A Haunting Collection

by Mary Downing Hahn

  “Look!” I pointed at the wall. “See that?” But, even as I spoke, I saw Helen’s message fade away like letters written in the sand as the tide rises. What had been words, letters were now meaningless cracks and scuffs on the wall.

  “Darling,” Mom drew me closer, caressing my back. “It’s all right, Molly. We’ll get it all put back together somehow.”

  Frightened, I collapsed against Mom, letting her stroke my back, my hair, crying as if I would never stop.

  “We should check the rest of the house,” Dave said after a while. “And our studios. Then I’ll call the police.”

  Silently we followed him through the house. His and Mom’s room, the living room, the kitchen, the bathrooms—nothing had been touched. Relieved, he walked down the driveway toward the carriage house, towing Heather behind him like a pull toy. A glance inside told him nothing had been disturbed. His bowls and mugs, his vases and platters sat on their shelves, either glazed or waiting to be glazed. The kiln and the pottery wheel stood silently in their places. Overhead in the rafters, a barn swallow twittered and flew back and forth, worried that we would disturb its nest.

  Satisfied, Dave led us across the yard to the side door of the church. Once again we recoiled from the cold air, and I clasped Mom’s hand, knowing what we would find.

  Mom’s big canvases had been slashed and thrown to the floor. Her easel was smashed, and her oil paints were smeared all over the walls. For a moment, I was sure I saw Helen’s initials scrawled there, but, as before, they vanished too quickly for me to point them out.

  Mom fell against Dave, too upset to speak. He put his arms around her and stroked her hair as if she were a child, letting her tears soak his shirt.

  Heather hovered near her father, obviously displeased by the attention he was giving Mom.

  “Don’t cry, Jean, don’t cry,” Dave whispered. “If I can’t fix the easel, I’ll get you another one.”

  “But we can’t afford it,” Mom sobbed. “We were counting on the sale of my paintings to get through the winter. Now they’re ruined. How will we pay the mortgage? How will we heat the house?”

  “Don’t worry, Jean. I can teach a few classes. And we’ve got insurance. I know it won’t replace your paintings, but it will help.” As Heather tugged at his trouser leg, he turned to her. “Not now, Heather!”

  She recoiled from the anger in his voice. “You love her more than me,” she whimpered.

  Dave either ignored her or failed to hear. He started toward the house, his arm around Mom’s shoulders. “We’ll call the police,” he said.

  As Heather hung back, frowning at Mom and Dave, Michael turned to her. “Poor little Heather,” he said. “Left out in the cold by Daddy.”

  She stared up at him. “Do you believe in Helen now?” she hissed. “I told you she’d make you sorry! The next time it will be much, much worse. You just wait!”

  “You little creep!” Michael grabbed her and shook her. “You know perfectly well you’re lying about Helen. What makes me mad is the way you enjoy seeing us unhappy! You just love it, don’t you?”

  “I hate you all.” Heather tried to pull away from him. “Now let me go! Let me go! Daddy! Daddy!”

  Dave turned back just in time to see Heather and Michael struggling. Running toward us, he pulled Heather away from Michael. While she clung to him sobbing, he caught Michael by the neck of his tee shirt. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again!” he yelled. “Aren’t things bad enough without your picking on a kid half your size?”

  As Dave strode back toward the house, carrying Heather, Michael and I sat down on the church steps. “I despise him,” Michael muttered. “I despise them both.”

  “Me too.” Although I didn’t say it aloud, I knew I hated Helen most of all. Fearfully, I glanced toward the graveyard. For a second, I saw a glimmer of white in the shade of the oak, just a flash through the hedge. You’re there, aren’t you? I thought. Watching all of this, enjoying it even more than Heather.

  A few minutes later, I saw the back door open. Heather ran down the steps and across the yard. Pausing at the graveyard gate, she looked at me, smiling. Then she pushed the gate open and vanished behind the hedge.

  As I leaned toward Michael to tell him where Heather had gone, I was interrupted by the arrival of a police car. It pulled up by the steps, and a fat man in a light blue shirt and dark pants got out and went inside. From where Michael and I sat, we could hear his radio squawking.

