Curses, Inc. And Other Stories

by Vivian Vande Velde

  "Open the window," Grand-père commanded us.

  "No!" Maman objected. She had been born on one of the farms in the outlying district, and—even after twenty years—was still terrified of living in the village and overlooking the street. As far as I know, she had never been tempted to crack open the shutters and peek at the ghostly lady.

  Papa balanced on his cane so he could pat Maman's hand. "It will be safe if we don't look down," he assured her.

  It was Antoine who unfastened the shutters. Fifteen-year-old boys fear so little.

  By then Grand-père had made his way around the table to the window. "Hélène," he greeted the widow. "What's the matter?"

  "It's Jean-Pierre," she called, leaning out of her own kitchen window. "I dropped his medicine."

  We all looked at each other. Jean-Pierre was her grandson. Although he was fully as big as Antoine, in reality he was only ten years old, and his thinking was that of a much younger child. For the past three years, the Widow Morin had been giving Jean-Pierre medicine that was supposed to make him smarter, though in three years none of us had seen a change. But that wasn't the medicine she was talking about.

  "I was going to give him a dose of the medicine for his coughing," the Widow Morin explained, "and the bottle slipped out of my hand and broke."

  We could hear Jean-Pierre coughing, sounding as though he'd break apart from the force of it. He'd been coughing since last winter, and with the new winter starting it had gotten worse. Jean-Pierre, who used to be so large, seemed to get thinner by the day.

  The Widow Morin lowered her voice, as though we across the alley could hear without her grandson hearing. "I thought maybe we could make it through one night without, but..." She shook her head.

  "What does she expect of us?" Maman demanded, louder than was necessary if she meant the question just for us.

  "Hush," Papa whispered.

  "What does she expect of us?" Maman repeated.

  I saw the Widow Morin's frantic look.

  "I'll go get more medicine for Jean-Pierre," Grand-père assured her.

  "No!" Maman said.

  Grand-père gave Antoine's elbow a shove, and Antoine knew enough to smile politely, then close and bolt the shutters.

  "Why should you risk yourself in the night?" Maman cried.

  "Because Hélène is crippled by old age," Grand-père said. "And I am not."

  "Pardon me," Maman said, "but you overestimate yourself."

  "Hush!" Papa said again, this time not whispering. Grand-père was his father, not Maman's.

  "Maman is right," Antoine said. Papa raised his hand to cuff him, but Antoine took a step back and said, "Grand-père, you are in remarkable condition for a man of seventy years, but I can make it from our doorstep to the corner in about half a minute. I think you have to admit that it would take you considerably longer." He turned to Papa. "And you, with your cane," he continued, "would take even longer than Grand-père." To Maman he said, "Surely you're not saying that none of us should go. Surely you're not saying that we should let Jean-Pierre die."

  Maman looked as though that was exactly what she wanted to say.

  I thought she was a horrid person. I thought Antoine was the bravest boy I'd ever heard of.

  But Maman relented. "At least wait for her," Maman suggested. "Don't go out until after she walks by. That will improve your chances that you won't meet her."

  "Your mother makes sense," Papa said, though some nights the ghostly lady came very late, and other nights she did not come at all. "Open the window to watch."

  So Antoine opened the shutters over the street to watch for the lady. Then he opened the window over the alley to explain to the widow. "Madame Morin!" he called. "We will wait until the lady has passed..."

  The widow cast a worried look back into her house, in the direction from which we could hear Jean-Pierre coughing. Hesitantly, not daring to complain, she nodded her thanks.

  If Gaetan and Mignon were hoping that the extraordinary circumstances would allow them to catch their first glimpses of the ghostly lady, Maman was too fast for them. She set me to helping them get ready for bed and said, "Afterward, Marianne, you and I will sit in the parlor. We'll keep each other awake."

  The reason she suggested this was that there was a window in the north wall of the parlor that also looked out over the street. Maman didn't want the younger children sneaking out of their bedrooms for a peek while we were all in the kitchen, and she didn't trust me not to do the same by myself.

