A cab, she thought. Reception could call a cab for her, and she would be able to spend an hour or two with the children before returning to the hospital. An hour or two consoling the innocent victims. But she wondered how innocent Stephen was. How much had he learned from his mother? She wondered whether she should talk to him about his grandmother. And what about his father’s injuries? He missed his father. Wanted him back home. But …
She couldn’t do anything more at the hospital but sit and twiddle her thumbs. Not very productive.
Both children stayed the night with Mrs. Rosen and were still presumably at her house. Guilt swept through Rosemary. She hadn’t bothered to call Mrs. Rosen about the children since she had left with her mother for the hospital last night. How safe was Robin with Stephen? He adored his cousin, but what did he think his mother wanted him to do?
Jacob had been sure Cathy’s influence on Stephen was negative. He actually believed Cathy’s spirit remained at the house. And maybe he was right.
Rosemary hurried back to the reception desk of the hospital. She had already given her cell number to her mother’s doctor, and it would be a while before Jacob could be seen.
“I need a cab,” she hurriedly said, interrupting another visitor’s request.
“Give me five minutes and I’ll get you one,” the receptionist said.
The man in front of Rosemary gave her a dirty look, but it didn’t really register with her. The five-minute wait did.
“But I need the cab now. Give me the number and I’ll call myself.”
“You’ll have to wait,” said the receptionist. “Right now I’m helping this gentleman.”
Rosemary looked at the man as if she noticed him for the first time. His sour expression forced her to back off. Antsy, she twisted around to look out the main door. A cab had pulled up, and two nurses were assisting an elderly man out of the back seat and into a wheelchair.
She ran out the door and to the cab, seating herself in the back seat before the elderly man had completely cleared the vehicle.
She rattled off the address and the cab driver shook his head.
“I ain’t been paid yet, lady.”
The elderly man fumbled through his pockets.
“Hell! I’ll pay his fare. Go! Go!”
Chapter
63
“What do you think happened last night?” asked Robin.
Stephen sat on the window ledge, waiting. He didn’t know what he waited for, but knew that he couldn’t do anything else. He had begged Mrs. Rosen to take him back to the house, but she had refused. His aunt’s rental car sat in the driveway, but all the house lights were out.
“Who do you think the ambulance was for?”
Robin kept asking questions, and this was the only one he had an answer for.
“Your mother is fine. She was at the door last night talking to Mrs. Rosen. I couldn’t hear what they said, but your mother looked fine.”
“You think Grandma is hurt? Do you think she tripped and fell down the basement stairs? Maybe you shouldn’t have piled all that stuff at the top of the basement stairs.”
“You told me to do that.” His angry face turned to look at her. “You said she wouldn’t try to go down in the basement if there was a mess.”
“Could she have not seen it? Maybe she didn’t have any lights on.”
“I told you the uglies were getting ready for something and the wolf had come back.”
“You think Grandma is …” Robin hesitated. “Is sick like your father?”
“I didn’t see any firemen.”
“That’s good at least, isn’t it?”
“She could have been eaten by the wolf.”
“That only happens in fairy tales, Stephen. That’s silly.”
“I saw the wolf, Robin. My wolf. The one Molly and I made.”
“And your mother brought to life.”
“With my help.” His voice quivered.
“Don’t cry. You didn’t want anyone hurt. You thought you were obeying your mother.”
Stephen turned and looked at Robin.
“I have to stop Momma.”
“Look, there’s a cab pulling up.” Robin leaned forward in her wheelchair, anticipating her mother’s arrival. She smiled broadly when her mother exited the cab.
The two children watched Rosemary pause and consider whether she should go into Stephen’s house first.
“No!” Stephen cried out.
And although she couldn’t have heard him, Rosemary changed directions and headed for Mrs. Rosen’s house.
Robin swiftly moved to the front door while Stephen lagged behind.
“Where’s Stephen?” he heard his aunt quickly ask. No one replied, but soon she appeared in the living room, where Stephen stood with his hands in his pockets.
“What have you been up to?” asked Rosemary.
Misunderstanding the question, Mrs. Rosen listed the tasks and games they had been doing all morning.
“May I speak to Stephen alone?”
Mrs. Rosen politely left the room, leaving Robin behind.
“You too. Go help Mrs. Rosen in the kitchen.”
“No. Stephen never wanted to do anything wrong, Mom. You shouldn’t blame him. I told him to put all that stuff in front of the basement door.”
“What?” Rosemary faced her daughter.
“It seemed like a good idea. We thought Grandma wouldn’t go into the basement if she had to clear away all that stuff first.”
“What do you know about that basement? You haven’t been down there, have you?”
“No. I’ve only been at the top of the stairs.”
Rosemary whirled about to face Stephen.
“Why did you bring Robin to the basement?”
“I told you, I haven’t been down in the basement, and Stephen didn’t invite me. I caught him down there one day on my own. He didn’t want me there.” Robin placed her wheelchair in front of her mother. “Don’t blame him. He’s confused.”
