Caleb has the right idea, she thought. I’m going to leave home the very day I finish high school. I’ll get a job in California or in New York City, or maybe in Hawaii, and I won’t write to anyone unless they write to me first. Just thinking about getting away made her feel a little better. Later, she decided, she might marry and have six children, and if that happened, she’d never, never leave them.… Or maybe she wouldn’t get married at all! If you didn’t get married and you didn’t have children, you could do what you wanted without hurting anybody else.
“Actually,” her father said, “I think you’re ready to stop right now, aren’t you?”
Meg glanced at him. For one startled moment she was sure he was reading her thoughts. Then she realized he was talking about fishing.
“I guess so. But if you want to stay a while longer, it’s okay with me.”
“I think they’re through biting for the day.” He leaned over and swung the fish basket into the boat. The captured fish leaped and slapped against the wires. “What’ll we do with these?” he asked. “It’s up to you, Meg.”
“What do you mean, it’s up to me?”
“I mean we can take these home and clean them and freeze them until we get some more—or we can let them go. By the time they’re cleaned, six little perch won’t make a meal for six hungry people tonight.”
Meg came out of her trance. “Let them go!” she exclaimed. “Oh, let them go!”
He opened the basket and emptied the contents into the lake. Six streaks of silver shot away into the cool darkness.
Her father watched Meg’s expression with amusement. “By golly, you did feel sorry for them,” he said. “Maybe you’re going to be a vegetarian.”
“I don’t think so,” Meg said. “That’s not why I wanted to let them go.”
There was no way she could explain why she felt better now that the basket was empty. She could hardly explain it to herself.
10
She stands just inside a neatly trimmed hedge and watches Steffi and her best friend, Astrid, climb the steps of an old house. The house looks as if it has recently been painted; the grass is cut to a smooth carpet. But all the window shades are drawn, and to Meg, watching the children but unable to move or call to them, there is something disturbing about the stillness of the place.
Steffi tries the front door, then moves to the windows that open on the porch. She and Astrid take turns trying to open the nearest window. It sticks at first, then slides up, and the children crawl through the opening.
Now Meg is inside the house. She stands in a dim front hall and calls Steffi’s name. There is no answer. The girls must be beyond one of the two closed doors opening off the hall, or perhaps they have run up the wide stairway straight ahead. Meg opens the right-hand door and steps into almost-dark. Behind her, the door closes soundlessly. The only light comes through the narrow spaces around the drawn shades.
Meg stands very still, suddenly aware that there are dozens—no, hundreds of eyes peering at her from the dark. They are all around her and above her, too. At first she’s too frightened to move. The eyes seem to draw closer. Then she looks down and screams. She’s standing toe to toe with two monstrous hairy feet. They are huge, clawed and evil-looking.
She leaps backward, hitting her head against the closed door. Frantically she fumbles for the doorknob, finds it at last. She rushes out into the hall and slams the door behind her, whimpering with terror. When she turns around, a tall, thin, gray-haired man is watching her. He says nothing, but he opens the door across the hall and gestures to her to go through it with him.
I’d rather die! Meg thinks.
And wakes up.
Coming back from a real dream was like stepping into a theater lobby after an exciting film. Meg looked at the flowered paper on her bedroom walls, the curtains hanging limp in the sunlight, the picture Steffi had made for her and taped to the bureau mirror. She touched her face with exploring fingers and rubbed her eyes as if she could rub away the pictures of the last few minutes. It was impossible.
That’s the worst part, not being able to say, “Oh, well, it’s just a dream.” She knew it was more than that. Tomorrow or the next day or some day after that, this dream would come true.
The sheet was twisted around her legs. Meg kicked her way free and found her dream book in its hiding place under her T-shirts in the bottom bureau drawer. There was a ballpoint pen clipped to the cover. She crawled back into bed and began to write a description of the dream while all the details were fresh in her mind.
