Don't Tell ds-2

by Элизабет Чандлер

  The hair fell limp, though still in tangles. Nora turned and ran out the porch door. Aunt Jule started after her.

  “She’s crazy, Mother,” Holly said, her voice shaking.

  “She’s psychotic. Lauren is right — that was no accident last night.”

  Aunt Jule looked silently at Holly, then continued after Nora.

  Holly was trembling all over — with anger or fear — perhaps both. I felt bad for her but relieved for myself. Finally I wasn’t alone.

  “Sit down,” I said gently. “Let’s get you untangled.”

  It took a half hour to work the knots out of Holly’s hair; for a few of the tangles I had to use scissors. I knew Holly was upset because she didn’t say a word except yes each time I asked if I should cut out a knot.

  Aunt Jule returned without Nora. Holly had regained her composure, but when she spoke she still sounded irritated.

  “I know where Nora hides. I’ll find her when I’m ready.”

  That wasn’t for another hour and a half. We cleaned up from the party, then Holly left me with the final task and went off in search of her sister.

  “Where is she?” Aunt Jule asked, when Holly returned alone to the kitchen.

  “I don’t know. I checked all of Nora’s hiding places twice.

  And I looked at Frank’s.”

  “Did you call her name?”

  Holly struggled to keep her temper. “No, Mom, I called out Susie! Let her be for a while, okay? Her behavior is outrageous. It will be good for her to think things over.”

  “She thinks too much already,” Aunt Jule said, and retreated to the dining room.

  Through the doorway I saw that a lid had been put on the basket of knots and the broken lamp cleared away. With the yard clean and the house quiet, it seemed like just a peaceful day on the Shore. But I knew all of us were waiting; it was only a matter of time before something else happened.

  As I headed outside I heard Nick in the garden greeting Rocky. When he saw me, the warmth in his voice quickly disappeared. “How are you?” he asked tensely.

  “Okay,” I replied. “But we’ve had another incident.”

  “What kind?”

  Holly emerged from the house carrying her school backpack.

  “You want to explain?” I asked her, not wanting to be the only one relating bizarre events.

  “You can,” she said, “but he’ll just defend Nora. He always has.”

  When I’d recounted what had happened, Nick put his arm around Holly. “Is Lauren exaggerating?”

  I bit my tongue.

  “No, it was just so freaky, Nick.”

  He touched her hair softly. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  He turned to me. “Where’s Nora now?”

  “We don’t know. Missing, hiding.”

  “What happened before the incident?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What did you say to Nora to set her off?”

  The heat rose in my cheeks.

  “Be fair, Nick,” Holly interjected.

  “I didn’t say a word,” I told him.

  “You didn’t bring up what happened last night?” he asked.

  “You didn’t start talking about your mother again?”

  “No!”

  “Nick, Nora is crazy, as crazy as they come,” Holly said.

  “Maybe,” he replied, “but it sure would help if Lauren forgot the past.”

  I looked him in the eye. “You’re asking for the impossible.”

  “I’m asking that you think about the effect of dragging Holly, Nora, and Jule through a lot of pointless stuff. You’re making it hard on all of them.”

  My eyes stung with tears, and I quickly blinked them away.

  “Come on, Holly,” he said.

  She looked at me uncertainly. “Lauren?”

  “Bye.”

  I walked back into the house. I thought I’d be relieved to hear the sound of Nick’s car fade away, but it only made me ache. Why had he turned against me? There had to be more to it than the cartoon. Had someone told him something else that angered him or made him mistrust me?

  I paced around the garden room, thinking about Nora. For her safety — and my own — I would feel better knowing where she was.

  There was a jingling of tags, then a nose pushed in the soft screen of the porch door.

  “Hey, Rocky. Wouldn’t Nick take you to school?” I let him in. When I sat down, the dog rested his chin on my knee, wanting me to pet him. “Maybe you can help, old boy. How are you at retrieving people?”

  He wagged his tail.

  I wondered if Nora was hiding somewhere off the property. There would be plenty of places in town where she could melt into the surroundings undisturbed by others — the college campus, the docks. I decided to search for her and hurried upstairs to put on my running shoes. The phone rang and I picked it up in the hall.

  “Lauren? Frank.”

  “Hi, Frank. What’s up?”

  “Holly was over here earlier, looking for Nora.”

  “Yes,” I said quickly. “Have you seen her?”

  “Just now. I was chasing an army of geese off my lawn and saw her enter the boathouse.”

  “The boathouse!” I exclaimed. “She’s afraid of going in there.”

  “That’s what I thought,” he replied. “What worries me is that she, well — to put it mildly — looked disturbed.”

  “We had an incident this morning,” I began.

  “Holly told me about it. Is Holly there now?”

  “No, she’s gone to school with Nick. I’ll check on Nora.”

  “Is Jule at home?” he asked.

  “Yes. Do you want to talk to her?”

  He was silent for a moment. “No,” he said. “I was going to suggest that she accompany you to the boat-house, but on second thought, Jule doesn’t handle Nora very well. Don’t say anything to her — let’s see what’s going on first. I’ll meet you there myself, in case you need a hand. In about five minutes?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Frank clicked off. I put the phone down slowly. Holly was sure that Nora didn’t go off the property, and she was wrong.

