Help for the Haunted(132)

Voice still trembling, I told her, “She fell.”

“She fell? Or you pushed her?”

My sister spoke before I could. “Franky, leave      Sylvie alone.”

“Why?” Franky said. “She’s the same as your      parents. No good for you.”

“I don’t care,” Rose said. “Leave her alone. Let me      handle this.”

“You’ve been handling this for months and where has      it gotten us?” Franky shouted. “Look at the mess she’s made of you.”

She stepped out of the shadows then, coming closer.      I thought of that night last winter, the sound of the gun so close to my ear      before I fell to the floor and crawled beneath that pew. Like some sort of alarm      the shhhh seemed to grow louder in that instant, so      loud I almost did not hear Rose shouting, “Sylvie! Run! Get out of here!”

I turned toward the stairs and stepped over my      sister’s leg, bent the wrong way still, like those turkeys in the field on the      other side of the woods. But I only made it up a few steps before I felt a hand      snatch the back of my old T-shirt. I grabbed the banister and hung on as Franky      pulled and pulled, until finally, I felt the fabric start to give and then      suddenly the shirt came completely free. The dank air against my bare skin sent      a shiver snaking through me as the sudden shift of pressure caused me to stumble      forward. My hand slipped through the space between the slatted wooden steps, and      Franky came around and grabbed it from beneath. I wrenched my hand free, pulling      away from her with such force that I stumbled back down the stairs again, barely      missing my sister.

“Stop it!” Rose screamed as I scrambled to my feet.      “Please stop!”

“I’m not stopping,” Franky told her, “because if      she gets out of here, she’s going to tell the police and everyone what she’s      learned. And then you and me, Rose, we are going to be sent away for a long      time. And where they put us is going to make Saint Julia’s look like a funhouse.      I’m not letting that happen to us.”

I looked at my sister’s contorted face and could      see tears rolling down her cheeks, shimmering in the yellow light. “I’m sorry,      Sylvie,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry. I never wanted it to be this way. I know      you won’t believe that, but I didn’t want any of this.”

What would I have told her if I had the chance?      That I forgave her? That I understood? That I would make sure things would turn      out okay? But none of those things was true in the moment. The most I knew was      that I felt trapped there in the basement, since Franky had made her way around      from the back of the stairs and was now holding the hatchet from the massacre at      that old New Hampshire farm turned inn. I thought of the Locke family my father      talked about in his lectures, the bloody end the mother and children all met,      the way their souls were said to haunt that old hotel for years afterward.

As if to warn me that she intended the same fate      for me, Franky reached up and whacked the hatchet into the stairs. The blade      sunk into the wood and she yanked it back out. It caused Rose to let out a      shriek.

And then Franky reached up and used the hatchet to      smash the lightbulb. In an instant, the basement grew dark and full of more      shadows, lit only by the stray shafts of sunlight that made its way through the      casement window. I turned and ran toward the partition. Tangled in the blankets,      I saw something I had not noticed before. When I pulled back the covers, there      it was: my journal, wide open and facedown. There was no time to reach for it,      so I went to the sliding glass door just beyond. When I tried to pull it open,      nothing moved. I looked down and saw a broomstick wedged at the base to keep the      door from opening. I pulled and pulled on the broomstick, but she must have      nailed it there, because it would not budge.

When I turned, Franky was watching me calmly since      she knew I could not get out that way. The only thing I could think to do was to      reach for those Tupperware containers. I picked them up and hurled them at her,      then stumbled toward the dental chair, where I reached into a nearby drawer,      grabbed a handful of old dental tools, and hurled them at her too. None of it      did anything to keep her from coming closer still, moving steadily, as though      nothing would ever stop her from attacking me with that hatchet.