Yesternight

by Cat Winters

  Miss Simpkin hugged her arms around herself and breathed through her nose. “What is the test regarding?”

  “Kansas geography. I’m curious if any other towns in the state mean anything to Janie.”

  “And what will that prove?”

  “It will show us how real Kansas is to her. Also, I’m conducting research to see if the Sundays actually exist.”

  “How are you conducting such research?”

  “By writing letters to Kansas.” I closed the record booklet sitting open on the table, not wanting any of my work on display. “You don’t know what a risk this is for me, investigating the case of a potential past life. When you first told me of Janie’s stories, I honestly wanted to laugh at its preposterousness. I knew I could never seriously go down that path if I wanted to keep my credibility.”

  Miss Simpkin’s stance relaxed. “Are . . . are you now saying that you believe this to be a case of reincarnation?”

  “Not just yet. However, I will say, at this point, I believe in the plausibility of reincarnation. I want to either rule out the theory so we can stop getting distracted by its glamour—or prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Janie genuinely remembers a life lived decades ago in Kansas.”

  Miss Simpkin fussed with the collar of her blouse. “As you well know, Rebecca wouldn’t ever allow you to put Janie on display at any lectures.”

  “I can’t give lectures about reincarnation,” I said with a curt laugh. “I’m struggling to be taken seriously as a woman in this field. If I’m suddenly a woman who’s also spouting out psychical theories, I’ll be laughed straight out of psychology.”

  “Then why are you doing this?”

  “To help a troubled child—which is what the Department of Education pays me to do. I have no ulterior motives, and I’m most certainly not conspiring with Michael O’Daire to turn Janie into a profitable celebrity. I don’t think that’s what he wants either.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Quite.” I rubbed my arms, which grew cold from a draft. “I know what it’s like to be haunted by one’s past, Tillie. I would love to free Janie of whatever it is that’s perturbing her and let her live her life as just Janie.”

  “May I do the geography test now?” asked a small voice that came from behind Miss Simpkin.

  The schoolteacher put a hand to her neck and spun around.

  In the entryway to the classroom stood little Janie, hanging on to the doorframe. The stoic expression of her little rosebud lips conveyed no indication as to whether she’d just heard our conversation.

  “May I?” she asked, her eyes focused on her aunt.

  “Do you feel like taking another test with Miss Lind?”

  Janie nodded.

  “Well . . .” Miss Simpkin lowered her hand to her side. “All right, then. As long as it doesn’t take too much time away from the other children’s evaluations . . .”

  “The test will be brief,” I assured her. “Thank you for allowing Janie to take it.”

  Miss Simpkin laid her right hand over the breadth of Janie’s head in a nurturing gesture. A protective gesture. After a brief peek back at me—her eyes pleading with me to avoid stirring up controversy—she returned to her pupils.

  I pulled out the chair reserved for the subjects of my examinations. “Please, have a seat, Janie.”

  The child did as I asked, and I took my own seat on the other side of the table, in front of the record booklet, below five winter coats that smelled like leaky basements.

  I clasped my hands together in my lap and sat up tall. “Janie, I don’t know how much you heard of our conversation just now. I was telling your aunt how badly I want to help you to understand—to help you get rid of—these nightmares you keep experiencing. The drowning dreams.”

  Janie reached out and grabbed a nearby pencil. Using the tips of her fingers, she rolled it back and forth on the tabletop.

  “Have you been having such dreams for a long time?” I asked.

  Without looking at me, she nodded. The pencil’s ridges whirred against the table’s surface.

  “I’ve heard that your dreams take place in Kansas, which is so interesting to me because I used to be drawn to that state myself. Have you ever been to Kansas?”

  She inhaled a long breath and then nodded yes.

  “Oh?” I asked. “Recently?”

  She shook her head. No.

  “And you’re certain you’ve never read L. Frank Baum’s books about Kansas and Oz?” I asked. “Or did your mother or father ever read them to you?”

  Another headshake.

  “They definitely haven’t?”

  The pencil slipped from her fingers and dropped to the ground. Janie leaned over and picked it up with a weighty sigh—the first sound to emerge from her mouth since she had asked her aunt about the test. She then sat upright and fiddled with the pencil again.

  I tugged my list of Kansas cities out of the record book. “Janie”—I laid out the sheet in front of her—“I’ve listed various names on this piece of paper. Can you tell me if any of these words mean anything to you and the time you spent in Kansas?”

  She made a sputtering sound with her lips, as though my question taxed her patience. Little bubbles of spit showered the paper.

  Yet again, she shook her head no.

  “I’m getting the distinct impression that you’re not speaking to me at all.” I offered her a smile that I hoped conveyed warmth. “Is your voice playing hide-and-seek with me today?”

  She wiggled up to a straighter position in her chair and darted her gaze around the table, seemingly in search of something. She lifted the pencil in a position that indicated that she wanted to write with it.

  “Here.” I flipped over the paper in front of her. “You may write on the back of this page if you’d like.”

  With her left hand cupped in front of the paper to block my view of it, she leaned over and jotted something down. I folded my hands on the table and waited without a word. Out in the main classroom, Miss Simpkin questioned the children about “Hiawatha.” Someone snored in the back row, on the other side of the cloakroom wall.

