Seven

My father, Betty, and Deanna were all at the table and almost finished with their meal when I got to my seat.  Mom had served me my food already and it was a little cold.  I didn’t realize how much time had passed while I was outside.

“You need to listen for you mother better, Sam.”  Dad scolded me.  “I don’t want to see you missing like that again, or I might not let you out on your own any longer.  You are old enough to know better.”  He shoved the rest of his meal in his mouth and left the table.

Betty and Deanna were doing their usual whispering and snickering at me.  I had enough at this point of their teasing and I’d been nice for too long I think, so I devised a plan to get them back.  It was time they would learn they had better stop pestering me.

It was my turn to do the dishes, I really didn’t want to because of how preoccupied I was with my thoughts of revenge on my sisters.  It was taking too long for my father apparently because he slapped me out of my daydream.  My ear stung from the pain and tears welled up in my eyes.

“Don’t you dare start sniveling,” he said to me harshly.  “you know better than to be messing around like that.”

Rather than get slapped again I hurried the dishes.  I felt so angry at him for his cruelty.  He rarely slapped my sisters the way he did me.  I usually got the brunt of his frustrations.  I always felt like he spoiled them.  It was so unfair.  Nevertheless, I bit my lower lip and kept it inside.  I wasn’t going to let him know he could push me that way.

I found my sisters playing with the clothes they had found earlier this summer in their room.  They both had a dress on, Betty in the light blue dress that had been Sarah’s, Deanna in a green dress that was bigger and I didn’t recognize.  They were both of similar style and had aprons on.  I saw they had also found some hats and shoes to go with the dresses.

I went in their room without being invited and sat on Betty’s bed that was on the far side of the windows. 

“Hey!” she started to object.

I cut her off.  “Do you want to know where the dresses came from?”

Deanna’s eyes widened with curiosity, but Betty wasn’t impressed.

“We know Sam, the attic.”

“No, I mean who owned them first.  It was the original owners of the house.  Remember what Gus was telling us about?”

“Duh,”  Betty still wasn’t curious, but Deanna’s eyes told me to go on.

“She’s the one mom hears crying at night.  She cries because she is lost and wants her dress back.  She’s been getting angry that you are into her things.”

“Whatever,” Betty scoffed at me.

“No, wait Betty, mom does wake us up a lot.”  Deanna was hooked.

“She came into my room last night looking for her clothes.  I saw her going through my closet.”  I continued.

“That just means she is bothering you, not me.” Betty wasn’t going to give in so easily.

“Maybe at first, but I told her that you had it.  I bet she comes to bother you tonight Betty.”

Deanna moaned and ran out the door.  I knew what was coming next so I hurried to my room, grabbed a book, and sat on my bed.  I opened the book and pretended I was involved with it.  When I heard the door open I didn’t turn to look and see who it was.  I was sure it was my mother, coming to tell me to stop bothering my sisters.

“I heard you running to your room Samantha.”  Mom was purely annoyed with the situation.  “I have better things to do than to deal with your squabbles between your sisters.  Tell Deanna you aren’t sending a ghost to attack her.”

“I wasn’t mom, I was sending it to Betty.”  I told her defiantly.

“What has gotten into you?” she seemed even more perturbed, but I knew she wouldn’t hit me like my dad did.

“I’m sick of her bothering me, talking about me behind my back, and acting like she’s so much better than me.  I did tell Sarah where to find her and I’m not going to lie about it.”  I hadn’t really told Sarah anything considering I didn’t want to talk to her after all that I had been through.  I knew lying wasn’t a good way to get out of trouble with my parents but I was tired of trying so hard only to be reprimanded anyways.  I never got any credit for my good behaviour. 

Mom’s face went a shade redder than I remember seeing before.  “That’s it, you are grounded to your room.”  She shut the door on me and I heard her walking down the hall to my sisters room.

“Betty, Deanna, your sister won’t tease you any more, but you’d better not go bothering her or you’ll be grounded too.” 

Wow, she was really mad, she didn’t usually ground them, or anyone.  I didn’t think it was fair that they got to get away with everything.  I threw my book at the wall and turned over in my bed.  I hit my pillow a few times and started to cry.

While I soaked my pillow with tears I felt someone tap my shoulder.

“Leave me alone!” I cried through the soft cushion.  I felt the tapping again.  “I said leave me alone!” Again the tapping was felt on my shoulder.  I turned to yell at who I thought was my sister coming to annoy me and saw Sarah.

