The Ghosts of Stone Hollow (16 page)

“But we can’t all leave right away, can we?” Amy asked. “I mean, we’ll have to find a house or apartment first, and pack all our stuff and things like that. That will take a long time, won’t it?”

“No,” her mother said. “If your father starts work next week, he’ll need us there. We’ll just have to stay in a hotel for a few days while you and I house-hunt; and when we find a place, Aunt Abigail can have our things sent out.”

“But—but school?” Amy said.

“You can go to school tomorrow to pick up your things and say good-bye, but on Friday you might as well stay home and help pack. We’ll have to work fast to be ready by Saturday morning.”

The talk went on, and Amy heard it, but somehow none of it really reached her. None of it managed to be more than sounds, sounds without meanings, that fluttered senselessly around the outside of her consciousness. Inside, there was room for only a few words that kept repeating themselves over and over.

“We can get nearly everything crated before we go”—her father’s voice—”and you can get George Rayburn to take it to the express station in his truck. Find out how much he’ll take, and I’ll send money to cover it.”

And then Aunt Abigail’s—“No need. George won’t take any pay. Country people don’t charge for helping their neighbors.”

Then Amy’s mother said, “Abigail, I’ve been thinking—why don’t you sell the farm now? I know how you’ve wanted to get away, and how long you’ve sacrificed for other people. All those years when Luther was ill, and then the last two years for us. Why don’t you do what you’ve always wanted. It would be so nice to have you closer to us in San Francisco.”

“No. No, I couldn’t. That is, not right away at least. I—I’ve as good as promised to be on the school board next year and—there’s the church—I just don’t see how I could leave—just now, at least.”

It was about then that Amy realized the words that had been repeating themselves in her head had somehow broken through into sound—and she had said them out loud. “But I can’t go before Sunday. I just can’t!”

“Why not, dear?” her mother asked. “Why can’t you leave before Sunday?”

“Because—” Amy’s mind felt frozen, stiff and useless. She stuttered, groping for an idea, “—because— won’t we have to say good-bye to everyone—to the Reverend Dawson and all the people at the church?”

“I’ll call the Reverend and explain. And he and Aunt Abigail can say good-bye for us. I’m sure everyone will understand.”

“What’s the matter, Baby?” her father said, holding out his hand to her. “Aren’t you glad your poor old father’s going to be of some use in the world again? Aren’t you glad we’re going to be able to pay our own way again?”

“I’m glad about the job, Daddy,” Amy said quickly. But then, because she could still feel the stiffness in her voice and face, she said it again. It came out louder, but otherwise not much different. “I’m really glad about that!”

She took her father’s hand and let herself be pulled toward him for a kiss. But her lips felt stiff, too, against his prickly cheek, and she pulled away as quickly as possible. As soon as she could get away, she ran up the stairs to her room.

That night in bed, Amy lay awake for a long time staring into cold bright moonlight, and thinking the same useless thoughts over and over. Why did it have to happen right now? Why did they have to leave before Sunday, the one Sunday when she was going to find out for sure and certain about Jason and Stone Hollow? Because she would have found out for sure. There was no doubt about that. Even if she saw nothing new in the Hollow, there would have been other ways to find out what she had to know. If she could just have had Jason all by himself for another afternoon, she surely would have been able to find out about him.

She was certain she could have made him tell her the truth about himself and the Stone and the Hollow.

A
T SCHOOL THE NEXT
morning Amy told Miss McMillan that she was leaving, and Miss McMillan announced it to the whole class. During the morning recess nearly the whole sixth grade gathered around Amy on the playground and talked about it. At least the girls gathered around and talked, the boys stood a little farther off and mostly listened.

All of the girls said things about how much they would miss Amy, and some of them asked her to write to them. Alice Harris, looking very sad and dramatic, said she wondered if they’d ever see each other again—and after looked quickly over her shoulder to see if Bert Miller had been listening. Then a lot of the other girls got started saying the same kind of thing, and finally Marybeth Paulsen rolled her eyes up, the way she always did when she got to lead the prayer in Sunday School, and recited a whole poem. It was an autograph-book poem with a lot of rhymes like “roam” and “home,” and the last line was about “old friends and true.”

