Aunt Maria

by Diana Wynne Jones

  I had the dream again. I remember now that Chris said the ghost brought dreams. I looked up where I wrote it down. It was as bad as last time, only realler somehow. I could feel the clammy clods of earth round me when I tried to move. This time I tried to believe I was Chris sleeping in the cold woods among the goblin trees. But I could tell, somehow, that they were a different kind of trees growing on top of me, lighter and bushier. And I fought to get out harder than ever.

  Then I sort of burst through and sat up to find the room full of pale light. Sweat was pouring down me. The ghost was standing looking at me, thoughtfully, with a hand holding his chin. He looked like a scarecrow. He was wearing a long green coat that looked as if it had been left out in a field for a year. I could see grass and mud and cowpats sticking to it. His face is a bit like a carved turnip, anyway. When he saw I was awake, one of the V-shaped eyebrows slid up. He doesn’t take me seriously the way he does Chris.

  “That’s not fair!” I said. “I need your help. Please! You know what’s happened to Chris—”

  He smiled his long, long grin and just faded away.

  I was so angry I threw Chris’s pillow at where he had been. It nearly went out of the window—luckily it didn’t. It was raining again. Poor Chris.

  It is raining this morning, too, and Lavinia is crouched in the shed. I don’t blame Mum for not being able to think of Chris. The telephone never stops ringing. The whole of Cranbury is asking after Aunt Maria. And Aunt Maria is not dead. I rather hoped she would be and Chris would turn back into Chris the moment the last breath left her body. No way. Aunt Maria is sitting on her roped morning sofa, shouting, “Betty! Telephone, dear!” every time the phone rings, just as if Mum couldn’t hear it, too. I hate her. I really do.

  And it is rather frightening. Everyone talked about Chris as if he was a dog yesterday. Today they are talking about “the wolf.”

  “Tell them it must have escaped from a zoo somewhere, dear!” Aunt Maria calls to Mum. And she knows where the wolf came from even better than I do. I must warn Chris not to do anything in daytime again. I hope he comes tonight.

  Nine

  The Mrs. Urs made me sick this afternoon. They sat in an anxious circle round Aunt Maria asking how she was after her terrible experience. They were all there, even Elaine. They all must know about Chris—I’m sure they do—but none of them seemed to care at all about his terrible experience. It was all Aunt Maria and had their dear queen bee been harmed. Mum is right about her being queen bee. The zombies are her drones. I suppose that makes the clones into bee grubs waiting to hatch. I wonder if they are.

  I sat thinking this with my chin on my chest, looking at all their pairs of legs as they sat—fat legs, skinny legs, legs with purple scaly patches, smart legs in nice tights, and Mum’s legs in jeans. And mine in blue tights with wrinkles at the knees. Twenty-six legs, making thirteen of us, all female. As soon as I realized that, I wanted to go away.

  “You loog dired, dear!” Zoe Green said to me. “You shouldn’t. Your ztar is in the azzendand juzt dnow.”

  “I’m very well, thank you,” I said. She looked at me in a puzzled way, wondering why I was being so icy polite. I don’t think she realizes.

  Then Corinne West said, “Poor Phyllis Forbes sends her apologies. Something terrible seems to have happened at the orphanage. That wolf came out of the woods and savaged one of those poor little children.”

  I thought, Oh, no! Everyone else exclaimed a bit, then Aunt Maria said, “It was bound to happen, with a savage beast like that on the loose. Isn’t anybody doing anything about it?”

  One of them said, “We should hold a meeting about it.”

  “Yes,” said Aunt Maria. “We should, dear. Elaine, see about it, dear. Get Larry to organize the men.”

  “Will do,” Elaine said cheerily.

  By that time I had had enough. I stood up and said, “I’m suffocating in here, Mum. Is it all right if I go out for a bit?”

  Elaine looked at me suspiciously, but Aunt Maria said, “That’s right, dear. You look pale. Go out and get some fresh air.”