  Around twenty minutes later, he came outside with Mom and Dave. “It’s a shame, a real shame,” he was saying as he walked toward the church. “Never had anything like this happen around here before. Most folks don’t even bother to lock their doors when they go out. Must have been some kids from Adelphia or somewhere. Baltimore maybe. Just passing through, doing drugs, looking for fun, who knows?”

  Nodding to Michael and me, he followed Mom and Dad into the church and up the stairs to the loft. We could hear them walking around, talking. As they emerged from the church, the policeman stopped and wiped his forehead with a big handkerchief. His face was red and shiny from the heat.

  “Are these the two that interrupted the vandals?” He peered down at Michael and me.

  Mom introduced us, and Officer Greene asked us a few questions, but we couldn’t tell him anything that would help him. As he put his notebook into his pocket, he thanked us. “You sure you didn’t see anybody?” he asked.

  “My sister claims she saw a ghost,” Michael said, taking me completely by surprise.

  “A ghost?” Officer Greene stared at me.

  “Oh, Molly!” Mom touched my shoulder. “No more of that!”

  Officer Greene turned to her. “Well, ma’am, she wouldn’t be the first person to see a ghost at Saint Swithin’s. I know grown men who don’t like to drive past the graveyard at night.” He chuckled. “’Course I don’t believe in ghosts myself. Never saw one and never hope to see one. But then they tell me only certain folk can see them. So who’s to say?”

  The officer patted my head and said that he was sorry about my room. “I hope we get it all straightened out, but I know that you’ll never be able to replace some of those things.” Turning back to Mom, he added, “I’d sure hate for you folks to think anybody from Holwell made this mess. There’s not a living soul in these parts who would do something like this.”

  As Officer Greene walked back to his car, still talking to Mom and Dave, I turned to Michael. “You were trying to make me look stupid again, weren’t you?” I accused, but he didn’t answer. He stood beside me, his shoulders hunched like an old man’s, frowning at the ground.

  “Why did you tell that policeman about Helen? He thought I was nuts!” I glared at Michael, feeling that he’d betrayed me.

  Without looking at me, Michael shrugged, shoved his hands into his pockets and walked off toward the house. I watched him stop on the porch and pick up his bowl of salamanders before he vanished inside.

  I sighed and sat down on the church steps. Michael was thinking about his specimens, I supposed: his butterflies, their wings carefully spread and pinned to the board, each one neatly identified; his grasshoppers and beetles and dragonflies, their fragile, dried shells and delicate wings neatly mounted under glass. It had taken him a couple of years to build his collection; he’d won a blue ribbon at the science fair last winter for the butterflies. No wonder he didn’t feel like talking to me.

  While I sat there, I saw Heather come out of the graveyard, a smile on her face. I turned away, not wanting to look at her. It scared me that she could summon up something as horrible as Helen and then stand there, safe beside her father, laughing at us. It made her seem as inhuman as Helen.

  12

  “MOLLY,” MOM CALLED from the kitchen door. “Come here, honey.”

  Reluctantly I walked toward the house. I wasn’t ready to see Heather or Dave, but I couldn’t sit outside by myself forever. “What do you want?” I asked Mom.

  “Let’s see what we can
do with your room, okay? Dave is helping Michael, and I thought I’d help you.”

  Unhappily I followed her down the hall, past Michael’s door. Glancing in, I saw him sifting through heaps of rubbish while Dave held a black plastic garbage bag, already bulging with things broken beyond repair.

  “Where’s Heather?” I asked Mom as we stared about the room, wondering where to start.

  “Watching television, I guess. I thought it would be best if she stayed out of this. Having her around always increases the tension.”

  Silently the two of us worked, and after a couple of hours we carried the last garbage bag out. My side of the room was now stripped bare of everything I owned. It looked as impersonal as a motel room; all the things that I had collected were gone. In fact, it seemed to me that my whole personality was gone, destroyed by Helen.

  “I’m going to start dinner now, Molly.” Mom gave me a hug and kiss, and left me sitting on my bed trying not to cry.

