Wait Till Helen Comes

by Mary Downing Hahn

  As she leaned forward to rearrange the flowers, I gripped the fence and called to her. “What are you doing, Heather? Who are you talking to?”

  She leaped to her feet, her face pale and angry. “Molly!” she screamed, “Go away! Go away!”

  “Not until you tell me what you’re doing!” I shivered as the breeze gusted through the honeysuckle, filling the air with sweetness. Something hung in the space between us. For a moment, I felt it watching me. Then it was gone, and all around me the insects struck up a chorus of cheerful summer sounds.

  “I don’t have to tell you anything.” Heather’s narrow face was almost expressionless, masklike, as if it hid secrets, terrible secrets.

  “You were talking to someone. I heard you. You called her Helen.”

  Without looking at me, Heather took a flower from the jar. Pulling a petal off, she dropped it and watched it flutter down to the grave. “You didn’t see anybody. Or even hear anybody, did you?” She glanced at me, her tangled hair almost hiding her eyes.

  “There was something,” I insisted. “I know there was.”

  Heather shook her head and continued pulling the petals off, one by one. She watched them as they drifted with the breeze down to the earth. “Don’t spy on me anymore, Molly,” she said softly. “I don’t like to be spied on.”

  “You better come out from under that tree,” I yelled. “You heard what Mr. Simmons said about snakes and poison ivy.”

  “I’ll stay here as long as I want.” Heather finished stripping the flower of its petals and bent to pick up another one. “If you want me, you’ll have to come here and get me,” she said.

  A ray of sunlight lanced down through the oak’s leaves and touched the jar of flowers, and from somewhere in the branches overhead a crow cawed. Folding my arms tightly across my chest, I backed away from the graveyard. “Get bitten by a snake,” I said as I began walking back toward the church. “See if I care!”

  The only answer was the rustling of leaves and a faint sound of laughter. Without looking back, I quickened my pace, anxious to get away from Heather and whatever else might be lingering under that tree.

  Although I tried to tell Mom that I thought that the graveyard was haunted, she was too busy fixing dinner to listen to me. “Honestly, Molly,” she said, “Reading all that poetry is making you morbid. Now get busy and put ice in the glasses so I can pour the tea.”

  “But, Mom, if you’d been there—” I started to say, but she looked so exasperated, I stopped in mid-sentence. What was the use?

  After dinner, I found Michael out on the front porch watching the stars come out. “See that one, right there?” He pointed at a bright star hanging just above the mountains across the valley. “That’s a planet. Venus. You can see it in the morning, too.”

  I nodded and sat down beside him, trying to think of a good way to introduce the subject of ghosts. “Do you believe in things you can’t prove?” I asked him.

  He looked at me as if he were a little puzzled. “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Ghosts and stuff like that.” I hugged my knees against my chest and turned my back to the graveyard.

  Michael laughed. “What’s the matter? Are you still scared you’ll see something looking in your window at night?”

  “Don’t laugh, Michael.” I glared at him. “I’m not just kidding around.” Glancing over my shoulder to make sure Heather wasn’t standing behind us eavesdropping, I told him about her strange behavior in the graveyard.

  “So?” Michael swatted a mosquito on his arm. “You know how she is, always living in some weird little world of her own. She probably has an imaginary friend, and you embarrassed her.”

  “You didn’t see her, Michael. It wasn’t just her imagination. There was something there; I could sense it.” I took a deep breath. “It scared me, Michael.”

  “Oh, Molly,” Michael laughed, “next you’ll be telling me you actually saw a ghost.”

  “I told you not to laugh!” I yelled. “It’s not funny!”

  “No, it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.”

  Michael and I spun around. Heather was standing just inside the screen door, her face pressing against it. “There’s nothing funny about Helen,” she added softly.

  “Mom should get you a collar with bells on it,” Michael said, “like cats wear to warn birds. Then maybe you couldn’t sneak up and spy on people.”

  “Molly spies on me,” Heather hissed. “She spied on me and Helen today!”

  “See?” I turned to Michael.

