Through Her Eyes

by Jennifer Archer

  I send her a chastising look, and say, “The only other thing I can think of that he might be using as a way to communicate with me is my camera. It definitely means something to me. That’s how I first saw him, too. Through my viewfinder. And I go into his memories through photographs I take.”

  Bethyl Ann sits straighter. “Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Where?” I ask, frustrated. “It still doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Patience, grasshopper. Let’s think about the crystal. How is it significant to you?”

  “It’s not. Anyway, I think we’re off base. Maybe we should be trying to figure out what they meant to Henry or Isabel, not me. I mean, the crystal obviously meant something to them. He gave it to her as a gift.”

  “Yes, but for you he turned it into a transportation device. Maybe it’s also some kind of key.” She glances toward the door of my room. “Have you found any hidden locked passages or rooms in this place?”

  “No. I don’t know where they’d be.”

  “Duh.” She crosses her eyes. “Hidden? Must I define the meaning?”

  “Funny,” I say sarcastically. “The Dilworth brothers have been over every inch of this place painting and making repairs. I think they would’ve said something if they had found secret rooms or passages.”

  “Darn,” Bethyl Ann says, frowning. “What about that man and dog? What could they mean?”

  I look toward the window, picturing the Quattlebaums’ farm across the field. “The man is Isabel’s dad, and Kip is her dog. They just seem to signify what was going on at the time of that particular memory…what Papa Dan, Henry, and Isabel were seeing.”

  Bethyl Ann purses her lips. “Was anything special about that day?”

  “I don’t know. It was the first time Daniel admitted to Isabel that he didn’t trust Henry maybe? The first time she admitted to herself that she thought of Henry as more than a friend?” More discouraged than ever, I say, “I don’t have a clue what any of this means. I’m not even sure my feelings for Henry are all coming from Isabel. I felt connected to him the minute I read his first poem, before I even knew about her.”

  “Can I read the poems? Maybe if I did, I’d feel a connection, too, and I’d have a better idea of what’s going on.”

  “I don’t know….” I feel an embarrassing twinge of jealousy, like I don’t want her to feel a connection to Henry.

  Bethyl Ann shrugs. “That’s okay. If you’re not ready.”

  “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not. Some things should remain between lovers, I guess.” She falls back against the pillows. “There’s nothing more dreamy than a love triangle. You and Henry. Henry and Bell. You and Tate.”

  For some reason, her dramatics make me laugh despite my misery. “Speaking of…there’s another reason I feel weird about spending time with Tate. He was friendly; then he wasn’t; now he’s friendly again. And he blames that on a bad mood? Sometimes I think he’s being nice to me for a reason.”

  “Duh. He’s a guy. Aren’t they always nice to girls for a reason? They want to—you know.” Wiggling her brows, Bethyl Ann stands and starts across the room toward her book bag in the corner. “Not that I know firsthand,” she adds.

  “Besides that,” I say.

  “Maybe he just likes you.” She carries her bag to the bed and sits beside me again. “At least his taste is getting better. You’re a big improvement over the prior object of his affection.”

  “Who?”

  “Shanna.”

  “Oh.” That’s not something I wanted to hear. “Why did they break up?”

  “He probably got sick of her being so mean. Shanna cheated on Tate every time he turned his back.”

  Recalling how horrible it felt to be betrayed by Hailey, I sympathize with Tate, even if he was stupid enough to hook up with someone like Shanna. “So I guess Alison’s just like her, since they’re always together.”

  “No, Alison’s okay.” Bethyl Ann’s gaze shifts away as she unzips the book bag and begins stuffing her magazines inside.

  Curious over her sudden silence, I say, “I saw her crying outside City Drug.”

  She looks up. “Alison?”

  “Yep. Turns out she was upset over a stupid grade. Then her mom came out and overreacted, too—not about the grade. She freaked because she didn’t see Alison.”

  “Don’t think Alison and Shanna are the same, ’cause they’re not,” Bethyl Ann says defensively. “Alison can be trusted.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry.” I scowl at her. “I don’t get why you’re so protective of her, but I won’t say anything negative about perfect Alison again.”

