Shuddering with cold and fear, I wanted to shake Elsie, hit her, hurt her, but I knew she’d drift away from me like smoke and reappear in a different place. “Please,” I croaked, “please let me go home.”
“First, answer this question, Annie: Which would you prefer? Rosie to die of the flu or you to die of the cold here in the cemetery? Be honest.”
“I don’t want either Rosie or me to die.”
“That’s not the answer.”
“But it’s the truth.”
Elsie brushed snow off the angel’s wing tips. “No. The truth is you’d choose Rosie to die and you to live. Anyone would. But no one will admit it. Not even to themselves.” Elsie laughed and leapfrogged from tombstone to tombstone, leaving me behind to struggle home through the snow.
I told myself she was wrong. I’d told her the truth. I didn’t want either Rosie or me to die. But I couldn’t silence the tiny voice that whispered if I really had to choose one of us to die and the other to live, I’d choose Rosie to die and me to live.
All the way home, I prayed, “Please don’t let Rosie die, please don’t let her die, please don’t let her die.” Over and over, with every step I took, my prayers rang in my ears. But I never prayed let me die, not Rosie. It was always please don’t let Rosie die, please, please, please don’t let her die.
“If you’d prayed like that for me,” Elsie whispered from a shadow, “if anyone had, maybe I’d still be alive.”
Instead of going home, I walked blocks out of my way to stand in front of Rosie’s house. Her window shade was still pulled, but I could see a dim light shining through it.
“Just because her light’s on doesn’t mean she’s alive,” Elsie whispered. “No one leaves the dead alone in the dark. Well, not until they’re buried.”
Ignoring her, I climbed Rosie’s steps and rang the bell. I heard footsteps in the hall. The door opened, and Mrs. O’Malley looked down at me.
“What are you doing here, Annie? It’s after dark. You should be at home.”
“I just wanted to ask how Rosie is.”
“She’s very ill. I hope you’re sorry now about your little prank with the flu mask.”
With that, she shut the door.
“Ha,” said Elsie. “Mrs. O’Malley blames you. Everybody blames you. Think what it will be like when Rosie dies!”
I ran, but I couldn’t outrun her. She was always one streetlight ahead, mocking me as she sailed over the snow and ice.
At last I turned the corner and saw my house. The porch light cast sharp shadows across our front yard.
As I ran up the steps, Father opened the door.
“Where have you been this time, Annie?”
“I went to visit my friend Elsie.” Of course that was not what I meant to say.
Mother had joined Father in the hall. They stood together and looked at me, their faces drawn with worry.
“You walked all the way to the cemetery?” Father asked.
“You didn’t even like that girl,” Mother added.
“Elsie was my bosom friend, but I kept it secret because of the others.”
Mother stared at me. “What others?”
“Rosie, Jane, Lucy, Eunice.” I spat their names out as if they were poison.
“I thought they were your friends,” Father said.
“You don’t know what they’re really like. I kept my friendship with Elsie secret from them because they hated her. It was Rosie’s fault Elsie died of flu. She stole her flu mask.”
“I don’t understand,” Mother said.
“You don’t understand.” I was mocking Mother now. I wanted to stop and beg her forgiveness, but Elsie wouldn’t let me. “What do you know about me or who my friends are or what I do or what I think? Nothing!”
Elsie’s words continued to pour from my mouth. She was in my head. She’d taken possession of me; she could make me say anything she wanted me to say. Lie after lie.
“You don’t care about me! You pretend to love me, oh yes, but secretly you wish I’d die of the flu like poor Elsie!”
As I broke away and ran to my room, I heard Mother ask Father, “Now do you believe me? She’s been acting like this ever since she returned to school.”
He said, “Perhaps we need to find a different doctor.”
I slammed my bedroom door and flung myself on my bed. Elsie sat beside me.
“A different doctor. Hmm.” She ran her icy fingers through my hair. “I’m afraid you might end up in the state lunatic asylum out on the Baltimore Pike. Padded cells, straitjackets, cold baths, but don’t worry, I’ll come to visit you. You’ll always have me, no matter what.”