I jumped from the surprise.  Then I thought I must be dreaming.  The only thing that was different was that I wasn’t in her room like usual in my dreams, I was still in mine.  Everything exactly the same as when I had turned to cry, even the book was still in a mess on the floor.

“What’s wrong?”  She asked me.

“I, uh, nothing.”  I told her feeling embarrassed.  I wiped my tears away.  I remembered the necklace from the neighbor and fingered the star shape.

“That can’t do anything.” She told me looking at it.  “But it is a nice piece of jewelry.”  She looked around hesitantly before she continued. “Nothing can stop my mother.” 

Suddenly my closet door creaked itself open.  I looked to see what was making it move and when I looked back Sarah was gone.  I thought that perhaps she was trying to show me the secret passage again.  I was very intimidated about going into the closet, but I wanted to find the passageway again so much that I dared to venture into the small dark space.  Luckily the door stayed open this time. 

The light from my room barely illuminated the space.  I noticed a crack on the wall where I had been thrown up against it.  There was dry wall peeling down a bit, so I pulled it ever so slightly and the whole thing came crashing onto my feet.  I winced and held still for a moment hoping that I hadn’t drawn any attention from my parents.  My dad would surely kill me for this if he saw it.  After I felt sure that I wasn’t caught I felt around on the wall for the secret door.  Something clicked suddenly and a small opening appeared as the little door drew itself into the darkness behind it. 

I took a deep breath and squeezed into the space.  It was a little smaller than the crawl space was, but the ladder wasn’t the only thing in the room.  It was too dark for me to see completely, but I was sure the direction the space went would lead me to my sisters wall of their closet.  This new development really tickled my heart when I realized what it meant for me.  I couldn’t wait until tonight to try it out.

I climbed out of the secret passageway and back into my closet.  I figured I could clean up some of the mess so that the bigger pieces wouldn’t draw any attention and got my garbage can to do so.  While I was picking up the drywall I heard a little humming sound.  I looked around my room but nothing was there.  Then I put my book back into the case checking it as I set it down for any damage.  Nothing was harmed on the spine, just a few of the pages were bent, I could live with it, but I mentally kicked myself for throwing it.  I tidied up the rest of my room and then sat in front of the window to watch outside.  I felt like someone was in the room with me, but every time I looked there wasn’t anything or anyone there.  I kept hearing a humming, like a girl would do while she was busy with something.  It sounded so sad to me.  Then I heard some clicking of shoes on the brick outside.  I looked and saw Molly Richardson walking up our path with a brown paper bag.  Just as she went through the gate she looked up at me and stopped, a strange look on her face.  As if she was seeing something she couldn’t believe.  She looked around her and turned to leave.  I heard our front door open and my mom saying something to her.  She stopped and handed mom the bag, shook her head and went back down the street towards her home at a much faster pace than when she was approaching.

I heard our front door close and a few moments later mom was at my sister’s room.  I couldn’t make out what she said exactly, but my sisters made squeals of joy.  Then there was a knock at my room and mom poked her head in.

“Mrs. Richardson just brought over some things for you.”  She said pulling out a notebook and some pencils.  “She thought it might be helpful for your school year, but seeing how I already got you what you needed you can do what you like with it.”  She set the notebook and pencils on my desk.

“I saw her outside.  Why did she leave so quickly?”

“I don’t know, she seemed upset about something.  You weren’t being rude were you?” Mom looked at me like she was told this information.

“No, mom.  I wouldn’t do that.  I like her.  I was just watching out the window, I didn’t say anything at all.”

“Well, she looked up at your window like there was something going on up here.  Were you making faces?”

“Honest, I wasn’t.  I was just looking.  I swear.  I don’t know why she got upset.  She looked up at me and then turned to leave.  I didn’t do anything.”  I offered her what I saw hoping she would believe me even though I was in trouble at the moment.

“I better not find out otherwise.”  She glanced around my room and saw some of the dust on the floor of my closet.  “What is going on here?” She demanded and took a step towards my closet.  The door slammed shut before she got very close.  She looked at me accusingly. “What are you doing?” She snapped at me.

“I didn’t do it, I swear.”  My heart sank in my chest. 

“Doors don’t move on their own Sam.”

“Mine do.”  I told her back.

For the first time in my life my mother slapped me.  Then she put her hands to her face and left my room.  She didn’t even shut the door.  She just called out over her shoulder. “You had better clean that up before your father comes up and sees it.”

