Help for the Haunted: A Novel

by John Searles

  “Who wants to know?” Rose said.

  He pressed his lips together, confused by her answer. “Well, I do. Is that you?”

  “Maybe. And what if it is us? Do we—”

  “That’s us,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, good. Your dad called the theater. He asked us to keep an eye out for you. Good thing it’s the middle of the day, because I’d never have spotted you girls in the crowds at night. Anyway, he wanted us to let you know that he and your mom aren’t ready to be picked up yet, so you can take in another movie if you like.”

  The news thrilled me, though my sister let out a groan. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “How does he expect us to do that? He only gave me twenty, and we blew the extra cash on the popcorn and crap.”

  As Rose and I debated our options, the old man went back to sweeping. Finally, we decided there was nothing to do but drive around town for another couple hours, though even Rose said she was sick of driving by then. We were walking toward the exit when that man called us back. “Follow me,” he said, leading the way to a set of doors. “This movie’s about to start. It’s a personal favorite. Not many people watching, so the show’s on the house. Just don’t tell anyone.”

  When the title appeared on the screen, The Last Emperor, I expected Rose to complain. She stayed quiet, though, rubbing her sticky fingers on her jeans and leaning forward. Before long, both our minds drifted into the world of that film, far from my parents and whatever might be happening back on Orchard Circle. And this time, when the lights came up, neither of us said a word as we exited the theater and made our way toward the parking lot, where it was something of a shock to discover that it was nearly dark outside.

  After Rose and I climbed in the Datsun and headed in the direction of that dreary neighborhood, I broke the silence. “Sorry, you must have hated that.”

  “Hated what?”

  “The movie.”

  “Clearly, you know nothing about me. I loved it, Sylvie.”

  “You did?”

  “Don’t sound so shocked. I could have done without the sappy crap, but places like that—faraway places, I mean—they’re where I want to go someday.”

  “China?”

  “Yeah, China. But Australia, Africa, the Middle East, and who knows where else?”

  I thought of the old globe in her room. Like Mr. Knothead, it had been a gift she begged for one Christmas. I remembered how she liked to give it a spin, planting her finger on random locations to see where it would stop: London. Sydney. Honolulu. “Why?” I asked.

  “More like, ‘why not?’ I just don’t feel I belong anywhere I’ve been so far. Certainly not Butter Lane. I keep wishing Mom and Dad would get a call to go someplace really far away, so we could tag along. But what do we get? Stinky Columbus.”

  “It’s not so bad. At least they’ve got a good movie theater.”

  Rose laughed a little as we pulled in front of the apartment where we’d left our parents. Streetlights cast a cozy glow on the houses and that park, making things appear less dismal. I stared up at the second floor, where the curtains were drawn and only the dimmest light shone from behind. “What now?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. Guess we knock.”

  “Knock?”

  “What were you thinking? Smoke signals?” My sister opened her door and got out. That unsettled feeling I’d had on the drive earlier returned as I watched her walk to the stairs. If only to get another glimpse of that girl from the bushes and confirm what I’d come to believe about this trip, I forced myself to get out of the car too.

  My sister didn’t waste time before tapping on the door. I prepared myself to come face-to-face with Albert Lynch. Instead, my father opened up, his eyes wide and weary. “I’m glad you girls are here. Sorry it took longer than expected. But you got the message at the theater, right?”

  “We did,” Rose told him.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked.

  “She’s just finishing up with something inside. We’ll be down in a minute. Why don’t you two go wait in the car? And, Rose, you may as well get in the back. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us, and I’ll do it this time. It’s only fair.”

  “But the hotel is just across town.”

  That’s when I caught sight of something I hadn’t when my father first opened the door: a faint but noticeable scratch along the back of his hand. The blood there glistened just as Lynch’s had outside the convention center that night. “We’re making a change of plans,” he told Rose, “and heading back to Maryland tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Afraid so. We’re taking—” He stopped.

  “Taking what?” my sister asked.

  “I need to explain, and I will. But for now, let’s just say that in a way, well, we aren’t going to be alone. And so I’d rather not stay in a hotel.”

  “Sylvester,” my mother called.

  “I need to go. Now you girls get in the car. We’ll be down any minute.”

  After the door shut, my sister turned and pounded down the stairs, leaving me to trail behind. She let loose a string of complaints, sounding more like her old self than I’d heard in some time. “This is ridiculous. We drove all the way here only to turn around and drive back the very same day. And who the hell is coming with us anyway?”

  Rose reached the Datsun, but kept walking, crossing the street into that park. I hesitated before following her until we came to a stop by those broken swings. She slipped a hand into her sock and pulled out a lighter and a cigarette. I watched as she brought the cigarette to her lips and lit up, inhaling deeply before exhaling into the night air. Against the backdrop of that dreary, moonlit park, she looked mature and sophisticated—someone who had already been to those faraway places on that globe.

  “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “Yeah, well, like I told you in the car before, there’s a lot you don’t know about me. Just don’t say anything to Mom and Dad.”

  “I won’t. But I’m surprised you risk it, seeing as you never fight with them anymore.”