“I hate you so much I’d kill you all over again if I could!”
It was at that moment Mother opened my door. “What did you just say, Annie? Who would you kill?”
“Nobody! Leave me alone. I don’t want you near me.”
Mother hesitated in the doorway.
I was throwing my pillows at her and screaming words I didn’t know I knew.
Mother backed away and called Father.
By the time he ran up the steps, I was hurling my collection of china figurines at the wall. My precious little dogs and cats, horses and squirrels, birds and rabbits, broke into fragments. Heads, legs, wings, and tails lay scattered on the floor. My elephant, a gift from Great-aunt Violet and the largest and heaviest thing on the shelf, crashed through my window and disappeared into the night, followed by Edward Bear.
Before Father restrained me, I’d thrown my books at him and Mother, yanked the head off Antoinette, and kicked over the dollhouse.
Panting and struggling to escape his arms, I continued to swear. Mother was crying, but Elsie was perched on my bureau clapping her hands with delight.
“For God’s sake, Ida,” Father shouted, “call Dr. Hughes!”
By the time, the doctor arrived, I’d fallen asleep from exhaustion. I woke to see him bending over me.
“Go away!” My voice was so hoarse from shouting it was no more than a raspy whisper.
“What’s troubling you, Annie?” he asked.
“Nothing. Everything. The moon, the sun, the stars.”
He looked puzzled. “Is that all?”
I think he meant to try a little humor, but it didn’t work.
“The world,” I whispered, “and all the people in it. Especially you.” I grabbed his arm. “Just make her go away. Then I’ll be me.”
“Who?”
Elsie sat in my rocking chair, smiling to herself. To my surprise, she let me go on in my own words.
“Elsie Schneider, that’s who.” I pointed at the rocking chair. “Can’t you see her sitting there?”
Dr. Hughes looked at the chair. “Annie,” he said softly, “Elsie passed away last fall. She isn’t here.”
I grabbed his arm. I had to make him believe me. “Oh, yes she is, only no one sees her or hears her but me. She’s gotten inside me. She makes me say things, she makes me do things, like putting the flu mask in Rosie’s bookbag. She wanted Rosie to get the flu, she wants her to die and be buried next to her.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because somebody has to make her go away.”
“Listen to me, Annie. You’re fatigued—you need to rest. I’m going to give you a pill to help you relax and sleep.”
He handed me a glass of water and big white pill. I swallowed it and drank all of the water to wash away the bitter taste it left in my mouth.
He sat beside me until the pill took effect. The last thing I saw was Elsie. She was perched on Dr. Hughes’s shoulder, grinning down at me. Then everything whirled away into darkness.
Seventeen
HEN I AWOKE, I thought I was still dreaming. The room in which I found myself was pleasant enough, but it wasn’t my room. How had I gotten there?
In a state of panic, I sat up and called Mother and Father. Where were they? Where was I?
“I know where you are.” Elsie sat down on
the bed and leaned toward me. She looked very pleased with herself. “Admit it—you know, too.”
I shook my head. I was still groggy from the pill Dr. Hughes had given me, and there was a bitter taste in my mouth. My thoughts were crooked, random. They rolled through my head without connecting with one another.
“Am I sick? Am I in the hospital?”
Elsie laughed. “Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “Go on, guess again.”
I looked around, frantic to find a clue, but the pale blue walls told me nothing.
Elsie sighed. “You could call it a hospital. Some people do. And they definitely think you’re sick.” She spun her finger and tapped her forehead.
“What are you talking about? I’m not crazy—why would I be in an insane asylum?”
“Have you forgotten the trouble you got into yesterday?”
“But that was your fault. You made me do those things!”
At that moment, the door opened and a doctor I’d never seen came in. Mother and Father followed him. Mother tried to run to my side, but Father stopped her. “Remember, Annie mustn’t be overexcited,” he whispered as if I weren’t meant to hear. “She needs a calm atmosphere and plenty of rest.”