I held my cheek in shock.  Tears ran down slowly and dripped onto my clothes.  I couldn’t explain what was going on in my house because nobody believed what I said.  I knew I wasn’t perfectly honest, but usually I made a point to keep my facts straight and not make things up. 

My bedroom door slowly swung itself shut.  As the door closed completely, Sarah materialized holding the knob.  It was her that had shut my doors!  She looked at me sympathetically.  Took a tissue out of her apron pocket and dabbed at my tears. 

“I’m sorry I got you into more trouble.  I had to keep your mom from seeing the secret.  It will ruin everything.”  She faded away again as if she had never been there to begin with leaving me frightened, confused, and a little worried that there was more going on than my own plans to tease my sisters.

Six

August 1^st greeted us with a summery swelter of heat.  I heard on the radio that it was a record-breaking temperature.  Mom didn’t even cook breakfast it was so hot, she just gave us cold cereal. 

“It’s time we got you registered for school.”  My sisters and I were informed while we chewed on the sweet flakes in milk.  “I want you ready to go by 10:00.  No dilly-dallying.” 

I groaned dreading the idea of the new kids and new teachers.  We had moved so many times in my life that I was always asked the same thing. ‘Army brats?’  ‘No’ I’d tell them, ‘Dad just can’t sit still.’  Then I’d get a look of confusion and pity.  It never felt good.  No matter what school we went to, we never seemed to fit in.  Our clothes were always the wrong style, our hair had a strange cut to it, our way of speech was made fun of.  The teasing usually started right away and didn’t stop till we had moved.  I was in plenty of fights with the other kids defending my sisters.  We were close enough in age that there was only one school year between each of us.  This year it was sixth, fifth, and fourth.  As I have told you before, I am the oldest, after me is Deanna, then Betty.  That meant next year my sisters would be without my defense.  I worried sometimes about them being alone without me.  Neither of them knew how to defend themselves. 

During the few weeks we had lived in our house we hadn’t spent much time looking for friends, not that we’d had any time to.  Mom and dad kept us busy most of the time.  While we were getting into our car I noticed a couple of kids playing on the porch across the street from us; a boy and a girl.  The boy looked like he was about my age, and the girl looked much younger.  He looked up at us as mom started the engine.  I waved at him, I think he smiled, but we were driving away at that point so I couldn’t see for sure.

The registration process was fairly quick and easy.  I found out I had Mr. D’Angelou this year.  I had never had a male teacher before so this surprised me a bit.  Mom assured me that he was a nice teacher as we were leaving. 

After we were done mom surprised us by taking us out for hamburgers for lunch.  This was a big deal for us because we almost never went out.  They had a patio with a play ground to eat on and mom let us sit there.  She let us play on the equipment for almost an hour and bought us ice cream to eat in the car on the way home.  Over all, it had been a nice day considering the events that reminded us that summer was almost over and school just around the corner.  How I longed for the summer to never end.

When we drove up the brick street to our home I didn’t see the kids on their porch any longer.  I wondered who they were, and hoped they were friendly.   Mom parked the car in front of our house and we all got out.  Walking up the front walk I looked up to my room and saw both Sarah and her mother standing in the window.  Her mom had her arm around her shoulder.  Even though it looked like it was supposed to be a loving gesture, I didn’t get any feelings of joy from either of them.  In fact, it felt like their eyes were piercing through me.  I tugged at mom’s arm and asked her if she saw them.  She looked up to my window and asked “What?”  It was apparent that she couldn’t see them.  Just before we got into the porch a little old lady came out of her house next door to us.  She was on the side farther away from Gus’ house, to the right.  She waved at mom to go talk to her. 

“Go inside and change into your play clothes and you can watch TV till I come back.”  Mom told us as she went to the fence to chat with the lady.  I hesitated at the door watching the lady point at me, my room, and wondered what she was saying.  Mom turned to look at me and glared.  I hurried inside and went up to my room to change.

I was a little nervous to go inside my room since I knew that Sarah and her mother were there.  Since the last event it had been a bit more quiet, the doors still opened and closed a lot, and mom kept insisting she heard us crying at night; but the dreams had ceased and nothing major had happened - plus I hadn’t seen them again until today.

When I opened my door, like usual the closet door shut hard.  I had pointed this out to my dad, even got him to witness it, but he said it was only the air pressure making that happen.  I knew he was wrong, the windows were not even open a little.  Still, to argue with him would get me in trouble so I just left it alone. 

I was starting to think mom believed me.  I overheard her defending me to my dad.  She must have noticed me walking up because she stopped talking about it so I wasn’t sure exactly what she was saying to him.  The look on her face made me think of the fear in her eyes when I told her about the night I was locked in my closet. 

