Now You See Me ...

by Jane B. Mason

  “I’ll get us a little something. Then we can talk,” Mrs. Henson said. She shuffled in her house shoes to the kitchen and began to rummage around.

  Sinking down beside Abby, Lena felt her friend’s body tense. Abby was ready to make a break for it. And, Lena realized, now might be their only chance. Mrs. Henson was busy and in another room, and Lena was still holding the yellow duffel.

  A back door at the other end of the parlor looked as though it opened onto a small yard on the side street. It probably wouldn’t be difficult to get away, and Lena could tell from Abby’s caged-animal expression that she desperately wanted to escape.

  But Abby had promised to devote one day — today — to this haunting craziness. And they were so close. Lena had to stay, had to do everything she could to get to the bottom of this mess. For herself. And for Robbie.

  “I’m sorry if I startled you when I grabbed the bag,” Mrs. Henson called from the kitchen. “I’ve been a little rattled ever since I sold you that camera. Even after all these years it’s hard to let Robbie’s things go. I’ve already lost so much….” Her voice trailed off, punctuated by the clatter of dishes.

  Lena and Abby were silent. The bag on Lena’s lap was still zipped, and it took all of her restraint not to open it and peek inside — the clue they needed could be inches away. But it wasn’t hers. Not yet.

  “He had it with him when he fell,” Mrs. Henson said matter-of-factly. Lena felt goose bumps rise on her arm as the woman appeared in the doorway with a tray of glasses and some juice. “The police gave the bag and the camera to his mother, but she couldn’t keep them, so she left them here.”

  Mrs. Henson set the juice on the table and sat down across from them in a sagging wingback chair that had once been a bright royal blue. “I didn’t even realize that old camera was out there.” She gestured to the door that led to the shop out front. “Since I live and work in the same house, things seem to spill over from one side to the other.”

  The girls could have guessed as much. The living room, though small, looked a lot like the store — filled with knickknacks, porcelain figures, and spice tins old enough to be antiques — the kind of stuff that could be treasure or junk depending on your point of view.

  A few dusty photos sat on a bookshelf, reminding Lena of why they had come back to Phelps. And it suddenly occurred to her that the bag was not the only place to look for clues. Essential information might be locked in Mrs. Henson’s memory.

  “Mrs. Henson? Can I show you something?” Lena asked timidly. She reached into her messenger bag and pulled out the Polaroid pictures.

  Ignoring Lena’s question, Mrs. Henson brought up what had clearly been on her own mind since the mention of her grandson. “How do you know about Robbie, anyway?” she asked, squinting at the girls. “He was about your age when he … passed away, but that was probably before you were even born. He would be twenty-five this November the fourth.”

  “Well, we saw his pictures,” Abby explained, being intentionally vague.

  Lena cut to the chase. She held out the photos she had taken, the ones with Robbie in them. “These,” she said. She laid them out in order, noticing again how Robbie’s image became clearer — more in focus — with each shot.

  Mrs. Henson put on her reading glasses and took a close look at the images.

  “But Robbie …” She looked at the girls, clearly bewildered. “He can’t be …” Her eyes welled with tears.

  “We know,” Lena replied gently. “It’s sort of crazy, but he keeps showing up in my pictures. I think … I think he might be haunting us.”

  Mrs. Henson stared at Lena for a long time, her dark eyes boring right into her. Lena shivered slightly but held the woman’s gaze. A single tear slid down Ruth’s wrinkled cheek.

  “He was a good soul,” she finally whispered. “Just misunderstood. And terribly shy. I think that’s why he liked his camera so much — it put a little distance between him and the world. He was always happiest when he was behind it.”

  “He doesn’t really seem —” Abby interrupted, but Lena nudged her to keep quiet. Mrs. Henson was on a roll, and it would be best to just let her keep talking.

  “After his father left, he stopped smiling. He stopped trusting people, I think. And that made it even harder for him to make friends. He even told me once that he didn’t need friends — just his camera.” She shook her head. “Of course that wasn’t enough.”