  Before he could say anything, Heather looked at us, a frown creasing her face. “Molly’s right. You better not laugh, Michael. Helen doesn’t like either one of you, and when she comes, you’ll be sorry for everything you ever did to me.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Heather turned away and disappeared into the shadows in the hall.

  “There,” I whispered, clutching Michael’s arm. “Do you see what I mean?”

  Michael pulled away from me. “Don’t let that little brat scare you with make-believe, Molly. You’re acting like a real dope.”

  “I am not!” Tears stung my eyes, and I ran into the house, almost colliding with Mom as she came out of the kitchen.

  “I was just looking for you and Michael,” she said cheerfully. “Would you like some ice cream? Heather and Dave and I were just about to sit down and try the ice-cream maker we got last week. How about it?”

  Behind her, in the lighted kitchen, I could see Dave setting up the machine while Heather watched. He turned to her and said something, and she laughed and gave him a strawberry to sample.

  “Now, Dave,” Mom said, “I saw that! Don’t eat them all, or we won’t have enough for the ice cream.”

  “Daddy can have all he wants!” Heather stuck out her lip and scowled at Mom.

  As Dave turned to Heather, I edged past Mom. “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m not in the mood for ice cream.”

  “But, honey . . .” Mom started, reaching out to stop me.

  I kept on going. “She ruins everything,” I said to Mom before going in my room and shutting the door. I hoped Heather would stay in the kitchen until I was asleep.

  6

  THAT NIGHT, Heather had her first bad dream. She woke me up screaming, “Help, help, it’s on fire! Put it out, Mommy, put it out!”

  I jumped out of bed, switched on the light, and ran to her. She was sitting up in bed, her eyes squeezed shut, clutching her blanket. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she was trembling.

  “Save me, save me!” she cried.

  “Heather!” I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “You’re having a bad dream. Wake up!”

  Michael stumbled into the room. “What’s going on? What’s wrong with her?”

  Twisting and turning, Heather squirmed away from me and started running down the hall, still screaming about the fire. Dave caught her and picked her up. “It’s all right, honey, it’s all right,” he murmured, rocking her as if she were a baby.

  Suddenly she collapsed against him, perfectly relaxed. Her mouth found her thumb; her long eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks; her legs dangled like a rag doll’s. Gently Dave carried her back into our room and lowered her into bed.

  “There now,” he whispered. Smoothing her hair back from her forehead, he kissed her.

  Heather’s eyes opened for a second, and she smiled at her father before sinking back into sleep.

  Turning to me, Dave whispered, “What happened?”

  “She was screaming about the fire. I tried to wake her up, but I couldn’t. Then she jumped out of bed and ran out into the hall.” I took Mom’s hand and slid closer to her. Was he going to blame me somehow?

  Dave shook his head and ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up in spikes. “She hasn’t had those nightmares for so long; I thought she’d gotten over them.” Looking at me again, he asked, “Did anything upset her today?”

  “Well, she was in the graveyard,” I said uneasily
. “She was talking to someone. She thinks there’s a girl there, Helen.” It sounded so ridiculous when I talked about it that I was embarrassed. I already knew what Michael and Mom thought about ghosts; I was sure Dave would have the same reaction.

  Just as I thought, Dave smiled. “Heather’s very imaginative.” He said it as if I’d criticized her. “And very sensitive. You and Michael haven’t been asking her questions about the fire, have you?”

  “Of course not!” I stared at him, shocked. Surely he knew that Michael and I had promised not to talk to Heather about the fire. Did he think we would go back on our word?

  “I thought something might have stirred up her memories.” He tugged on his beard, gazing at me as if he weren’t sure I could be trusted to tell the truth.

  “It’s what happened in the graveyard,” I said. “There’s something bad under the oak tree; I know there is! You should make her stay away from it. Even Mr. Simmons told her not to go near it because of snakes and poison ivy.”

  “Snakes and poison ivy are one thing,” Dave said slowly, “but don’t you ever start scaring her with stories about ‘bad’ things in the graveyard.”

  “Molly thinks the graveyard’s haunted,” my loyal brother said. “She’s sure some ghost is after Heather.”

