She pressed her face to the crack of the door and sniffed deeply. Behind the spicy, lacquered smell of the wood was another smell, strong and mouth-watering. "Later," she whispered to the door. Her stomach growled loudly in protest and she patted it. Moving slowly, she pushed away from the door, went around the stairs and through another door to the kitchen.
She went to the refrigerator and opened it. There were a couple of foil-wrapped packages inside and a plastic pitcher, half-full. Eleanor grabbed the pitcher, popped open the triangular spout, and drank greedily and noisily from the con tainer. A thin dark drop of the liquid dripped from the corner of her mouth and rolled down her chin to her neck.
She finished drinking, recapped the pitcher, and put it back in the fridge. She stood with the freezer door open for a while and let the cool air wash over her.
She straightened suddenly and turned away from the refrigerator. Voices, children's voices, drifted through her mind. She went to the back door, opened it, and sniffed at the air. Yes, there were indeed children nearby and from the sound of their thoughts in her head she knew it was the little boy and girl she had seen with their parents in Amherst.
The boy was very afraid. Though she knew it would be easy to grab them both, now was not the time. If she tried now, and did fail, she'd never get another chance. Besides, she still had much to do before she'd need this boy and girl, and their lovely pregnant mother. The Samhain Harvest of Dead Souls and Halloween were still a month away, and with them living so close now, she could afford to wait until the time was right.
"Fe, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of a little one," she said, and cackled softly to herself at the promise of delicious things to come.
CHAPTER 4
There was a little boy and a little girl ...
Diane was unpacking dishes in the kitchen when Jackie ran in, slamming the aluminum screen door behind him. He was out of breath, panting loudly as he leaned against the wall. His face was flushed and there were a few red scratches on his cheek and forearms from plowing through the bushes at the end of the dirt road and into the backyard.
"My word! You look as if the Wicked 01' Witch of the West herself were chasing you," Diane exclaimed.
Jackie gulped air and crossed to the table where Diane was stacking dishes to be put on the shelves. "Can I have a drink?" he gasped.
"It'll have to be water," Diane answered, picking up a glass and going to the sink. She looked over her shoulder at her son. "So, how come you're so out of breath?"
"Just runnin'," Jackie said, sliding along the table to the sink and taking the glass. He gulped it, downing half the glass quickly.
"Whoa! Slow down or you'll choke," Diane warned and grabbed his arm, forcing him to take the glass from his lips. "So did you find any trolls?"
Jackie shook his head.
"Where's your sister?"
"In the woods," he said into his glass, as he raised it and drank from it again.
"Go and call her. I want you two to go upstairs and get washed. It's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for supper."
Jackie finished the water and went to the back door, but before he could open it, Jennifer came in. When she saw Jackie she said "Boo!" and laughed at him.
Jackie's lips tightened and he muttered, "Very funny."
"I've never seen you run so fast," Jennifer said with a giggle.
"Oh shut up," Jackie pouted angrily.
"Jen, what did I tell you before about scaring your brother? Now, knock it off and get upstairs and wash for supper. Move it," Diane ordered, motioning with a nod of her head.
The house had eight rooms, four up and four down. Jackie and Jennifer went out of the kitchen via the front hall, which connected the kitchen, living room, and dining room, with the front door and the stairs to the second floor. The fourth downstairs room was off the kitchen and unfinished, used primarily as a storage room by the previous inhabitants.
They gave the two front rooms a cursory glance-Steve was in the dining room on the right, assembling the large, dark pine table-and went upstairs. The right side front and back rooms were closest to the top landing. The bathroom was between them. Jackie went straight to the bathroom, but Jennifer turned away and started down the left side of the hallway that ran the length of the second floor with a closet at the other end between the other two rooms.
When Jackie saw what she was doing, he followed her, asking, "What are you doing? Mom said get washed."