  So once I saw the little ones firmly, if reluctantly, settled, we sat—Maman and I in the parlor; Antoine, Papa, and Grand-père in the kitchen. The only one who showed a tendency to sleepiness was Grand-père—a room away, I could hear him snoring. Periodically, Papa's injured foot must have bothered him, for I could hear him get up and move stiffly about the kitchen. It was during one of those times that I heard him say, suddenly, sharply, "Antoine! Antoine! Move away from the window!"

  I jumped to my feet, and Maman was only a step behind me.

  In the kitchen Antoine was at the front window, the one that faced the street, leaning against the sill, looking out with such intensity I knew what had to be out there.

  Papa let his cane drop to the floor with a clatter as, dragging his foot behind, he tried to hurry across the distance that separated him from Antoine. Papa grabbed Antoine by the shoulder and hurled him away, then he slammed the street-side shutters closed.

  "Jules?" we heard the widow call across. But she must have heard the commotion. She must have known what it was about, for she didn't open her own shutters.

  "All is well," Grand-père shouted to her, looking from Papa to Antoine. From having fallen asleep with his head on the table, what hair he had was all sticking up.

  "Fool," Papa called Antoine. "Never look at her eyes."

  "I wasn't," Antoine protested, rubbing his shoulder where it had struck against the pantry door. But his gaze strayed back to the now-barred shutters.

  "Fool," Papa repeated.

  "What happened?" Maman demanded.

  "She was halfway up the wall," Papa said.

  "She'd just started up," Antoine objected.

  Papa gave him a dark look, which Antoine could meet for just so long. Antoine turned away. "Where's my coat?" he asked.

  I led him to it, right by the door where it always was. It was blue, with brass buttons, and it made him look quite respectable except for the shapeless felt cap he pulled from his pocket and put on his head.

  "She was so beautiful," Antoine told me. "The last time I saw her, I was ten. I didn't remember her being so beautiful. I didn't realize how young she was."

  I ignored his words. "I know what you need," I said, for the night air through the open window felt so cold. Almost a month too early, I brought out the woolen scarf I'd made to give Antoine for Christmas.

  Antoine waited patiently while I placed the scarf just so around his neck.

  "Be careful," I whispered to him.

  "How many years have we been afraid of her?" he whispered back. "And what has she ever done?"

  "Shh," I warned. If Maman heard talk like that, it would be the end of his errand for Jean-Pierre and his grandmother.

  "Such a kind, sorrowful face," Antoine insisted. "Perhaps if just one person stopped to help her, maybe that would set her spirit to rest." Antoine's dark eyes were sad and concerned. Antoine always worried about other people, and of all the boys, he was the only one who had patience with Jean-Pierre.

  But Papa had heard him, and Papa smacked him on the back of the head. In a whisper so that Maman wouldn't hear and worry, he said, "You're helping enough people tonight. If she comes, you forget this foolishness. You fly like the wind."

  "Like the wind," Antoine assured us all, with his jaunty smile.

  We opened the shutters and looked up and down the street. No sign of anyone between here and the corner to the right. No sign of anyone between here and where the street wound its way to the top of the hill to
our left. That was the extent of the ghostly lady's realm: Whatever had bound her to this earth, she never went beyond the crest of the hill or around the corner, a total distance of four blocks, with many of the buildings built so close they touched.

  With tears in her eyes, Maman kissed Antoine's cheeks. Drier eyed, Grand-père did the same. Papa shook Antoine's hand, and I heard him whisper, "No foolishness."

  "Of course not," Antoine agreed.

  I waved, and Gaétan, Mignon, and Honorée—up from their beds without any of us having noticed—chorused, "Good-bye, good luck," as Antoine raced confidently down the stairs.

  "Still all clear," Grand-père shouted from the open kitchen window, and Antoine burst out of the front door.

  He ran out into the middle of the street, but then instead of heading immediately to the corner, he turned to wave to us.