  Maybe I was just as wrong about Nora’s fear of the boathouse. Maybe Nora could pretend like the rest of us.

  I went downstairs and called Rocky to take him outside with me.

  “Who was that?” Aunt Jule asked as I passed by the dining room.

  “Just Frank. I need to take some things back to him that were borrowed for the party.”

  She nodded and continued with her needlepoint.

  Rocky followed me halfway down to the boathouse, where Frank was waiting for me, then went off for a swim.

  “I’m sorry to take up your time,” I told Frank.

  “No problem. I thought about going in the boat-house myself,” he said as we walked toward it, “but I didn’t want to scare her and have her bolt again.”

  The door was halfway open. “Nora?” I called from the entrance. “Nora?” I thought I heard a whimper and stepped inside. “Nora, it’s me, Lauren. Are you all right?”

  My eyes slowly adjusted to the light. I saw a gray shapeNora lying still on the walkway.

  “Frank, something’s wrong!”

  I rushed to her. As I did, the boathouse door closed swiftly behind me.

  seventeen

  I froze. I couldn’t see in the sudden darkness. “Frank?”

  “Nothing personal, Lauren,” he called from outside, sounding as easygoing as when he’d said, “No problem.”

  I heard him put the padlock on the door.

  “Frank? Frank!” I shouted.

  There was no reply. My mind raced, trying to comprehend the situation. Why would he do this to me? Why had he put me in here with Nora?

  The thin slit between the river doors and the hairline fractures of light between weathered boards allowed me to see no more than her form. I took the last few steps toward her. If I t
ouched Nora and she was cold — I laid my hands on her. She was warm and breathing, but unresponsive to my fingers.

  People don’t fall asleep naturally in places they fear, I thought. I debated which to do first, get her conscious or find a way out, then I rose quickly. If Nora awoke and went beserk, I’d be trapped in here with her.

  I needed the ax, the one I had left beneath the light chain.

  Using my hands more than my eyes, I moved as fast as I dared on the narrow walkway, feeling my way along the wall until I touched the beaded chain. The ax was gone.

  Frank knew it was here. He must have removed it — he or Nick. I was bewildered by his actions and sick at the thought that Nick could be involved, but I didn’t have time to figure out the situation.

  Maybe the loft would have another tool. I continued working my way to the corner of the building and along the back wall. The ladder should be soon, I thought, it should be now. I should have passed it. I touched the second corner and my heart sank. The ladder, too, had been removed.

  I heard a soft moan, then Nora stirring. I held my breath.

  “Mom?” she called.

  If she suddenly got up and fell over the side, I’d never find her in the dark water. “Stay still, Nora. Stay where you are,” I said, and began to retrace my steps.

  “Mom?”

  She might not become hostile if she thought I were Aunt Jule. “Yes, love. I’m here. Go back to sleep.”

  “Where am I?” she asked. “Is this the place for crazy people? Are you locking me up?”

  I winced. “No, Nora, you’re home.”

  “You’re not Mom.” Her voice sounded clearer. She would soon realize where she was.

  I said nothing more until I was four feet from her. “Nora, it’s Lauren.”

  I heard her draw back.

  “Everything’s okay. Just stay against the wall. Lean against it.”

  There wasn’t a sound from her.

  “Are you hurt, Nora?” I asked, moving closer to her.

  She didn’t answer.

  I took another step and crouched down. “What happened?”

  Still, she was silent.

  “Do you know what happened to you? Tell me so I can help you.”

  “Don’t tell,” she whispered.

  “It’s all right, you can tell me.”

  “It’s a secret.”

  “You can tell me the secret.”

  She said nothing.

  I waited a few moments, then tried a different tactic.

  “What hurts?” I asked. “Does your stomach hurt? Your arm?”

  “My head.”

  “Why does it hurt?”

  “Because I’m crazy,” she said softly.

  I blinked away unexpected tears, imagining what it was like for her, trapped inside her own dark world. I felt for her fingers. “Take my hand and show me where it hurts.”

  She guided my fingers. When I touched the crown of her head, she cried out.

  “Is it sore?” I asked. “Is it bruised?”

  She whimpered.

  “Did someone hit you?”

  “Don’t tell.”

  “You can tell me. It’s okay.”

  “It’s a secret.”

  “When did your head start to hurt?” I asked.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Were you in a hiding place?”

  She was quiet for a moment. “In Frank’s garage. It hurts, my head hurts!” She whimpered like a small child.

  In the distance I heard a boat motor. I hoped it was turning away from us and wouldn’t create a wake. “Did Frank find you in his garage?”

  She continued to cry.

  I laid my hand cautiously on her back, then rubbed it, trying to soothe her. The boat engine sounded closer. “Is the garage one of your hiding places, Nora?”

  “Yes.”

  Then either Holly or Frank could have found her there.

  After her hair was knotted, Holly was scared and angry. Had she lost her temper? No, it was Frank who had lured me here, and most likely it was he who had struck Nora.

  I heard the boat zip past us. So did Nora — I could feel her body get rigid. “Where am I?”