  Mom and Dave both turned on me then. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, Molly,” Mom said, and Dave agreed.

  “No more talk about ghosts,” he said. “Especially not around Heather. I don’t want you scaring her. No wonder she had a nightmare.”

  “But I didn’t tell her, she told me!” I pulled away from Mom, feeling betrayed first by Michael and then by her. “And, besides, you didn’t see her, you didn’t hear her!”

  Michael laughed. “Molly didn’t scare Heather,” he said. “Heather scared Molly.”

  Dave sighed and put his arm around Mom’s shoulders. “Well, no sense standing here all night arguing about it,” he said. “Just don’t inflict your own fears on Heather, Molly. You’ve been fretting about that graveyard ever since we moved in here. It doesn’t bother anybody else, so forget it, okay?” He reached out and gave my head a pat.

  As I started to go back into my room, he added, “I see Heather’s visits to the graveyard as a way of coming to terms with her mother’s death. It’s probably good for her. As long as nobody scares her.” He looked at me again, leaving no doubt about whom he meant.

  Closing my door, I tiptoed back to bed. Before I lay down, I peeked at Heather. The moonlight shone on her face, and I was sure her eyes were open a tiny slit. “I bet you lay here and listened to every word we said,” I whispered, but she didn’t answer. Turning my back to her and the window, I switched on my tape player and fell asleep listening to West Side Story.

  The next morning, after Dave had disappeared into the carriage house, Mom into her loft, and Michael into the woods, I sat at the breakfast table with Heather, watching her poke at the cereal in her bowl.

  “What are you going to do today?” I asked her.

  “Nothing.” She carried her bowl to the garbage can and dumped most of her cereal.

  “I bet you’re going to the graveyard again.”

  She looked at me over her shoulder, tangles of hair almost hiding her face. “Maybe I am and maybe I’m not. It’s none of your business, is it?”

  “There isn’t really a ghost, is there? You were making it all up.”

  “You heard what Daddy said last night. No more talk about ghosts or trying to scare me. I’m going to tell him you’re still doing it.” With her hand on the screen door, she added, “You better not follow me or spy on me either. You’ll be sorry if you do. Helen doesn’t like people who bother me.”

  Before I could say anything, she was gone, leaving the screen door to bang shut behind her. Running to the window over the sink, I watched her saunter across the yard and disappear through the graveyard gate. Just once, she looked back and scowled at me.

  Since it was my day to wash the breakfast dishes, I filled the sink with hot, soapy water and watched the bowls and mugs and glasses slowly fill and sink beneath the bubbles. While I washed them, I wondered what I should do about Heather and the ghost. If there were a ghost. In the morning sunlight, it seemed almost likely that I had imagined the presence of something inhuman under the oak tree. Maybe Mom was right about the poetry I’d been reading. Especially the Poe.

  After I finished the dishes, I made my bed, trying to ignore the tangle of sheets, blankets, and clothes on Heather’s bed. Then I picked up Watership Down and went outside to read.

  Stretching out in the shade of one of the maples, I opened my book, but the warmth of summer made it hard to concentrate. In the droning of bees, in the rustling of leaves, in the swaying of wild flowers, I imagined I heard Helen’s voice whispering to Heather, calling her, promising her things. Closing my book, I left it under the tree and crossed the lawn to the graveyard. I crept along the outside of the hedge, paused when I reached the oak tree, and peered through the leaves at the little stone, expecting to see Heather sitting there. All I saw was the peanut butter jar, filled with fresh flowers.

  Pushing through the hedge, I forced myself to approach the tombstone. “H.E.H.,” I read. “March 7, 1879–August 8, 1886.” She had been dead for a hundred years, so much longer than she’d been alive. What was left of her now? A tangle of bones? Maybe nothing but dust. I shivered, cold in the shade of the oak, hugging myself to get warm.