"We're going to have to pick out our rooms, you know. We can each have our own room here because there's one more bedroom than at our apartment," she told Jackie. She opened a creaking door and went into the left front room. It was a dimly lit, dull, square room with faded yellow wallpaper covering its walls. The shades on the windows were torn and the hardwood floor needed varnishing. The crib, changing table, bureau with fairy-tale figures painted on it, and several large boxes were stacked in the center of the room.
"What do you think of this room?" Jennifer asked.
"It's nice," Jackie replied. "All the baby's stuff is in here"
"That don't mean nothing," Jennifer told him. "Look, Mom's makeup table is in here, too, and Steve's typewriter."
"What do you think of this room?" Jackie asked his sister.
"It's beautiful."
"Then I want this room," Jackie said quickly.
"Well, okay. I guess you can have it," Jennifer said in a generous tone of voice.
Jackie eyed his sister suspiciously. "I changed my mind," he said after a moment. "I don't want it."
"That's okay," Jen said and went into the opposite room. It was a little smaller than the front room and a lot darker. A huge maple tree growing outside the window blocked all the sunlight. The walls were bare plaster painted a drab tan color with a green-leaf, stenciled border running around the top of the room. The room was half-filled with boxes stacked in uneven piles.
"This room is nice," Jen said with mock admiration. Actually she didn't like it; it was too small and dark. She wanted her room to be big and full of sunlight.
"You really like it?" Jackie asked.
"Oh yes. Very much," she answered teasingly.
"I want this room," Jackie said with a mischievous smile on his lips.
"Okay, this room is yours," Jennifer said, hiding a smile behind her hand. She started out of the room.
"Hey!" Jackie cried. "I thought you wanted this room"
"Oh, that's all right. If you want that room I guess you can have it. After all you did give me a piece of gum on the ride up here" She went out the door and down the hallway to where the bathroom was situated at the end of the hall between the rooms at the other end of the house.
Jackie hurried after his sister. "I changed my mind again," he said, running past her. "I don't want that room"
"Jackie! You can't keep changing your mind."
"Can to!" he yelled gleefully over his shoulder as he raced by her. She chased him into the right front room and was blinded by the bright sun pouring in the windows. This room had been recently redecorated. The walls were covered with a tasteful, peach-flowered print wallpaper. The woodwork was a highly polished, dark rich brown, as was the hardwood floor. All the beds were piled in here; headboards, frames, box springs, and mattresses, were leaning in stacks against the back wall.
Jennifer cooed, "Oooh! This room is beautiful," and meant it.
"This is my room!" Jackie piped up, running over and tagging the wall as if that were the magic talisman for ownership.
"Jackie, you just want this room because I like it," Jennifer reprimanded.
"No sa. I just like it best. You said I could choose my room, so I am. I want this one."
"But you keep changing your mind. That's not fair."
I won't change no more. This is the room I want," he answered.
"You're sure?"
"Yeah."
"And you won't change your mind anymore?"
"No.
Jennifer smiled. Now she had him. She had alr
eady decided, after a quick glance inside when they'd first come upstairs, that she wanted the right back room. Not only was it as large as the front room and just as sunny, that end of the house having the southern exposure, but its windows had a clear view of the field and the woods behind the house. The room she and Jackie had shared in the old apartment in the North End of Boston had looked out at the brick wall of another building next door and the alleyway that ran between the two buildings. She had known that Jackie would fight her for whatever room she wanted because he never missed an opportunity to tease her and be a pain, but this time she had outsmarted him.
"But that isn't fair," she said, feigning disappointment. "The other rooms are lousy compared to this." She went across the hall into the back room. Its walls were done in gray barnboard paneling and the floor was covered with a worn, blue wall-to-wall shag carpet. "This room is gross," Jennifer lied.
Jackie beamed with pleasure. "Too bad," he taunted. "But you sa-a-id I could pick any room I wanted"
"Oooh, you're a creep," she said with disdain, playing her plan to the hilt. "Okay, take that room, but see if I ever talk to you again. And while you're at it, get out of my room. Even if it is crummy, you're not allowed inside." She pushed him into the hall and turned her back on him.
