Deep and Dark and Dangerous

by Mary Downing Hahn

  "But nobody knows where you are. Ms. Trent told me people searched the lake, the police sent down divers, they did all they could to find you, but—"

  "They didn't try hard enough," Sissy interrupted. "Or I'd be buried in the cemetery instead of—" She broke off with a shudder and went to the window. "Do you think I like being out there?"

  I joined her at the window and peered at the lake, barely visible in the rain and darkness. "If you tell me where you are, the police could get you."

  "I tried to show you," Sissy said, "but you were scared to come and look. Remember?"

  "I thought you were going to push me off the cliff."

  Sissy laughed. "I just wanted to show you where I am. Deep down in the cold dark water, under three big rocks. All alone except for Edith ... and the fish."

  "That's where you are?" My voice dropped to a whisper, and my skin prickled with goose bumps. It was almost as if I'd just realized I was actually talking to a girl who'd been dead longer than I'd been alive.

  "Why would I lie about it?" Sissy shoved her angry face close to mine. "I'm sick of being there. I want to be buried in the graveyard where the angel is. Is that too much to ask?"

  I drew away from the stale smell of the lake that clung to her. "Of course it's not too much," I stammered. "You should be there, it's where you belong."

  "If the truth is told and I'm buried properly, if the right words are said over me and people bring flowers and someone cries, then I won't trouble anyone again."

  Although it scared me to touch her, I put my arm around her shoulders. She felt solid but cold through and through, and I wished I could warm her somehow.

  "Kathie Trent's gotten so old," Sissy said sadly. "Dulcie and Claire, too. I guess Linda must look different. But not me. I'm just the same. I'll never grow up. Or get old."

  The sorrow in her voice hurt me. If only I could make it up to her, give her the life she should have had. But there was no way to undo what had happened that day on the lake. Thirty years ago, Sissy had lost her life, her future, and everything that might have been hers.

  "Do you think I would've been as pretty as Linda?" Sissy asked. "Would I have gotten married like her, would I have had kids?"

  It was hard to answer without crying. "I bet you would have been even prettier than Linda," I told her. "And you would've gotten married and had kids, and all that stuff."

  Sissy pulled away, suddenly angry. "Don't you dare feel sorry for me! Just make sure all the things I said should happen do happen."

  Leaving her words hanging in the air, she vanished, and I was alone at the window. The rain fell softly, the wind blew in the pines, the lake murmured—gloomy sounds, all of them. Sissy was right. What happened to her wasn't fair. It was sad and awful and it hurt my heart.

  The next morning, I tiptoed through the living room. Dad snored on the sofa bed, and Mom slept beside him, curled close. Dulcie was in the kitchen, drinking coffee and staring at nothing.

  I poured myself a glass of orange juice and sat down across from her. "Telling what happened isn't enough," I whispered. "She wants a proper burial."

  Dulcie stared at me over the rim of her mug. "How can we do that? Her body was never found."

  "She told me where it is."

  Dulcie closed her eyes for a moment. Taking a deep breath, she said, "How will you explain that to the police? A ghost told you? I can imagine their reaction."

  "I'll say I had a dream, I'm psychic, I'm—"

  "Will this nightmare never end?" Dulcie lowered her head.

  I leaned across the table to make my aunt look at me. "Sissy must be buried. The right words must be spoken. There must be flowers and somebody crying. She saw us do that for the bird. Doesn't she deserve the same thing?"

  "Are you talking about Teresa?" Mom stood in the doorway behind me, her hair tangled from sleep.

  Dulcie sighed. "Apparently, Teresa told Ali where her body is. She's demanding a proper burial."

  I twisted around in my chair to face Mom. "She just wants peace, Mom. Is that too much to ask?"

  "I dreamt about Teresa last night." Mom stood beside me and stroked my hair back from my face, her touch soft and tender, her voice calm. "She begged me to help her pass from this world to the next."

  Dulcie jumped up and began pacing around the kitchen. If she'd been a tiger, her tail would have lashed furiously. "She came to me, too," she muttered. "With the same request. Usually, I don't put stock in that sort of nonsense—dreams, ghosts, things left undone, but..." She shrugged, and her shoulder blades shifted under her thin T-shirt. "Well, no matter. l agree that Teresa needs to be laid to rest, but how do we explain knowing where her body is? People will think we've known all along."