  The fresh air was full of little drops of rain, but I didn’t care. It was one of those times when it seems suddenly warmer outside than indoors. The rain gave the sea a gentler smell than usual. There was the gluey bud smell in the air and even a smell of flowers. You couldn’t see the sea for the white mist of rain over it. I wandered about sniffing, thinking maybe Chris hadn’t had such a bad time in the woods if it was like this.

  They arranged the meeting about him while I was out. The reason I’m writing this now is that Aunt Maria has gone in her dead fox and wheelchair procession to the town hall. I keep hoping Chris will have the sense to come here while they’re all discussing him. I don’t know what they’ll decide, but I know I must warn him. So I keep turning to the window in case he’s in the garden. Lavinia digs her claws in every time I do, because I slope her then, and she starts to slide down my skirt. I’ll put her out the window when I hear them coming back.

  But I wasn’t just walking round Cranbury for my health all afternoon. I walked, the way Chris did, so that people would see me going in all directions. The Mrs. Urs were all with Aunt Maria, but I am sure they are just her main women. The way the lace curtains quiver as you pass, she must have the whole town watching for her. I walked past every house in the place before I pretended to go back. Instead, I dodged into the vegetable plots, the way we had done before, and got very wet and prickled walking up beside the hedge to the station car park.

  It was worth it. The old blue car that used to be ours was waiting there again. It was in a much more convenient position, too, backed right against the iron railing. I didn’t even need to climb over before I took out the kitchen knife I’d picked up on my way out and dug it under the back lock.

  It wasn’t locked. Either Chris had broken it last time or someone hadn’t locked it. The hatch went up so quickly that I nearly didn’t catch it before it reared up over the roof and showed the booted porter someone was opening a car. The difficult bit was climbing in while holding the door and then shutting it from inside. I ought to have been good at it. Dad was always going off with both sets of keys. But I’d lost the knack and the door soared away twice before I remembered how to hold it.

  I sat in the back beside the toffee for a bit. Then I changed my plan and crawled forward over the backseat and sat in the front passenger seat. Whoever got into the car might as well know at once that I was there. I felt in the hiding place in case anything was there, but there was nothing. Zenobia Bailey’s perfume was still in the air, but not as strong as last time. I sat waiting and planned what I would say to Zenobia if she unlocked the door and climbed in. Then I planned what I’d say if it wasn’t Zenobia who got in.

  It was not quite dark when the train came. When I heard it clattering and squealing I deliberately lay back and slid down a bit to stop myself going all strung-up and frightened. But it was hard not to be frightened when the footsteps began to crunch on the gravel and car doors banged all round as the zombies got in their cars and drove away. I concentrated on counting how many cars put headlights on and how many didn’t, and I got so taken up with that that I almost didn’t notice a man was unlocking the car door until he opened it and got in.

  He was so much a zombie that he didn’t notice me at all. He just sat down and began clattering away at the starter. When I said, “Hello, Dad,” his head almost hit the roof.

  He turned round. He stared. He looked quite bewildered. He said, “Who … what?” Then, in his usual way, he got angry. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” he said.

  Dad uses anger to cover up all his other feelings. I took no notice and grinned. “Waiting for you,” I said. “I got in through the back as usual. Why are you here when you’re supposed to be dead?”

  “Dead?” he said angrily. “Dead?”

  He always pretends not to understand, but I think he really didn’t when I explained, “The car was found at th
e bottom of Cranbury Head, but you weren’t in it. Mum thinks you were killed.”

  “This car?” he said in the same angry way. “This car? But I’ve had it all along!”

  “I know,” I said. “I think the car crash was some kind of illusion. You really ought to tell Mum you’re still alive. It’s awfully awkward for her.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I suppose it would be.” That sounds reasonable, but it wasn’t quite. He always talks about Mum in a half-laughing, sarcastic way. I was watching him carefully. He hadn’t changed much. There was the zombie look, but he still looked rather like me if I were three sizes bigger. “And is that why you’re here?” he said in the same sarcastic way. “Soul-searching, happy-ending-seeking Mig.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ve had enough of people pretending and managing one another and being dishonest. I might have used that as an excuse if I wanted to manage you, but I don’t. I’ve come about the green box.”