But during all of it, even the poem, Amy had trouble keeping her mind on what people were saying, because she was so busy thinking about something else. Early that morning she had decided she needed a plan, and ever since, at least half of her mind had been busy working out the details. The plan she wanted was one that would get Jason to meet her after school and, much more important and difficult, make him tell her the absolute truth about everything before she went away.

All day long Amy went over and over in her mind all the ways she had ever heard of to get people to tell the truth. She was surprised, actually, to realize how many different ways there were, but unfortunately a lot of them were not the kinds of things that would work with Jason. There was no use just asking, for instance, because she had already tried that and it didn’t work. And it probably would do no good to quote the Bible or threaten him with going to hell, as the Sunday School teacher did when someone stole the collection, since it was quite likely that neither Buddhists nor atheists believed that people got sent to hell for telling lies. And as for torture—even if she believed in torturing people, there was the fact that Jason was just about as big as she was, and maybe a little bit stronger. By the end of the day, she had narrowed it down to a few possibilities. She would begin by trying to shame him into telling the truth, and if that didn’t work she would try to trick him into it. She was still planning possible tricks when that long, last Thursday at Taylor Springs School finally came to an end.

Jason would meet her at the eucalyptus grove, that much was settled. Amy had managed a brief noon-hour meeting with him in the cloakroom, and he had promised to be there.

“I was going to ask you,” he had said eagerly, smiling his gosling smile. “I was going to tell you that I had to see you because—”

“Shh!” Amy said, as footsteps approached the cloakroom. “Wait for me. I might be a little late.” And she had hurried away.

As it turned out, she
was
late—more than a little. With all her personal belongings to gather and pack, and with lots of last-minute good-byes to be said, it was past four o’clock when she ran down the worn wooden steps of the schoolhouse for the last time. Without even taking the time to look back, she started off down the Old Road as fast as she could go. Clutching an armload of books and papers with one hand, and carrying in the other hand a huge paper bag containing, among other things, a pencil box, a tobacco can full of broken crayons, a clay elephant, and a half-finished shoe-box peep show illustrating a scene from
The Water-Babies,
she jogged down the road wondering if Jason would still be waiting for her in the eucalyptus grove.

He has to be there, she told herself. He just has to. And she jogged faster, clenching her teeth and concentrating on willing him to be there—willing him to wait just a little longer.

She arrived at the grove breathless and with aching arms, and for one terrible moment she was sure that he had gone. At first glance the grove appeared to be empty but, as she let her heavy load of belongings slide from her arms, she noticed a pair of legs sticking out from behind one of the largest trees. And there he was. Sitting against the tree trunk on the soft, bark-cushioned earth, he had apparently gone sound asleep.

“Jason,” she said, but it came out soundlessly, either because she was breathless or because she didn’t want to wake him up. Better not to, yet. Not for a moment, until she caught her breath and decided for sure just what she was going to do. Moving quietly, she circled the clump of trees until she was standing right in front of him and only a few feet away.

He went on sleeping. His lips were slightly open, and his eyes were tightly closed, so that his eyelashes made fringy shadows on his cheeks. Bending closer, Amy noticed for the first time a spatter of freckles across his nose and cheeks. He looked different with his eyes closed, not like himself at all. His corduroy pants were torn on one knee, his new shoes were already scuffed and dusty, and his hand, lying in his lap, held a half-eaten apple. He’d probably swiped it on his way through Paulsens’ orchard. All the kids in Taylor Springs swiped apples on their way through Paulsens’ orchard.

Suddenly a feeling of anxiety gripped her, and she reached out and shook his shoulders.

“Jason?” she said. “Jason? Are you—?”

She didn’t finish the question. She didn’t know, really, what it was going to be, but when Jason’s eyes opened, she knew it was answered, and she found herself smiling with relief. His eyes were the same as ever—as strange as ever. Strangely set and shaded, they very plainly did not look—or see—the same as the eyes of ordinary people.

“Hello,” he said, wide awake and up in an instant like an animal. “Do you have to go away? Couldn’t you stay with your aunt?”