  Bethyl Ann lowers her bag to the floor and stares down at it, plucking at the ends of her hair as if she can’t believe the unfamiliar shorter strands are her own. Finally, she looks up at me and says quietly, “For the record, I’m pretty sure you can trust Cassius, too.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve known Tate forever. He might’ve been a grump when you first got here, but, alas, what fools these mortals be. Especially mortals of the male persuasion.” She sighs. “The course of true love never does run smooth. Give poor Cassius a second chance.”

  We drag the box of clothes downstairs for Bethyl Ann to take home. Mom gasps when she sees her. “Look at you!” she squeals, then proceeds to gush over the amazing transformation of Stinky Pugh. She says Bethyl Ann looks “hip,” which proves how totally out-of-touch Mom is, but I understand what she means, and I agree.

  Unfortunately, when Mrs. Pugh arrives, she isn’t as thrilled. Bethyl Ann’s mother gapes at her, then starts to cry. Mom puts an arm around Mrs. Pugh’s shoulders, and they take off toward the living room to talk. Mrs. Pugh seems better when she returns to the kitchen, but she won’t look at me, and she watches Bethyl Ann like she’s searching for glimpses of the daughter she remembers.

  I wait until they leave before telling Mom I’m going to the canyon with Tate for a while. She keeps her back to me as she washes a head of lettuce under the kitchen faucet. “Is there something you want to talk about first?” she asks.

  “I can’t think of anything.”

  “You look exhausted. Have you been sleeping okay?”

  “I’m sleeping fine,” I lie. “Quit thinking something’s wrong with me all the time.”

  “It just seems like something’s troubling you. I’m glad that you’re making friends here, but is school causing you any problems?”

  “It’s all good, Mom. Really. Where’s Papa Dan?”

  “Upstairs napping.” She turns off the tap and shakes water off the lettuce into the sink.

  “Has he been outside during the day when I’m at school?”

  “Not alone. Why?”

  I open my mouth to tell her about the cellar door, about seeing someone out there a couple of times during the night. But then I think of the psychology book I read in the library, of the schizophrenia symptoms that match mine so closely…and I can’t do it.

  She sets the lettuce on a cutting board, grabs a towel, and dries her hands. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. I just worry about him, that’s all.”

  “I know, sweetie. Me, too. But right now, I’m more worried about you.”

  “Don’t be.”

  She’s quiet for several moments, then says, “We’re having company for dinner.”

  “Tonight?”

  “I invited Ray Don, so be back here by seven, okay?”

  “Sheriff Ray Don?”

  “That’s right.” Laughing, she tries to pop me with the towel, but I jump back, avoiding it just in time.

  “Why is the sheriff coming to dinner? Are you dating him?” Mom doesn’t date. She only flirts outrageously and breaks hearts. When she doesn’t answer me, I say, “Mom.” I don’t know if I can handle any more change in my life right now.

  “I hear a car outside,” she says. “It’s probably Tate, and you’d better hurry. You only have about an hour and a half.
”

  I stare at her.

  Mom stares back. “Be careful, okay?”

  I run upstairs to get my camera, and ten minutes later Tate and I are walking into the canyon by way of a trail that seems oddly familiar. As I shoot photographs, he asks questions about developing film in the darkroom. I try to explain the process, then, ignoring my guilty feelings of betraying Henry, I offer to show him sometime. I think the invitation is what he was after in the first place.

  We take a cutoff onto a different trail that leads beneath the bridge. Pausing, I step back and look up. The jutting cliff beside the bridge’s entrance reminds me of the place where Henry and I stood the last time I saw him, the place where he kissed me when I was Bell.

  When I was Bell. Ohmygod.

  I really hope Bethyl Ann knows what she’s talking about when it comes to ghosts. Otherwise, I’m destined for a mental institution.

  Tate stops beside me, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand as he gazes up at the bridge. “They say Henry Peterson used to stand on the railing. Apparently, he threatened to jump more than once before he actually took the leap.”

  An image flashes before my eyes—Henry on the railing with his arms out, looking at Bell and asking if she’d even care if he fell. Fear and dread weave through my body, winding through muscle and bone, twisting and tangling around my lungs.

