Took: A Ghost Story

by Mary Downing Hahn

  I heard a whisper of sound behind me and turned to see Selene standing in the doorway. “Can I come too?”

  “Oh, no, Selene,” Mrs. O’Neill said. “This woman—”

  “I heard you say she’s kin to Auntie. Maybe she can change me for that other girl, the new one she got to help her. Then everybody’d be happy. They all want the new one back, and no one wants me.”

  Mrs. O’Neill studied the girl’s pale face. “Oh, Selene, that’s not true. Of course we want Erica back, but we don’t want to lose you.”

  “You got to take me to see her, you got to!” Selene cried. “She’s my onliest chance to see Auntie again.”

  “Maybe you should be there,” Mrs. O’Neill said slowly. “Maybe Miss Perkins should see you.”

  Selene leaned against the doorframe. Holding the doll tightly, she hummed to herself. It was the same tune I’d heard Erica hum, a strange, sad song, like an old ballad, but without words.

  I turned away from the girl’s sad face. Sometimes I couldn’t bear to look at her. What if my sister came back in fifty years, looking just like Selene?

  “When should we go see Miss Perkins?” I asked Mrs. O’Neill.

  She went to the sliding doors and peered out. “The snow’s letting up,” she said. “If the roads are plowed tonight, we can go to Woodville tomorrow.”

  She was right. I could see the mountains again, as soft against the sky as clouds resting on earth. The trunks of trees in the woods were smudged charcoal lines on white paper.

  “I ain’t going with you,” Brody said, “so don’t bother to ask.”

  Nobody argued with him. It was bad enough that Selene was coming. We didn’t need Brody, too.

  He joined Mrs. O’Neill at the door and pressed his nose against the glass, making a big smear. “Bella and me should get on home soon.” He didn’t make a move to get his jacket or the dog, but stood watching the snow.

  “Let me give you lunch first. How about grilled cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate?”

  While Mrs. O’Neill fixed the sandwiches, Selene stood at the window, her back to us. From the way she held Little Erica up to the glass, I guessed she was showing her the snow.

  Mrs. O’Neill set sandwiches and hot chocolate on the counter and called Selene.

  “I don’t want to eat with them boys.” She didn’t turn around, but stayed at the window, her back to the room.

  “Well, how about if I seat you at the breakfast table over by the window?”

  Selene agreed to that, but made sure her chair faced the window, not us.

  After we’d eaten, Brody thanked Mrs. O’Neill for lunch. “I really ought to go home before my daddy starts in to worrying about me.”

  I said goodbye to the O’Neills and followed Brody outside. There must have been six inches of snow on the ground, and it was still falling. Bella leaped and danced ahead of us, barking as if the snow were the best thing she’d ever seen. My father always said it didn’t take much to make a dog happy. Bella was certainly proof of that.

  Fifteen

  I let myself into the house quietly. No fire in the living room, no smell of cooking, but I heard low voices in the kitchen. Mom and Dad were sitting at the table, their breakfast dishes pushed to one side. Last night’s pots and pans and dishes filled the sink.

  Caught by surprise, they looked at me as if I were a stranger. “Daniel,” Dad said. “We thought you’d stay overnight with the O’Neills. The snow and all—” He waved a hand vaguely at the window.

  “It’s almost stopped.”

  Mom turned her attention from me to her coffee. I’d never seen her look so bad. Her hair was limp and uncombed, her face shadowed with grief. She wore an old UMass sweatshirt and baggy corduroy pants, the same clothes she’d worn since Erica disappeared.

  Dad hadn’t shaved, and gray stubble covered his cheeks. His eyes were puffy and red rimmed. He wore a navy sweatshirt and sweatpants, an outfit he usually reserved for watching TV after dinner.

  There was an empty wine bottle on the table and an ashtray full of cigarette butts and ashes.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, fearful that something bad had happened—they’d found Erica dead in the snow or frozen in the woods or, or . . .

  “Nothing,” Dad said. “Nothing is going on. Nothing has changed. She’s still missing, and no one wants to look for her in this snow.”

  “They don’t want to look for her at all,” Mom said. “Even the state police say it’s hopeless.” She lit a cigarette and inhaled so deeply that she coughed.

