meal. I have been a good teacher." Her face clouded over then, darkening storms growing at the corners of her eyes. She said, "But oh. You are still very selfish, selfish children."

Anna needed to cough, but she swallowed it down. The hairs on the backs of her hands were prickled and alert. She looked at the window and back at Greta.

"My father has told me that I shouldn't expect very much of you. I don't want him to be right."

Joseph began to groan. It was a soft growl that, by the twist of his face, Anna could see frightened even him.

"Joseph," said Greta. "Is it you who has been selfish?" Joseph's growl grew louder, a pinched animal sound almost musical in its intensity. Susanne put her hands over her ears; Margarette held a hand up as if to quiet him.

"Joseph," Greta said. "I asked you a question. Answer. Is it you who stole from me?"

And Joseph stood suddenly, driving his hand into the waistband of his filthy short pants and pulling out the hair scissors. He screamed and lifted the scissors into the air, pointing them at Greta. His good eye was wide and ready. Greta stood from her chair and backed up a step.

Joseph took a step forward, the scissors poised.

Greta said, "Children, if he hurts me none of you will eat for a week, perhaps two weeks. And you know I never lie. I was taught not to lie. Lying is a sin.”

Joseph took another step forward, but Greta did not move. She knew she was safe now. At once, William, Susanne, and Anna were up, taking Joseph's arms and wrestling them down. William pulled the scissors from Joseph and presented them to Greta like a kitten presenting a prized mouse to its owner.

Greta brushed a tiny strand of hair from her face. She went to the chest and returned the scissors to the kit. Susanne and William and Anna sat down in the circle. Margarette took Joseph gently by the hand and helped him sit.

With her hand on the rough wall, Greta stood for a moment and looked out the tiny window. Anna looked at Greta, at the slice of shed roof outside the window, at the dark tops of the smoke stacks beyond the yard of Greta's home, at the smoke that hung, like the smoke in Joseph's story, too thick to reach the clouds.

Greta went to the door. She did not turn back as she whispered, "Selfish children."

When she was gone, Margarette said, "This won't be forever. We won’t be here forever.”

Anna did not sleep for a long time that night. She listened as William and Susanne tossed restlessly on the floor. She listened as Joseph buried his face in Margarette's little-girl arms and, with her words and lullabies, she tried to soothe the insanity away.

Morning came with rain outside the tiny window and stale, humid air in the attic. The mockingbird's call was faint, as if he had found shelter from the rain in the branches of a distant tree, somewhere outside the yard. Anna lay awake for a long time. Her neck ached from the hard floor and the change of weather. No one spoke. Joseph was up, standing by the empty bookshelf with his face pressed against the slat of one shelf. His eyes were closed. Susanne and William were still asleep, or trying to be asleep. Margarette was making play shadows in the gray, rain-shrouded light on the attic floor.

The door opened and Greta came in, wearing a smile and a yellow dress with big front pockets. She did not push the door shut, but stood in the center of the room and put her hands on her hips. The friends moved quickly to their circle spots.

"A new lesson and a new friend today!" Greta said. She smiled individually at each friend on the floor. Her hair was in yellow ribbons. "First the new friend! Michael!"

The friends looked at the partially ajar door. They saw tentative movement, and then a small boy was standing in the doorway. He was no more than five. His dark eyes huge and numbed.

"He was to go with his mother, but my father brought him to me! My father is a good man to do this for us. Michael, sit with the others. We have many lessons in the circle. Susanne, make room there for Michael."

The little boy did not move. Greta's smile faltered.

Margarette said, "Michael, come sit with me." She patted the floor. Michael shuffled to her, and she eased him down. Margarette touched his hair as if in apology.

"I have a new lesson today," said Greta. She sat on her chair. "The selfishness yesterday was a surprise to me, though father would say I shouldn't be surprised. And so today the lesson is learning to give. I have given to you many things, and unselfishly so. Today you will learn to give to me."

No one spoke. The bird outside the window, far away in its tree beneath the rain, changed tunes from bluebird to wren to starling.

Greta pulled a revolver from one deep dress pocket. She made a sweeping circle, pointing it in turn at each of the friends. Then she trained it on Joseph. "You were very selfish yesterday. Ah, such a bad boy you were, Joseph. I could have my father take you away but I’ve decided there is still a chance for you to become good. Today you will learn to be good. You will learn to be unselfish. I want you to give me something you treasure."

Joseph's good eye blinked at the revolver.

Greta then took a small white-handled pistol from her other pocket. She smiled and held it out to Joseph.

"Take it," said Greta.

Joseph's lips twisted into a silent, numbed grimace.

"Take it," Greta said.

Joseph took the pistol.

Greta said, "Give me who you love most, and I will forgive your selfishness."