“What did you just say?” the doctor asked me.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Who were you talking to?”
“Nobody.” I lay down and pulled the cover up to my chin.
Elsie flitted about the room singing, “I ain’t got no body, and nobody cares for me.” The curtains stirred as she passed the window, the armchair moved a smidgen closer to my bed, a picture on the wall tipped to the right, but no one noticed any of this. Their attention was fixed on me, the crazy girl.
“Why am I in an insane asylum?” I shouted to be heard over Elsie’s racket. “I’m not sick, I’m not crazy, I want to go home!”
“I’m Dr. Benson,” the man said in a soft voice, probably meant to calm me. “You’re in the Cedar Grove Convalescent Home, not an insane asylum. You’re neither sick nor crazy, but your concussion has left you in a precarious state of mind. You’re here to get the rest and treatment you need. Depending on your progress and cooperation, you’ll be with us a month or so.”
“I hope you’re satisfied!” I shouted at Elsie, who was now standing next to Father, smirking at me.
Father stared at me. “Why should I be satisfied, Annie? Believe me, this is the last thing I want for you, but after last night—”
It was rude, I know, but I interrupted him. “I wasn’t talking to you, Father.”
Dr. Benson looked around the room with exaggerated care and said, “I don’t see anyone here but your father, your mother, and me.”
“That’s the whole problem,” I cried. “No one sees her but me.”
“We’re concerned about your insistence that Elsie Schneider is here,” the doctor said, still speaking in that soft, low voice. “Surely you know she died last fall.”
He paused and looked at me closely. “Do you feel guilty about Elsie’s death? Did you say or do something you regret?”
“Yes, you did, yes, indeed you did,” Elsie hissed, “and I’m here to make you pay for it.”
“It wasn’t just me—it was all of us—but she’s taking it out on me. She won’t leave me alone. She says she’s my bosom buddy, but I HATE HER!” I was screaming and crying and trying to say everything before Elsie stopped me and filled my mouth with her words.
“And now she’s here in this very room,” I babbled on. “She torments me day and night and makes me say and do terrible things!”
When I finally ran out of words, I looked at Elsie. She smiled as if my performance pleased her.
Dr. Benson spoke to my parents in a whisper. I couldn’t hear his remarks, but whatever he said made Elsie smile wide enough to show her nasty teeth, stained as if she’d been eating dirt.
A servant arrived with my breakfast, a soft-boiled egg in a cup, toast soldiers, and orange juice—just what I had at home.
While I picked at the food, Dr. Benson told my parents they could stay with me for a couple of hours.
“After you leave,” he went on, “Annie will eat lunch and begin a program of activities designed especially for her. Arts and crafts, calisthenics, a tutor to help with her school work. If all goes well, she’ll be permitted to spend an unsupervised hour or so in the library. Of course, she’ll see me at least once every day.”
“You’ll like that, won’t you?” Mother asked me. “You’ve always enjoyed arts and crafts, and it will be good to keep up with your schoolwork.”
In hope I’d be free of Elsie during the activities designed just for me, the girl in a precarious state of mind, I nodded enthusiastically. Everyone looked pleased—except Elsie. I knew she detested being left out.
Dr. Benson excused himself. As he left the room, Elsie made faces at him, but of course no one but me noticed.
Father took a seat in an armchair near my bed, Mother sat on the bed beside me, and Elsie swung by her knees from the curtain rod, hair hanging over her face, showing off her lacy bloomers again.
After I’d eaten what I could, Mother carried the tray to a small table near the door. Returning to her seat beside me, she touched my hand gently. “You know Elsie isn’t here, Annie.”
“And she’s not responsible for your behavior,” Father added.
“She’s right there.” I pointed at Elsie. “Why can’t you see her?”
“Nobody’s there, Annie.” Mother was close to tears, but Elsie crowed with laughter.
“She’s right,” Elsie said. “I ain’t got no body!”
“Shut up!” I yelled at her.
