Scarecrow (34 page)

Several minutes dragged by. “And your father?” I asked softly. “Your brothers—”

“They called me a whore. They said I was trash.” Tears streamed down her face though her voice had gone hard. “Pa, he beat me. Said I asked for what I got. Said I was just like my mama who died, and he wouldn’t have me around, shaming the family. He said, you’ll never have a family here, Rachel, you’ll never have a family anymore…” Her hand went slowly along her scar. “There was a fire, you know. And they all died. All but me and Franny. ’Cause we weren’t in the house.”

I felt cold. “But Seth cared for you.”

“Seth…” A faint smile played at the corners of her lips. “Seth…he loved me, he took me away. He was always…so good to me. Everybody else hated me. But Seth never did.”

“Franny didn’t hate you.”

“No…I was all she had. And when Seth took us in, I told her, now Franny, honey, you mind what Seth says. You do what Seth tells you, just like I do, ’cause Seth always knows what’s right. I told her we belong to Seth now…this here’s Seth’s mark on my face…and we belong to him…and don’t be afraid…I won’t let anyone hurt you like…” She choked back a whimper. “And then Micah came. And Girlie.”

“But Micah wasn’t Seth’s child.”

Her voice hardened. “Micah was
theirs.
My punishment. Reminding me every day what I’d done…” She looked puzzled, as if she’d lost her train of thought. “But the Lord was making fun of me, ’cause Micah was beautiful…and sin shouldn’t be beautiful, Pamela. Sin is ugly, and it has to be destroyed.”

“So you put Micah in the cellar.” I drew a shaky breath. “And you cut off his hand.”

“He couldn’t help it, you see.” Rachel’s fingers worked into her hair, patting it into place, loosening it around her pinched face. “He couldn’t help being beautiful. My sweet…sweet Micah.”

“And you burned the scarecrows. That was your idea, not Seth’s. He only did it to make you happy and—”

“I have to burn them. I can’t let them live. Not after what they did to me. They all have to die…all of them.” Her hands began to shake. “
All
of them.”

I let the silence stretch between us. Her hands lowered, resting calmly on her arms.

“You like living out here, don’t you? Away from everything and everyone who hurt you?”

She frowned, as if trying to understand. Slowly she nodded her head. “Nobody makes fun of me here. Nobody…touches me.”

“Not even Seth,” I said quietly.

She tilted her head into the glow of the lamp, her voice lowering. “He didn’t mean to touch me that one time…he didn’t really mean to…and afterward he was so sorry…”

I watched her hands again, knotting themselves into fists, slowly unclenching again at her sides. “And that’s when you got Girlie?”

“Girlie…yes…” She stared at the floor a long time. “She’s so much like Seth. She has this Gift, you know. Like Seth used to have it. But after the scarecrows…it was just gone. Seth didn’t know things like he did before. But Girlie knows. She knows lots of things. Girlie’s my little one, you know.” Rachel’s eyes clouded, then cleared. She counted off on her fingers.

“Girlie and Micah and Franny and Seth. You see, everything’s just fine now the way it is. If none of us ever leaves here, then it’ll always stay nice. Nobody out there will ever come in and hurt us.”

“But,” I coaxed gently, “sometimes they
do
come in…don’t they, Rachel?”

Her eyes rested on mine, deep with sudden sadness. “Yes,” she whispered, her shoulders sagging. “Yes…sometimes they come. Girlie brings them. Like she brought you. She never means any harm…she’s such a special little girl—and they”—her chin lifted defiantly—“they always want to
change
something. Make things different. Take one of us away with them. Why, I can’t
have
that, Pamela, them breaking up my family…Sometimes…”

“Sometimes what, Rachel?” I murmured.

Her eyes grew sadder, her head shaking slowly, side to side. “Sometimes…they fall in love with Seth.”

My heart stopped. My eyes gazed back into hers, helplessly, helplessly transparent.

“Oh, I don’t say that Seth could love them back,” she went on quickly, carefully, her fingers lacing together on the tabletop in front of her. “I don’t say so, Pamela, ’cause Seth loves
me,
you see. It’s me he loves.”

I felt my head nodding stiffly.