  A sound in the hall made me look up. Heather was standing in the doorway, staring at me. Behind her, the hall was dark and full of shadows, and I felt a tiny pinch of fear, imagining that Helen watched me over Heather’s shoulder.

  “What do you want?” I asked uneasily.

  She took her time answering. Twisting a long, black strand of hair around her finger, she walked slowly toward me, her eyes never leaving mine. Stopping a few inches away, her face too close to mine for comfort, she whispered, “Are you going to tell who did it?”

  “Who would believe me?” I shrank back against the wall, wanting to put some distance between us.

  An awful little smile twitched the corners of Heather’s mouth. “You believe it, though, don’t you? You saw her; you saw what she wrote on your wall.”

  “Is she really your friend?” I stared into Heather’s huge gray eyes, sure for a moment that I saw fear in them.

  “We’re just alike,” Heather said, her voice quavering a tiny bit. “She understands me, and I understand her. She’s my true sister, forever and ever.”

  The intensity in her face made cold chills run up and down my arms. Even the hair on the back of my neck prickled. “No, Heather,” I whispered. “She’s not your sister. She’s evil and wicked and horrible, and you better stay away from her!” I was sitting up straight now, and my voice was rising. I grasped her thin arms, my fears for myself forgotten. “Don’t go near her!”

  Heather twisted away, her face pale and anxious. “Shut up, Molly, shut up!” she cried. “Helen is my friend, the only one I’ve ever had! Don’t you dare take her away from me!”

  As Heather ran out of the room, she hurled one last threat at me. “I’ll tell her to come again,” she cried. “And this time, she’ll do something worse!”

  A few minutes later, Mom called me to dinner. While we ate, I watched Heather pick at her food, eating practically nothing. Every now and then, she lifted her eyes to mine. She neither smiled nor frowned, but gazed at me till I looked away, scarcely able to eat my own chicken.

  Later that evening, after the dishes were washed and put away, we all settled down in the living room. While Michael and I watched a National Geographic Special about polar bears, Mom read a novel, and Dave played checkers with Heather. After a couple of games, she climbed into his lap and fell asleep, her thumb in her mouth. With her eyes closed, she looked small and helpless, almost sweet.

  As I watched Dave carry her off to bed, I promised myself that I would protect her somehow. No matter how much trouble Heather had caused, I couldn’t let Helen lead her into Harper Pond. From now on, I’d try to keep an eye on her day and night.

  Suddenly uneasy, I glanced at the window and the darkness it framed. A gust of wind tossed the bushes, and their branches scraped across the screen. For a moment, I thought I saw a pale face peering into the living room, silently observing us. I gasped, and the face vanished into the night as quickly as the moon slips behind a wind-blown cloud.

  “What’s the matter?” Michael turned to me, a piece of popcorn poised halfway to his open mouth.

  “Nothing.” I moved away from him, ashamed to tell him what I thought I’d seen, and snuggled next to Mom. With my head on her shoulder, I felt safe, especially when she slid her arm around me and gave me a hug.

  The sound of Mr. Simmons’ mower woke me in the morning. Heather’s bed was empty, so I dressed quickly, anxious to keep the promise I’d made last night. She mustn’t go off alone, I thought. She mustn’t go to the graveyard or to Harper Pond. She mustn’t go near Helen.

  The kitchen was deserted, so I ate a quick breakfast and ran across the drive to the church. Mom and Dave were hard at work in the loft, trying to salvage at least some of Mom’s canvases, and Heather was pouting by the window, drawing pictures in an old sketchbook. It was very hot and stuffy, and no one seemed particularly happy to see me.

  “Do you want me to help?” I asked uncertainly.

  “No, no,” Mom said hastily. “Just take Heather outside. It’s much too warm for her to stay cooped up in here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with her.” Heather scowled at me. “I’m staying right here with my daddy.”

  “But, honey,” Dave said patiently. “There’s nothing for you to do here. Wouldn’t you rather go somewhere with Molly? You could wade in the creek or go see the cows.” Dave’s voice had taken on a tone of honeyed pleading. He was begging Heather to be normal, to do what ordinary little girls enjoy.