Mother drew away from me, but Father said, “Remember, Ida, Annie’s not talking to you. She’s talking to Elsie.”
When Mother gave in to tears, Father left his chair and sat beside me on the bed. Putting an arm around me, he said, “You must believe me. Elsie is a figment of your imagination. That’s why no one else can see her.”
“Oh, Father.” I pressed my face against his jacket and wept. He and Mother did their best to comfort me, but it was hopeless. As long as they believed Elsie to be a figment of my imagination, they couldn’t help me. No one could.
For the rest of their visit, Mother and Father tried to cheer me up. We played a couple of games of Parcheesi, and I won both. Probably they let me win—anything to keep the crazy girl happy. Father said it was because my friends and I played Parcheesi often and he and Mother hadn’t played for years. They were out of practice.
Next Father pulled a set of Author cards out of his jacket pocket. I was the first to match my four authors with their books—Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott. Father almost won, but I managed to edge him out with Oliver Twist, thereby completing my last set.
Mother was hopelessly behind, which made her laugh. “I need to read something besides cookbooks.”
“It’s a matter of getting the right cards,” Father said. “Winning has nothing to do with reading the author’s books.”
We began another round. As we asked each other for cards, I think we all forgot where I was and why. But I couldn’t help wondering what Elsie was doing while we amused ourselves with games. She was very quiet—no interruptions, no taunts, no antics. From time to time, not often enough for my parents to notice, I looked around the room. Morning sunlight cast shadows as it streamed through the windows, but Elsie wasn’t hiding in them. Nor was she behind Father’s chair, lurking in corners, or hanging upside down from the curtain rod. She was definitely not here, and I began to hope she really was a figment of my imagination.
Just as we finished our third game of Authors, which Mother won, a nurse entered the room and told Father and Mother that visiting hours were over for the day. Mother hugged me tearfully and begged me to get well and come home soon. Father presented me with a couple of books he and Mother had picked out—Seventeen and Anne’s House of Dreams.<
br />
“I hope you haven’t read these yet,” he said as he put them on the bedside table.
“Oh, I’ve been especially wanting to read Seventeen. I’ve heard it’s very funny, much like the Penrod books, which you know I love. Only for someone a little older—like me.”
I picked up Anne’s House of Dreams. “This is the newest. I’ve read all the ones that came before.”
I didn’t tell Father I’d lost interest in the Anne books now that Elsie had entered my life. It hurt to read them and think of Rosie and the fun we had when we were friends.
I hugged them both. “Please come tomorrow.”
After they left my room, I listened to their footsteps until I couldn’t hear them anymore. They hadn’t wanted to go—I knew that—but I slid under the covers and cried until a woman entered the room. She introduced herself as Nurse Baker. From the way she looked at me, I was certain she knew all about me and my precarious state of mind.
“It’s almost time for lunch, Annie,” she said in a no-nonsense manner. “Time to get out of bed, wash, and dress. You must look presentable when you meet the others.”
“The others?”
“You’ll take your meals in the dining room, just like everyone else. No pampering for you, my girl.”
I disliked Nurse Baker already. She was cross and sharp-spoken and bossy. I almost wished Elsie were here to torment her in some way.
Without looking at her, I washed my face and hands in the bowl she’d brought. I used the pot she pulled out from under the bed, although it mortified me to do so. I put on the plain blue dress she gave me, thick stockings, and unfashionable button-top shoes.
“Why can’t I wear my own clothes?”
“We don’t want anyone having nicer things than someone else.” With that, she handed me a brush and comb and a hair ribbon.
When I was washed, dressed, and combed, she looked me over and frowned. “I suppose you’ll do.”
I followed Nurse Baker down a long straight hall lined with open doors. Each room was exactly like mine. I hadn’t thought to look at the number and hoped I could find it when lunch was over.
Before we entered the dining room, she gave me a schedule of my activities. “Don’t forget,” she said, “arts and crafts in Room 30-B immediately after lunch. Be on time. Punctuality is important.”
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