“No,” Amy said. “I have to go.”

He nodded slowly. “Did you want to ask me something about—?”

“No,” Amy said quickly—surprisingly. Surprising to Jason, she knew, and even to Amy, herself. “N-no,” she said again, stammering. “I mean I did—but I don’t now, because I already know—I think.”

“What? What do you know?”

“That you weren’t just lying to me about—everything.”

“No,” Jason said. “I wasn’t.”

“I know it,” Amy said. “So I guess I just want to tell you good-bye.”

“Yes,” he said, “good-bye.”

After that they stood there, facing each other a while, without saying anything. It was very quiet in the eucalyptus grove, and there was a strange kind of calm, so that it seemed all right not to say anything for a long time. As if words just weren’t needed.

Then Amy gathered up her belongings and started off, but Jason ran after her and put something in her hand where it was curled around the stack of books and papers.

“What is it?” she asked, trying to see over the top of the books.

“It’s from the grotto,” Jason said. “I found it there. I think it’s a piece of the Stone.”

“Oh,” she said. “Thank you.”

Then they said good-bye again, and Amy left the grove and started down the Old Road toward the Hunter farm. The air was very still, without the slightest whisper of wind. Amy walked very slowly, and the listening stillness was still there so that she walked all the way home without thinking or planning, and without even wondering why she had changed her mind about making Jason tell the truth.

When she arrived at the farm, she found everything in an uproar. Everyone was terribly busy. Neighbors were dropping in with good-bye gifts, and there seemed to be a hundred things to do with very little time to do them in. Caught up helplessly in the surrounding bustle, Amy had not a single minute to herself until she crawled into bed late that night.

A full moon had just risen above the crest of the Hills, and its cold bright light shone directly into Amy’s face. It was just as well, since she intended to be awake for a long time. There were so many things that she wanted to think about before she went to sleep—so many questions she wanted to ask herself. Questions, for instance, about what had happened that afternoon in the eucalyptus grove.

Why had she changed her mind about making Jason tell the truth? Why, after spending so much time planning ways to shame or trick him into admitting that he had lied, had she suddenly changed her mind and not even tried? There was no answer really, except that she suddenly hadn’t wanted to. She didn’t know why, but all at once she had known that there was no way to prove Jason was a liar—and she didn’t even want to try.

But other things she still wanted to know about. Like, for instance, Old Ike and Caesar and Stone Hollow. Now, perhaps, she would never know. There was no way left to find out.

But then, suddenly, Amy sat straight up in bed. She thought for a moment, and then slid out from under the covers and tiptoed across the room. On the floor near the closet door was the bag of things she had brought home from school that afternoon. She lifted out the peep show and the can of crayons before she found what she was looking for—a piece of stone. Rough-surfaced and heavy, it was a little longer than the palm of her hand and about half as wide. Carrying the stone and a quilt from her bed, Amy made her way noiselessly out the door and down the hall to the storeroom.

The moon hung low over the Hills, and its softly brilliant light, slanted directly in through the long narrow windows of the storeroom. Just inside the door, Amy stopped, feeling for a moment confused and almost startled. The room seemed so different by moonlight. Familiar objects glowed with unnatural brilliance, or sank into unaccustomed shadow. The desk was there and the highboy and the rocking chair, but they seemed to have been transformed by the moonlight into mysterious objects, distant and unfamiliar. Amy moved across the room with cautious care, holding her breath until she reached the other side and climbed up onto the steamer trunk. But then she forgot about the room and what lay behind her.

Outside the windows, the Hills loomed against the sky, a solid dark wall except where, here and there, the moonlight touched a crest or ridge. The valleys were still wells of darkness. Until the moon climbed higher, it would be very dark in the Hollow.

She arranged herself carefully on the steamer trunk, crossing her legs Indian-fashion and wrapping the quilt around her shoulders so that it formed a protective tent. Inside the tent her two hands lay cupped in her lap—holding the piece of Stone that Jason had given her when he said good-bye. It lay warm and heavy in her palm, her curling fingers gripping its rough surface. Staring up at the dark hillside, she concentrated, forcing her mind to shut out everything but the Hollow and the Stone.