“But I can’t have that happen.” Her face grew troubled, a weary, sweet face in the golden light of the lamp. She reached over and squeezed my fingers, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s what I tell Micah when he tries to help them leave. That’s why I have to stop him. That’s why I have to make Franny be quiet, ’cause I heard her say she knows that things happen—”

“Franny
didn’t
know!” I burst out, horrified. “She loved you and she didn’t
want
to know!”

“But I can’t have that, Pamela. I can’t let anything break up my family.”

I heard myself breathing, rapid shallow roars as if I were down inside myself trying to get out. She patted my hand and motioned me to stand up.

“I’ll just get supper on the table.” She smiled. “Will you go call the others?”

Her hand was on me, light but firm, at the small of my back, propelling me out of the kitchen, into the hallway that led past the parlor.

Straight ahead of me now, a soft glow of light spilled out through the open doorway, casting a rich pattern of shadows across the dull wood of the floor.

I heard no voices from that room. No laughter.

“Pamela,” said Rachel behind me. “Everything’s getting cold.”

I started walking.

The muted clatter of pots and pans seemed distant and imaginary…the ordinary homemade smells of bread and chicken and gravy some remote fantasy conjured up unwittingly from a childhood long past. I found myself listening for the off-key notes of the organ…the snip of scissors cutting thread…Franny’s merry giggles to break this terrible, terrible silence closing in…suffocating me…

I can’t go in there…
My legs stopped working, planting me several feet short of the parlor door. I stood there, hands at my sides, neither cold nor hot, neither calm nor afraid—only standing and knowing, even before I went in—what would be waiting for me…
No…I can’t go in there…Girlie, run, run far away…don’t ever stop…

“Pamela?” Rachel’s voice drifted through to me, through all the layers of unfeeling, and my feet began to move, to carry me forward, until I stood there on the parlor threshold, looking in at the two of them…

Firelight flickered around the room, and they seemed to breathe…to stir in restless shudders.

Franny was dead, propped in the rocking chair, curled down over herself in a tight ball.

A basket of sewing had fallen from her tilted lap onto the floor;

A mended sock was clutched between the clawed fingers of one hand.

Everything’s getting cold…

Micah lay upon the loveseat, his body strangely twisted in sleep.

His face was no longer beautiful.

There was a stench in the room that even the burning hickory logs couldn’t camouflage.

Everything’s getting cold…

“You knew,” I murmured, as if somewhere, somehow, Seth could hear me. “You knew all the time…”

It had been Rachel who had exhumed Micah’s body. Rachel who had killed Dewey and buried him. Seth had known about it all, that day Girlie and I came upon him in the cemetery. That’s why he’d been standing there, studying Micah’s grave, realizing what had happened.
You knew.
Rachel had been the one who’d killed all those people, all those trespassers who had threatened the sanctity of the farm—
Rachel,
not Micah. And Seth had buried them, hiding the awful evidence—lying about Micah to protect Rachel.
You knew all along. All along
! Rachel had tortured Micah for trying to help me escape, just the way she’d tortured him all the other times he’d tried to help her victims escape. Rachel had scared Franny that might, made the terrifying noises that both Franny and I had heard, and then she’d told me she’d heard them herself. Rachel had been the crazy one—not Micah, not Seth—
Rachel, Rachel, all along Rachel…

“Did you call them?” she asked now, behind me.

I looked at the loveseat, the rocking chair, at Rachel’s shadow beside me on the wall.

“Micah,” I said. “Franny…supper’s ready.”

“It’s just the best time, isn’t it?” Rachel went on dreamily. “The family all sitting down together, talking over what happened to everybody today…”

I saw her shadow stretch, shadow hands massaging the muscles in her back.

“And I reckon you really do miss your own family at suppertime, don’t you, Pamela? Everybody all there, saying what they’ve done? What they plan on doing tomorrow?”

Seth saved my life…that night when Micah got caught trying to help me…it was Rachel who’d been waiting there with that knife…

“Pamela?”

“Yes,” I said.
And that night in the barn, when I heard the noises…saw the door open…

“I reckon they miss you, too.”

And this time…this time…you tried to save me again…
For suddenly it was so clear to me, so chillingly clear as if Seth himself were reaching out to me from across deep, deep canyons and caressing the tangled thoughts in my brain, separating them strand by strand—as he’d stroked my hair—opening them one by one—as he’d opened all the closed places within me…

“Family’s so important, Pamela.”

