Did she feel as lonely as he did? He wondered how two people who loved each other could be so lonely while living in the same house?
After his dad died Joey felt sorry for himself. He didn’t believe anyone could miss his dad more than he did.
Through the window Joey saw Mrs. Johanaby wipe her eyes with her hand and then resume her lonely pose. For the first time since his death Joey wished his dad was alive for somebody else.
If his dad were alive and walked into the room right then Joey knew what his dad would do. He would take his mom by the hand and dance with her. His dad had always cheered his mother up this way. They waltzed together to music only they could hear. Mr. Johanaby would hold Mrs. Johanaby close with a hand around her waist. With her right hand in his left they would stare into each other’s eyes as they took two steps and turned again and again. Joey imagined this now. He saw his mother’s face brighten with that too-big smile of hers. His own loneliness melted away as the scene played out in his mind.
When the scene faded Mrs. Johanaby reappeared sitting with her head in her hands. Joey stepped back from the window sorry that he had looked in. He knew what he had to do.
Back at the cellar door Joey peered down.
“You are going to be in so much trouble!” he called into the darkness. His heart sank as, again, there was no response. Joey closed his eyes and swallowed. What was he afraid of? The dark never hurt anybody. His dad had told him that. Joey even believed it. But his dad hadn’t seen this old mansion. He hadn’t felt its strangeness. He didn’t know Henrietta had been murdered in that cellar. He didn’t know Henrietta still haunted these grounds.
“Just a ghost story,” Joey said, weakly. He opened his eyes and took the first step. Then another. He paused at the sixth step. The seventh was in shadow. At nine steps the sunshine no longer touched his body. Lowering his foot from the twelfth step Joey stepped onto the cellar floor. He felt the blackness swirl around him like deep water. He felt dizzy and put his hand against the cellar wall. He jerked his hand back when he felt sticky cobwebs.
The smell was as bad as the darkness. A scent of decay mixed with the odor of damp earth. Slowly his eyes adjusted and dimly he could see a little bit of the large cellar. Wooden supports ran from the earthen floor to the joists that supported the floor above. Rotting cardboard boxes and dirty gunny sacks sat obscurely in the dim light. To his right he could just make out the end of a shelf that stuck out from the wall. Joey thought, but wasn’t sure, that there were more shelves behind this one. On the shelf light reflected off a bottle of something prepared long ago. Joey remembered rows of dusty bottles of pickled beets in his Grandma Burton’s cellar.
The far side of the cellar was lost in complete darkness. Joey couldn’t see a light switch on the walls on either side of the doorway. Places like this usually had a bulb in the middle of the room with a pull string hanging down for a switch. He remembered this from his Grandma Burton’s cellar also. There it was. As his eyes adjusted further to the darkness he could just make out a white string hanging ghostlike in the darkness.
Joey wanted to call out again in hope that Glory and Story would reveal themselves. He couldn’t utter a sound. He was afraid his voice would squeak from fear. He was even more afraid that his voice would disturb something other than the twins lurking in the darkness.
On shaking legs Joey slowly moved forward, careful to avoid the boxes and sacks he had seen. His heart, already beating fast, leapt when he got close enough to see white fingers sticking through a gunny sack. Joey jumped back and almost cried out before he realized the white fingers were just potato sprouts. This always happened to the potatoes Mrs. Johanaby bought. Joey squeaked a little laugh and tried to steady his breath.
Side-stepping past the potato fingers Joey worked his way to the string. There was a rasping click when he pulled it, but no light.
“Dang,” he peeped.
Now that he was in the middle of the darkness he realized that Glory and Story weren’t down here. He had come down in vain. The darkness had lured him into its trap.
Mr. Johanaby had often taken Joey stargazing. He had taught Joey that if you want to see a really dim star or star cluster you had to look off to the side of it and it would appear in your peripheral vision. Quite accidentally Joey realized that out of the corner of his eye he was seeing a hole in the back wall of the cellar. He froze when he realized what it was. After all these years it was still there—the hole where escaping slaves had hid. Joey thought he could make out the rotting remnants of the fabric that had hidden the hole on the floor.
