The Peculiar Night of the Blue Heart (14 page)

At least, he thought it must have once been yellow. The fabric was filthy and so faded that he could almost see right through it.

In his confusion, he wondered if the blue creature had buried it here. That it might have been an old doll from the little red house that hadn't been played with since Marybeth lost her interest in toys.

But the more dirt he cleared away, the longer the yellow fabric proved to be, until it was much too long for a doll, but just the right size for a real human girl.

He reached the hem of the fabric, scalloped with dirty white lace, and a small black shoe with a leather bow.

His heart was beating so loud by then that he felt it in his ears. Attached to the shoe was a solid white bone. The yellow dress was filled with bones as well.

Lionel stopped. He closed his eyes and tried, tried, tried to think of what the foxes or the birds would do. He tried to be any animal that came to his mind. An elephant or a tiger or the sparrows like the ones on the kitchen curtains.

But his mind would not let him. He was human, only human, and he couldn't stand it.

He sat on the ground for a very long time before he had the courage to clear away more of the dirt. All his animal instincts had abandoned him by then, and he saw through his human eyes.

There were legs, ribs, arms, fingers, lying fragile in the dirt, like a puzzle that would come apart if he disturbed the pieces.

And then, right where it should be, there was a skull. All together, the pieces made up a girl, about the same size as Lionel. Or, he thought, the same size as Marybeth.

“It's you,” he said to the empty spaces where its eyes should be. This was why the blue creature had run away when they stepped into the graveyard. This was why it kept leading Marybeth back to this barn in the middle of the night. It was trying to find its body, and it knew it would be here.

The blue creature had been human all along.

“I'll come back,” Lionel said. He began to lay the dirt back in place, so that nobody else would uncover what he'd found. “I won't leave you here forever. I promise.” But he knew there was no one to hear him. He was only talking to bones and cloth. The blue creature was not here. It was with Marybeth, who had been taken away. He would have to find her and bring her here.

Lionel arrived at the little red house just seconds before Mrs. Mannerd. She saw him darting out from between the shrubs. He saw her, too, and realized that he'd been caught. But worse, he saw that the passenger seat was empty.

Mrs. Mannerd got out of the car. She looked tired, and Lionel could sense her sadness even from several yards
away. “Oh, Lionel, what have you been up to now?” she said, exasperated.

“Where's Marybeth?” he said.

“Lionel—”

“You said you wouldn't leave her. You said you wouldn't!”

He ran for the road, but this one time Mrs. Mannerd was faster than he was. She had lost a child today, and she wasn't about to lose another. She grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“Lionel, listen to me.” She knelt to his level and gripped his shoulders. “Marybeth is sick. She's very sick. She's going to get what she needs there.”

Lionel squirmed angrily but could not free himself from her grasp. “She needs me,” he said. “I can help her.”

“You're only a little boy,” Mrs. Mannerd said. “I know you children have your fun pretending, but you are a child and so is she, and you'll understand one day that this is for the better.”

Lionel was so frustrated that he screamed.

It was a sound that Mrs. Mannerd hated especially, and Lionel knew it. But this time, Mrs. Mannerd did not cover her ears or tell him to stop. She kept hold of his arm and she marched right into the house, past the poor tutor who had been nervously searching for Lionel all morning.

Lionel was still screaming when Mrs. Mannerd dragged him up the stairs and into her bedroom, which was strictly off-limits. This got Lionel to stop screaming. He had never seen what was on the other side of this door. None of the children had.

It smelled faintly of laundered clothes and talcum powder. Lionel didn't get a chance to look around the room before Mrs. Mannerd had opened the closet door and pushed him inside.

Stunned, he tried the knob, but it was jammed. He pounded on the door, kicked it, but it was solid wood and it hardly even rattled.

“I'm sorry,” Mrs. Mannerd said. “I can't have you running after her. You'll only get yourself lost, or worse.”

Lionel rattled the doorknob and screamed. He made his hands like claws and tried to dig his way through the wood, even after the silence on the other side told him that Mrs. Mannerd had gone.

Downstairs, Mrs. Mannerd took the flour from the pantry and rummaged through the box of recipes she kept in a shoe box by the stove. Her hands were shaking, and the only thing that had ever settled her nerves was to cook. Anything would do.

But she could hear Lionel stomping around upstairs, and it was impossible to concentrate on the recipes.

Despite the racket Lionel made, she was not thinking
about Lionel as much as she was thinking about Marybeth.

She turned on the oven.

By midafternoon, the older children had returned from school, and the house was filled with their noise. From the kitchen, Mrs. Mannerd could hear their silly chatter and their meaningless arguments. They did not even notice that Lionel and Marybeth were gone.

Upstairs in the closet, Lionel had curled up on the floor and was staring at the crack of light that came through from under the door.