“Confused?”
“His mother is angry, and he doesn’t know why.”
“What about your mother, Stephen?”
“She’s come back to him,” said Robin.
“She’s dead, Robin. Don’t talk nonsense.”
“I believe Stephen, Mom. I think he …” Robin stopped and looked over her shoulder at her cousin. “He has been talking to someone. She may not be your mother, Stephen.”
“Momma is back.” Stephen’s voice cracked.
“What does she want you to do?” asked Rosemary.
He shrugged because this was where he was confused. He had wanted his mother back, but didn’t
realize the cost he and others would pay.
“Is Grandma all right?” asked Robin.
“She’s in the hospital.”
“The same one they took my daddy to?” Stephen asked.
“Yes. Convenient. I can run back and forth between the two wards while I worry about you kids.”
“I can stay with Daddy,” Stephen offered.
“This has already been explained to you, Stephen; I’m not going to waste my time telling you again.”
“But Momma and Daddy once sneaked me into the hospital when Grandma was sick.”
“I’m beginning to think you’re best locked in a cage.”
“Momma!” Robin wheeled herself over to Stephen. “She doesn’t mean that. Only Grandma’s sick, and Momma wants her to get better.”
Rosemary walked out of the room. Robin reached out and touched Stephen’s shirt sleeve. Both children sunk into their own private thoughts.
Ten minutes later, Rosemary returned carrying several of Robin’s schoolbooks, which had been left over from the day before.
“I called a cab. It should be here in five minutes. What did you do with your jacket, Robin?”
“Why?” The girl sat tall in her chair.
“I’ve got it,” called Mrs. Rosen entering the room.
“Thanks. Let me help
you put it on.”
Robin backed away, the wheelchair hitting a table and knocking over a small statuette.
“That’s okay. It didn’t break. Just an accident. Don’t worry about it.” Mrs. Rosen lifted the statuette off the carpet and placed it on a table farther away.
“Is Stephen coming?” Robin asked.
“Don’t give me a hard time. Not now.”
“Stephen’s staying to help me make some pies for this evening. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” Mrs. Rosen placed a hand on Stephen’s right shoulder. He didn’t budge.
“Mom, you’re acting as if you think Stephen would hurt me.”
Rosemary forced her daughter into the jacket.
“Go with your mother, Robin. Maybe you’ll get to see my Daddy. Tell him I miss him. I want him home.”
“This is a mistake. Maybe that woman who visits you isn’t your mother. Make her go away. If she loves you she will. She won’t want to hurt you or get you in trouble.” Robin’s voice filled his head with a cloud of nonsense words.
Rosemary began to wheel her daughter out of the room.
“Mom, you can’t leave him here alone. What if he gets hurt?”
“Mrs. Rosen is here, and she won’t be letting him back into his house,” Rosemary said, staring into Stephen’s eyes just before she turned the wheelchair into the hall.
Within ten minutes the cab arrived and took both his cousin and aunt away. He watched from the window and Robin waved to him. His aunt never turned to acknowledge him.
“What’s all this talk about a woman who visits you, Stephen?” asked Grannie Smith.
Stephen left the window and walked over to the couch, where he buried his face in the pillows with his rear-end pointing skyward.
Grannie Smith lifted him up and carried him up the stairs to the guest bedroom, which faced his own bedroom next door. She tucked him into the bed and left him sucking on his thumb. She had never seen him suck his thumb before. She swept back the hair falling onto his forehead, but never dared to remove his thumb from between his lips. On her way out of the bedroom she closed the door quietly.
Chapter
64
“The troll doesn’t like you anymore. He’ll never visit you again. He told me so.” The witch stood in front of Brandy’s cage, her hands settled upon her ample hips.
“It’s your fault. You told him bad things about me.”
“Me?” the witch screeched. “I hardly think it worth while talking about you. No, no. He came to this decision on his own. He tired of hearing you complain, and of those silly stories you told him about me.”
“I merely answered his questions. I volunteered nothing.”
The witch scrunched her face into an ugly prune shape.
“Don’t make faces at me. You’re ugly enough.”
“Ugly? Sweets, you don’t really think me ugly, do you?”
“I certainly do. You do ugly things so you’ll always look ugly to me.” Brandy turned away from the witch and marched the short distance across his cage.
“You’ve hurt my feelings.”
“I don’t care,” he murmured.
“Yes, you do. You don’t really want to hurt me. We are too much alike.”
“I’m nothing like you, madame.”
“You have my eyes.”
“I have my mother’s eyes.”
“Exactly.” The witch reached out her hands and took hold of the bars on the cage. “Come, turn around. Look at me, sweets.”
“I’m not your sweets.” Brandy stamped his foot.
“No tantrums here, sweets.”
“I told you …” Brandy swung around. “I am not your sweets.”
The witch’s brown eyes softened. Her eyelids flickered in innocence. She attempted to wipe a tear from her eye, except Brandy couldn’t see the slightest sign of dampness.