The old house … the children disappearing inside … the eyes staring at her from the darkness. The huge, hairy feet almost touching her own! This was more than a dream; it was a nightmare. And the worst part had been the ending. The tall, thin, gray-haired man in the hall had been a terrible shock, partly because Meg hadn’t expected anyone to be there, and partly because he’d looked at her with such a strange, pleading expression. She shuddered, remembering how he’d opened the door on the opposite wall and motioned her into gaping blackness. The thought that all of this was actually going to happen again—that this time she might be forced to pass through that open door—frightened her badly.
She had to get up, move around. After tucking the dream book safely back in its drawer, Meg pulled on yellow shorts and a yellow shirt with SAVE THE WHALES lettered across the front. Then she tiptoed down the hall to see if Steffi was safe in her bed. I wish Rhoda was here, she thought. If Steffi’s gone and I have to go looking for her right now—if the dream is going to start coming true this minute—I just don’t think I can stand it all alone!
She opened Steffi’s door a crack and peeked in. The little girl slept soundly in a nest of Raggedy Ann-printed sheets. Her favorite teddy bear, wearing a baby bonnet and a blue diaper, was cradled in one arm.
Meg tiptoed back down the hall to the bathroom. She was trembling with relief. I’m not going to let Steffi out of my sight all day, she decided. If I stay close to her, maybe I can keep the dream from happening.
At the top of the stairs she hesitated. Someone was talking downstairs. The voice was low, and at first she didn’t recognize it. Then she realized it was Mrs. Larsen who was speaking. She sounded sad and angry.
Meg knew she shouldn’t eavesdrop, but she couldn’t make herself move. Mrs. Larsen was always cheerful! Not since that first day, when she’d scolded Caleb for moping, had she ever sounded troubled or unhappy.
“—can’t believe a son of mine would do such a thing! Fighting … breaking things … whatever got into you?”
There was a pause, and then Caleb said something. He sounded angry, too.
Mrs. Larsen cut his reply short. “I really don’t care what Les Machen said. That’s not the point. It’s what you say and do that I care about. People can always make life miserable for you if you let them, Caleb. But you don’t have to let them! I’ve told you that a hundred times.”
There was a longer silence. Meg held her breath. She could imagine Caleb, his handsome face sullen, rejecting every word his mother said.
“Don’t you think I hear my share of that kind of nasty talk?” Mrs. Larsen asked, and now her tone was more gentle. “Less mother is one of the worst, but there are others. Every time I buy a new dress, I wonder if people are saying, ‘Look at her—she’s starting to spend the bank money her husband stashed away.’ When we bought the pickup, Mrs. Machen actually told me she wouldn’t have thought it possible that we could afford two cars. You have to ignore that kind of talk, dear. Laugh it off. You have to!”
Caleb muttered something that sounded like “—no use.”
“Now don’t say that!” His mother was cross again. “You’re going to have to apologize to Mr. Jones for what happened in his bait shop. He wouldn’t have called me if he wasn’t very upset. And if there was any damage done, you’ll have to pay for it yourself. I’m not going to cover the cost when you can’t control your temper.”
The screen door slammed, and heavy footsteps
thudded down the back steps. Meg darted into the bathroom. Poor Caleb, she thought. Les Machen must have made it sound as if what happened at the store had been entirely Caleb’s fault. Not that she blamed Mr. Jones for being disgusted if he came back to find the floor littered with those horrible leeches! Still, he should have waited to hear Caleb’s side of the story before complaining to Mrs. Larsen. It was easy to see why Caleb could hardly wait to leave Trevor behind him.
When she went downstairs, Mrs. Larsen was in the kitchen making a sandwich for her lunch. Caleb was gone.
“Good morning, Meg. You look as if you picked up some more tan yesterday, even if you didn’t bring home any fish.”
“I guess I’m not much of a fisher-person,” Meg admitted. “But I loved being out on the lake. It was really peaceful.”
“It’s that, all right.” Mrs. Larsen’s smile was warm. “It would do us all some good to take a day like that every couple of weeks. Enjoying the outdoors helps a person remember what’s really important.”
Meg went to the cupboard and began taking out dishes.