  "Go," Papa said, gesturing him away. "Go!"

  Antoine threw his cap in the air and called out a loud "Whoop!" so that when he would brag to his friends the next day about leaving the house during the hours of darkness, they'd know he spoke the truth.

  Papa clapped his hand to his forehead in exasperation.

  But Antoine took only that one extra moment.

  Then, his blue coat flapping, his new scarf trailing behind, he ran to the corner—in under thirty seconds, by Grand-père's pocket watch, just as he had promised—and he disappeared from view.

  Maman was so overwrought with Antoine's exuberance, she sat down in the parlor fanning herself, not even sending the younger ones back to bed. So we stayed in the kitchen with Papa and Grand-père. Anxiously, we stared out the window and waited.

  Within a half hour there was a flurry of movement at the corner, and suddenly Antoine was back. With one hand he held on to his cap, because now he was running into the wind. He had his other hand in his coat pocket, by which we knew that he had succeeded in getting a new bottle of medicine from the doctor.

  "Thank God," Papa said.

  But a moment later he groaned.

  I followed the direction of his gaze.

  The ghostly lady was making her way down the hill toward us.

  "Antoine!" Papa shouted.

  Ten houses away, Antoine slowed down. Obviously he didn't hear. He took his hand down from his cap to press against his side. He must have run all the way back from the doctor's home, and now—when he most needed speed—he was winded.

  Being higher up, we could see the ghostly lady was fast approaching, but Antoine could not.

  "Antoine!" Grand-père and I and the children added our voices to Papa's.

  Maman heard all our noise, and she came rushing into the kitchen. She added her voice to ours, and Antoine's head swiveled in our direction. He stopped entirely. He grinned—I could see the flash of his teeth in the moonlight—and he held up the bottle for us to see.

  "Run!" we shouted.

  He tipped his head quizzically and pointed to his ear, indicating he couldn't hear. He probably thought we were cheering.

  We pointed frantically in the direction of the hill.

  From where he stood, I don't think he could see her yet, but he finally realized what we were saying. Continuing to our house was closer than going back to the safety of the corner. He jammed the bottle of Jean-Pierre's medicine into his pocket and took off at a run, so that his cap flew off his head and landed unheeded on the cobblestones behind him.

  The lady was moving at an impossibly fast speed.

  Other shutters were open, other people were shouting, "Run!"

  The lady had reached the part of the street that leveled off, three houses to our left. Antoine was three houses to our right. But she was moving much faster than he.

  Antoine was two houses away when she reached our building.

  —when she stopped directly in front of our door.

  —when she stood, her arms extended, blocking the way in.

  Antoine stopped also, with no way to get around her.

  Grand-père shouted, "Don't look at her eyes, boy!"

  Then the ghostly lady took a step toward Antoine.

  Antoine backed away.

  But the lady's steps seemed to take her twice as far as Antoine's, and the distance between them was quickly disappearing.

  The door to the hat shop across the street from the butcher flew open. "Antoine, here!" called Mademoiselle Cosette, who owned the shop.

  The ghostly lady practically flew at the door, and Mademoiselle Cosette slammed it shut just in time.

  This gave Antoine the chance to race ahead several meters, but in another moment the lady had caught up with him.

  "Your eyes!" several neighbors shouted down.

  Antoine raised his arm to cover his eyes.

  The ghostly lady stood in front of him, but every time she tried to pull his arms down, her hands would pass right through him.

  I stayed at the window just long enough to make sure that Antoine seemed safe so long as he wasn't looking at her. Cosette had given me an idea. If I could open our door for Antoine, that would save him several seconds and might be enough to make a difference. I raced down the stairs and cracked open our front door.

  Antoine was still standing on the street, frustratingly close, his arms covering his eyes.

  The ghostly lady was still ineffectively trying to get his eyes uncovered. But she was obviously confused, or distracted, by all the open shutters, all the doors open a crack, all the people—besides Antoine—within easy reach.

