Help for the Haunted(78)

“Sorry, Sylvie. Can’t cop to that one. Ever since I heard Mom hacking her guts out, I steer clear of that thing. I wasn’t kidding when I said it might have germs.”

“Well, then I don’t—”

“Are you coming?” the driver called.

My sister moved toward the door, climbed onto the first step. I stood watching, not wanting her to leave just yet. Before disappearing inside, Rose turned back. “We can talk about it later, Sylvie. I’ve got my own ideas about things that go on inside that house. If you keep your mouth shut, I might tell you.”

With that, the door closed. Through the windows, I saw my sister walk clumsily down the aisle in search of an empty seat as the bus began rolling away. After she was gone, I waited for my bus to arrive. Then I waited all day for school to be done, and for the hours of homework and dinner to pass. A day passed. Two. Three. A week. Another week. Never once did Rose give me so much as a hint of the things we talked about that morning. I could have escorted her to the bus stop again and tried to prod her, but I figured she had made up her mind not to tell me anything after all. Meanwhile, things seemed to return to normal at home, or normal as they could be with that doll smiling from my mother’s rocker every time I stepped into the living room.

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And then came a day when I walked the packed hallways between classes with Gretchen and Elizabeth. We were discussing an upcoming English exam that had us nervous, since the teacher always threw in a trick question. Last time, it amounted to a simple vocabulary word—exigency—that not one of us knew the meaning of. In the middle of our guessing what it would be this time, a voice shouted, “I saw your sister!”

Laughter erupted, and as I was looking around to figure out what was going on, Brian Waldrup stepped in front of me. “I mean you, Wednesday. I saw your sister.”

“That’s not my name,” I told him, thinking of the way my mother hated being the center of attention. This was why, I realized, things could turn on you in an instant.

“It’s your name now. And I saw your sister.”

“I don’t— You saw Rose?”

“No. Penny. That’s what you freaks call her, right?”

For just a moment, all the noise and commotion in that hallway seemed to cease. There was Brian with his buzzed hair and ripped jeans. There was Gretchen with her mouth full of braces. There was Elizabeth with her horsey face. I stood, watching as their eyes and so many others fell upon me. “She’s not my—I mean, it’s not my sister. And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do,” Brian said, laughing. “So does anyone who looked at today’s paper.”

Rather than respond, I started moving again, telling myself I’d go to the library the first chance I got to find the paper he was talking about. Gretchen and Elizabeth followed, though that did not stop Brian from calling after me, saying that name over and over: “Penny! Penny! Penny!” I tried to keep my two friends from hearing any more by talking loud and walking fast. It was some made-up story, I said; he exaggerated things, and it was better to just ignore him. But even as I said those words, I detected something flimsy in my voice. They must have sensed it too, because I glanced over to see a mix of curiosity and confusion on their faces, and I knew then that whatever germs my sister spoke of—real or imagined—had spread, irreversibly, to school now too.

When I arrived home, I found my father in the living room, curio hutch wide open as he inspected the books inside. The phone rang and rang, but he made no move to answer it. I’d long since returned the “history” book, but the sight of him there worried me anyway. Don’t bring up the article, I told myself, sensing that it would be better to discuss it with my mother. “What are you looking for?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“Just gathering information for a new lecture. We booked two more today, and I’d like to give them a bit more historical context. People are so obsessed with what they see in movies, and I want them to understand the way malevolent spirits can have a more subtle but devastating influence on their lives if they don’t keep them at bay. For example, in the 1600s—”

“I don’t want to go on those trips anymore,” I heard myself say over the ringing phone.

“Excuse me?” my father said, distracted still by the thick book in his hands.

“I don’t like missing school. It’s too hard to make up.”

“You’ll be fine.” Without looking at me, he flipped the pages, saying, “We tried leaving you girls here alone before. Remember how that turned out?”

The image of Dot, naked and cowering in the corner of their bathroom, came to life in my mind. “But that was because of Rose.” Or mostly because of Rose, I thought.

“Sylvie, I don’t know where this is coming from,” he told me, shutting the book and paying attention now. “But we’re not leaving you here alone and we’re not going back to enlisting a nanny service. Besides, I can’t say no. I’ve already agreed to the lectures. They’re paying us three times what we normally get.”

The ringing fell quiet. And again, I heard myself say something unplanned: “Why?”

“Why?” At last, my father looked up from his book with an exasperated expression.

“I mean, why are they suddenly paying more?”