by Diane Hoh
She cried quietly all the way home. Last night she had been safe in the Giambone house, drinking hot coffee and eating homemade doughnuts with a sugar glaze, fresh from Mrs. Giambone’s deep fryer. She’d been sitting at the big wooden table in the warm, friendly kitchen, surrounded by large and small Giambones and laughing at the antics of the littlest ones.
Laughing. She’d been laughing! Had that been last night? It seemed like a million years ago.
At The Shadows, she parked the car, jumped out, locked the car doors, and was about to race for the kitchen door when something caught her eye.
There was an object hanging from the black wrought-iron top of the light fixture on the wall beside the kitchen door. She’d forgotten to turn on the light before she left, so she couldn’t see very clearly.
Peering into the shadows, she moved a step closer. The object was white. Not white-white, but grayish-white. A bundle of something? Paper? Rags? What would a bundle of paper or rags be doing on her light fixture?
She took another step closer. It looked soft and furry, like her angora sweater. White and soft and furry? What was white and soft and furry?
Scarcely breathing, Tess moved one more step closer to the light fixture. A sudden breeze sent the object swaying back and forth. Glassy blue eyes turned in the breeze, staring at her coldly.
Trilby.
Tess screamed.
Chapter 13
POOR TESS. WHAT A fright that pretty kitty gave her.
I was in the attic so long that day, that it grew dark. I didn’t even realize it until I could no longer read Lila O’Hare’s faint scrawl. I pulled the chain on the bulb hanging from the ceiling. I wasn’t about to leave until I’d finished the journal. It just got more and more interesting.
Buddy was taking care of her financial heeds. He certainly owed her that much, after taking everything she owned. And still that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more. He wanted her child.
Buddy won’t tell me who the people are who want my baby. But I think I know. And if it’s who I think it is, they certainly could give my baby everything money can buy. And I do worry about that. Maybe I’m being selfish, not considering an adoption that could give my child the best life possible. I know I can’t give it to him or her. Buddy says a good mother would care more for her child’s happiness than she does her own. Maybe he’s right.
Chapter 14
AS TESS CONTINUED SCREAMING, lights began glowing in first one unit, then another. Doors opened and heads peeked out, turning toward her screams. But no one ventured forth.
A car door slammed behind her. Footsteps hurried across the cement patio toward her. Hands grabbed her shoulders, shook her, repeatedly saying her name.
“Tess! Tess, it’s Guy Joe! What on earth is wrong?”
Her brother was standing in front of her, blocking her view of the light fixture and the grisly thing hanging from it. He was flanked on one side by Sam and Trudy, on the other by a white-faced Candace. They were all wearing matching blue Santa Luisa High windbreakers, except Candace, shrouded in a faded tan raincoat and matching hat.
With the swaying animal blocked from her vision, Tess was able to catch her breath. But she couldn’t speak. Instead, she pointed a shaking finger past Guy Joe.
Sam moved forward in the direction of the pointed finger. Tess watched in dread as he moved closer to the door. Tilting his head, he examined the object of Tess’s terror.
After a moment, he called over his shoulder, “It’s not real.”
“What?” Tess whispered, sagging against Guy Joe.
“It’s not real,” Sam repeated. “It’s stuffed. It’s a stuffed animal, like the kind Candace has overpopulating her bedroom.” He reached up and yanked the pile of fluff loose from the cord holding it suspended in the air. Then he returned to Tess, the freed object in his hands. “It’s not real, Tess. See for yourself.”
“Stuffed?” Tess said softly. “It’s stuffed?”
Sam held it in his outstretched hands. “Does look real, though, doesn’t it?”
Tess took the soft, fluffy creature in her own hands and turned it over repeatedly, murmuring, “It’s not Trilby, it’s not Trilby.” When she was finally satisfied that it really was not Gina’s cat, she let it slip to the patio and began crying quietly.
“Trilby?” Trudy said, taking a seat in a white patio chair. “What’s a Trilby?”