  Lena pretended to drink her juice. Abby did the same, and Mrs. Henson got up and walked over to a tall, painted bookshelf against the wall. She ran a wrinkled finger along a row of brown vinyl photo albums, clearly looking for a particular one.

  Above the shelf was a small window with a deep sill. The sun streamed through the glass, catching the light of tiny, colored bottles arranged across it. The bottles stood side by side, pressed close together, with an odd gap here and there where a bottle might have fallen or been removed.

  Mrs. Henson sat down and began to flip through the album. Abby craned her neck for a peek, but Lena’s eyes kept darting back to the collection of bottles on the windowsill.

  “This isn’t the one.” Mrs. Henson got up to retrieve another album, slipping the first one back onto the shelf.

  Though she tried to resist, Lena found herself raising the camera toward the light and snapping a shot of the bottles. Abby looked at her strangely as the camera spat out a square of film. Mrs. Henson, still over by the bookshelf, didn’t seem to notice.

  “Here it is,” the woman called. She turned with a second album open to a page of family photos — Robbie in better days. There were all the typical things you would see in a family album: Robbie in diapers, Robbie and his mom at the zoo, Robbie studying a starfish with his father, and several birthdays sprinkled throughout.

  Mrs. Henson touched the photo of Robbie and his dad. “His mother never understood him, really,” she said thoughtfully. “She’s so outgoing — loves to be with people. Robbie was much more like his father, my son the wanderer,” Mrs. Henson sighed. “Always with his head in the clouds. That’s his problem — he’s a dreamer, a dreamer with restless feet.”

  Mrs. Henson turned another page and Robbie grew older. He was pictured mostly alone now, and sometimes with his mom. The familiar scowl showed in each shot.

  “Marie did the best she could on her own,” Mrs. Henson murmured. “But after Robbie died, she fell apart. She tried to rebuild her life here, but in the end she packed up and moved away. She felt terribly guilty, of course. And I don’t know if any mother recovers from the death of a child. But it wasn’t her fault, of course — it was a terrible accident.” Mrs. Henson’s eyes welled up again.

  Lena tried to look away, but found she couldn’t. She was staring at Mrs. Henson as she nervously twiddled the knuckle on her left hand. Lena felt nervous, too — twitchy and squirmy like she had invisible wires pulling at her, compelling her to … Once again she was not sure what the feelings wanted her to do.

  “So when did he start taking things?” Abby asked bluntly, interrupting the silence. “Was it after —”

  “What do you mean ‘when did he start’?” Mrs. Henson cut Abby off sharply. “Nobody ever proved anything!” She slammed the book shut and gave the girls a withering look. “If you’re here to bring up old charges …” Her voice was clipped and started to break. She stopped, took a breath, and started over. “Robbie wasn’t a thief, and if that’s why you’ve come, you can leave right now.” Nobody moved, though Abby looked like she wanted to.

  At last the old woman let out a breath that was half sigh and half sob and collapsed back in her chair. The anger that had quickly flared burned out just as fast, and Mrs. Henson buried her face in her hands, shaking her head. “I never believed it. I never wanted to,” she mumbled to herself.

  “Mrs. Henson, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Abby apologized. She looked helplessly at Lena, her face full of regret. “Maybe we should just forget the whole thing.”

  Le
na gulped. Her mouth was dry. The strings were pulling, and she was losing control. No, she thought desperately. Now is not the time to take a picture! But the camera was already against her eye. She aimed. She pressed the button. She captured the old woman in anguish.

  Mrs. Henson’s head snapped up with the flash and whir. Her weary eyes blazed fury. “I think you’d better go,” she snarled.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Holy moley, Lena! Talk about awkward!” Abby clutched Lena’s hand and pulled her down the cracked walkway, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Mrs. Henson wasn’t coming after them. Though it appeared they had gotten away safely, Abby didn’t slow down until the thrift store was well out of sight.

  Abby laughed nervously as they rounded a corner and stopped to breathe with their backs pressed against the red wall of a vacant brick building.

  Lena couldn’t laugh. She could barely speak. “I don’t know why I did it,” she stuttered. “I couldn’t stop it. It felt like I was possessed….”