Jackie went into the front room, trying to think of something good he could get out of Jennifer in exchange for the room. The truth was that he didn't care what room he got (Actually, he was kind of scared at the thought of sleeping in a room all by himself r) He just liked bugging his older sister. And now it looked like he'd be able to bargain the room for something of hers that he wanted.
He started back to Jennifer to offer her the front room for her boom box and found her staring out the back window with a funny look on her face.
"It's so private. I can see right into the woods," she murmured. "No more brick wall or dirty alleyway."
Jackie joined her at the window and looked out at the trees and the backyard. A large shadow waved over the yard and the field as a great cloud passed in front of the sun. From the joy on Jennifer's face, Jackie knew he had been duped.
"You know," he said, a mischievous grin twitching at the corners of his mouth, "I can't take that other room from you. Since you like it so much, I'll take this room and you can have the other one."
"Oh no you don't!" Jennifer cried loudly. "You can't change your mind again."
"But I just want to be fair," Jackie said sweetly.
"No, no, no!"
"Hey, what's going on up here?" Diane's voice came from the stairs. She appeared in the doorway with a pile of towels in her arms.
"Mommy, I want this room," Jackie exclaimed. He ran to her and wrapped his short arms around her pregnant belly, looking up at her cutely. "Can I have this room, Mom? Please?" he asked in his best pleading whine.
"No," Jennifer shouted. "He said he wanted the front room. He's just saying that because he knows I want this room"
"No sa-a," Jackie said in an accusing singsong.
"Oh, don't lie, Jackie," Jennifer pouted.
"That's enough," Diane interrupted in a loud voice. "What makes either of you think you can just claim the room you want? Steve and I have already planned out the rooms. This is going to be the baby's room. The room across the hall is going to be our bedroom. The other front room will be Steve's study, and the other back room will be your bedroom"
Jennifer looked shattered. "I thought you said we could have our own rooms," she said with a hint of anger in her voice.
"I'm sorry, Jen. I know I said that, but it can't be that way right now. We don't have enough room," Diane said sympathetically, but firmly.
"But why?" Jen asked, flapping her arms in exasperation, her voice whining. "We have more rooms than the old place, and some of my stuff is already in here. See?" she said pointing to her bureau.
"The movers put that there by mistake. They put every thing in the wrong rooms and didn't even follow the directions we gave them. If we hadn't had that trouble with the car on the way here, we would have had them straighten it out, but now we have to do it ourselves. Your stuff has got to be moved into the other room. I'm sorry, hon, but it'll only be until Steve can fix up the room off the kitchen and put his study in there, then you can have your own room. You know he's working on his poetry and he needs a study to get it done by the contest deadline next month."
Jennifer fought back tears and ran out of the room, Jackie following behind. She knew that Steve was trying to win some poetry writing contest that would win them a lot of money and get him a job at a college, and if her mother said she could have her own room eventually, then she knew she would, but she had so been looking forward to her privacy that her disappointment ballooned out of control. That, combined with the fact that she was tired and hungry from the long drive, made her overreact.
She ran down the hall to the room Diane had said would be hers and Jackie's. She slammed the door behind her, but Jackie opened it again, slipping inside and closing the door quietly behind him.
Jennifer was sitting on a box near the window, crying softly into her hands cupped over her face. Jackie went over to her, seemed about to touch her shoulder for a moment, then thought better of it and sat on a smaller box opposite her.
"She gives him everything," Jen sobbed, her voice sour with resentment. "We never get anything anymore"
"You can choose your side of the room first," Jackie said, softly and eagerly, wanting to soothe his sister.
"Whoopee," Jennifer said drolly as she dried her eyes, then raised her hand and made halfhearted circles in the air with her finger. She got up from the box and stood in front of the window. The maple trees pressed against the house, pushing their thick-leaved branches against the glass, leaving Jen with only a spotted view of the field and woods. She placed her hands on the window and frowned a little. It was better than a brick wall and an alley, and in the late fall, winter, and early spring, she'd have a clear view of the woods. It wasn't so bad after all.
