The Old Willis Place (10 page)

Chapter 12

Georgie stood in the shed's doorway, a scowl on his face, watching me run through the rain toward him. He'd applied a fresh coat of war paint and added more feathers to his hair. I supposed that meant he was still mad at me. Well, soon he'd be even madder.

"Were you playing with Lissa again?" he asked, daring me to lie.

Instead of answering, I seized his hands. "Oh, Georgie, Georgie—"

"What's wrong?" he asked, suddenly fearful.

"She's loose! Miss Lilian—I saw her. She's just the same, mean, angry. She said—"

Georgie cut in before I could finish. "How did she get out?" His voice shook and he gripped my hands tightly.

"It was Lissa," I said, too ashamed to meet my brother's eyes. "She took a key, she opened the back door, and I went in with her. I knew I shouldn't, but I was scared to let her go by herself. She went all over the house, she even played the piano, and then she wanted to see where Miss Lilian died, so she—"

"You let her open the parlor door?" Georgie stared at me, white-faced with disbelief and fear.

"I tried to drag her away, but she, she—Georgie, I couldn't stop her. She was too strong. She says Miss Willis made her do it, she—"

Georgie flung himself at me, terrified. "I told you something horrible would happen. I told you and told you and told you!"

"Its all my fault," I admitted. "I broke the rules. I'm sorry, Georgie, I'm so sorry."

We clung to each other, shivering and shaking, imagining every sound in the woods was Miss Lilian hunting for us. But all we heard were ordinary noises. Wind in the trees, rain pattering on the shed's roof, a fox barking.

At last, Georgie drew back and looked up at me. His war paint was smeared and his feathers were crooked. "Where is she now, Diana?"

"Miss Lilian? In her bedroom. She didn't need that chair to go upstairs, Georgie. She ran up there all by herself."

"Does that mean she can chase us?" My brother's eyes roved to the shed's doorway and the dreary night darkening the field beyond. A damp breeze, carrying the smell of rain and fall's decay, made him shudder. "Can she come here and, and—"

"Maybe she can't leave the house," I whispered. "She must have rules, the same as us." I squeezed his hand, but I didn't tell him what I was thinking. I'd broken the rules. Miss Lilian could break them, too.

Silently I crawled under the blankets beside Georgie. This close, my brother smelled like a little animal, a rabbit perhaps, that lived under bushes in fear of hawks.

"Suppose Miss Lilian can go outside like you and me," Georgie whispered. "What if she comes to the shed while we're asleep? What if she—"

"I won't let her hurt you." I held him so close the feathers in his hair tickled my nose. "I'm your big sister. I'll take care of you."

Georgie relaxed, more trusting than I'd expected, considering I hadn't been the best caretaker lately. Nero crept under the covers and curled up between us, soft and warm. His purr comforted us.

Just when I thought he'd fallen asleep, Georgie rose up slightly and looked into my eyes. "Tell me the story, Diana, all the way to the end."

"But it always scares you."

"Not this time, I promise. I need to remember everything so she can't catch me again."

While Georgie lay still and quiet beside me, I told him the familiar story of our days at Oak Hill Manor with Mother and Daddy. This time when I came to the part where Miss Lilian turned against Georgie and me, he tensed, but he didn't make me stop.

"One day," I whispered, "you cut your leg climbing over a rusty barbed-wire fence. You were bleeding, so I took you to the house to find Mother. She wasn't there, but Miss Lilian caught us in the kitchen and began to rant and rave in her crazy way. We tried to run outside, but she got between us and the kitchen door, so we ran down the cellar stairs to hide."

Georgie nudged me. "Why didn't we run out the front door?"

"We were going to hide in our secret place. Remember?" I stroked his back, soothing him as if he were Nero.

We'd found the little room one afternoon when we were exploring the cellar, way back when we'd first come to Oak Hill Manor. The door was hidden in a dark corner, behind piles of boxes and old furniture. The room itself had no windows and its walls were thick.

Georgie and I had fixed it up like a clubhouse, with candles and books and a few board games, along with blankets and pillows borrowed from the attic. It was a great place to play without fear of being caught by Miss Willis.