  “Oh, we still fight, Sylvie. But it’s more of a cold war these days. You know, like that paper you’re writing.”

  “What do you fight about?”

  Rose took another drag, her gaze fixed on the apartment, where the streetlight illuminated the stairs leading to that door at the top. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Inching that close to a topic only to back off put me in mind of another time she’d done the same. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Can I stop you?”

  “You could, actually. If you don’t want me to, I won’t.”

  “No. Might as well go ahead. Apparently, we’ve got hours to spare while they do God knows what, leaving their children out here in this creepy park in the dark.”

  “They told us to wait in the car, not the park.”

  “Keep defending them, Sylvie, and I won’t answer your question. Now what is it you want to know?”

  I pushed one of those dangling chains. “Remember that ride at Disney? The Haunted Mansion?”

  Rose blew a cloud of smoke between us. “What about it?”

  “When we passed those mirrors—the trick ones that made it look like a ghost was seated between us—you told me Howie said something about Dad and Mom. Something that would make it so I no longer believed them. What did he tell you?”

  Rose was quiet for a minute, staring at the apartment door. Then she said, “I don’t remember, Sylvie. Whatever it was, I’m sure it was a bunch of BS. Our uncle is a drunk and liar, just like Dad always says. So I’m doing my best to stay out of it. You’d be smart to do the same. Just write your papers and win your prizes. Let everyone tell you what a perfect angel you are. Must be nice living in the Sylvie Bubble.”

  “I don’t live in a bubble,” I protested. I hated when she held my good behavior and grades against me.

  Rose let out a laugh. “You have no idea.” She stubbed out her cigarette an
d pointed across the street. “Look.”

  I turned to see the door opening at the top of those stairs. My father stepped out onto the deck, carrying his bag of equipment. Next, my mother emerged. And that’s when I saw her: the reason we were returning to Maryland that very night held tightly in my mother’s arms. My father led the way, and my mother moved slowly down each step, careful not to trip and drop her.

  “I don’t understand,” I said to Rose.

  Beside me, my sister slid her lighter back into her sock. She pulled a stick of gum from nowhere and popped it in her mouth. “Me neither. But we better get over there.”

  The two of us walked so quickly across the street that we arrived at the car before them. Rose knew enough to pop the trunk for my father so he could put his equipment inside. He did just that, then took the keys from my sister and went to the passenger door, opening it for my mother. As she came closer, I heard her humming that familiar tune. Every bit as slowly, she lowered herself into the front seat before my father shut the door and went around to the driver’s side. Rose and I climbed in the back. She moved my bulky HISTORY book out of the way, but it slipped from her hands and fell open on the seat. In the dim light, my sister glanced down at a page I’d folded over and bookmarked with a scrap of paper. On that paper, I’d scratched a simple list meant for nobody’s eyes but my own:

  Marie des Vallées, 14

  Bernadette, 14

  Rose Mason (Mom), 14

  Rose glanced at that list then at the contents of the page, before closing the book and handing it to me. “You too, huh? I thought you were smarter than that, Sylvie.”

  “Smarter than what?” my father asked, starting the engine.

  “Nothing,” Rose and I answered at the same time.

  He didn’t push further. Rather, he leaned over and helped my mother buckle her seat belt, a difficult task considering the passenger she held so tightly in her arms. Once they were settled in, my mother positioned herself in such a way that the strange face, one I’d seen before but never quite like this, was leaning over her shoulder, gazing directly at me. As my father pulled the Datsun away from the curb, I could not help but stare at her dark eyes, her mess of hair. All day long, I’d been wrong about the reasons for that wary, unsettled feeling.

  I had to wait until we reached the highway east before my father began his explanation, sharing with us the sort of story that might have been torn from the pages of my oversized book. What made it more real, however, was that the biggest part of the story was traveling along with us in that car.

  “Her name is Penny,” my father began. “And for a lot of complicated reasons, the family who owned her cannot keep her anymore. Now she belongs to us . . .”

  Now Penny, the rag doll from Columbus, Ohio, was coming to stay.

  Chapter 13

  You and You and You

  Dear Rose,

  I’m probably the last person or spirit on God’s green earth you want to hear from right now. Yet here I am writing you anyway. I have tried the phone but no one answers at your house these days. The reason I’m writing is because I feel such terrible guilt for the terrible trouble that has befallen your family. Please give me a chance to explain my part in it all. I know how headstrong you can be when you want to be, but please. If it sounds like I’m begging, it’s because I am. My number is right at the top of this newspaper letterhead. All you have to do is pick up the phone and call it.

  Yours,

  Sam Heekin

  The pay phone outside the first of those industrial buildings reeked of beer. I picked up the sticky receiver anyway, dropped in a coin from the floor of Rose’s truck. Not far away, two men leaned against a Pinto with a smattering of Bush-Quayle bumper stickers, watching. Otherwise the place was deserted.

  On the other end of the line, a receptionist answered, and I asked to be connected to Sam Heekin. His line rang and rang until she came on to ask if I wanted to leave a message. I gave her my name and the number on the phone, letting her know I’d wait for the next twenty minutes in case he returned. That plan sounded fine until I hung up and realized I had nothing to do but stand by the phone as those men stared.