“Just set places for you and your dad and Granny Tate and Steffi,” Mrs. Larsen told her. “Caleb ate earlier—with me.” Her smile faded briefly, then returned. “We had things to talk about, and breakfast seemed like a good time to get them out of the way.” She wrapped her sandwich in waxed paper and tucked it into a neat plaid lunch box. “As long as you enjoyed the lake so much, why don’t you ask Caleb to take you fishing again sometime soon? He loves to fish, and he ought to do it more often. He forgets how lucky he is to live in this part of the country.”
Meg brought cereal and milk to the table and slipped bread into the four-slice toaster. She didn’t answer because she didn’t know what to say. A girl didn’t just tell a boy she wanted to be taken on a fishing trip—at least, Meg didn’t. Mrs. Larsen ought to know that. But suddenly Meg was eager to talk to Caleb for a different reason. If she described the old house in her dream, maybe he could tell her where it was and what weird and terrifying things went on there. He would certainly be interested in the tall, thin man with the young face and gray hair.
“Where’s Caleb now?”
“Out in the garden doing some weeding before it gets too hot.” Mrs. Larsen looked wary. “He might be a little grumpy this early in the morning, dear, but just pretend not to notice. If he’s owly, he’ll get over it. You go ahead and talk to him about a fishing trip, and I’ll call you when the others come down for breakfast.”
The backyard was long and narrow and smelled of sweetpeas and freshly cut grass. Meg stood in the shade of the maple tree, where Steffi and Astrid usually played house, and looked down the path to the garden. There was something distinctly unfriendly about the set of Caleb’s shoulders as he moved back and forth among the neat green rows. His back was to the house, but even at this distance Meg could see that his neck was an angry red.
She started down the walk, clearing her throat a couple of times to let him know she was there.
“Hi, Caleb.”
“Hi.” It was close to a growl.
Meg hesitated at the edge of the garden. She was probably foolish even to try to talk to him about her dream right now. Yet he’d been tremendously excited about her last dream—the one he’d decided was about himself and his dad—and he’d wanted to read the dream book. Hearing about the old house and the gray-haired man might take his mind off Les Machen and Mr. Jones for a while.
“I had another dream last night,” she started uncertainly. “A real one.”
Caleb leaned on the hoe in an elaborate pantomime of patience. “So?”
“So I thought … Well, if you don’t want to hear it—”
“I don’t!” The pretense of patience vanished. “I just want to be by myself, okay? I wish people would stop nagging me!”
Nagging? Meg retreated rapidly. She couldn’t go back to the kitchen; Mrs. Larsen would guess that Caleb had been rude, and the scolding would start all over again. She scurried around the side of the house, climbed the porch steps, and threw herself into the big swing.
The vinyl cushion cooled her burning cheeks. Nagging! Caleb made her feel as if she were five years old and the worst pest in the world.
Everyone has a bad day once in a while. That was what Rhoda would say if she were here, but then, Rhoda was careful never to expect too much from anybody. Meg pushed the forgiving words out of her mind and hit the cushion with her fist.
She ought to go right back out there and punch him. He didn’t have any right to blame his troubles on her. He had a wicked temper and his manners were terrible and—
—and he has a lot on his mind, Meggie. How would you feel if people kept hinting that you were a thief?
Meg stopped hitting the cushion. Okay, okay, she answered the Rhoda-voice. But I’m still mad at him.
Meg sighed and stood up. Rhoda had to understand that Caleb might look like a storybook hero, but he acted like—like a little kid. He could be very nice, and he could be prickly as a porcupine. He was complicated!
Like everyone else, Rhoda said, having the last word, as usual.
11
“You should have taken me with you,” Steffi said. “I know how to catch fish.”
“I bet you do.” Mr. Korshak patted the little girl’s hand. “Next time we’ll take you along. You see, Meg and I haven’t been together much for a long time, so we had lots of things to talk about.”
“What things?”
“Oh, a whole list,” Mr. Korshak said vaguely. “You’re a good girl not to make a fuss.”