  The Impulse still hung around her neck with the picture she took sticking out of it like a tongue, mocking her. She pulled it free. The image was even more haunting and depressing than she imagined — a close-up of a sad, defeated old woman hiding from the past behind wizened hands. Her crooked fingers spread across her face and into her gray hair like a thick web. It was a beautiful and depressing shot. Looking at it made Lena feel caught in a tangle — just like the jeweled butterfly on the ring on Mrs. Henson’s hand.

  “Hey, paparazzi. Now you’re a thief, too?” Abby pointed at the yellow duffel hanging from Lena’s shoulder. “I don’t think you paid for that.”

  Lena shrugged off the shoulder strap and stared. “I … I didn’t. I just took it. I couldn’t leave without it….”

  “Holy moley,” Abby said again. “I don’t think you’re being haunted. I think you’re possessed!” She looked up and down the essentially deserted street before pulling Lena through the door of the abandoned building.

  Hiding in the dusty darkness, Lena felt like a fugitive. “We can give it back,” she whispered.

  “Great.” Abby grabbed the strap and started out, obviously ready to get this business over with. “But I’m not knock —”

  Lena pulled her friend back by the other strap. “No. I mean after we have a look inside.”

  Abby’s big brown eyes got even bigger in a silent plea. “But that’s breaking and entering. Or snooping. Or something. Something bad,” she said. “That bag is stolen property.”

  Lena knew Abby was right. But now that she had the bag, she had no choice but to look inside. It was the reason they’d come to Phelps in the first place. “If we give it back, it’s only borrowed,” she rationalized. Abby didn’t look convinced, but didn’t say anything else.

  The two dropped to their knees beside the duffel. Lena tugged at the closure. The zipper echoed like a freight train in the silent building, and Lena nervously reached inside and began to feel around.

  One by one she laid the bag’s contents on the concrete floor and tried to ward off a wave of disappointment. There wasn’t much: an Impulse instruction manual, a school ID, a tattered sketchbook, and a battered tin decorated to look like a treasure chest. Her heart thudding, Lena opened the tin. It was empty.

  She swallowed, trying to push down her feeling of defeat.

  “Now can we go?” Abby asked impatiently, popping up to stick her head out the door. “All this illegal activity is kind of freaking me out.”

  “Yeah, we can go,” Lena said. She shoved the items back into the bag, pausing with the sketchbook in her hand. She hadn’t opened it yet. Flipping it to the first page, she thumbed through. “Maybe we should hang on to this,” she said so quietly that Abby didn’t hear. She didn’t know if she could justify keeping it if her friend protested.

  The “illegal activity,” as Abby called it, was freaky, but it didn’t hold a candle to being haunted. Lena pushed the notebook into her own bag. Zipping the duffel shut, she got to her feet and followed Abby into the daylight.

  A few minutes later the girls were closing in on Ruth’s Thrift, their pace slowing in unison.

  “I say we drop it on the porch and run,” Abby suggested. “No sense in upsetting Mrs. Henson any more than we already have.”

  “But what if somebody else takes off with it?” Lena was the one who took the bag; it was her responsibility to make sure it got back … with most of its contents. “I’ll do it,” she offered.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll go with you,” Abby agreed, making it sound like Lena was twisting her arm.

  They walked the rest of the way in silence. Lena’s mind was spinning. They knew more about Robbie than ever, but still had no idea why he was haunting her. What did he need help with?

  “Look! It’s closed.” Abby practically crowed as they turned up the path. A crooked sign hung in the window. “We’re in luck!”

  While Abby rejoiced, Lena felt her chest tighten. Closed. Apparently, she’d upset Mrs. Henson more than she thought — so much that the woman had closed up shop for the day.

  Abby hung back on the path, waiting for Lena to drop the bag on the doorstep so they could go.

  “I’ll just knock,” Lena said. “In case.” She raised her fist and struck the door once.

  It immediately opened with a jerk. Lena’s heart jumped into her throat when she saw Mrs. Henson. Her eyes were red and the look on her face was terrifying.

  “I’m sorry, I …” Lena held out the bag, unsure of what to say.