The reality of the hole made him think of Henrietta. Beezer was telling the truth. He was standing where Henrietta had died—where Henrietta still visited. When he looked directly at the hole it disappeared into shadow. In its place Joey imagined movement. It was all he could do to make himself breathe. His legs almost gave out. When he heard the gun shot he fainted.
Joey regained consciousness as soon as his face hit the cold, musty dirt floor. At first he was confused. He thought he had gone blind. Finally his sluggish mind processed the fact that he was in complete darkness. The ambient light from the open cellar door was gone. The gunshot he had heard was the cellar door slamming shut.
“Glory!” he screamed, weakly. Glory may not be down here, but Joey was certain that he wasn’t in the cellar alone.
He scrambled to his feet but had no idea which way the entrance was. Out of his mind with fear Joey blindly bolted forward only to run into one of the wooden floor supports. The force of the collision sent him careening to one side where he collided with the shelves. He fell to his back, bottles falling on top of him. One hit the floor beside him with a crash. Sticky liquid splashed onto his face. He smelled something sweet and pungent. Imagining a spirit was throwing things at him he rolled over on his stomach and covered his head.
Joey’s fear whispered to him.
You’re going to die down here. You will never leave this place.
“Help me!” he cried. “Help me!”
Joey sobbed giving himself up completely to his panic. The sound of a chime cut through his fear. It was a single note with a warmth that betrayed the dark dampness of the cellar. The note hung in the air an extra-long time before fading. Eventually it flickered out like the flame of a faraway candle blown out by the wind. The note seemed to wrap around Joey’s panic making it fade and flicker out with it. When the sound of the chime disappeared Joey felt a calm come over him. Slowly Joey sat up on his knees and caught his breath. The coolness of an unbroken bottle rested against his knee. Gently pushing it aside he used the shelf next to him to help him get to his feet.
“The shelves were to my right when I came down the stairs,” he thought. “I know where I am.”
Moving along the shelves with his hands he found the end, calculated an angle from memory, and stepped out into the dark with his hands in front of him. He breathed deeply with each step. If he just kept going he was going to reach the steps or at least the wall with the entrance. This time, when his hands touched the wall sticky with cobwebs, he didn’t pull away. Joey guessed he needed to move to his right. Sure enough, he soon came to the doorway. He felt forward with his foot until it hit something. Raising his foot he was relieved to find it was a step. Looking up he saw a crack of light coming in through the edge of the door. He ran up the steps and pushed against the heavy door with all his might. He threw it open and emerged into the blinding sunlight like a mummy from a tomb.
Glory and Story, who were standing under the weeping willow facing each other as if in consultation, whirled around in fright. They both screamed like girls.
“You scared us,” Glory said, clutching a large doll with braided hair to her chest. “What were you doing down there?”
Joey didn’t answer for a moment. He soaked in the healing sunshine and caught his breath. He was also trying to determine Glory’s sincerity. She sounded like she was really surprised to see him come busting out of the cellar. At the sa
me time, now that her fright was gone, he detected a hint of guilt in her eyes.
“What was I doing down there?” Joey was angry and it showed. Glory and Story backed up a step. “I was looking for you. That’s what I was doing down there!”
“But why?” asked Glory.
“I wouldn’t go down there. That’s where Henrietta lives,” said Story with a visible shudder.
At the mention of the ghost Joey turned and slammed the door shut. He didn’t think it would stop a ghost, but at least now he couldn’t see the darkness below.
Joey turned to face the twins. “You tricked me into going down there!” He spoke with a sharpness that surprised even him. He liked the feeling of power it gave him. Glory’s typical boldness wavered under it.
“We never!” Glory said, hesitantly.
“You opened the door and hid knowing I would go down looking for you,” Joey yelled.
Glory and Story looked at each other.
“No,” said Glory.
“Yes,” said Story.