Steffi, who had obviously planned to make a fuss, looked confused. Meg ate her cereal and listened to the conversation with interest. It made her more certain than ever that her father had expected to use their time on the lake to tell her he was going to marry Mrs. Larsen. He’d lost his nerve at the last minute, but that was what he had planned.
“I wanted to go,” Steffi insisted.
Mr. Korshak looked at Meg. “Just think how much Astrid would have missed you,” she offered. “Besides, you’d have been bored, Steffi. We sat in the boat for hours and hours.”
“I wouldn’t have minded. I like sitting.” Steffi slid out of her chair and headed toward the back door. “Astrid and I are going to play house,” she announced. “You can play with us if you want to, Meg.”
“Steffi, wait a minute.” Meg tried to sound casual and failed. “Did Mrs. Tate say you could go outside before she came downstairs?”
“She has a headache,” Steffi reported. “It’s a very bad one. She said we could play in the backyard till she gets up, and then we’ll go for a walk with our babies.”
Meg sat back, aware that her father was watching her curiously. “Don’t worry about Steffi, Meg,” he advised. “She’s an independent little thing.”
Meg had no good reason to insist that Steffi play indoors, especially if Caleb was still working in the garden. She promised herself that as soon as her father went upstairs to write, she’d go out on the porch where she could watch the little girls every minute.
If only she could talk to her father about that dream! But he wouldn’t want to hear about it, she knew that. You make life more difficult than it already is, he’d told her once. A good imagination can scare you to death if you let it.
“That’s another thing about living in a small town,” he said now, complacently. “Kids are safe in Trevor.”
Maybe, Meg thought. Maybe not. She wished her father good luck with his writing and busied herself washing dishes and wiping the vinyl table cover. Then she gathered up a mystery book, a box of stationery, and a pen, and hurried out to the back porch.
Astrid had already arrived. The children had carried cartons from the garage, and these were arranged under the maple tree, serving as cupboards, cradles, and cars. Caleb was gone, and so was the pickup.
Meg settled on the top step and opened the box of stationery. She’d write to Rhoda first, and then to Bill. She couldn’t write to her mother
because she didn’t have an address. By this time she and Uncle Bill would have left New York City and would be in Pittsburgh visiting the rest of the family. Probably their mother called Meg’s brother regularly, counting on him to relay news and greetings.
… wish you were here—you and Bill. Trevor’s a pretty town and the Larsens are nice people, but, boy, do I miss you! I’ve had this really scary dream, and I can’t talk to anybody here about it. And—this is weird—Caleb’s dad, who’s been dead for years, keeps showing up in my dreams. Crazy, huh?… And besides all that, I have a feeling that my dad and Mrs. Larsen—
She crumpled the letter into a tight ball. It was no use; writing down her fears and suspicions was too painful. She’d have to wait till she got home to share what was happening in Trevor. For now, a quick note would have to do, with just a hint of the many important things there would be to talk about when they were together again.
She’d finished Rhoda’s letter and begun one to Bill when Mrs. Tate appeared at the back door. She was very pale, but she said she felt a little better, and she thanked Meg for keeping an eye on Steffi.
“We’ll go for a long walk after lunch,” Mrs. Tate said. “I’ll be fine by then.”
But at lunchtime she was lying down again, this time on a couch in the living room. Caleb returned, and he and Meg took sandwich makings from the refrigerator and poured glasses of milk. They didn’t speak. Meg wondered if his still-sullen expression meant that he’d driven out to the bait shop to apologize to Mr. Jones.
At twelve-thirty, Mr. Korshak came downstairs. He looked glum, too, and Meg guessed that the writing had not gone smoothly that morning. What a cheerful group we are! she thought—Caleb like a thundercloud, Granny Tate still pale and miserable, and her father’s mind obviously on his work upstairs.
Only Steffi was her usual bubbling self. “When we play house, I’m the mama and Astrid is the grandma,” she said. No father, Meg noted. Steffi couldn’t remember what it was like to have one, and Astrid’s parents were divorced.
A Ghost in the Window Page 7