  Dulcie's voice rose as she spoke. "Someone will say I shoved Teresa out of the canoe and left her to drown. Next thing you know, I'll be hauled off to jail."

  "I was there, too," Mom said. "What we did was stupid, wrong, horrible, but you didn't push Teresa into the lake. You didn't mean for her to drown."

  Dulcie sat back down and rested her head in her hands.

  "Do you want more coffee?" I asked.

  She surprised me by shaking her head. "All I want is to go to sleep and wake up and find out I dreamt the whole thing. It's what I've wished for all my life—it was a dream, it didn't really happen. But I just go on dreaming. I never wake up."

  "I'll tell the reporter Teresa told me where her body is," I said. "I'll say I saw her ghost."

  "Maybe—" Dulcie began, but she was interrupted by the arrival of a beat-up red sedan. A short man draped with cameras opened the car door and headed toward the cottage. He wore his gray hair in a scraggly ponytail, his jeans drooped below his belly, and his black T-shirt had an old rock star's picture on it. Mick Jagger, I thought. Or was it one of the Beatles—John, maybe?

  "The photographer," Dulcie muttered. "He's early."

  Mom ran to wake Dad, Dulcie hurried to greet the photographer, and Emma slid into a chair across the table from me. "Did you see Sissy last night?" she asked me.

  "She came to my room."

  "She came to my room, too." Emma paused and picked at a scab on her knee. In a low voice, she said, "She told me where her bones are."

  "She told me the same thing."

  Emma went on picking at the scab. Sunlight slanted through the window behind her and backlit her hair. "She wants to be buried. Like the bird."

  "I know." Outside I saw the photographer taking pictures of the cottage. He posed Dulcie, tall and thin in a pair of paint-spattered denim overalls, head tilted, hair curling out of its topknot. She didn't smile. Her face was serious, contemplative, as if she were acting the part of the repentant adult.

  Emma raised her head and looked at me. "If Sissy gets buried, will we ever see her again?"

  I reached across the table and patted her hand. "Sissy's here because she wasn't buried. When everything's done properly and people know what happened, she'll be at rest."

  "That's what I think, too." Emma sighed and returned her attention to the scab. "I'll miss her, though. Will you?"

  "Think of it this way," I said slowly. "Sissy doesn't belong here anymore. Wherever she goes next, she'll be better off. Happier."

  "How do you know?" Emma looked at me mournfully. "Maybe she'll just be gone."

  Dulcie saved me from trying to answer an impossible question by coming through the kitchen door with the photographer in tow.

  "This is Dan Nelson," she said, "from The Sentinel. He's come to take a few pictures of you two, as well as some of Claire and me."

  Emma looked at him. "I wish you could take a picture of Sissy. She'd like to be in the newspaper."

  Mr. Nelson smiled at Emma. "I'm sure I can fit another child into my shots. Is she a friend of yours?"

  "Yes," Emma said. "Me and Ali both know her."

  Behind Emma's back, Dulcie shook her head at Mr. Nelson, trying to tell him to drop the subject.

  "I don't think you can take pictures of gh
osts," Emma said.

  Ignoring Dulcie, Mr. Nelson squatted down beside Emma and looked her in the eye. "Are you telling me your friend is a ghost?"

  He said it in a joking, aren't-you-a-funny-little-thing sort of way, but Emma didn't notice. "Sissy has to be buried in the graveyard, all proper with a funeral and flowers and people crying. Somebody has to get her bones. Ali and me can show you where they are."

  "That's enough, sweetie." Dulcie reached for Emma's hand, glanced at me, and then turned to Mr. Nelson. "My niece had a dream about Teresa. She told Ali where her body is."

  The photographer looked from Emma to me and then to Dulcie, his whole face a question mark. "What are you talking about? Nobody knows where Teresa Abbott's body is."

  "I believe in psychic powers," Dulcie lied. "If Ali says she knows where the body is, it will be there."

  "We didn't just dream Sissy," Emma said. "We saw her. We talked to her, we played with her all summer. She was just as real as you!"

  Mr. Nelson reacted the way Dad had. "You couldn't have seen her." He glanced at me. "And neither could you."

