The Swallow

by Charis Cotter

  Kendrick nodded. “He went quiet. Everything was quiet. For years.”

  She gave herself a shake and seemed to notice the broken plate and the food on the floor for the first time.

  “And now you’ve come, stirring everything up again.”

  She stood up and eyed me with a return of her usual disapproval.

  “Let the dead stay dead,” she said. “Let them rest.”

  PART FOUR

  THE SECRET

  So runs my dream: but what am I?

  An infant crying in the night;

  An infant crying for the light;

  And with no language but a cry.

  ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, “IN MEMORIAM”

  DREAMING

  Polly

  That night, after I read the Ghost Girl book, I was lying in bed after lights-out. I could hear the soft rumble of Mum and Dad downstairs talking by the fire in the living room. The sound of their conversation went up and down, up and down. I dreamed I was floating on the ocean, and their voices became part of the rocking, gentle waves that rolled me along on an endless sea. I felt all my worries about Rose and the Ghost Girl and Winnie float away into the dark sea below me and the blue sky above.

  Then a bigger wave rolled me down deeper and my parents’ voices faded away. I thought I’d never reach the bottom of that wave, it was so very deep—and then somehow I must have, because I was moving upward again. This wave was so high I thought I would never reach the top—but suddenly I did, and for a moment I could see the ocean stretching on and on forever around me, and then I was heading down the other side of the steep, deep wave.

  I wasn’t scared. The ocean was rocking me, just like my mother, rocking me to sleep.

  Rose

  With everything that had happened, I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but I was so tired I went out like a light as soon as I crawled into bed. For a long time, I was just gone.

  Then I had a dream. At least, I think it was a dream. I was alone in a place with no moon, no stars. It was cold. There was a wind blowing up from far away, a low rumble that grew louder and stronger until it was roaring around me, flattening my pajamas against my legs, whipping my hair around my face. I felt large things rushing by me in the dark. Cars, maybe? But they showed no lights.

  “I’m lost,” said a voice suddenly in my ear. A sad voice, a frightened voice, a familiar voice.

  Immediately I was awake.

  “Polly?” I whispered. I actually thought she was there in the room with me, her voice had been so clear. Except—was it Polly’s voice? There was something strange about it. It could almost have been a little boy’s voice. “Willie?”

  There was no answer. It must have been very late. The house had that stillness that comes with the middle of the night. I lay there for a minute, catching my breath. My heart was pounding.

  I was scared, but I didn’t know why. I wrapped my arms around my shoulders and started rocking myself back and forth, the way I used to do when I was little and couldn’t get to sleep.

  “Mother,” I said softly, wishing she were there.

  THE HAUNTED SCHOOLYARD

  Polly

  The morning after my dream about the ocean, I couldn’t concentrate at school. I kept thinking of Winnie’s drawings of her swallow—flying over mountains, soaring over the sea, swooping up, spinning down—free. And yet, all the time when she was drawing those pictures, Winnie was cooped up in her house, year after year, unable to go to school, unable to make friends, just sitting at the window, drawing and watching for the real swallow to return to its nest every spring.

  I straggled out behind the other kids at lunchtime, not looking forward to the long walk home through the gray streets in the cold wind. By the time I reached the gate, the schoolyard was empty.

  “Hi, Polly,” said a voice right behind me, making me jump.

  I turned. Rose stood there, smiling. I don’t know where she came from. I’d have sworn she wasn’t there when I came through the gate. She was wearing that long dark cloak, and she looked like some fairy creature, with her dark, shadowed eyes and thin face.

  “Did I scare you?” she said, laughing.

  “Yes, you scared me!” I replied. “Where were you hiding?”

  “I was standing right here, and you walked by me like you were a million miles away,” said Rose. “What were you thinking about?”

  “The swallow,” I answered. “Winnie’s swallow.”

  “What swallow?” asked Rose.