  “Please don’t smoke,” Dad said. “You know I hate it.”

  “I’ll smoke if I want to.” She gave him a nasty look. “It calms my nerves.”

  Dad shoved his chair away from the table and started up the back stairs.

  “Where are you going, Ted?” Mom called.

  “To check my email. Just in case—”

  “Just in case what?”

  “Just in case . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  “Face it, we’ll never see her again.” Mom started crying.

  Dad went to his den and slammed the door.

  My parents had lost their minds. Their marriage was collapsing. The only way to fix things was to find Erica and bring her home. And no one could do that except me.

  The next day was gray and cloudy, and the snow was pockmarked with drops falling from trees. School wasn’t closed, but Mom said she didn’t want me going back yet. That was fine with me.

  “The kids and the teachers will torment you with questions,” she said. “I don’t want them making you even more miserable. People are so insensitive at times like this.”

  “Is it okay if I go to Woodville with Mrs. O’Neill? She knows someone who might be able to help Selene.”

  Mom shrugged. “Go ahead, do what you want, but please tell Mrs. O’Neill I want Erica’s doll returned.”

  Her voice sounded mean and hard again. The mother I used to know had disappeared with Erica.

  Mom went to the kitchen and stood at the window, smoking and watching the woods, as if she were waiting to see Erica run toward the house. Dad was working at his computer. He’d set up a website in hope of getting in touch with someone who’d seen Erica. He had lots of hits, all worthless. A man had seen her in a diner in Kentucky; a woman had seen her in a Walmart in Tennessee. Someone else saw her waving frantically from the rear window of a car on I-95 North. She was in Alaska, Italy, California. On buses, planes, trains. Those who hadn’t seen her either prayed for her or accused my father of faking the disappearance. Maybe he’d murdered her. Maybe he wanted money. Yet Dad checked every one of them and alerted the police when he received a sighting.

  With no one to talk to and nothing to do, I spent most of the day in my room, playing games on my iPad to keep from blaming myself over and over again for Erica’s disappearance. Why hadn’t I let her pick up the doll? Why? Why?

  The phone rang around two. It was Mrs. O’Neill. She’d come by for me in half an hour, if that was okay with my parents. I told her it was fine. I didn’t say they probably wouldn’t even notice I was gone.

  When Mrs. O’Neill arrived, she handed me the clothes Selene had helped herself to. I left them on the porch so I wouldn’t have to go back inside, where my parents were arguing endlessly over whose fault it was.

  I sat in the front seat, and Selene sat in the back. I guessed she was wearing clothes Eleanor had worn when she was little—a blue jacket with a belt and a fake fur collar, corduroy jeans, and a pair of yellow rubber boots. Selene didn’t look at me, but kept her head bent over the doll. Nothing unusual about that.

  Railroad Avenue was in the worst part of Woodville. We passed taverns, boarded-up stores, an abandoned gas station. A stray dog poked its nose into overflowing garbage cans that were half buried in snow. Newspapers blew down the icy sidewalks. A few people came in and out of a shabby market.

  Mrs. O’Neill drove slowly, looking for the house number. “Forty-eight eleven,”
she said. “This is it.”

  She parked in front of a shabby little house that was badly in need of paint. The roof sagged under the weight of the snow. No one had shoveled the walk. No footprints led to the door.

  “Do you think she’s home?” I asked.

  “Let’s find out.” Mrs. O’Neill picked up Selene and led the way to the porch through knee-deep snow.

  Not a sound from inside. She pressed the bell, waited awhile, and tried again.

  “Maybe it’s broken,” I said.

  She nodded and knocked. Once, twice, several times. I shivered from cold and maybe a little fear. The house was rundown and dark. One window was covered with a sheet of plastic, another boarded up. The porch buckled under our feet. The walls were sprayed with gang tags and badly drawn pictures of witches and devils and monsters.

  Just as we were about to give up, the door opened a crack and a woman peered out. She was not just old—she was ancient. Bent and bony, no bigger than Selene, her flyaway white hair floated around her head like dandelions gone to seed. She’d wrapped herself in a thick knitted shawl of every imaginable color woven into complex patterns—a sun here, a moon there, stars all over, rivers and trees and birds and animals. A person could look at it all day and still find something he hadn’t noticed before.