Joseph stared at the pistol. His hand did not shake. "Give me who you love most," said Greta. She nodded at the revolver in her own hand. "And if I think you want to turn it on me, if it even looks as if you are thinking of turning it on me, I will use this on everyone here. Now, give me your treasure."

Joseph turned the gun toward his face and lowered his mouth to the barrel.

"Ha!" Greta barked, leaning over and smacking Joseph on the side of his head. "You don't love yourself! Look again. I know your silly little heart, boy, and know what you love. You cannot fool me. And if you act in
correctly, all here will suffer for your stupidity."

Joseph looked around the room. His good eye batted crazily, as if a gnat had gotten inside. Then, he raised the gun to Margarette, across from him in the circle.

Greta clapped her free hand to her cheek. "Yes! Give me who you love most."

Joseph did not pull the trigger.

Greta said, "If you don't give her to me, I will kill her and then Anna and William and Susanne and you. My father sees hundreds just like you every day. I can watch from my bedroom window what goes on beyond our house, beyond the high fence. Many silly, weeping children are sent off with their parents, passed over by my father and gone in the blink of an eye. There are more friends if I need them. More than would fit here in the attic. I can have as many as I want. There are always more of you to be found under any stone."

Joseph slipped his finger into the trigger loop. Anna put her hands to her ears, her face into her knees. There was a crack, and a squeal of delight. Anna drove her face into the hairs on her legs; her jaws ground together. Then Greta said, "Cleanliness! Haven't you learned? Clean up this mess and I'll teach you some new ballads and you can clap with me."

Anna lifted her face. She went with Susanne and William to the chest where the rags were kept. They wrapped up the mess and put it outside the attic door. Joseph spit on the floor to wash up the red stains. It was futile, but the effort seemed to please Greta.

Back in the circle, Greta sang new songs to the friends; Michael threw up and cried, but Greta, for the moment, was too happy with her songs to notice. She would see it after the music was done. For the moment, however, she was the magnanimous queen in a pretty dress and the friends the willing servants of her humid court.

Even William clapped, his enthusiasm almost masking his inability to keep a beat.

And Anna sang her heart out. Her voice was forceful and clear. And her song rode the damp air and sailed out to the yard among the flies and the gnats and the smoke. Her melodies skipped effortlessly from one to another, and the mockingbird had met its match.

K
atie Flory had gone on ahead, her Toyota's backseat crammed full with groceries, lighter fluid, matches, and target pistols. She knew where they had planned on camping, and by the time Bill Flory and friends Joshua and Melinda Asterton had finished packing the van and caught up with her, she had promised cleared tent spots, gathered wood, and a cozy campfire blazing. It was obvious to Melinda that Katie needed to do this to prove she was okay, that she was at least on the road to becoming okay.

"Just wait 'til you see it," Katie had said. "I wasn't a Girl Scout for nothing."

She left a full hour before the other three had found the lanterns hiding behind the Easter baskets in their garage. By the time all was secured in the van and ready to roll, it was past two o’clock.

The camping spot was isolated, a good forty-five-minute drive from the city, back in the mountains where roads no longer qualified for paving and there could be a mile or more between houses. Most of the homes along the steep, graveled roads were small and colorless, sitting inside wire-fenced yards with cows and goats grazing nearby.

"It's Americana," I said Melinda with a chuckle to Bill and Josh as the van groaned into another gear. "I wonder how many of these people all look mysteriously like each other." Bill glanced in the rearview mirror at Melinda in the backseat. His eyes, nervous and twitching, blinked several times before he spoke. "Quite a few, I'd bet," he said. "I've seen them come out of the mountains to the emergency room, and the resemblance to each other is amazing."

Josh, seated in the front passenger’s seat, took a bite out of the Hostess cupcake he'd bought at the service station.

The two couples had discovered the camping spot on a Sunday afternoon drive just weeks before. Just inside the boundary of the National Forest, it was off the road several hundred feet, down a dirt path in the dense trees. There was a creek, a canopy of sycamores and oaks, and across from the creek, a sheer cliff of rock that seemed to beg to be climbed by weekend vacationers. Large patches of humus would make great spots to pitch tents. A central dirt area could be honed into quite the place for a fire.

"Turn here," said Josh, his mouth full of cupcake. Bill steered from the main road onto the unpaved stretch. Melinda settled against the door as the van began its climb up the foothill. Sunlight winked through the branches of the tall pines and deciduous trees. It was a beautiful afternoon, just as Melinda had hoped. They all needed a beautiful afternoon, but for Katie and Bill, it was more a necessity than a luxury. Katie was managing, it seemed. But Bill, sweet little chubby Bill, a nurse at St. John's Memorial Hospital, was still struggling to keep his sanity.