  Janie lowered her hand and angled the paper so that I might read her words.

  Mommy says no matter what I mustn’t talk to you.

  “Ah,” I said, and my stomach squirmed over the idea of disobeying a mother’s wishes.

  And yet, I persevered.

  I turned the paper back over to the list of towns. “Would you please, then, circle the names that mean something to you.”

  Janie put the eraser end of the pencil to her mouth and chewed on the metal band with her back left molars. The fillings in my own molars sang with pain from the remembered sensation of biting down on metal that very same way.

  “If any of the names make you feel something,” I added, “whether it is a good or a bad sensation, please specify which ones they are with just a little circle or a check mark.”

  Her attention strayed to the window, streaked and speckled from the rains. She tapped the heels of her shoes against the floor. The bottoms of my own feet vibrated from her movements.

  “Janie?” I asked. “Do any of the names strike you as having a personal meaning? Are there any names that you like more than the others?”

  She shifted her attention back to the paper and scribbled down another note.

  I thought this was a geography test.

  “It—it is,” I told her, again smiling. “These are all the names of geographical places. I want to see what you know about them. Can you tell me about any of them?”

  She simply stared at the names and blew air through her lips in a way that rustled her bangs. I began to wonder if she had ever before seen the names of any other Kansas town besides Friendly. I also fretted that this exercise was a pointless use of time. The test seemed to be going nowhere, and I felt an imbecile for creating it.

  “Why don’t you simply circle the names you like best?” I asked, struggling with all of my migh
t not to influence her responses with my wording—to avoid creating significance where none actually existed.

  With her other hand back in place to shield her response, Janie bent over and circled a name. The tip of her pencil squeaked against the paper as she did so. Next, she raised the pencil and let it hover over each ensuing word, her eyes moving back and forth. Little shots of anticipation tingled at the top of my spine.

  She circled a second name, studied her work, and then let me see the results.

  The towns she marked: Kansas City and Yesternight.

  I furrowed my brow. Yesternight was one of the towns I had made up.

  The child inserted the end of the pencil back between her teeth.

  “Janie”—I cleared my throat—“would you please now write a short note next to those two names, explaining why you like them?”

  She bent over the paper once again, her hair swinging forward, brushing the sides of her chin. The purple ribbon drooped down to a spot just above her right ear.

  Once she finished with her notes, I craned my neck to read her explanations.

  For Kansas City, she wrote, It has the word Kansas in it. I like that.

  For Yesternight, she said, Pretty name.

  “Splendid,” I said, though unimpressed with the inconclusive findings. Clearly, the girl continued to be drawn to Kansas. She also liked my choice of an imaginary town name. That was all.

  “Are you extremely bored by this test?” I asked.

  Her lips crept into a cockeyed grin, and she nodded.

  “Would you like to go back to your seat?”

  She shrugged.

  “May I ask you another question that has to do with a number, not geography?”

  To that inquiry, she replied with a vigorous nod.

  “What is your favorite number?”

  Without hesitating, she wrote, 23.

  “Why twenty-three?” I asked.

  She wrote, My birthday is June 23.

  “Aha! I see. A good choice for a favorite number. And”—I crossed my legs—“what is a number you absolutely don’t like?”

  Her eyes shot up with a look of betrayal. A scowl crossed her face.

  “Now you’re glaring at me,” I said. “Can you tell me how you felt when I asked you that question?”

  “Did Aunt Tillie already tell you?” she asked aloud.

  Her voice startled me so terribly, I banged a knee against the table.

  “Your father was the one who first made me aware that a certain number bothers you,” I said, rubbing the knee. “I learned that you associate the number with drowning. Do you know what ‘associate’ means?”

  Janie lowered her face toward the paper without writing anything down. An invisible weight pressed down on her thin shoulders, and the shadow of her head seeped across the page. I wondered whether she saw the number eight written across all of the blank spaces on the paper. I envisioned a repressed memory heaving itself against the closed door within her head, the wood shaking, the locks clanking, rattling, loosening . . .

  “Are you able to write the number down, Janie?” I asked, softening my voice.

  She positioned the sharp tip of the pencil over the paper another time. After a long and languid blink of her eyes, using thick, dark loops of lead, she wrote the number.

  8

  I sat as still as stone to keep from twitching. “Why does that number bother you so?”

  Below the digit, she wrote, I don’t know.

  I then launched upon an entire series of verbal questions, which she followed immediately with handwritten answers.

  “Do you see the number eight in your dreams about drowning?”

  Yes.

  “Do you see it written somewhere?”

  On glass.

  “Is it on a window? Or a mirror?”

  I don’t know.

  “And is there anyone else in these dreams? Someone besides you?”

  Yes.

  “Who?”

  A man.

  “What is his name? Do you know?”

  Her eyes went bloodshot. She balled her left hand into a fist, which she used to hold down one side of the paper. Her right hand held the pencil above the remaining empty corner of the page. She released a breath, sending a shiver of a breeze across the edges of the sheet.

  I leaned forward, watching, my own lips parting.