  “The rumor is that he jumped because of a girl,” Tate goes on.

  The knots in the tangle pull tight, cutting off my air supply and making me gasp.

  Tate jerks his head around to look at me. “It’s just a stupid story.”

  “It’s not stupid; it’s terrible. He was a real person.” Humiliated by the harsh, emotional tone of my voice, I avert my gaze and try to calm down. “Do you believe it?”

  “That he jumped? I guess.”

  “I don’t get why people are so sure of that. I mean, if he used to walk the railing, couldn’t he have slipped and fallen?”

  “Maybe. But from what I’ve heard, the dude was pretty intense. And, like I said, supposedly he’d made threats.”

  “Beth says he hurt himself on purpose. That once he even shot himself in the foot.” I won’t admit that I actually read the rumor about the shooting in the newspaper archives; I don’t want Tate knowing I’m so obsessed with Henry that I’ve been doing research.

  Tate’s brows lift. “I never heard that, but I guess it fits.”

  We start walking again, and after a few seconds I ask, “What about the haunting part? Do you believe that, too? You said the other day that anything’s possible.”

  “I was joking. You’re the one who lives in his house. What do you believe?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard some things I can’t explain, and sometimes I feel…” I look down at the trail, hesitant and self-conscious.

  “A presence?” he asks, and I hear that note again in his voice, the one that makes me think he knows more about Henry than he’s letting on.

  My laugh is dismissive. “I’m sure it’s my imagination. You know, because of all the talk. We hadn’t been in town half an hour before the Quattlebaums came over to tell us all the superstitions about the house. Now every time I hear a creak or rattle, I imagine it’s his ghost walking around.”

  Tate laughs. “Well, if you run into Henry, tell him hello for me.”

  Henry wouldn’t like that. He’d be jealous.

  I flinch. Whoa, where did that thought come from?

  Uneasiness drifts down on me like a spider’s web as we continue to follow the trail. When we reach a curve, I gaze over my shoulder for another look at the bridge, and pause. Lifting my camera, I take a picture of the place where Henry last stood…and shudder.

  When the numbers on my digital clock click over to midnight, I switch on my lamp and sit up. The nightingale sings louder tonight…longer. An hour ago, I stuffed cotton balls in my ears, but I can still hear the bird calling faintly, and I can’t sleep. The sheet and blanket are twisted around my legs. I have too much on my mind. The rumor Tate told me about Henry committing suicide because of a girl, for one thing. Was it Isabel? Was she there when he jumped? I’m horrified that Isabel might’ve seen Henry fall to his death.

  The sudden change in Tate still bothers me, too. The necklace chain was such an unexpected gift. Was it just a peace offering? Or something more?

  I also can’t quit thinking about Mom. Sheriff Ray Don stammered his way through dinner tonight. Whenever he looked at Mom, which was 98 percent of the time, I expected syrup to leak from his eye sockets. But that’s not what worries me; he’s nice enough. I mean, he devoted 1 percent of his attention to me and 1 percent to Papa Dan. He didn’t leave my grandfather out of the conversation like a lot of people do. Because Papa Dan is so quiet, it’s too easy to forget he occupies the same room.

  Since I’ve decided to make more of an effort to befriend the natives, and because I knew it would please Mom, I gave the sheriff some photographs I shot of Cedar Canyon. Mom was pleased. Maybe too pleased. I’m not sure why, but the way she acts around Sheriff Ray Don bothers me. She’s her usual flirty self but nervous, too. I’ve never seen her act skittish around anybody. She hopes people like her, but if they don’t, she takes it the way Bethyl Ann would; Mom won’t apologize for who she is or feel bad about it. But tonight she couldn’t quit verbally kicking herself for being a bad cook, a fact that never bothered her before. She seemed upset that her overdone roast beef was as tough as damp tree bark.

  Yawning, I untangle myself from the covers and take the cotton from my ears. I’ll never get used to the West Texas wind. Gusts are blowing so hard outside, I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up tomorrow, walk out the door, and find myself in the next county. A tree branch scratches the side of the house. The rafters rattle and pop. But I still hear strains of the nightingale’s song—they wrap around me.