  “Green box!” he said. He ran his hands through his hair and looked at the car roof. “Is this another of your stories or something?”

  I gave him time to notice that I did know about this green box. I said, “Do you live with Zenobia Bailey these days?”

  Dad stopped with both hands in his hair and looked at me. “That’s enough, Mig. One way of managing people is to tell them you’re being quite honest.”

  “I know!” I said. “Why do people always have to manage one another? Can’t they just be people?”

  “It doesn’t seem to be possible where men and women are concerned,” Dad said, more sarcastic than ever. “You’ll learn that, Mig.”

  “No, I won’t,” I said. “Tell me about the green box.”

  Dad just went on as if he hadn’t heard me. “That’s the real trouble with your mother, Mig. She seemed to think it was possible, too. She was always assuming we thought the same way, and we didn’t. You never knew what to expect from her, she was so reasonable! None of the traditional facts seemed to mean anything to her—and she went and taught the same outlook to you and Chris. I tell you, Mig—!”

  “You’re just working yourself up,” I said. “It’s all supposed to be over now. Dad, are you under some sort of spell not to tell about the green box?”

  I think he may have been. He gave a sort of jump and said, “What the—! What do you mean, green box?”

  “Covered all over with peculiar green patterns and full of something strong,” I said. “It used to belong to Antony Green. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Poor old Tony,” Dad said. “Poor old Tony Green.” He sat with his chin down, rather the way I was, staring out at the empty car park. “He and I were at school together,” he said. “We used to go off on this same train to school in Minehurst every day, did you know that? He was always the promising one, they all said. I did as well at lessons, but Antony was supposed to be the good-all-round one. Never could make up his mind between science and philosophy and so on. I think he took up archeology when they gave him the green box and told him he was the one who had to stay in Cranbury. I was the one who had to leave. I didn’t see the justice of that. I always assumed I would be the one who got the box. Tony didn’t value it the way I did.”

  “How did he die?” I said.

  “No idea,” Dad said, to my great disappointment. “In fact, I’d always been led to believe he wasn’t dead—though you’d think he was the way his mother—Zoe Green—took on. It was quite a shock to me when I saw his ghost that night in Aunt Maria’s spare room. The ghost spoke to me, said it was looking for the box. Poor old Tony. The box was never there.”

  “Yes, it was,” I said. “You took it.”

  “Mig, I swear to you I did not,” he said. He wasn’t angry, so I think he thought he was telling the truth.

  “You did,” I said, “but it doesn’t matter now. What does the box do? What made you decide to stay here and not tell anyone?”

  I wish I hadn’t asked both those things together. Dad didn’t quite answer either, just the way Chris didn’t when I asked him about the ghost. He said, “When you meet an old friend you last saw as a skinny teenager, Mig… What does it do? Well, you’d have one answer and no doubt old Nat Phelps would have another. As I said—”

  A Land Rover came hurtling into the car park while he was speaking, so fast that it sprayed mud and pebbles all over the windshield of Dad’s car. It skidded to a stop some yards away to the right. Its headlights suddenly made everywhere go dark, and mud ran down the window, but I could see through it enough to see Hester Bailey and Zenobia Bailey jump down from it. They came marching toward Dad’s car in an Elaine sort of way.

  I got the door open on my side. “I think I’d better be off,” I said.

  “Yes, you’d better,” Dad said. He sounded so nervous I was sorry for him. “Tell Betty I’m still in the land of the living,” he said, almost whispering.

  “Yes, and you tell them your stomach played up again,” I whispered back. “Don’t say I was here. Please.”

  “Okay,” he said. I think it was a real promise. I hope. He certainly didn’t say anything while I was crawling on hands and knees through the muddy gravel and hitching myself through the fence. But then—it’s a strange thought—now Dad’s been zombied, I think he’s as scared of me as he is of Zenobia Bailey.

  I heard her open the driver’s door and say, “Greg! Whatever is the matter? Mother and I got really worried when you didn’t come in.”

  Dad mumbled something with “stomach” in it.

  Hester Bailey said, “If that’s all it is, your father can easily give him something for it.” She sounded very relieved.