“Okay, yes,” agreed Glory. “We opened the door, but I never thought you would go down. I didn’t even mean for you to go down.” She said this thoughtfully as if wondering why she hadn’t thought of that. “We just wanted to see if we could open the door.”
“And we did,” added Story, “even though it was heavy.” He made a muscle man pose.
“Where were you when I got here, then?” Joey asked. “You hid and watched me go down!” Joey was ashamed at how afraid he must have looked.
“We didn’t want you yelling at us for opening it,” said Glory getting a little of her fight back.
“No!” Story said. “We didn’t see you go down. Opening the door made so much noise we knew you would come to see and we didn’t want you to yell at us. We ran and hid behind the garage.”
“Then why did you shut the door?” Joey asked. It wasn’t really a question, but an accusation.
“Because when you didn’t come we thought we would close it before you saw it and yelled at us,” said Glory.
“But I did come,” Joey said, exasperated.
“We didn’t know,” Glory said. She was almost pleading. “Story found a really big ant hill back there.”
“And we destroyed it,” Story added proudly.
Glory almost convinced Joey that she was speaking the truth. Story supported her story and he never lied.
“We didn’t know,” Glory said. “Honest, we didn’t!”
With Joey’s attack softening Glory had time to see the signs of Joey’s panic. There were tear tracks on his cheeks and a shiny spot where the sticky juice had splashed. The knees of his jeans were soiled and there was a smear of dirt on his chin.
“What happened down there?” she asked.
At this question Story looked at Joey and saw what Glory saw.
“Did you see Henrietta?” he asked. Fear and excitement fought for space on his face.
“Did you cry?” said Glory.
Her words, “Did you cry” might have been a sincere question. Whatever their intent they brought back the panic he had felt. His face flushed with shame. Yes, he had cried. Lucky for him she hadn’t seen how he had cried. His panic had been spectacular. Running into the support, bouncing into the shelves—he had really thought he was going to die.
“Courage is acting so that you don’t have be ashamed after the scary time is over.” That is what his father had taught him. Joey had acted shamefully. At least nobody had seen him. Joey hesitated at this thought. Could his father see him from where he was? Joey’s shame grew. Somehow Glory seemed to know about his panic. It was too much.
Joey turned and started walking toward the driveway. He wanted to run.
“Where are you going?” called Story
“You have to babysit us,” called Glory. “We want to play hide and seek in the field with you.”
“She’s mocking me,” Joey thought. She hates the word babysit. “I’m tired of you guys,” Joey yelled over his shoulder. “I’m not going to baby sit you anymore. You’re ruining my life. From now on you can do what you want—I’m leaving.”
Joey sprinted up the lane toward the highway. He had no intention of ever coming back.
Chapter 7
Joey ran so hard he quickly ran out of breath. He reached the highway and wanted to flop down and rest. Knowing Glory, she was already telling Mom about his escape. No, he had to keep going. Joey looked left and then right wondering which way he should go. He turned left and, nursing a stitch in his side, began walking. Turning right would have taken him toward town. Mrs. Johanaby would most likely look for him that direction. He didn’t want to be found.
The shame for his panic in the cellar made him walk faster. Joey could still hear his voice crying out, Help me! Help me! He blushed at the memory. Fear and shame had been his companions all his life. Even in fourth grade he had been afraid on the first day of school. He was so nervous that he would feel sick. His Mom would have to drive him to school because he would purposefully miss the bus. One year he wouldn’t get out of the car. Joey had locked himself in so that Mrs. Johanaby couldn’t open the door to make him get out.
Mr. Johanaby had signed Joey up for little league football. He lasted a week. The coaches constant yelling about starting faster, hitting harder, and not being a bunch of sissies made him a nervous wreck. Mr. Johanaby saw how unhappy football practice made Joey. Mercifully he let him quit.