“Gina’s cat,” Tess said quietly, sinking into a chair opposite Trudy because it suddenly occurred to her that if she didn’t sit down, she would fall down. “You know, the big Siamese. She looks exactly like … that,” pointing toward the object lying on the patio stone.
Trudy frowned. “Why would Gina’s cat be hanging from your lamppost? Honestly, Tess, you just get weirder and weirder!”
Candace came up behind Tess and put both hands on Tess’s shoulders. “Shut up, Trudy,” she said firmly, surprising all of them. “How could Tess know why it was there? The point is, it was, and it must have been a horrible thing for her. Leave her alone.”
And Guy Joe, taking a seat beside Trudy, said, “I don’t know about you, Trudy. Sometimes you scare me. You must have ice water in your veins. Ever hear of the word compassion?”
Trudy pouted.
Sam sat down in the chair next to Tess’s, and took one of her hands in his. “It wasn’t real, Tess.”
“I know it must have looked it, but it wasn’t,” he said softly. “It’s a good thing we decided to drop by tonight.”
Guy Joe took a book of matches lying on the round white table and lit a short, stubby citronella candle sitting in a glass dish in the table’s center. Tess watched as the resulting light cast an eerie glow over the faces looking at her. Or was she imagining the eeriness? Was she so spooked now that everything and everyone seemed sinister to her?
Well, why shouldn’t she be? Wouldn’t anyone be, if the same cruel joke had been played on them?
“So Gina loaned you her cat,” Trudy said, scooting her chair closer to Guy Joe’s. “That still doesn’t explain why you thought it would be hanging from your light fixture.”
“I didn’t think it was, Trudy!” Tess said hotly. “It was! Or, at least, something that looked exactly like Trilby. And I have no idea why someone would pull such a rotten stunt. I also don’t know why someone would deliberately sabotage The Devil’s Elbow, or remove one of the saucers from the Funhouse or write me a threatening note.”
“You got a threatening note?” Guy Joe and Sam said in one voice. And Sam added, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She didn’t mention that they’d hardly been on speaking terms. This was not the time. “I didn’t tell anyone,” she said bitterly, “because so far no one has believed anything I’ve said about any of this stuff. Everyone says the crash was an accident, and that the saucer wasn’t missing even though I saw it with my own eyes, and the police practically laughed me out of the station when I took my note in for them to see. So why would I tell anyone else about it?”
“What did it say?” Guy Joe wanted to know.
She told them. She knew the words by heart and would never forget them.
“Oh, Tess,” Candace breathed when Tess had finished reciting the purple words, “that’s awful! You must have been so scared! I would have been.”
“Of course you would have,” Trudy said cruelly, “you’re afraid of your own shadow. And you wouldn’t have the sense to realize that it was just a big, fat joke. But I’m sure Tess does, don’t you, Tess?”
“It doesn’t sound like a joke to me,” Guy Joe said grimly. “Tess, I think you should move back to the house with Dad and me. At least until good old Shelley comes back. Not that she’d be much protection,” he added coldly, “but at least you wouldn’t be alone. How about it? Come home with me tonight?”
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard,” Sam agreed. “Even if it is a joke, you shouldn’t be alone after the shock you just had.”
The idea was tempting. Her father’s house was
solid brick, with an iron gate around the huge property. How could she not be safe there? It would be so easy to just leave the condo and go stay where people could take care of her.
No. She’d always done that. And her father wouldn’t “take care” of her. He’d take charge of her. The two things weren’t the same at all. She didn’t want to take any stupid, foolish chances, but she didn’t want to go running home to daddy, either, especially since “daddy” hadn’t once called or come to see her since Shelley and Tess had left the house.
“No,” she said as firmly as she could manage. “I don’t think so. Not tonight. I need to think, and I can do that better here, in my own house.”
“I’ll stay with you, Tess,” Candace said quietly, “if you want me to.”
Tess was deeply touched. Trudy had been right earlier: Candace was a little like a scared rabbit. To offer her company in a house that might not be one hundred percent safe was a sweet thing to do. It must have taken great effort on Candace’s part. Refusing her offer might hurt her feelings. Besides, she would hardly get in the way. Most of the time, people weren’t even aware that Candace was around. And while Tess may have been confused about other things, she was sure that there was no way Candace could have had any part in the awful things that had happened. No question there. And it would be nice to have some company.