The uneasy feeling I had in my room made me stay out of it more and more.  In fact I didn’t enjoy being upstairs most of the time, luckily mom let us play in the yard frequently because of the summer.  I had even talked her into letting us sleep on the deck one night, only to wake up to a huge mosquito bite on my eye.  She said ‘Not again.’ after that.  She never said anything to me about how I was avoiding the upper floor though.

“What do you need, Sam?”  My father was asking me.

“I just wanted to go outside.”  I told him meekly.

“Go on then.”  He replied, “your mother and I are discussing something, we’ll call you when we are done.  Please do not interrupt us again.”  He seemed irritated, but that was normal to me.  I wondered what they were talking about, I was even tempted to spy on them, but I thought I had better not to keep from punishment.

I went out to the back yard and skipped around our pond.  I picked some of the daisies and wove them into a wreath to wear.  I used some old burnt wood to draw a hopscotch and found a rock to play.  As I was jumping through the path a snake slithered right past me and startled me.  It glided itself into our pond and went under the water.  I wasn’t so sure I liked the idea of a snake in our pond so I went to investigate.  Peering into the water I noticed there were a couple of much smaller snakes swimming around as well.  My dad had told me that we had Garter snakes earlier in the summer, but I had yet to see one till now.  It had a yellow stripe down it’s body from what I could see.  It looked exotic to me even though dad had told me that they are common.  He also said that I shouldn’t worry about them biting me because their venom isn’t dangerous to humans.  I was a little disappointed to see that there were so many, I wasn’t frightened by any means, I just didn’t like them much.

After investigating the snakes to my satisfaction I decided to play a hopping game I had invented where I hopped on my cement toadstools back and forth in different variations and styles of hopping.  First one foot then the other, then the closest toadstool, then the farthest, and so on.  It was when I was hopping to the farthest toadstool a voice startled me.

“Little girl!”  I couldn’t tell from where and looked around.  “Young lady!”  I heard it again and turned towards the direction it came from, missed my footing and fell into the grass.

When I got up I saw that it was the old lady from next door calling me.  She was waving at me to come closer to her.  I was a little nervous to talk to her, but she seemed very serious about my obeying her. 

I neared her at the side of my fence, still keeping some distance.

“Come here child!”  She told me, her voice cracking a little with her words.

“Yes ma’am?”  I got as near the fence as I dared.

“You’re the one at the top of the house aren’t you.”  It was more of a statement than a question.  I nodded.

“You see them?” she asked me.

“Who?” I responded, even though I was anticipating the answer.

“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you.”  She looked me in the eye very closely.  “Don’t let them get to you.  They can trap your soul!” 

I was getting a little more afraid of her by the way she was speaking to me, but a part of me was glad someone knew what I was going through and believed me.

“What do you mean?”  I asked her.

“They come to your dreams.  They’ll get you lost inside their hell, but don’t let them, here.” She put a small star on a black cord into my hands. “Keep that with you at all times.  It will protect you from their curse.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to her.  I wanted to tell her all about everything that had happened to me, but I held it in for some reason and just thanked her.

“Put it on now, little one.  You can resist them, you are not alone.  If you need something just call on me.  I’m Vera.  I’ve been putting my spells out for you.  Just hold onto that charm.”  She turned and went back into her house leaving me stunned.  I put the necklace on, it was a pretty silver star that rested right near my heart.  The cool metal felt good against my hot skin. 

I went back to playing on the toadstools for a bit, until I saw Gus in his yard raking up some debris.  I thought it would be nice to offer some help to him, so I ran down the alleyway to his back yard and asked him if he’d like my help.

“Sure I would”  He told me when I got there.  “There’s a second rake in the shed over there.”  He pointed to a small building off the alley.  I went to the doorway and found the rake in corner right off.  He had a lot of tools in the shed, it looked like many of them were very old and used.

I raked with him for some time, Gus told me about the birds that came to call on his garden and I was lost in time until I heard my mother calling for me.

“I gotta go.”  I said to him.

“Thanks for your help.”  He reached into his pocket. “Let me give you something for it.”

“No thanks” I shrugged it off, mom always said that when you help a neighbor the service is the reward, not money.  I ran home to see what my mom was calling about.

“It’s dinner time.” She said when I got there.  “where have you been?  I’ve been calling you for several minutes.”  Without giving me a chance to answer she continued, “How did you get so filthy?  Never mind, just go wash up before coming to the table.”