Joey had been in Boy Scouts. He liked working on merit badges. He got to learn things like bicycling, and government. Building fires and tying knots were fun. Camping wasn’t so fun. Camping took him to unfamiliar places with boys he didn’t really like. Joey refused to go out in the canoes at summer camp. The lake was deep and the boys would splash each other and ram each other even though they weren’t supposed to. The thought of sinking into the dark depths of the lake gave him nightmares.
Joey had learned to swim in spite of his fear of deep water. He had even liked swimming until last year. He had nearly drowned after he had belly flopped off the diving board. He had swallowed water and panicked. While flailing and coughing he had sucked in more water and gone under. The feeling he had at that moment was the same feeling he felt down in the cellar—he was going to die. The life guard had easily pulled him to safety, but Joey hadn’t gone swimming since.
Mr. Johanaby took Glory and Story to the local pool every Saturday during the summer. After his belly flop Joey went with them, but he played in the nearby park instead of getting in the pool. From the top of the slide he watched his dad and the twins through the chain link fence. His dad would let them ride on his back as he swam. The sun shimmered on their wet, skinny bodies and they laughed and yelled. Joey always wanted to join them. Then the memory of water in his lungs where air ought to be brought back the fear he couldn’t control. He never swam with his dad again.
Joey realized it was people he was afraid of mostly. Other kids enjoyed being in groups at school—clubs or sports. Not Joey. Those situations were painful to him. He always felt that others were expecting something from him, something he couldn’t give. They expected him to act a certain way or to say certain things. He could never figure out what those things were.
Mrs. Johanaby told him there was nothing wrong with marching to his own drum. She meant it, too. Still, Joey could tell she wished he could make friends easier. Joey’s dad told him that marching to your own drum is a cool thing if you aren’t doing it out of fear. Joey didn’t know what to make of this.
Mr. Johanaby never yelled at Joey for being afraid, but Joey saw disappointment in his eyes more than once. Joey felt, as the oldest son, he let his parents down. Joey had hoped that one day he would find courage and make Mr. Johanaby proud. Now that his father was dead his opportunity to show him courage was gone. This morning had proved he was still a coward. Joey could taste the shame in the back of his mouth. Perhaps his dad was better off dead than living with such a cowardly son.
Joey gave the soda ca
n he had been kicking an extra hard kick. It bounced and rattled erratically up the highway coming to rest near the yellow line in the middle. Joey angled out into the highway to kick it again. Lost in self-pity Joey didn’t hear the semi-truck barreling down the road behind him. The driver saw Joey and pulled hard on the air horn in time to warn him. Taken by surprise Joey took two steps and then dove off the road. He rolled once and sat up in time to see the driver, a bald man with a bushy mustache, laughing as he went by. Turbulent air, mixed with diesel fumes, slapped him in the face.
Joey sat in the grass next to an empty potato chip bag that blew up against him. His heart beat wildly. A woman in a pickup flew up the road the other direction. Their eyes locked as she passed. She had a cigarette in her mouth and a look of puzzlement in her eyes, but she didn’t slow down. Joey realized he needed to get off the highway, not just for safety, but because it would be too easy for his mother to find him.
The highway ran through a stand of woods. Joey looked into the cool green of the trees. The trees would hide him from his mom. They would hide him from the world. This is what he wanted; to be anonymous. Mrs. Johanaby didn’t want the kids playing in the woods. Joey hesitated, but only for a moment. He was already in trouble so what would it matter? The reasoning was bad, but defiance helped him decide.
Joey got up and walked into the shade of the trees. He didn’t go very far before he was out of sight of the highway. If he couldn’t see the highway, no one on the highway could see him. For the first time since leaving the house that morning he felt a sense of relief and peace. Joey meandered aimlessly through the woods enjoying the coolness of the shade and the sound of the birds as they did whatever birds do in the leafy canopy above.
The ground was spongy and thick with dead leaves and foliage. Joey felt like he bounced when he walked. This was what it must have been like where Robin Hood lived. Robin Hood was one of Joey’s heroes. Story always laughed when Joey brought it up.
Joey and the Magic Map Page 9