"But Miss Lilian came down the steps behind us," Georgie went on for me. "She was waving a broom and screaming at us. We ran into the room and slammed the door. It was a stupid thing to do."

"We thought we were safe," I said. "But she bolted the door and locked us in." In my head, I heard Miss Willis again, just as I heard her in my worst nightmares. "Stay there! Think about how you've treated me. I'll come back when you're ready to apologize."

"And then she left," Georgie whispered. "And she never came back."

"No, she never came back." My heart beat faster. I wished Georgie would say, "Stop," but he lay beside me, still and tense, a rabbit poised for flight. So I went on to the worst part.

"We cried and shouted for Mother and Daddy, we pounded on the door till our fists ached, but no one heard us. No one came. No one let us out."

Georgie shivered and curled into my arms. I could feel his heart beating as fast as mine.

"We lit candles," I told him. "We ate the crackers we'd left there. But after a while the candles burned down and went out. It was so dark. And cold. We told each other stories, we sang songs..." I paused, unable to go on.

"What happened next?" Georgie whispered. "Do you remember?"

"I think we fell asleep. At least that's how it seems. A deep sleep."

"And then we woke up," Georgie said, sounding cheerful again, "and we were outside and the sun was shining."

"Yes." After the darkness of the cellar, the light had hurt our eyes, almost blinded us. We stood in a field overgrown with thistles and poke weed, wild daisies and Queen Anne's lace, swarming with bees and butterflies. At first I'd thought we must be in heaven, but when I looked around, I realized we were still on the farm. The familiar woods lay ahead, their leaves swaying in a summer breeze. The sky was blue, almost cloudless, and a mockingbird sang from a fence post. Grasshoppers jumped around our feet, bees buzzed, a crow cawed in the woods. A tractor rumbled in the distance. The air smelled of honeysuckle and damp grass.

Behind us was Miss Lilian's house, barely visible through a screen of trees in full leaf.

Everything had been just as it should be, yet I'd felt strange. Not thirsty, not hungry, not weak from our days in the dark cellar. It was as if I'd become very light. A gust of wind might send me spinning higher and higher until the earth was a tiny ball lost among stars.

In the dark shed, I squeezed Georgie's hand, glad to feel its warmth. He propped himself up on his elbows, more himself now that the worst part of the story was over, and peered into my eyes.

"How did we get into that field, Diana? Who opened the door? Who let us out?"

"It was like a dream," I said, at a loss for an explanation. "First we were in the cellar, and then we were in the field with nothing in between.
Bing
—there we were in the sunshine."

"We wanted Mother and Daddy" Georgie said, sad now. "We wanted to go home."

"But we couldn't," I said. "It was against the rules."

"The rules," Georgie muttered. "Always the rules. Where did they come from, Diana? Who gave them to us? Do you remember?"

"It wasn't Mother or Daddy," I said.

"They gave us plenty of rules before the bad thing happened." Georgie yawned. "Like not going into Miss Lilian's house and not touching the piano and not talking with our mouths full and not interrupting. And not, and not..."

Georgie's voice trailed off into a mumble and he fell asleep, but I lay beside him, thinking, trying to remember. No one had told us the rules, I was sure of that. No one had written them down and handed them to us. They were just there, in our heads:

Rule One: Do not let anyone see you.
Rule Two: Do not leave Oak Hill Manor.

As long as we obeyed those two rules, we could do anything we liked. Play all day, stay up as late as we wanted, roam the woods and fields, tease and play tricks on the living.

***

The first night of our new life, Georgie and I had crawled through the open kitchen window of our house and crept to our parents' bedroom. The light was out, but they weren't asleep.

"If Miss Lilian recovers," Mother was saying, "she might be able to tell the police something about Diana and Georgie. Maybe she saw something, heard something, maybe—" She broke off and began to cry.

"What could she tell the police?" Daddy asked. "She's been in the hospital since the children disappeared. Out of her head. Irrational. She couldn't possibly know anything about Georgie and Diana."

Georgie and I hid in the shadows, yearning to tell our parents where we were and what had happened, but in those days, the rules held us fast. We dared not speak to Mother and Daddy.