  “What do you want with me?” she croaked. Her eyes glittered in her shadowy face.

  Mrs. O’Neill put Selene down and held out her hand. “I’m Irene O’Neill, and I’ve come to you for help.” The old woman looked at her hand, but didn’t take it.

  “I don’t help strangers.” She was about to slam the door in our faces.

  “Wait, don’t be so hasty!” Mrs. O’Neill pushed Selene forward. “What if I told you this girl is Selene Estes? Would you help us then?”

  Miss Perkins froze. Instead of slamming the door, she leaned out and peered down at Selene, studying her as if she were a book she needed to learn. She touched Selene’s cheek, stared into her eyes, examined a strand of her hair. I think she even sniffed her. Shaking her head, she mumbled and muttered to herself and gazed over Selene’s head at the darkening sky.

  At last she spoke to Mrs. O’Neill. “I smell Auntie on this here girl. I feel her touch.”

  Selene tugged at Miss Perkins’s arm. “Can you make her take me back, ma’am? I’m still strong. I can do the work.”

  “Go back to Auntie? Whatever for?”

  “She told me to go live someplace else, she was done with me. But I ain’t done with her.”

  When Selene began to sob, Mrs. O’Neill tried to comfort her, but the girl pulled away. “Leave me be,” she cried. “I don’t want nobody but Auntie!”

  “I reckon you better come inside.” Miss Perkins opened the door wide, and we followed her into a dark hallway. The house smelled of mildew and mold and cat pee. An old carpet, stained and worn through in spots, covered the floor. Bulging boxes and bundles stood in piles and stacks against the walls. It was a good thing Miss Perkins was a skinny little woman. A normal-size person would need to turn sideways to squeeze down that hall.

  At the top of a flight of steps, several cats stared down at us. Others crouched on the stacks of boxes. A few more wound around our ankles, meowing.

  To our left, raggedy velvet curtains framed a doorway into a small room that was also filled with bundles and boxes, with just enough space left for a sagging couch and a rocking chair. The windows were covered with blinds. A small fire burned on the hearth, barely enough to light the room, even though it wasn’t much past three o’clock.

  “Set there on the sofa,” Miss Perkins said as she took a seat in the rocking chair.

  Displacing more cats, the three of us crowded onto the sofa, Selene on one side of Mrs. O’Neill and me on the other. Pressed close to her, I felt the tension in her body. I was tense too. Scared, even. The house reeked of dark secrets, of sorrow and misery. I understood why Brody had refused to come with us.

  I glanced at Selene. She hadn’t stopped staring at Miss Perkins. Maybe not even to blink. She and the doll had the same blank-eyed look on their faces.

  “Now then,” Miss Perkins said to Mrs. O’Neill. “Here’s the way I see it. Auntie must have took the boy’s sister when she let Selene go. She’ll work his sister fifty years, and then, when she’s worn-out like this one, she’ll let her go and take another girl.”

  “I ain’t worn-out. I can still do the work,” Selene insisted.

  Miss Perkins ignored Selene. Closing her eyes, she rocked in her chair for a few moments, nodding to herself, clasping and unclasping her hands. “You won’t like it, but here’s the truth of it,” she said. “Auntie’s been doing this for over two hundred years now. She’s got no reason to quit, and I ain’t got the power to stop her.”

  I peered into the old woman’s face. Her eyes, hidden by drooping lids and wrinkles, were set way back in her skull, so I couldn’t guess what she was thinking or even be sure where she was looking.

  “Please,” I whispered. “There must be something you can do to get Erica back. My parents are going crazy.”

  Firelight danced across her face, making her wrinkles stand out as if they’d been carved into her skin. “What on earth do you want me to do, boy?”

  “Can’t you trade Selene back?”

  “Daniel!” Mrs. O’Neill turned to me, obviously shocked. “You can’t mean that.”

  “It’s what Selene wants,” I told her, surprised at her disapproval of my idea. “She said so herself. She wants to be with Auntie.”