  “Oh, right, you didn’t see the drawings. You ran out so fast last night. What happened? Are you okay?” Then I stopped and stared at her. “But wait a minute, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you at school? How did you get here? Why didn’t I see you?”

  I hated to bring it up again, but it was kind of spooky the way she wasn’t there and then suddenly she was there. Just like a g-h-o-s-t.

  “I don’t have school today,” she said, falling into step beside me as we went down the steps to the sidewalk and headed along Winchester Street. “There’s a teachers’ meeting or conference or something. And I was standing right here the whole time you were crossing the schoolyard. It’s not my fault you’re wandering around in a daze and didn’t see me. It doesn’t mean I’m a ghost.”

  “All right, all right,” I said. “Sorry. I’m really glad to see you. I have a lot to tell you.”

  “So do I,” she said. “Wait till you hear. I know how Winnie died. I know everything.”

  Rose

  Polly looked so startled when I spoke to her at the schoolyard gate. It was really rather funny, the way she jumped and caught her breath. Exactly as if she’d seen a ghost. I’d been waiting at the gate forever while all these kids streamed by, ignoring me. For a while I thought maybe Polly wasn’t at school that day, but then finally she appeared, huddled into her coat, walking slowly, her eyes dreamy.

  We walked home together and I told her about Winnie and my father and the bridge. I was careful to lead Polly away from the cemetery and through my alley shortcuts. Polly’s eyes were wide, and she kept jumping around whenever I got to the exciting parts and interrupting and grabbing my arm and saying, “Really?” all the time.

  “You’re going to help him, right?” said Polly when I’d finished. “You’re going to help him and Winnie so she can fly away with her swallow and …”

  Her voice died away as she saw the expression on my face.

  “Rose?” she said uncertainly. “Rose?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t speak. All I could see was that little boy, standing on the bridge with that lost, frozen expression on his face.

  Polly reached out and gave my shoulder a little pat.

  “Rose,” she said again. “It will be okay. I know it.”

  “I want to help him, Polly, I want to help him more than anything in the world, but I’m scared to. If I tell my father I see ghosts he’ll—he’ll—Polly, he won’t believe me. He’ll think I’m just like Winnie.”

  “You don’t know that, Rose. He might surprise you. Maybe all these years he’s just been waiting for someone to help him and you’re the only one who can.”

  “This could all be a trick!” I cried. “I don’t trust Winnie. She tried to kill you, and now she’s trying to get me locked up like she was going to be. She can’t stand anyone being happy. She’s bitter and twisted and—”

  “Rose, you need to see the pictures she drew of the swallow. You’ll understand her better. She must have been so lonely and unhappy, all those years in that house, with no friends, seeing ghosts all the time. It’s no wonder she got so angry.”

  “What pictures? What’s this swallow you keep talking about?” And then Polly told me.

  By that time we had reached Polly’s house and we stood shivering in the cold. I didn’t want to leave her and go back into my lonely, empty house. Polly’s eyes were bright with concern, and her cheeks were red from the cold. Wisps of hair were escaping from her hat and blowing around.

 
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t see what difference a few drawings make. Winnie’s still a crazy ghost.”

  She smiled at me.

  “I’ll bring you your grandmother’s box after lunch,” she said. “Then you can see for yourself.”

  MRS. LACEY

  Polly

  Rose was watching for me from her living room window after lunch. She waved at me to wait, and a minute later she was out on the street beside me, wrapped in her cloak.

  “Here,” I said, handing her one of my mother’s striped cotton market bags with the wooden box tucked safely inside. “I gotta run, Rose, I’m late for school. No one was home so I had to make my own sandwich. I don’t know where my mother is. But she did make a chocolate cake this morning,” I added, grinning. “I put a big hunk of it in there for you too.”

  Rose smiled. “Yes, Polly, I can see you had some chocolate cake. It’s all over your face.”

  “Ooops!” I wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve. “Meet me after school in my attic?”