“You’re trying to trick me. You have no remorse or love for anyone. Your heart is an iceberg.”
The witch grasped at her chest.
“And I thought it was indigestion.”
“You would have me believe you knew my father. He would never associate with a woman like you.”
“Yes, he would.”
“I’ll never believe that. My father is good.”
“That is highly questionable, but I’m not here to argue over your father. Continue to love him if you wish. My vengeance is complete.”
“You can’t hurt my father.”
“I don’t want to anymore. Keep him in your heart, sweets. It won’t bother me.”
“I’m very tired, madame. Please go away and let me rest.”
“Tsk, tsk. You’ve hardly slept lately. What’s been preventing the sandman from visiting you?”
“I cried last night.”
“The whole night?”
“Most of the night. I don’t want to play with you.”
“Play. Child, I don’t play.” The witch’s face grew broader and sterner. “This has never been a game. I want what you have, sweets. Give it to me.”
“I have nothing but the rags on my back. You’ve taken everything else. My favorite pen that I kept in my inside pocket. My notebook with pages and pages of my memories. My hankie with the initials embroidered in red. My favorite monster cards given to me by my daddy. Even the pennies I saved for Christmas.”
The witch leaned an elbow on a cross bar and settled her chin in the palm of her hand.
“Minor. All minor in comparison to your greatest gift.”
“I will gift you with nothing else, madame. Go away.”
Brandy and the witch stared at each other. The witch calm, relaxed, patient. Brandy sullen, cross, agitated.
“Can you not guess what I want?” The witch stood to full height.
“My life?”
“I only want to share it,” the witch whispered. “I want to be very close to you. I want to be one with you. Our souls can mesh. Your heart will beat for two.” The witch reached out her hands toward Brandy.
“If our souls mesh, mine will fade and yours will grow. My heart will do your bidding, and I’ll be left to watch.”
“Give me your hands, Brandy.”
“Your hands are scratchy, with big brown spots.”
“For you they will always be soft. Try them,” she said, raising her hands up so she could fit them through the bars.
Brandy looked at the hands, raised his own to compare them to hers. Her hands were old but strong. Her hands could take care of both of them. His hands were young and weak. He wondered how they would fit together.
Their fingertips barely met.
“I need your young flesh, and you need my old wisdom,” the witch said.
Chapter
65
Stephen woke up lying on his back, propped up by several pillows. He faced the window that peered over at his own home. His mother sat at his bedroom window, her hands resting flat against the pane.
“No one likes me, Momma. Aunt Rosemary is afraid of me.”
His mother’s brown eyes crinkled into a smile, and he watched her lips mouth I love you.
He sat up, drawing his knees to his chest. His arms circled his legs.
“Can I trust you, Momma? Will you make me hurt others?”
A soft knock came on the door. Just as softly Stephen answered before the door opened.
“Are you feeling better?” asked Grannie Smith. “Well enough for a cup of hot chocolate? I can bring it up if you’d like.”
“Grannie Smith, do you still like me?”
“Of course. And so does your aunt. She’s under a lot of pressure now between visiting your father and her mother. She doesn’t know what to make of all the troubles the family has been experiencing.”
“She thinks I caused it all.”
“No. You weren’t even at the house when those accidents happened.” She sat down on the bed.
“Do you think Aunt Rosemary will come back?”
“Why not? She loves you.”
“Will she
let Robin and me play again?”
“Certainly. How could she keep the two of you apart?”
“Robin can’t run away from home because a witch stole her nerves.”
“I don’t think anyone will be running away from home, do you?”
Stephen thought about it.
“I don’t know where I’d go.”
Grannie Smith cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand.
“Stay with family, Stephen. Family will always take care of you.”
“Even when they’re scared of me?”
“How could someone be scared of you? Would I be sitting here if I were afraid?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t sit with me,” he said, glancing out the window, still seeing his mother staring back. “But then the uglies don’t know how to get over here. They’re locked in the basement of our house.”
“Your daddy had a terrible accident. He didn’t mean to hurt himself, and no one else wanted him hurt.”
Stephen’s mother beckoned to him. She wanted him to come back to the house. She stretched her arms out as if to hug him.
“Momma still loves me.”
“Love doesn’t end when a person has to go away. My husband, Lord rest his soul, still loves me, I’m sure. And I love him, but in a different way than before. We can’t hug or kiss. Still, I talk to him in quiet moments, and I knew him so well that I can hear the replies he’d make.”
With astonishment in his eyes, Stephen looked up into Grannie Smith’s face.
“Your husband talks to you?”
“I imagine him talking to me. Advising me what to do, offering support when I need it. Everything he did when he lived with me.”
But Stephen didn’t imagine his mother’s voice or her touch. She wanted back into his life, and he had welcomed her without thought of what it could mean.
Chapter
66
“Mother, where is your little boy? Why doesn’t he come to release all of us from this stifling, filthy basement?” asked the gargoyle
The Witch Page 20