  He had the look of a man who'd seen through many a hoax—UFO's, apparitions, mysterious lights—something that went with a news photographer's job, I supposed.

  Mom came to the kitchen door, dressed neatly as usual, the perfect contrast to Dulcie. "You don't believe in ghosts?" she asked Mr. Nelson.

  "Of course not."

  Dad followed Mom into the kitchen. "I'm afraid you and I are outnumbered," he told Mr. Nelson. "Reason and common sense will not be found in this cottage."

  Mr. Nelson made the mistake of laughing. "Maybe it's a female thing."

  Dulcie turned on him fiercely. "Gender has nothing to do with this. It's not a hoax, either. Instead of laughing it off, maybe you should give the girls a chance to prove they're right."

  "You have to believe us," Emma put in. "We promised Sissy."

  "Please," Mom added, "let the girls show you the place. Send a diver down. It can't hurt to look."

  "Think of it this way," Dad said, still joking. "If the kids are right, you'll have a great story, probably the biggest you'll ever stumble on in Webster's Cove."

  Mr. Nelson rubbed his jaw. I could almost hear his thoughts. national news, Pulitzer Prize, TV talk shows, a best-selling book ... on the other hand, I could make a fool of myself, become the butt of jokes, a laughing stock, never live it down. ...

  "You've got a point," he told Dad. Pulling a cell phone out of a pocket, he said, "I'll call the police."

  A moment later, he said "Hello, Neil? This is Dan Nelson from The Sentinel. I'm at Gull Cottage doing a recap about the girl who drowned back in the late seventies."

  A slight pause.

  "Yes, Teresa Abbott," he went on. "The kids here say they know where her body is."

  Another pause, a little longer this time.

  "I'm not sure how they know, but I think it's worth following up. Maybe you could send a diver."

  A pause again.

  Mr. Nelson spoke a little louder. "What have you got to lose?"

  When he hung up, his face was somewhere between pleased and worried. "They're sending a diver. He should be here in a half-hour or so."

  Next he called the paper and asked for Ed Jones, the reporter who'd interviewed Dulcie. "Got something here you might be interested in," he said.

  I could hear Ed Jones's voice but not what he was saying.

  "I'll tell you this much," Mr. Nelson went on. "It involves the Abbott girl's remains—and a hint of the supernatural."

  "I'll be right there," Mr. Jones shouted into the phone.

  "The supernatural is Ed's thing," Mr. Nelson grinned at Dad as if to suggest they were linked by common sense and logic. "I keep telling him he should get a job with one of the rags—The National Enquirer, maybe."

  While we waited for the police and Mr. Jones to show up, Mr. Nelson photographed us in a number of poses, both inside and outside. He even included a few shots of Dad looking skeptical.

  When Dulcie showed him the photo of herself, Mom, and Teresa, he borrowed it to make a copy.

  Mom grimaced at the sight of it. "You should have destroyed that, Dulcie. Or at least removed Teresa."

  Dulcie shrugged. "History's history. You can't change it by destroying a snapshot."

  Turning away, she busied herself making a fresh pot of coffee. "There ought to be a pound cake in the pantry," she told me. "Why don't you get that out and fix some blueberries to go with it? I picked a quart yesterday."

  By the time the policeman arrived, followed closely by Mr. Jones, we'd all fortified ourselves with cake and blueberries, coffee for the adults, and lemonade for Emma and me.

  When she saw the officer at the back door, Dulcie grabbed Mom's hand. For a moment, they looked like little girls clinging to each other, scared and anxious. Neither spoke. They just stood there, holding hands, waiting for what would happen next.

  Before the policeman had a chance to introduce himself, a black sedan braked to a sharp stop, and a woman I'd never seen jumped out.

  "It's Linda," Mom whispered. Dulcie held her hand tighter.

  Sissy's sister came into the kitchen like a blast of wind. Her curves had rounded out, but her hair was still blond, and she wore plenty of lipstick. "You never fooled me," she cried. "I knew all along you were in that canoe with Sissy."

  Mom began to apologize, but Dulcie broke in before she finished. "It was an accident," she said. "We never meant to harm Sissy. We were just kids, we—"

  "Sissy was just a kid, too!" Linda looked at me. "Younger than her! Why didn't you tell the truth? Do you know how much grief you've caused us? Rich summer people coming here, acting like you're above the law. Well, you should be arrested. You should pay for what you did to my sister!"