  “You’re okay.”

  She heard the watery movement and her voice quivered.

  “I’m in the boathouse. Sondra is here.”

  “It’s not Sondra. It’s just a wake.”

  As soon as I said a wake, I realized my mistake. I quickly rephrased it. “It’s the waves from a boat, a passing boat.” I wondered if that was how these imaginings had startedsomeone saying it was “a wake” and Nora, haunted by the death of my mother, twisting the words in her mind.

  She was shaking. I reached for her hands and felt the fear in her as she grasped mine with icy fingers. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly. The waves slapped against the outside of the building and rocked the water inside. But the motion of the water lessened quickly, the series of waves ending sooner than it had the last time.

  And then it started, just as it had before, the slow rocking of the water back and forth, back and forth — sideways, I realized. The direction of the flow was wrong — it couldn’t be a wake.

  “She’s here,” Nora said, her voice low and terrified. “She wants you. She wants her little girl.”

  The water slapped hard against the walls. Nora’s arms wrapped around me, her fingers grasping my shirt, twisting it so hard I felt her knuckles digging into me. I braced myself, trying to keep myself from being pushed into the water. I felt her shifting her position, but before I could react and throw my weight against the wall, she did. She held me against it, as if protecting me.

  At last the water grew quieter and settled into a dark restlessness.

  “You’re okay,” Nora said. “She didn’t get you. I didn’t let her have you.”

  A lump formed in my throat. She had tried to keep me from being “taken” by my dead mother.

  “Nora,” I said. “Do you know how the knots happen?”

  “I don’t try to do them.”

  “Someone else does?”

  “Someone else inside me. I can’t stop her. Only sometimes.”

  Her unconscious, I thought. Sometimes she could control the emotions giving rise to the poltergeist, sometimes she couldn’t.

  “Listen, I think I know how this water gets stirred up.

  There’s a lot of stuff in here, things we threw in the water years ago. There are old ropes and nets, especially around the doors, where we used to fish. I think this person inside of you gets angry or afraid and moves those things, whips them around and ties them in knots. That’s what stirs up the water.”

  “No, it’s Sondra,” she insisted.

  “Remember how the lamp in the river room broke?” I continued. “When that person inside you got upset, she tied the knot in the cord, which yanked on the lamp and made it tip over. The same thing happened to the lamp in my room.

  And the swing — with my weight at one end and the tree anchoring it at the other, it had to snap when it was forced into a knot.”

  The heart necklace, too, I thought; it had risen against my neck because it was being tied.

  “Nora, we just have to talk to that person inside you, and tell her that everything is all right It’s not Sondra. Sondra isn’t here.”

  “But she is,” Nora insisted. “Holly said so.”

  I sat back on my heels. Holly, who said she alone knew how to handle Nora — perhaps she alone knew how to torture her. I wanted to blame Frank, Frank entirely. But as I went over the various incidents in my head, I could see how easy it would be for Holly to hide behind Nora’s behavior. I reluctantly took the plunge. “Why did Holly hit you?”

  “I didn’t tell, I didn’t!” Nora pleaded, like a child who had been suspected of telling a secret and threatened with punishment.

  “Didn’t tell what?”

  She wouldn’t answer.

  “What did Holly hit you with?”

  “
I don’t remember.”

  She might not, I reasoned, if she were hit on the back of the head. “Do you remember what Holly was carrying when she found you in the garage?”

  “The lamp.”

  “The lamp that was broken? Your mother’s work lamp?”

  Nora nodded yes. “My head hurts,” she whimpered.

  “Inside and outside it hurts.”

  The mental pain was probably worse than the physical, and I hated to cause more, but if I didn’t know what had occurred and who the enemy was, I couldn’t help either of us.

  “How did she hold it?” I asked, wondering if Holly was simply dumping the lamp in Frank’s trash or using it as a weapon.

  “With a glove, my garden glove.”

  My breath caught in my throat. She’d wear a glove if it were a weapon and she didn’t want her fingerprints on it But why use something as traceable as a brass lamp — why not a block of wood that could float away in the river? Holly was too good at details and planning — something wasn’t right.

  I rested my hand on Nora’s. “You and Holly have a secret,” I said. “Holly thinks you told the secret. Now that she thinks you have told, you can.”

  I waited for a response, struggling to be patient.

  “The secret is about the night my mother died,” I ventured.

  Nora didn’t reply, but I took this as a positive sign. She said no quickly when she wanted to deny something.

  “You came to my room that night,” I went on, “looking for Bunny, your stuffed animal. You had left him on the dock. I said I would get him for you, but you said you could go as far as the dock. You left the house, and then what?”

  She slipped her hand from beneath mine. In the dim light I saw her pull up her knees. She hugged them tightly.

  “It’s okay. I just want to know what happened next Were you alone?” I changed the question to a statement “You were alone.”

  “No. Holly was there, she was coming in.”

  “Coming in as you went out?”

  I remembered then, running down from the house to the dock, stepping on something sharp, waving Holly on — she was in her nightgown but wearing shoes.

  “Did you say anything to Holly? Did she say anything to you?”

  “I don’t remember.”