  My backpack sits on the floor, propped against my desk, the crystal pendant and the envelope of photographs I’ve started carrying with me to school inside it. Only the pocket watch and journal remain in the table drawer upstairs, and I don’t need them to do what I have in mind—what I can’t seem to resist doing whenever the nightingale sings.

  The crystal chills my fingers as I pull it out of my pack, as if every one of Bell’s winter memories are compressed inside it. The necklace chain Tate gave me lies on the nightstand. I pick it up and thread it through the tiny loop at the top of the pendant. After securing the chain around my neck, I pull out the photos, shuffle through them, pausing on one of the front entrance of Cedar Canyon High. Excitement mixes with apprehension as I study the marble columns, the arches, the tall narrow windows above. “What could you tell me?” I whisper. After what I learned from Tate today, I’m more worried than ever about Henry—about Daniel and Bell. Her most of all. Do the answers to what happened to them lie behind that row of massive double doors in the photograph? What went on inside the school building when Isabel, Henry, and Papa Dan were students?

  All at once I’m cold, but even so, sweat sheens my forehead. Whatever happened, it’s over; I can’t change it. I can’t save Henry or Bell. I can’t spare my grandfather the memories that haunt him. But I still have to do this; I have to go back, if only to see Henry again. I’m really starting to like Tate, to think about him as much as I think of Henry. I don’t want to feel guilty when I’m with Tate. What if he asks me to homecoming? I try to imagine that. The dress I would wear, the mum he’d buy me—such normal things I can’t help smiling. Maybe I should tell Henry that I can’t see him again. Maybe then he’ll just tell me his message straight out and I can put an end to all this and move on with real life.

  A sense that Henry hears my thoughts creeps over me. I feel the grip of his hands on my shoulders as surely as if he stands in the room. His anger that I would consider saying good-bye seems to vibrate the air.

  I hold the photo in front of me, and with my other hand, lift the crystal from where it rests against my chest. A tilt to the right and it ca
tches the lamp’s glow. I wait, hold my breath, and tilt it to the left. A bright prism of light streaks out and blinds me….

  …I’m inside a school gymnasium packed with students wearing festive, formal clothing. Isabel’s mother made the taffeta dress I wear and the material is itchy against my flesh—her flesh—Isabel’s, mine.

  “Jeepers creepers, where’d you get those peepers?” Isabel sings along with the music playing on the phonograph. She stands close to the wall, tapping the toe of her keg-heeled shoe against the wooden floor and waiting for Henry to bring her a cup of punch. He’s been gone too long, a quarter of an hour, at least.

  With her hands clasped in front of her, she watches the dancers gyrate and spin beneath the giant, white paper snowflakes suspended from the ceiling. Spotting Daniel and Louise dancing on the far side of the room, Isabel calls out to them and waves, giggling when Daniel stumbles a little. He never could cut a rug, she thinks. He has no rhythm. If I could, I would tell Isabel that will change. That he will learn to jitterbug and two-step and waltz in college. That he and my grandmother will win a contest and take home a gold trophy that Daniel will still keep on his dresser when he is an old man.

  The music changes to Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood,” and Isabel hums along with the song. She thinks about the picture the newspaper photographer took of her with Henry, Louise, and Daniel when they arrived. Louise had been humming off-key when the photographer approached them, and Isabel was laughing at her tone-deaf friend. She had been so excited about Henry accompanying her to the Winter Dance that it didn’t occur to her until the flashbulb flared that if the Gazette prints the shot, her parents will see it and know that she was with Henry tonight.

  She’s wondering how she will explain that, when a few feet away, she hears someone say Henry’s name. Isabel turns and sees Doris Collier, Margaret Thompson, and Betty McCoy with their heads together, whispering. She follows the direction of their gaze and her shiver scatters through me. Henry strides toward her, watching her with hooded eyes as he slices through the dancers like a blade, parting couples with each step he takes. He carries a cup in one hand, a silver flask in the other. Boldly, he lifts the flask to his mouth and drinks.