  She merely stuck her lip out farther. “I like it here,” she whined. “Don’t you want me to be here? Don’t you love me, Daddy?”

  “Oh, sweetie, of course I love you.” Dave left the heap of wood he had been trying to reassemble as an easel and hugged Heather. “I just thought you’d have more fun playing.”

  “Not with her.” Heather gave me a dark look from under a cloud of black tangles. “You know how mean she is.”

  “Go on outside, Molly,” Mom said. “Maybe you can find Michael. He said something about going down to the swamp to catch insects for a new collection.”

  As I left the church, I saw Mr. Simmons pushing a wheelbarrow full of grass clippings toward the compost heap. “Good morning, Molly,” he called. “Is it hot enough for you?”

  I nodded. It wasn’t even ten o’clock and I was perspiring. “Have you seen Michael?”

  He shook his head. “I brought the fishing stuff with me, hoping he might be around, but your mother told me he left the house early to catch bugs. Quite the young naturalist, isn’t he?”

  Coming to a halt beside me, Mr. Simmons set the wheelbarrow down. “Do you know anything about this?” He held up a peanut butter jar full of fresh daisies. “I found them under the oak tree by that little tombstone. Third time I’ve seen them there.”

  “Heather does it,” I said slowly. “She puts them there every day.”

  “I thought I told you kids to stay away from that end of the graveyard. Didn’t I warn you about the snakes and the poison ivy?” Dumping the daisies into the wheelbarrow, Mr. Simmons paused to light his pipe. “I hear you folks had a lot of trouble here yesterday. Were robbed or something. Bob Greene says he never saw anything like it.”

  I stared at the flowers lying limply on top of the grass clippings. “It was horrible,” I said softly. “But I don’t think they’ll ever catch the one who did it.”

  “Why not?” Mr. Simmons puffed on his pipe, waiting for me to answer.

  “Well,” I said, glancing toward the graveyard. “Remember the day we saw you at Harper House, and we talked about ghosts?” I searched his face, expecting him to laugh. When he didn’t, I went on. “I think this graveyard is haunted too.”

  “I’ve heard folks say that. My own sister was scared to death of it, wouldn’t go near it after dark. But she was always fearful, afraid of her own shadow.”

  I smiled; Mr. Simmons’ sister sounded like me. “The policeman said people don’t like to drive by here late at night.” I picked up one of the daisies and twisted its green stalk around my
finger.

  “And what do you think, Molly?” Mr. Simmons regarded me through a cloud of sweet-smelling pipe smoke. “Have you seen anything?”

  I looked down at the daisy and began to strip its petals away, one by one. She’s real, she’s not real, I thought as I watched the petals drift to the ground. Raising my eyes to his, I said, “I’ve seen Helen. And so has Heather.” I paused, waiting for him to laugh, to tell me I was crazy. When he didn’t say anything, I went on.

  “Heather says Helen is her friend. She told Michael and me that Helen would come and make us sorry for being mean to her. It was Helen who wrecked our things yesterday. She came, just like Heather said she would.” My voice was shaking now, and I had to stop. Tossing the last petal to the ground, I realized that I had ended with “She’s real.”

  For a few seconds Mr. Simmons and I were silent. All around us, birds sang and insects chirped their summer songs, but no breeze blew. The leaves of the trees hung limply, and the sun was hot on my head and shoulders.

  Finally, Mr. Simmons cleared his throat. “Why would Heather tell you something so awful?” he asked me.

  “Because she hates us,” I said dully, feeling ashamed, as if it were my fault somehow. “She hates Mom for taking Dave away from her, and she hates Michael and me for being Mom’s children. Didn’t the policeman tell you that only our stuff was destroyed? Nothing that belonged to Heather or Dave was touched.”

  “This is a very strange story, Molly,” Mr. Simmons said. “And if I hadn’t heard something like it before, I’d think you made it all up. But my own sister was convinced that our cousin Rose was led to her death in Harper Pond by the very spirit you’ve described to me. I didn’t believe it at the time, but my sister went to her grave convinced that Rose was possessed by Helen Harper.”

  I stared at him, my heart thumping. “Do you think Heather is in danger?” I asked.