He thought about the skeleton in the yellow dress, and what Marybeth said about the lost souls wandering on Halloween. He thought back to the way the blue creature had been able to put on Marybeth's boots and button her coat, and how it knew the way to the farmhouse.

The blue creature, when it was alive, had been a human girl. Just like Marybeth.

Lionel had hours to imagine what sorts of horrible things had happened to the blue creature that led to her body being buried in that shed. He thought of how frightened the blue creature was of strangers, the way it ran away and cried out when someone got too close to
Marybeth. The way it attacked the older one that took Marybeth's food.

The blue creature had been murdered. There was no question about that. Maybe, Lionel thought, he could free Marybeth and together they could bring the blue creature back to her body.

He wasn't sure how to get out of this closet, much less how to save Marybeth. But one thing he knew for certain was that he couldn't tell Mrs. Mannerd the truth. Even after seeing what the blue creature had done to Marybeth, she believed that Marybeth was sick. She would never believe the truth. And even if he showed Mrs. Mannerd the skeleton in the barn, she would call the police. The police would take the bones and the yellow dress away, and then the blue creature would never find its way back and Marybeth would be haunted forever.

Lionel stayed very silent. Maybe Mrs. Mannerd would open the door if she thought he was dead. And maybe, if he could mimic the blue creature, she would take him to the same place she'd taken Marybeth.

Late that evening, the older children sat down for supper, and Mrs. Mannerd prepared a plate to take to Lionel. She included a slice of raspberry pie, which she
knew he loved and would probably eat even if he was mad at her. But just as she was about to walk upstairs, the telephone rang.

This caused the older children to stop their chatter. The phone never rang unless something big was about to happen, like a storm, or the arrival of a new orphan with nowhere left to go.

The ringing made Mrs. Mannerd very nervous, but she didn't let it show. She set Lionel's plate on the staircase, and she picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”

CHAPTER

17

The closet door was yanked open, waking Lionel from his fitful dreams of empty dresses buried in shallow graves. Mrs. Mannerd was standing over him, holding his coat and boots. “Get dressed,” she said, and the urgency in her voice made Lionel forget that he was angry with her. “We're going to get Marybeth.”

Lionel was dressed and in the car before Mrs. Mannerd had even finished buttoning her coat.

The sky was dark now, and thunder rumbled in the distance. Mrs. Mannerd ran from the house, not bothering with the scarf she wore on her head when it rained. She must have been very worried.

She started the car and backed down the driveway
faster than Lionel thought the car had been able to go. Just as they turned onto the road, it started to rain.

Finally, Lionel said, “Marybeth is in trouble, isn't she?”

“She's gone missing,” Mrs. Mannerd said. “I don't understand how. She was tied to the bed, and they said that she chewed through the restraints and somehow broke through the window.”

The word “restraints” hit Lionel like a punch. How could Mrs. Mannerd let them put Marybeth in restraints?

He swallowed down his argument. If he didn't behave, she might not allow him to come along. Politeness had become such a habit in recent weeks that he didn't have to work very hard to speak rationally. He said, “Why are you letting me come with you?”

“Because she listens to you.” Mrs. Mannerd shook her head. “I don't understand it, but you're the only one in the world who can talk to her these days.”

The rain sounded like hands on the roof of the car banging to be let in. A flash of lightning illuminated the road before them.

Mrs. Mannerd muttered prayers. Lionel thought of Marybeth and the frightened blue creature out in the cold rain.

The drive was very long, even though Mrs. Mannerd drove faster than the car was meant to go. Near the end of the drive, Lionel was beginning to contemplate prayers himself.

The car turned onto the bumpy dark road that was lined with trees. Lionel's stomach lurched, not because of the turbulence, but because this scary road was one that Marybeth had taken.

There was nothing but blackness.

Lionel first saw the building when it was illuminated by a flash of lightning. He shrank back in his seat. No wonder the blue creature had run away.

Mrs. Mannerd stopped the car, but she didn't open her door right away. She gripped the steering wheel and took a deep breath. “Lionel,” she said, “I want you to do what you have to do.” She looked at him. “If you can find her, do what you have to do. You won't be in trouble.”

Lionel nodded. They opened their doors and stepped out into the rain.

Lionel did not like the building at all. It smelled like open wounds, and the hallways were windowless cages.

The nurses were frantic and as white as their uniforms. They led Mrs. Mannerd and Lionel to the room where Marybeth had been.

Even for the blue creature, the sight was odd. There were leather straps at each corner of the bed, stretched
and worn until they were big enough to escape from. The window was small and very high on the wall. The glass was smashed and framed by bloody shards. The wind howled through the opening.

“What in the world,” Mrs. Mannerd gasped.