  Before Mrs. O’Neill could say a word, Miss Perkins said, “Didn’t I just tell you—that girl is worn-out, used up. She’s no good to Auntie—which is why she took your sister.”

  “Just take me to her,” Selene begged. “Give me a chance to show her I can still do the chores.”

  Miss Perkins shook her head. “I know it ain’t easy, but you got to make the best of your life here.”

  The old woman sat back in the rocker, her face now hidden in shadows. She was quiet for so long that I thought she’d fallen asleep. I looked at Mrs. O’Neill and whispered, “Should we leave?”

  Miss Perkins must have heard me. “I ain’t sleeping. I’m pondering.” With surprising energy, she pushed herself up and out of the rocking chair. “You all come back here tomorrow afternoon. By then I might have an idea or two.”

  She walked to the door with us and watched Mrs. O’Neill help Selene with zippers and mittens. “The poor child,” Miss Perkins said softly. “She’s under a spell, like that girl who come back fifty year ago and died in the orphanage. When Auntie lets them go, they ain’t long for this world.”

  Mrs. O’Neill stared at the old woman. “Please don’t talk like that in front of the child.”

  Selene didn’t seem to have heard. She was standing with her back to us, watching the cats racing each other up and down the steps.

  Miss Perkins sighed. “Ain’t none of that girl’s fault my auntie took her. Must be something I can do to stop that old woman, her and that hog of hers.”

  She opened the door and ushered us out. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  With that, we were on the porch with the door shut behind us. It was dark now, and the sliver of moon high above us didn’t do much to light our way down the icy sidewalk to the car.

  “Well,” Mrs. O’Neill said as she started the engine. “I don’t know what to make of the old woman.”

  “Do you trust her?” I asked.

  Mrs. O’Neill bit her lower lip and eased the car over the ruts in the icy road. In the headlights I saw a skinny dog running along the sidewalk. He had something in his mouth—a scrap he’d found in the garbage, I guessed.

  “I’m truly hoping she can get your sister back. How, I don’t know—just so it doesn’t involve trading one child for another.”

  She paused as she turned right from Railroad Avenue onto Main Street. It was only five o’clock, but not a single store was open. Except for the streetlights and a traffic light set on bli
nking red, the town was dark.

  “I’m also hoping we can keep Selene with us for a long time,” she said.

  I looked over my shoulder at the back seat. Selene was staring out the window, watching the buildings and houses slip past. Her face was pale and sad. The doll lay beside her as if she didn’t care about it anymore. I think she knew then that she’d never see Auntie again.

  Sixteen

  As Mrs. O’Neill pulled her car into my driveway, she asked me if I’d like to have dinner at her house. “My daughter Eleanor will be here,” she said. “It should be interesting to see what happens between her and Selene.”

  While Mrs. O’Neill and Selene waited, I ran into the house to ask permission. Dad was sitting on the couch by himself, staring into the fire. The room was dark.

  Barely acknowledging me, he nodded. “Sure, sure, go ahead. I don’t think your mother plans on cooking anything tonight.”

  “Where is she?”

  He shrugged. “Upstairs, taking a nap.”

  “At five thirty?”

  “Go on, Daniel. Don’t keep Mrs. O’Neill waiting.” He poured himself a glass of wine and went back to staring into the fire.

  On the way out, I glanced upstairs, wondering if I should check on Mom. I decided against it and ran from the house to the warm car. Was this how it was going to be from now on? Mom upstairs sleeping, Dad drinking wine in the dark? I had to get my sister back.

  “Is everything okay?” Mrs. O’Neill asked.

  “Fine.” I kept my head turned so she wouldn’t see my face. One sympathetic look and I’d break down and tell her everything.

  At the O’Neills’ house, lights shone from windows and woodsmoke rose from the chimney into the cold night. Mrs. O’Neill helped Selene out of the car and led us inside. From the sounds and smells, I figured that Mr. O’Neill was busy in the kitchen. A tall gray-haired woman waited in the hallway as we took off our coats and jackets, scarves and hats and mittens. While she hugged her mother, Eleanor stared at Selene. She was so pale, I thought she might faint dead away.