  Zenobia said, “You poor old boy then! Move over and I’ll drive.”

  I crawled and crawled away along the hedge, until my tights and skirt were sopping. I was glad they’d believed Dad. I hadn’t meant to get him in trouble, and I didn’t want to spoil it by letting them see me. I didn’t dare stand up until both cars had driven away. Then I ran back to Aunt Maria’s with my teeth chattering and went in through the back door. She always moves back to the dark living room after the Mrs. Urs have gone, so she didn’t see me. I had to change all my clothes. Even my sweater was sopping.

  “How did you get so wet?” said Mum.

  “Looking for a way to help Chris,” I said. I haven’t stopped reminding her. “And by the way, Dad’s alive. I just met him.”

  “You and your happy endings, Mig!” she said, laughing. “You do know that even if he walked in here this moment, nothing would come of it, don’t you?”

  I thought about it. “Yes,” I said. “I do know.” When I was little I thought of Mum and Dad as really one person—joined together as Mum-and-Dad—or like the earth and the sky, part of the same view. Now I know they are two separate people who don’t get on. The difference between them is that I keep reminding Mum of Chris, because I know it might do some good. But I didn’t even mention Chris to Dad. I knew he’d just cut me off, then get angry and throw me out of the car.

  Mum was thinking of Dad, too. She was peeling potatoes on the drain board to let me rinse my muddy tights in the sink. She put her head up with her cheerful, brave look and said, “Just before you were born, Mig, I fell downstairs. All the way down. I was terrified in case you’d been harmed. I screamed for Greg. He came, and he looked, and he said, ‘That was a stupid thing to do,’ and he went away again. I couldn’t believe it. But that’s what he’s like, Mig. It’s all right if things are going the way he expects, but if they don’t he doesn’t want to know.”

  “I know!” I said. I didn’t want her to say any more.

  She did, though. I suppose she wanted to get him off her chest, too. She said, musingly, “I should have left him then, really. But you were going to be born, and I did hope he’d learn—learn that people aren’t just a set of rules, or at least learn that he could learn. But he never did, Mig.”

  Now I’m grateful that Mum said that. It explains the sort of hold Zenobia Bailey must have on Dad. You can s
ee, with every word she says, that Zenobia is the sort of girl who plays by the rules. Dad likes that. I bet she uses the rules just the way Aunt Maria does, to make him feel guilty and do things for her. But he probably expects that. I feel like saying, “Poor old Greg!” the way Dad himself said “Poor old Tony.” But I’m very grateful to Dad, too. Now I know who the ghost is. I think that’s important.

  I can hear them bringing Aunt Maria back. Out, Lavinia. And I must warn Chris.

  They didn’t say what they’d decided, but it sounds as if everyone in Cranbury is going to join in. I did warn Chris, thank goodness.

  I slithered down to Chris’s room again as soon as Mum was asleep. “Is that you, Naomi?” called Aunt Maria.

  “I’m getting a drink of milk, Auntie,” I called. “I’m thirsty.”

  “Is the rug rolled up? Mind you don’t slip, dear.”

  “It is rolled up and I’m not ninety!” I shouted. I was cross, because that meant I really did have to go downstairs to the kitchen in the dark, or she would know. So I went down and groped about and fell into things until I found a spare candle. Then I hopefully got out all the loose food to save time later. And off I trudged upstairs.

  “Good night, dear!” called Aunt Maria.

  That meant I had to go back to the right bed again and climb in with Mum. I went fast asleep, like a log, and I know I would have slept until morning if it hadn’t been for Lavinia. She knew Chris was there and tried to get down inside the covers with me in such a clawing hurry that she scratched my arm. I didn’t notice the scratch till morning. I just jumped up, half asleep, and went down to Chris’s room.

  He was standing in the middle of it, ears pricked, waiting for me. I knelt down and hugged him. He wasn’t as wet as I expected. He must have found a place to shelter. He put one paw awkwardly across my shoulder to show he was glad to see me, too.

  “Oh, Chris!” I said. “That was so stupid with the Baghdads! But it was wonderfully funny, too. Did you see Adele Taylor tread in the cake?”