  Janie lowered the lead to the paper and penned a single letter.

  N

  Immediately afterward, she lifted the pencil’s tip back into the air and gawked at what she had just written, as if she, herself, were waiting for another letter to manifest. The purple hair bow slid another half inch closer to her ear.

  She returned the pencil to the page and scratched out a second letter.

  E

  My heart galloped. Without drawing too much attention, I grabbed the table and waited for the name of “the man in the other house” to reveal itself. Ned, perhaps? Neville? Neal? Nevan? The key to the trauma in Janie’s past glided into the lock of her closed mental door; I could almost hear the clicking of cylinders and gears. I would pry open the massive, smothering barrier of memory repression for this poor child.

  Without a sound, the nib of the pencil returned to the paper. Janie wrote a third letter.

  L

  She set the pencil aside, flopped against the back of the chair, and exhaled a grunt of exhaustion.

  NEL, she had written.

  I turned the paper toward me to make sure I read it correctly.

  Yes, N-E-L.

  “N-N-Nel?” I asked, and blood drained from my cheeks. My lips lost all sensation. “Are . . . are you sure?”

  She nodded, and her eyes fluttered closed.

  Next to my left foot sat my black leather briefcase, and tucked within that briefcase sat the telegram from my sister, to which she had written, MY DEAR NELL.

  My nickname since childhood.

  Nell.

  I shook my head, unsure how to even speak another word when such a distressing—and yet such an asinine—hypothesis blazed through my mind.

  What if I was the man in the other house? I found myself wondering, of all the foolish things. What if I hit Violet Sunday over the head with a blunt object—such as a hammer, or a branch—and pushed her into a lake to hide her body?

  What if that’s what’s been wrong with me all along?

  I covered my mouth and forced myself to remain composed.

  “Nel?” I asked again, and my own nickname caused me to shudder with a spasm that hurt my neck.

  Janie did not nod that time. Her eyes remained shut, and she breathed as though sleeping.

  “And what does Nel look like?” I asked.

  “Brown hair,” she said, again giving me a jolt with the unexpected reawakening of her voice. “Golden eyes.” She lifted her lashes and focused on my own brown hair and golden-brown eyes. “Handsome. He sounds English. Or Danish.”

  I almost laughed in relief at that last comment. At the moment, the confusion over an English and a Danish accent sounded so comical—so utterly unrelated to me.

  “I’ve never actually heard a Danish accent,” I admitted.

  “I heard him yelling my name.”

  “Which name?”

  “He said, ‘Violet, Violet, Violet!’”

  “How did you end up in the lake?”

  She leaned her elbows against the table and sunk her cheeks into her hands.

  “Janie?” I asked. “Do you know how you ended up in the water?”

  She picked up the pencil, and with her left cheek cradled in her palm, she wrote a figure over and over and over at the bottom edge of the paper:

  8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

  “Did someone hurt you?” I asked, leaning closer, the bottoms of my toes pressed hard against the floor of my shoes. “Do you remember someone hurting you?”

  She growled from deep in the bottom of her throat, and with a single stroke of her pencil, she dashed a line throug
h all of those eights. The force of the lead ripped the paper.

  “Janie?” I asked.

  She shot to her feet, and the chair crashed to the floor behind her. “No one will take me to Kansas,” she said through her teeth, her hands braced against the table. “Not Michael O’Daire, not Rebecca, not frustrating Miss Simpkin—so I am never going to remember what happened. Unless you can take me there yourself, Miss Lind, don’t ever ask me again.”

  She knocked the paper to the ground and stormed out of the cloakroom.

  CHAPTER 15

  At lunchtime, Janie grabbed her tin lunch pail and skipped outside with the rest of her classmates as though nothing were amiss. Through the chilled and frosted window, I observed her chatting and laughing with two other girls, the three of them perched on a log that looked to have been a spruce, their legs and boots swinging, hair bows flapping, their breaths crystallizing in the air.

  Janie’s aunt ate her own lunch in a sphere of blissful silence at her desk in the empty classroom. She flipped through a magazine, McClure’s, and looked as relaxed as can be, until my footsteps disturbed the calm.

  A shadow crossed her face. She closed McClure’s and asked, “How did your chat with Janie go?”

  I smoothed out my coat, which I’d slung over my left arm. “She wasn’t keen on discussing Kansas with me.”

  Miss Simpkin nodded, as though she expected that answer.

  “Has she ever mentioned Kansas City?” I asked.

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Do you know of anyone named Nel?”

  The schoolteacher dabbed her face with a napkin and contemplated my question. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Janie claims to have known a man by that name. She said he had brown hair and amber eyes, and he spoke with an accent that might have been English or Danish.”

  Miss Simpkin tried to smile, but the expression made her eyes moisten. “I can’t think of her ever meeting anyone English or Danish.”

  “There wasn’t even a Nels or a Nelson?”

  “I’m getting so nervous that you are, indeed, seeing Janie as an insane child.” She held the napkin against her bottom lip. “Despite what you just said about the possibility of reincarnation, after what you witnessed the other night, after hearing all of her strange ramblings, I’m so worried what you might think of her.”