  Thinking about the snakes, I backed away from the grave, feeling the warm sunlight strike my back as I moved out of the shade of the oak. With bees droning in the Queen Anne’s lace and a butterfly flitting around my head, it was strange to think of death, especially the death of a little girl, younger even than I was. Could she really still be here, haunting this grave? If she did exist, what did she want? A breeze sighed through the leaves of the oak. It was the loneliest sound I’d ever heard, as lonely as a ghost who had been lying alone in the dark for a hundred years.

  Overwhelmed with a terrible feeling of sadness and despair, I turned and ran out of the graveyard, feeling my heart pound. I wanted to go to Mom, but I knew she would laugh at me, or worse, get cross. Knowing it was useless to turn to Dave, I decided to look for Michael. I guessed he was somewhere in the woods and followed the path along the creek, hoping I might find him trying to catch crawfish where the water slowed near the fence.

  At the end of the path, though, all I saw were the cows, standing knee-deep in the creek and staring stupidly at me. As I looked around, wondering where Michael might have gone, I noticed a path on the other side of the creek, angling off into the trees. It looked like the sort of thing Michael would enjoy exploring, so I pulled off my sandals, waded across, and followed the path into the woods.

  After walking for about ten minutes, I found myself beside the creek again. Ahead of me, the woods thinned out, and I saw a large pond. Hurrying toward it, I looked around for Michael, sure he’d be here, but there was no sign of him.

  On the rising ground above the pond were the ruins of an old stone house. Although the wall was two stories high on the side facing the water, the rest of the house was a crumbling heap of rock and charred wood. Long ago it must have burned, I thought. But before that, it must have been beautiful, standing there on the hill looking out across the valley to the mountains.

  While I was gazing at the house, trying to imagine it whole, I saw a flash of color, the red of a tee shirt instantly visible. Thinking it was Michael, I started to call him, then stopped myself. Heather had been wearing a red tee shirt when she ran out of the kitchen this morning. What was she doing here, so far away from home?

  Running across the clearing between the house and the pond, I crept through the underbrush surrounding the ruins, trying hard to make no noise. As I reached the corner of the house, I heard Heather’s voice and dropped silently to my knees. Crawling through a thicket of polk berries and honeysuckle, I spotted Heather sitting on what once must have been a terrace. />
  “It’s lovely here, Helen,” she said, turning toward a space in the air, a sort of shimmering emptiness that reminded me of heat waves thrown out by a camp fire on a hot day. I was sure that Heather could see someone or something, that she could hear a voice speaking in the breeze.

  Shivering, I felt the hairs on my neck and arms rise. At any moment I expected to see what Heather saw, and I was sure that Michael would not laugh if he were here. Even Mom and Dave would have to believe me. Heather was not sitting on that stone bench alone talking to an imaginary friend. Something was with her, and I was sure it was no friend.

  Very slowly and cautiously, I backed away into my tunnel through the underbrush. All of a sudden, the house seemed threatening, more frightening than the graveyard itself. Its ruined walls towered over me, smoke-scorched and smelling still of charred wood and ash. Something terrible had happened here—I knew it had—and I wanted to get away, to save myself from whatever waited here in its ruins.

  Breaking free of the bushes and trees I ran toward the pond, not caring now whether Heather saw me or not. Once I reached the safety of the woods, I slowed down and finally collapsed on a fallen tree, gasping for breath.

  While I sat there, trying to breathe normally, I heard someone coming down the path. Looking up, I saw Heather walking toward me. At the sight of me, she stopped, obviously startled.

  “What are you doing here?” Her hands balled into fists, she stood in the middle of the path, sunlight and shadow mottling her face and clothes with random patches of darkness and light. “You followed me again!”

  Standing up to give myself the advantage of height, I shook my head. “I was looking for Michael,” I said, “and I saw you on the terrace, talking to someone.”

  Heather tilted her head to one side, her jaw protruding at a stubborn angle. “So?”

  “Heather, this isn’t a good place.” Frightened, I reached out to take her arm, but she sidestepped me.

  “Don’t try to tell me what to do, Molly!” Heather’s gray eyes stared into mine. “This is Helen’s house; she invited me here, and I’ll come whenever I want to! You’re the one who better stay away.”