  Across the way and down a shop and a half, Cosette saw me peeking out our door. She'd always liked my brother though she was several years older. Now she called out, "Antoine! Can you walk with your eyes closed? Can you follow the sounds of our voices?"

  Angrily, the ghostly lady rushed at her a second time.

  At which point I screamed, "Antoine! Home!"

  Cosette's door slammed yet again, and the lady spun around as Antoine leapt up the three steps separating our door from the street.

  If there had been one step instead of three, he might have made it.

  As it was, the lady stepped into the doorway, between the two of us.

  I raised my hands to cover my eyes, but after a moment I peeked, for I had the impression that she was facing Antoine, not me.

  I was right.

  Antoine had his hands up, too. The lady had her hands resting, more or less, on his, though I could see she wasn't solid: Her dress, constantly billowing, passed through my legs and Antoine's; her long, unbound hair streamed about her, and I felt nothing where it passed through my arms.

  There was no way she could harm us.

  Then, so soft I tried to believe I hadn't really heard her, she spoke, for the first time in memory.

  She said: "Please."

  Antoine, who was kind even to simpleminded Jean-Pierre, slowly lowered his hands. I could see his face, not hers. But, through my fingers, I could tell he was looking directly into her eyes. He held out his hand to her, and this time her fingers clasped solidly about his. And then he became as transparent as she, and they both disappeared.

  There's a street in the village where I grew up that everyone knows not to travel down past sunset.

  But we don't live there anymore, for my mother finally got her wish, and my father moved the family to the town across the river.

  For it was bad enough dealing with a sad, pale lady. But none of us could bear the thought of the ghost who had replaced her, with his sad brown eyes and the brass buttons of his coat twinkling in the moonlight as his woolen scarf billows in the breeze, which isn't necessarily there.

  To Converse with the Dumb Beasts

  KEDRIC WAS A GAME WARDEN who lived and worked on the king's hunting preserve. Though he enjoyed tending the animals, he did get lonely, for he had no family and his only companions were a dog and a cat, who had both lived with him for years.

  One day, as Kedric was walking through the woods, he came upon a little old woman who was being chased by a bear. Knowing that, normall
y, bears don't chase people, Kedric looked more closely. A moment later he realized that somehow the woman had gotten between a mother bear and her cub; and the more the woman ran, the more the cub ran, with—of course—the bigger bear chasing after both.

  Without stopping to worry about his own danger, Kedric leapt forward and pulled the woman out from between the two bears.

  The mother bear grunted once as she passed them, then continued crashing through the trees after her cub.

  Kedric guided the old woman to a stump so that she could sit down. "You just got that mama bear worried you were going to hurt her cub," he explained to calm her.

  "I was worried that mama bear was going to hurt me," the woman gasped once she'd caught her breath. "I heard her keep saying, 'My baby, my baby,' but I couldn't see the little one, and I didn't know what she was talking about."

  Kedric thought this was a strange thing to say and repeated, tugging at his earlobe as though that could help him hear better, "She kept saying...?"

  "'My baby, my baby,'" the old woman repeated. Then she added, "I do believe you saved my life."

  "It was nothing," Kedric said. "She kept saying...?"

  The old woman reached into the folds of her dress and pulled out an acorn. "I put a magic spell on this acorn," she explained. "Whoever owns it can understand the speech of beasts." She shook her head. "Not much help, was it?" She drew her arm back, and Kedric realized she was about to throw the acorn away.

  "Wait!" he cried. A moment later, when the old woman looked at him, he felt foolish, for he didn't really believe that there was such a thing as a magic acorn that let people understand what animals said.

  And yet, he thought, and yet...

  Sometimes he grew so lonely, with only the cat and the dog to keep him company, and during the long evenings he would watch them—sitting there, watching him—and he would look into their deep, expressive eyes and wonder what they were thinking, what they would say if they could speak. He could risk being foolish for the chance to know.

  The old woman was still studying him. Holding up the acorn, she asked, "You want this?" as if the thought were incredible.

  "Please," Kedric said. "If you're through with it."