  The policeman took Linda's arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Now, now, Linda, that's enough. I told you not to come out here. I'm not planning to make any arrests. Or press charges. I just want to get some things straight."

  Somehow, he managed to calm Linda down. Then he turned to Mom and Dulcie and introduced himself. "I'm Captain Wahl," he said. "I understand you have some new information about Teresa Abbott's remains. The diver's coming by boat, but I thought we could have a little chat before he starts looking."

  I wanted to hear what Mom and Dulcie and Linda had to say, but Captain Wahl told Dad to take Emma and me outside. "I'll talk to the girls later."

  A motorboat was already tied up at the dock. A man in a wetsuit stood with his back to us, gazing out at the lake. It was one of those rare sunny days, and the water had never looked bluer.

  Emma clung to Dad's hand. "Is he going to find Sissy?"

  Dad squeezed her hand, his face skeptical. "Maybe."

  I grabbed Dad's other hand and held it tight, glad for its familiar shape and warmth. "Yes," I told Emma. "He is."

  A few minutes later, Captain Wahl joined us. The others trailed behind, Mom and Dulcie close together, Linda a few steps back, clearly separating herself from them. The reporter and photographer brought up the rear, heads together, exchanging opinions.

  Captain Wahl took Emma and me aside. "Tell me again how you know where the body is."

  "It's just bones now," Emma whispered.

  "Yes, right." Captain Wahl nodded and wrote something in a little notebook. "But how do you know where the bones are?"

  "Sissy told us."

  "Sissy's Teresa's ghost," I added. "Emma and I have seen her lots of times. Honest we have. Last night she told us both where her ... where she is." I couldn't bring myself to refer to Sissy's bones or her skeleton.

  "A ghost." He nodded and made a few more notes. I knew he didn't believe us, but he played along as if he did. "Will you show me where you think the bones are?"

  Emma and I set out along the path. Captain Wahl called down to the diver to follow in his boat. With Linda on our heels and the others close behind her, we made our way to the high point Sissy had taken me to. More fearless than
I, Emma walked to the edge and pointed down.

  "See those three big rocks? That's where the bones are."

  Captain Wahl peered down at the calm water. "You're sure, honey?"

  "Sissy told me. And she told Ali, too."

  I nodded. "This is the place."

  Captain Wahl signaled, and the diver anchored his boat and slipped into the water. He was gone a long time.

  "Did he drown?" Emma asked.

  "He has an oxygen tank," I told her. "So he can breathe under water."

  At last the diver came to the surface. "I don't know how the girls knew," he called up to the captain, "but the bones are there."

  Linda began to cry. "If only Mom and Dad were still alive, if only they knew she's been found."

  Dulcie and Mom cried, too, but Dad stood there like a man in shock. The photographer looked stunned as well. His and Dad's concept of the world had suffered a serious blow. In contrast, the reporter grinned broadly.

  Captain Wahl was the only one to speak. "Incredible," he said.

  Emma took my hand and pointed. "Look," she whispered.

  In the shadows under the pines, Sissy gave a thumbs-up and vanished before anyone else saw her.

  Dad reached out for Emma and me. "Let's go back to the cottage."

  22

  The rest of the day dragged slowly past. Emma spent most of it sleeping, exhausted, I guess, by all that had happened. The policeman left, still puzzled. With a few more nasty comments, Linda departed. The photographer and Dad sat on the deck trying to find other explanations for the discovery of Teresa Abbott's remains. The reporter sat near them, still grinning, and typing away on his laptop. In the end, all three were left with the possibility that Emma and I had truly seen a ghost.

  Live Action News showed up in the afternoon, along with most of the population of Webster's Cove. Tourists tramped through the yard and followed the trail to the cliff top, snapping pictures of everything with their little cameras. We were interviewed all over again by the TV reporter and videotaped by their photographers.

  The media people insisted on waking Emma so they could talk to both of the girls who saw the ghost. Tired and cranky, Emma clung to Dulcie and cried. I overheard the reporter say in a hushed tone, "Four-year-old Emma, clearly traumatized by her encounter with the supernatural, sobs in her mother's arms."