“Thank you, Candace,” Tess said, “that would be nice.”
“Oh, great!” Sam complained, “now I not only have to worry about you, I have to worry about my sister, too. That’s just perfect!”
He was going to worry about her? What about their heated argument when he had said he was washing his hands of her for good? Washing your hands of someone for good didn’t include worrying about them, did it?
“We’ll be fine,” she reassured him. “I’ll lock all the doors and windows and put my attack cat in the window. Quit worrying.”
She stood up, ignoring the annoyed look on Sam’s face. “Now you guys, go home. I’ve never been so tired in my life! I’m going to bed.” She managed a slight grin. “Sam, if you’re so worried, you can sleep in a chair out here. I’ll even bring you a blanket.”
For just a minute or so, she thought he might actually accept. And she wouldn’t have minded. It might have been nice, falling asleep knowing he was out there.
“No way,” he said angrily. “I’m not freezing my buns off just because you’re too stubborn to go back to your dad’s. Find some other knight in shining armor. This one’s going home to his own nice, warm bed.”
“Chivalry is dead,” Trudy said gaily, standing up and taking Guy Joe’s hand. “Well, Tess, you had your chance to return to the castle where you’d be protected by the moat. If anything terrible happens to you, it’s your own fault.”
Is that a threat? Tess wondered, and was amazed by the thought. Trudy? Well, why not? She could have tied the cat on the light fixture earlier. Could have written the poem, too. As for the missing saucer, well, Trudy the athlete and ballet dancer was certainly strong and agile enough to handle that.
But the question of motive remained unanswered.
When they had gone, Tess and Candace went inside. The first thing Tess did was flip on every available light switch. The second thing she did was scoop Trilby up out of her wicker basket and sit stroking the soft, very much alive body until her own nerves settled down. Then she showed Candace where everything was, lent her a pair of pajamas, and gave Candace her own bed, explaining that she wouldn’t be using it. She intended to take up her vigilant position on the couch, poker at her side, after making sure that every door and window in the place was locked and the oval table was still firmly pressed against the French doors.
When she finally settled down under the afghan, Trilby was already fast asleep on the couch.
Tess wasn’t so lucky. In spite of her emotional and physical exhaustion, she had a hard time turning off the turmoil in her mind so that she could sleep. Her best friend was in the hospital, the result of tampering aimed at Tess, someone had played a terribly cruel joke on her tonight, and what was worst of all, she knew this wasn’t the end of it. There was more to come; she could feel it.
What next? she wondered fearfully just before she fell asleep.
She was awakened some time in the middle of the night, by the shrilling of the telephone on the lamp table behind her head. Struggling to wake up, she thought: Shelley. She’d forgotten or ignored the time difference. Typical Shelley.
Swivelling awkwardly, she reached to pick up the phone. It wasn’t Shelley.
“It’s your fault Gina’s in the hospital,” a voice she didn’t recognize whispered in her ear. “You messed everything up. You’ll have to be punished for that. Soon. Very soon.”
Tess struggled upward on the couch, trying to comprehend the whispered words.
“Did you like my present tonight?” the horrid voice continued.
“Who is this?” she cried, knowing she wouldn’t get an answer.
“Meow!” the voice said, and hung up.
Chapter 15
ALL I HAVE TO do is wait. That’s what Lila O’Hare did. She waited, all those months, for her baby, and for Buddy to stop pressuring her to sign the adoption papers. She waited for someone to come to her rescue.
No one did.
And being alone took its toll on her; I could tell from the way her writing changed. As the journal went on she seemed more and more tired and hopeless. Buddy’s badgering was really getting to her.
The question that had been nagging at me ever since I’d started reading the journal was still unanswered: Who was this Buddy? Was he still alive and living in Santa Luisa?
And even more important: What was this journal doing in my house?