Suddenly I knew, and I saw it all in detail, a nightmare vision playing itself out on some inner screen of my consciousness.

She had been upset when Seth left—afraid—afraid something bad would happen because he’d looked back at the house.
Was that when it started?
And he hadn’t come home that night, and something bad
had
happened—something horrible and deadly—and it had taken Franny…and almost taken me. And still Seth hadn’t come…another whole day without a word…and there had been that snowfall to worry about…the bridge being out…that cow to find…

And Franny upstairs.

And Micah to tend to.

And this time, this time, when all the madness came, Seth hadn’t been here to stop it.

“Families shouldn’t ever be broken up, Pamela.”

And what exactly was the breaking point, Rachel? The snapping of that fragile, dangerous thread? Was it the thrill of scaring Franny? Or the shock of finding her like that…the not remembering? The fear that Seth wasn’t ever coming home again? Being away from him one second longer than you could bear? And when you’d gone out searching, when you’d finally found him, what then? Confessions? Anger? Tears? Had you really known about Seth and me, or was that just another fantasy come to life? And when did you do it, Rachel
—
when he turned his back? When he tried to put an end to it once and for all—but couldn’t bring himself to do it?

For I knew the exact moment when Seth had started to die.

“
I…tried
…to
kill…Rachel.”

And save me—oh, Seth…

I’d heard his scream echoing through the darkness, through my dream, through my heart, as the axe had sunk into his back.

Miles apart, I’d heard him call out to me.

And how long did you lie there, bleeding to death in the snow, while Rachel went off to hide the axe and scare Girlie and me to death in the cave? How long did it take you to crawl home…to warn us? How long were you out there dying all alone…needing someone?…

“They need each other,” Rachel’s voice broke into my head, black images crumbling at the sound.

I saw her shadow, lengthening up the wall, folding itself into a quivering pattern of firelight.

“Yes, they do,” I said flatly. “To love each other. That’s what families are for.”

One of Franny’s eyes caught the light, blinking up at me through a shield of clotted hair.

“And that’s why I can’t let you go, Pamela,” the voice said softly at my back. “That’s why you have to stay here with us and be a part of our family.”

Icicles crept up my spine. I felt the sharp taste of fear, rendering me weak and helpless.

Rachel’s shadow lifted again, leaping and licking at the firelit walls. “You’re such a comfort to me, Pamela. You’re such a comfort to us all.”

I saw the outline of the axe, the silhouette of her upraised arms…

Too late my body responded…too late I screamed…

The explosion filled the room.

A wet, warm spray splattered my face, my feet…the limp shadow sliding slowly down the wall…

Girlie stood in the doorway with the gun.

Through a fine haze of smoke, her round eyes throbbed with tears. “I love you, Pam,” she said.

T
HE NIGHTMARES DON’T COME
as often now.

There are no strawmen left to fight.

And we have other things to talk about besides walking endless country miles and sleeping in the woods in the snow.

Girlie still can’t watch anything on TV about a farm without crying.

And sometimes I catch myself in the middle of the night, feeling an old feeling, aching an ache that will probably never heal.

Not completely.

But she has school now, and friends, and a whole new world to call her own and to help her forget.

And I have her.

God, how I do love her.

Friends think she’s beautiful and try to spoil her rotten. But Girlie isn’t the kind who spoils.

She’s the kind who reaches to me in the middle of a memory, who sings an off-key song to make me laugh.

And one time she brought me a baby bird from the garden, saying she found it on the ground beside its nest.

I didn’t tell her how I’d seen her lift the bird to her lips…and make a wish…and breathe…

Love is the only Gift we ever speak of.

We named the bird Seth.

Born on April Fool’s Day 1952, Richie Tankersley Cusick was destined at a young age to write scary books. In a career spanning three decades, she has paved the way for young-adult horror writing, a genre she continues to publish in today.

Although born in New Orleans—home to some of the country’s most ancient ghosts—Cusick spent her early years in a small bayou town called Barataria, which once provided a safe haven for the fearsome pirate Jean Lafitte. A true Southern writer, she took early inspiration from the landscape of crumbling mansions, Spanish moss, and aboveground cemeteries, and began writing stories at a young age. For years a ghost lurked in her family’s house, making particular trouble around the holidays, when he would strip the Christmas tree of its ornaments and hurl them to the floor.