  Rose’s face fell. “I can’t, Polly. I can’t go in there again. Not after last night. Finding Winnie’s death notice, and that letter from the hospital—it was horrible. I couldn’t breathe—I couldn’t—”

  “No problem, Rose,” I interrupted, hopping from one foot to the other in the cold. “We can meet at the library again. Bring the box. Gotta go!” and I ran down the street.

  I dashed around the corner and then I had to slow to a walk. I was puffing like anything. Five minutes or ten minutes late, it didn’t matter now. I’d get a note to take home to Mum either way.

  As I hurried along the deserted streets I started thinking about Winnie. It made sense that she wanted Rose to help. In so many of the ghost stories I had read, ghosts would get stuck in something when they died—anger, sorrow, fear—and they were trapped there until they found the way out. They all wanted to move on to the next stage, whatever that was. Heaven, I guess.

  I looked up as I crossed the road and that’s when I saw them. My mother and Susie. They were on the opposite side. Mum was pushing Susie in the stroller. The basket underneath was stuffed with shopping bags.

  I thought of nipping around the corner to hide. At least that would delay the lecture about being late for school.

  It wasn’t necessary. They didn’t see me. Susie was babbling away and Mum was laughing and talking to her.

  I stood on the corner and watched them pass down the street. Mum’s voice gradually faded as they got farther and farther away.

  I had never felt so lonely in all my life.

  Rose

  I watched Polly run down the street and disappear around the corner. Even though it was freezing, I didn’t want to go back into the house. Kendrick kept watching me with her dark, suspicious eyes, as if I were going to turn into a witch and fly away on a broomstick.

  I sat down on Polly’s front steps and put the bag down beside me. I peeked inside and drew out something wrapped in wax paper—an enormous piece of gooey chocolate cake. Two layers, with lots of thick icing in between and on top. I took a bite. It was really good. Mrs. Lacey’s chocolate cake was a lot better than Kendrick’s. I took another bite.

  Then I just sat there, huddled in my cloak, absently eating the cake while I thought about my dilemma. No matter what Polly said, I didn’t see what difference it would make to look at a bunch of pictures of birds. I didn’t trust Winnie for a minute. I pushed the image of the boy on the bridge away. Why should I have to fix everything? Didn’t I have enough problems of my own, plagued by ghosts night and day? Although I hadn’t seen any recently, except for Winnie. I looked around nervously.

  It was okay. I was alone. Except for a woman coming down the street, pushing a stroller. I watched her idly. Didn’t look like a ghost. She had a red coat on and glasses. She looked like—she looked an awful lot like Polly.

  By the time I realized who she was and stood up to make my getaway, it was too late. She stopped the stroller in front of the house and looked up at me quizzically.

  I tried to hide the bag under my cloak.

  “Can I help you?” she said, approaching me. “Are you—?” She broke off, taking a closer look. “Oh,” she said. “You must be the Ghost Girl. The one the twins talk about.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just stood there, looking at her. It was very weird. She looked so much like Polly. She was chubby and had the same brown hair and a kind of bounce to her and—just like Polly—her words seemed to tumble out of her mouth without her stopping to think what effect they might have.

  Mrs. Lacey laughed. Polly’s laugh. “They shouldn’t call you that—I’m sorry if they’ve been teasing you. They’re awful boys, really. They’ll be the death of me. What’s your name?”

  “Rose,” I croaked. She glanced at the striped shopping bags in the basket under the stroller and then looked back at me, frowning.

  “Rose, is that one of my bags you have under your cloak?”

  Great. Slowly I took it out.

  “I didn’t steal it,” I said stiffly.

  She reached for the bag and looked inside.

  “What’s this?” she asked, pulling out the box.

  I took it from her. “It’s mine. You can keep the bag.”

  “Yes, I suppose I can. It’s my bag. I made it myself. How did you get a hold of it? Is this something to do with the twins?”

  I didn’t want to get Polly in trouble.