Chapter 16
TESS AWOKE THE NEXT day, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, to find that the rainy season had begun. Slate-gray skies overhead promised a steady downpour throughout the day.
And like the weather, the atmosphere inside Santa Luisa High School was grim. A sudden, painful acquaintance with multiple tragedies had affected every student and teacher. Even the usually raucous students walked the halls with heads down, talking in hushed voices.
“Doesn’t anyone,” Tess asked at lunch, “think two accidents in less than a week is a little suspicious? Has anyone heard anything from Chalmers? He should know something about The Devil’s Elbow crash by now.” She didn’t mention her phone call of the night before. While it had terrified her, in broad daylight, it seemed a little fuzzy, and she wasn’t sure that it hadn’t been a dream. She had a feeling her friends wouldn’t be convinced, either. She would keep the phone call to herself, for now.
“I heard it was a loose rail,” Beak said casually as he sectioned an orange, looping the peel around the wrist of Trudy, who sat beside him.
Trudy chose to ignore him, focusing all of her attention on Guy Joe, sitting opposite her, beside Tess. “My dad said at breakfast this morning that Chalmers told him the rail would be fixed, and an accident like that wouldn’t happen again for at least another hundred years. A freak thing, he said.”
“A loose rail? That’s it? A loose rail?” Tess shook her head and sank back in her chair. “Are we supposed to buy that?”
“Tess,” Beak warned, “you’d better lighten up or you’ll lose it totally. Don’t let this stuff get to you, okay? It’s probably all coincidence, anyway. No dire plot, no sinister doings, just coincidence. Stuff happens, you know?”
“Leave Tess alone,” Sam said lazily, dousing his hard-boiled egg with salt. “She had a rough day yesterday.”
“We all did, Sam,” Trudy reminded him sharply. “And I don’t want to talk about this gloomy stuff anymore. I’m sick of it. And I am having my birthday party Saturday night, on the beach, the way I planned. You’d all better be there, or I’ll never speak to a single one of you ever again!” A coquettish smile accompanied that threat.
“Promises, promises,” Tess murmured. Aloud, she said, “Party? You’re having a pa
rty? Now?”
Trudy tossed her thick, blonde hair. A fat pink velvet bow sat atop it, matching her short-sleeved sweater. “Yes, Tess, I’m funny that way. I like to celebrate my birthday on the day I was born.”
“On the day you were born,” Beak said with a grin, “your parents wouldn’t give you permission for a party.”
“Very funny, Beak. I mean, on the anniversary of the day I was born. Quit trying so hard to be cute.”
“Oh, it’s no effort. Comes naturally. You really having a party this Saturday?”
“What is the matter with you people? Don’t you understand plain English? I just said I was, didn’t I?”
“Holding a party at The Boardwalk,” Tess said, toying with her sandwich, which remained untouched in its wrapper, “is like holding a party on a runway at a busy airport! You’re just asking for trouble, Trudy. Haven’t you been paying attention? People have been getting hurt over there.”
Trudy’s blue eyes narrowed. “Is that a threat, Tess? You were around both times something awful happened at The Boardwalk. That’s a pretty major coincidence, don’t you think?”
Tess gasped. “That isn’t funny, Trudy! How could you even think such a thing?”
“Cut it out, Trudy,” Sam warned. “Tess didn’t have anything to do with that stuff, and you know it.”
“Shame on you, Trudy,” Candace scolded, her ponytail bouncing with the unusual vigor of her words, “Tess would never, ever hurt anyone!”
Unperturbed, Trudy shrugged. “All I know,” she said stubbornly, “is that Tess was the only other person in the Funhouse when Gina fell.”
That was too much for Tess. For all she knew, Trudy wasn’t the only person in school who felt that way. People had been staring at her all day. She’d thought it was because she looked like such a wreck, but now she wasn’t so sure.
“Ignore her,” Candace said softly. “She’s just being mean.”
But as comforting as the words were, they weren’t enough. Tess, biting her lip fiercely to keep herself from bursting into tears, stood up and hurried away from the table and out of the cafeteria. She was conscious of stares and whispers following her every step of the way.