  Mrs. Henson grabbed it and clutched it close. Her eyes were locked on Lena’s face, but Lena couldn’t stop staring at the woman’s hands.

  “Your ring. What happened to your ring?” she asked. The butterfly ring she had seen in the picture was not on Mrs. Henson’s hand. But as soon as the question had been asked, Lena realized that she’d never actually seen it on Mrs. Henson’s finger. It had never been there at all — it was only in the picture!

  Touching the spot above her knuckle where the jeweled butterfly ring had perched in the photo, Mrs. Henson looked startled … and angry. “I’ve heard enough of your accusations,” she spat. “Robbie never would have taken that. Never. His father gave it to me when — oh, why can’t you leave him alone? Just let it go!”

  She slammed the door hard, forcing Lena to take a step back off the small stoop. The woman’s final, angry words echoed in Lena’s head. Just let it go!

  Lena swallowed hard, her eyes welling with tears. If only she could!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Shuffling toward the bus back to Narrowsburg, Lena realized that she actually felt worse than she had that morning — a feat she hadn’t thought possible. In the last six hours she had taken off without telling her parents where she was going, upset an old woman — twice — and stolen a duffel bag and a sketchbook. And she wasn’t any closer to figuring out what Robbie needed or, more importantly, how to get him to stop haunting her!

  Lena dragged her feet in the dust beside the road, kicking up brown clouds to match her mood. Abby was uncharacteristically quiet beside her. Everything about her demeanor screamed that she was over the search, the hunt, the haunt … all of it.

  “Last bus comes in ten minutes,” Abby announced, consulting the bus schedule mounted on a signpost at the corner. She turned to lean on the post and pointed across the intersection. “Hey, look.”

  On the other side of the street, a shaggy-looking teenager was selling late-season raspberries out of the back of his truck. It was the same one they’d seen in Narrowsburg two days before, the one with bottle caps glued mosaic-style all over its metal body. The one that Robbie had “appeared” in.

  Lena and Abby crossed the street to get a closer look. While Abby fished around in her pockets for berry money, Lena felt herself leaning in to study the truck.

  “These are the last of the season,” the berry seller called to them.

  “How much?” Abby asked.

  Lena barely heard them. The pickup
was a marvel, with every inch covered. Now that she was seeing it up close, Lena noticed that it was plastered with more than just bottle caps. There were bits of tile, mirror, and colored glass as well as tiny plastic animals affixed here and there.

  “Where do you get all this stuff?” Abby asked as Lena rounded the front.

  “On the ground,” the guy replied with a grin. “Every bit. It’s a rule — anything I stick on has to be picked up. It’s my way of recycling.”

  Abby laughed. “I get it. It’s your ‘pick up’ truck.”

  Lena didn’t crack a smile. She was too busy looking into the truck’s cab. The seat had been recovered with some salvage scrap, and the dash was decorated with a myriad of tiny things. The stuff on the inside was more whole than the stuff on the outside. There was a plastic gecko missing a leg, PEZ dispensers, tiny race cars, and more. What held Lena’s eye were the colored glass bottles glued in a line over the glove compartment.

  “Where’d you get all of those?” Lena asked, finding her voice.

  The scruffy teen poked his head around to see what she was talking about. “Those? The bottles? I found them picking strawberries, right around here. There were a bunch of them, and some glass, too. Way out in the middle of Tower Field, I think.”

  Tower Field! Lena wanted to ask more, but right then the bus roared into view and Abby pulled her away. If they missed the bus they would have more than a little explaining to do….

  “Try one,” Abby coaxed, waving the basket of water-bottle-rinsed raspberries under Lena’s nose. They had made the bus and were safely seated in the back. “Come on. They’re soooo good. And I got him to give me two baskets for three dollars!”

  “Not hungry,” Lena mumbled. She was too wrapped up in her mixed-up thoughts to think about food. She was also a little dizzy, and the lurching bus was not helping. There were so many questions and so many clues, and still so few answers. She felt like a guinea pig on a treadmill, running around and around and getting nowhere.

  Without thinking, Lena pulled out Robbie’s sketchbook and began to flip through.