Long after the police and their dogs had given up the search for us, Mother and Daddy kept looking. We followed them through the woods, around the pond, along the creek, to every place we used to go. I think they expected us to pop out from behind a tree, laughing at the prank we'd played on them. At night, we listened to them weep for us, their lost children. We cried, too.

If only we'd told Mother and Daddy about our secret room. They would have found the door and opened it. They wouldVe let us out and the bad thing wouldn't have happened.

Weeks passed. Summer faded into fall. Miss Lilian came home from the hospital, leaning on a cane, a nurse by her side. In no time, she ran the nurse off. She said she didn't need anyone looking after her. Waste of money, she complained to Mother.

Although the police never questioned Miss Lilian, Mother asked her if she remembered anything about the day Georgie and I disappeared.They were sitting on the terrace, Miss Lilian in a lawn chair and Mother on the lion bench, shelling peas into a bowl. Georgie and I hid in the boxwood, close enough to hear every word.

"I had a stroke," Miss Lilian said, as if that were far more important than Georgie's and my disappearance. "I don't know anything about that girl and boy. Don't ask me again!"

"But you must have heard something," Mother persisted. "A car, perhaps; a stranger's voice, a cry—"

With some effort, Miss Lilian got to her feet. "I know nothing about it! Nothing! I almost died myself that day. Or have you forgotten?"

Leaving Mother on the lion bench, Miss Lilian hobbled into the kitchen, thumping her cane with every step.

Mother sat and wept quietly. Although we were near enough to reach out and touch her, we could do nothing but watch. The rules were strict. And harsh.

After a while Miss Lilian came to the door. She stood there a moment, glowering at Mother. "I can't afford to keep you and your husband here any longer," she said. "I want you out of the tenant house in forty-eight hours."

Mother stared at the old woman in disbelief. "But Miss Lilian, who will take care of you?"

"I don't need anyone! Especially you, wasting my time and money moping around, crying, thinking of no one but yourself."

We followed Mother back to the tenant house. Daddy was drinking a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

"Miss Lilian has dismissed us," she told him. "We have two days to pack up and leave the farm."

Daddy sighed and set his cup down. "It's for the best, Alice. We can't stay here. It's too hard."

Mother sat down at the table with him. "But what if they come home and we're not here?"

Daddy shook his head, his face sorrowful. "Don't talk that way," he murmured. "They won't return. You know it and I know it. They're gone."

Mother shook her head. "They're here on the farm. I feel them near me. So close, so..." Her voice broke and she began to cry. "How can I leave them?"

Daddy reached for her hands and held them tightly. "They'll always be with us. As long as we live, wherever we go."

And so two days later, Georgie and I hid in the woods and watched Mother and Daddy load their belongings, and ours, into a rental truck. Mother looked tired and sad. Daddy had no smiles, no jokes. He moved slowly, struggling with the weight of mattresses and furniture.

After Daddy loaded the last box, they got into the truck and drove down the lane. Georgie and I followed them through the woods, silently begging them to turn back, to stay near us as we'd stayed near them.

The truck stopped at the gate and Mother stepped out to open it. An autumn breeze stirred her hair and sent a scurry of leaves racing toward her. She looked back at the farm. Softly she called our names, as if she hoped we might finally hear and come running.

Georgie made a move toward her, but I seized his shirt and held him back. "No," I whispered. "We can't go to her. You know that."

He struggled for a moment and then went limp in my arms, his body shaking with sobs, his face against my chest. The rules kept us where we were, as much a part of the farm now as the trees, more firmly rooted to its earth than the deer and foxes.

Silently we watched Daddy drive the truck through the gate. Mother closed it behind him. She lingered, her eyes searching the woods, whispering our names again. Daddy called to her softly, and she climbed into the passenger seat. The door closed almost noiselessly, and Daddy turned off the engine. They sat together for a long time, talking.

"Maybe they'll change their minds," Georgie whispered. "Maybe they'll stay."

I shook my head. Miss Lilian had fired them. The old stone tenant house was no longer their home.

Finally, Daddy started the truck and turned east on the state road, just two lanes in those days. Georgie and I climbed onto the gate and watched until the truck vanished from sight and the road was empty.