A tiny flash of rainbow-colored light caught her eye and she looked at the ring her grandmother gave her, which she never took off. Sunlight was refracting through the perfectly oval diamond set into it. The ring, and the light, made Jennifer think of her grandmother, Diane's mother, whose great Italian bear hugs and chuckling, throaty laughter had been like rays of sunshine in Jennifer's life. The light had gone out two years ago. That was when Grammy, senile from the effects of Alzheimer's disease, had to be put in a home. The sorrow Jackie and, more so, Jennifer felt at seeing their grandmother disintegrate mentally-to the point where she no longer remembered who anyone was-is rarely experienced by children so young. The death of their natural father followed soon after. One would expect that neither she nor Jackie would be able to sustain such emotional trauma, but they did and were stronger for it. It was something inside them, something they couldn't control, a boundless energy for survival.
"Okay," she said to her brother, turning away from the window and fighting the threat of new tears at the thought of her grammy. "I'll take that side of the room" She pointed at the right half and watched Jackie's face carefully.
Jackie paled when he saw that he had the side next to the closet. Visions of trying to sleep next to that door, with who knew what horrible monsters might be lurking inside, appearing there as soon as the door was closed and the light was put out each night, quickly passed through his mind, but he said nothing.
Jennifer let him squirm for a while, then took him off the hook and told him she'd take the side next to the closet.
CHAPTER 5
Jerry Hall, he was so small ...
An hour later, as they were sitting down to their supper of peebee and jay sandwiches, chips, and warm lemonade, there was a knock on the front door. When Steve opened it, he was greeted by the warm spicy smell of hot tomato sauce and melted cheese. Holding a large square pan of deep-dish pizza out in front of her like a Roman offering, a short, round woman with dark hair and eyes smiled up at him f
rom a glowing face and said in a corny cowboy accent, "Howdy, neighbor!" Standing behind her was a tall, blond-haired man wearing madras shorts, a red and white soccer shirt, and oval-shaped, rose-tinted glasses.
He smiled and nodded at Steve. "I'm Roger Eames," he said, shoving his hand past his wife's head to shake Steve's hand. "This is my wife Judy" Judy said howdy again. "And this is my daughter Margaret" A brown haired curly head peeked out from behind her father's leg and flashed him a quick smile before looking inside the house with a child's natural curiosity.
"We thought you might be hungry after your busy day," Judy said. Her voice was nasally pitched and slightly irritating to the ear, taking some time to get used to.
"Oh, this is great! Come on in," Steve blustered. "Honey, look at this. This is great" He ushered them into the dining room where Diane, Jen, and Jackie oohed and ahhed over the heavenly smelling pizza. Steve made quick introductions, then the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were tossed in the fridge to be eaten for lunch tomorrow.
Judy cut the pizza and doled out mammoth pieces to everyone before putting one of the biggest pieces on her own plate.
In between mouthfuls of pizza, which she gobbled and swallowed rapidly, even though it was piping hot, Judy told Steve and Diane about her family. They had moved to their house at the end of Dorsey Lane seven years ago, just before Margaret was born. Roger was a campus police officer at UMASS, while Judy worked at a nursery school.
Diane and Judy hit it off as soon as they discovered they were both Italian. Steve and Roger drank beer and made occasional comments, but Diane and Judy carried on like old friends. Eventually, Diane was able to get a word in edgewise and told Judy and Roger about herself, Steve, and the kids. She explained that Steve was starting a new job after Labor Day at the Northwood Academy as health and English instructor and head football coach. She also mentioned, almost casually, Steve thought, that he was a finalist in the Dickinson Poetry Competition, first prize of which was $100,000 and a three-year term as poet-in-residence at Emily Dickinson College.
Grimm Memorials Page 3