  “Don’t know if you’ve noticed,” the one with a belly popping out of his unzipped jacket told me, “but your clothes are kind of big.”

  “They’re not mine,” I said, staring down at Dereck’s jacket and boots.

  “Whose are they? The Jolly Green Giant’s?”

  “Easy, Trigger,” the other guy told him. He had the same large belly, though he was zipped up tight in his coat. To me, he said, “You waiting for a ride or something?”

  Or something, I thought. “No. But someone is going to call me at this number.” I willed the phone to ring to prove it, but the air around us remained silent.

  “We’re splitting in a minute,” the zipped-up one said. “It’s going to be just you here. You sure you don’t want a ride someplace? We could drop you.”

  I shook my head. Right on cue, Louise’s reminder about speaking my answers stirred, though I no longer cared. Even though I’d read Heekin’s letter dozens of times, I read it again, thinking of my mother’s complaints about his convoluted sentences, of the way she and my father came to dislike him once his book was published. Why, I wondered, had he written to my sister? And did she bother to respond?

  When I looked up, the men were climbing into their Pinto. The one who made the comment about my clothes got behind the wheel, giving me a quick salute before they sped off. I waited, feeling time slip away, bringing me closer to the moment I’d have to return to the station and give Rummel and Louise an answer.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Heekin still had not called. It would be dark soon, so all I could do was begin trudging out to the road toward home. Cars and trucks zoomed past as I walked along the sparse grass bordering the road for a long while before rounding a corner and looking up to see it.

  It’s where Rose asked us to meet her. Someone was going to drop her here. . . .

  In an effort to restore some life to the place, mums had been planted in the church’s window boxes. Earlier when we drove by, there had been a dozen or so cars in the lot. Now, though, only a maroon Buick remained. Keep walking, I told myself. But the thought of Rummel telling me to figure out exactly what I’d seen lured me off the road. When I arrived at the steps, I felt another urge to turn away, but my hand reached for the handle. Same as that night, the door opened right up. I took a breath and stepped inside. The place felt drafty, but nowhere near the extreme cold it had been the previous winter. The last of the day’s sun lit the space, and I saw that the statues by the altar had been removed and the white walls were covered with a new coat of paint, so fresh I could smell it.

  “Hello,” I called out, just the same as I had before. Hello?

  No answer. I walked slowly toward the altar, the clomp of Dereck’s boots echoing around me. When I reached the front, I stood in the exact spot where my mother and father had taken their last breaths. If I waited, I thought perhaps a more clear memory might surface from that night, but none came.

  Walking in those boots had left my feet tired, so I slipped into the first pew. Head down, hands clasped, eyes closed, I said a prayer the way I was taught. When I was done, that tune my mother used to hum came to me, and I began softly humming it too.

  That’s when the church door opened. The sound caught me off guard, and some instinct led me to sink in the pew. I heard heavy shoes shuffle against the wooden floor, and I craned my neck around, peeking over the back of the bench.

  Just like the first time he visited our house with that ice cream cake, Father Coffey wore stiff jeans and a black turtleneck. His posture was slouched. His splotchy skin was flaking. Since he was bound to notice me, I stood and said, “Hello.”

  Coffey gasped, nearly dropping the bag in his hand.

  “Sorry,” I said, my voice echoing. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Well, you did,” he snapped back. But a
fter a second, he looked at me and his tone softened. “Sylvie?”

  I nodded.

  “You’ve . . . you’ve grown since I last saw you.”

  When exactly had that been? I wondered. “I guess so.”

  “And you are just about the last person I expected to see here.”

  “The doors were open,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “When I came in, no one was around, so I decided to sit for a while. Sorry again for startling you.”

  “It’s okay.” He looked around, let out a breath. “This place belongs to you as much as it does me.”

  We fell silent after that. In the midst of the quiet, I remembered when I’d last seen him: at my parents’ burial, a raw morning last March, after the ground had thawed. Since it was not a public service, no one had been present except for Father Coffey, Rose, Howie, and me. It struck me as odd, suddenly, that a priest—even one who had a strained relationship with my parents—would not visit the orphaned children of his parish. “I saw cars in the lot earlier—” I began just as he said, “So I imagine you are in high school—”

  We both stopped.

  “You go,” he told me.

  “I saw cars in the lot. The flowers in the window boxes. I guess the place is, well, open for business again.”

  “We held a wedding rehearsal this afternoon for a ceremony that takes place tomorrow. It’ll be the first since . . .” Coffey stopped, let out a sigh. “I’m sorry, Sylvie. You should know many prayers were said for your parents’ souls, and this place was reconsecrated before opening the doors.” He walked up the aisle, his heavy black shoes echoing against the floor too. That’s when I noticed the statues in the back of the church. They hadn’t been removed as I’d thought, only relocated. Their painted faces watched as Coffey slid into my pew without bothering to genuflect. Up close, I could see more of his skin peeling at the sides of his nose and chin. “I need to lock up and head over to the school. But do you mind if I sit with you a bit first?”