  “No. I … umm …”

  The baby got tired of this and started yelling.

  “Oh my goodness,” said Mrs. Lacey, lifting her out of the stroller.

  I took the opportunity to head back to my house.

  “I’ll be talking to your mother about this,” called Mrs. Lacey as I ducked through my door.

  THE DESERTED LIBRARY

  Polly

  The library was empty. I couldn’t find Rose. She wasn’t at the tables by the window, she wasn’t in the comfy chairs by the fireplace, and she wasn’t in the children’s section. There was nobody there. Nobody at all.

  It didn’t feel right. I kept worrying about why Mrs. Gardner wasn’t at the front desk. Someone could come in and steal a book.

  I flopped down on my favorite chair by the fireplace and leaned my head back until I was looking straight up at the ceiling. That’s when I realized the lights were off. What was going on? Some kind of a power blackout? Or maybe a fire alarm before I came?

  I stood up quickly and was turning to head for the door when something caught my eye. A piece of paper with a drawing on it was lying on the floor, half under the opposite chair. A drawing that looked familiar.

  I picked it up. It was one of Winnie’s swallow pictures, with the swallow soaring through the air, its blue feathers spread wide.

  So Rose had been here.

  Rose

  There was no sign of the librarian or Polly when I walked into the library. The place seemed strangely empty. I thought I heard a murmur of voices from the children’s section, but I didn’t investigate. I wanted to be alone.

  I still hadn’t looked in the box. After seeing Mrs. Lacey I’d gone up to my room and lain down on my bed and stared at the ceiling, worrying. There was going to be trouble about that bag. The grown-ups were going to find out about Polly and me being friends. If my mother said I couldn’t see Polly, what would I do? My one friend. And if Winnie kept haunting me and trying to get me to talk to my father about ghosts—I closed my eyes. It was all too much.

  I didn’t think it was possible for a person to fall asleep in the middle of being worried to death, but I must have been tired, still, from all my adventures of the night before. The next thing I knew I was waking up and the light had changed and it was time to go to the library to meet Polly. I rushed out, afraid that I would be late, but when I got there Polly was nowhere to be found.

  I headed towards the chairs by the fire and sat down, the box on my lap. I stared at it.

  I didn’t want to open it. I didn’t wan
t to see Winnie’s drawings of the swallow. I didn’t want anything to do with her.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and saw her the way she had last appeared to me on the bridge. Her hair flying out around her face, her sad ghost eyes begging me to help her, her face so much like my own.

  Everything inside me wanted to take that box and throw it under a streetcar. If I helped her, all the years I’d spent hiding would be over. My parents would know why I was so quiet, why I didn’t sleep, why I had no appetite, and why I hated living beside a cemetery. They would know that I saw ghosts. I’d be packed off to the psychiatrists before I could blink, and they would lock me up, just like Winnie.

  Or maybe … maybe Polly was right. Maybe there was a way through it. Maybe they wouldn’t think I was crazy. Maybe they would help me get away from the ghosts. Maybe they would understand.

  I opened my eyes and looked at the box again. In spite of myself, I opened it.

  Inside were the drawings Polly had told me about. The one lying on top was of a beautiful blue swallow, soaring through the sky, its forked tail spread wide.

  THE GHASTLY GHOST AT MY GATE

  Polly

  As I stood there, staring at the drawing, I thought I heard something. Voices, coming from far away, like a radio that’s on a couple of floors below you. Maybe Mrs. Gardner was in the children’s section with the door shut, doing a story hour. I stuffed the drawing into my book bag and crossed to the door that led into the other part of the library.

  I couldn’t see anyone in there. And the voices sounded farther away now, like they were coming from the basement. Did the library even have a basement?

  I pushed open the door and went in. The tables were all smaller in here, closer to the floor, with kindergarten-sized chairs. Some picture books were spread open on them, as if someone had been looking at them but got up and left in a hurry. The lights were off in here too.