The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

by Laird Koenig

  "This morning I spoke to the school board about you."

  This was enough to begin. She had let Rynn know, even if this were the girl’s home, that it was a child to whom she was talking.

  Rynn had vowed not to challenge her, but in her anger at this invasion she had to fight to keep from screaming into the pink face that she knew this was a lie, a stupid lie, that anyone—any child of intelligence—could expose simply by learning when the board held its meetings.

  Rynn said nothing.

  How often she was amazed at the lies adults told. Silly, easy-to-expose lies. Did they not remember how difficult it is to deceive a child? Had they forgotten that when it comes to lying children know all there is to know?

  The silence seemed endless, but only a few seconds had passed. The woman could not resist flicking hard blue eyes toward the girl to determine the impact of her opening attack.

  "When they learned about your case, I must say, they were very interested."

  "You’re a liar, Mrs. Hallet. A liar!" Rynn screamed to herself. Instead, she said, "I was just about to put the kettle on. Would you care for a cup of tea?" Her voice was as pleasant, as unchallenging as she could manage.

  But Mrs. Hallet had no intention of allowing Rynn to blunt her attack with good manners.

  "Very interested indeed."

  How Rynn fought to scream "Liar!" at her. How she ached to shout into that fat, pink face that she knew the school board had met last Thursday, that she knew it would not meet for another month. She longed to tell this lying old woman that, by the time she had to face the reality and not merely these threats, she was bright enough, clever enough, bold enough to think of some way to stay out of their school. She would escape them. She would never play their game.

  "You don’t want to know what they said?"

  "For tea I can offer you Earl Grey’s or Darjeeling."

  The woman snapped the umbrella shut, glaring at this child who stared so directly at her with a face that was neither innocent nor sweet, nor openly challenging. Her eyes, searching Rynn’s impassive face, wavered, and in that fleeting instant, before she could regain her steady gaze, betrayed her uncertainty. Had this child caught her in a lie? It was stupid to lie about the meeting, something the girl could so easily check. Nonsense. This was just a child. Nevertheless she retreated to her strongest weapon—the full force of her years.

  "I came here quite prepared to forget what happened yesterday. However, I must say, I don’t care for your tone any better today."

  "Then it’s up to me to apologize." Rynn realized that in London she had never sounded this English. "If I’ve offended you in any way, Mrs. Hallet, I am sorry."

  But, of course, she knew very well that an apology was not what the woman wanted. Just as she knew it was not the jelly glasses that had brought her here.

  Mrs. Hallet twisted the red, candy-striped folds tight against the umbrella rod.

  "What I find particularly surprising is that most English boys and girls are so well behaved." This kind of hauteur called for her coldest look, a look to turn a child to stone, and if not stone, at the very least, tears.

  She found no change in the little girl’s face.

  "But then, you’re not truly English are you?"

  "What did you decide about the tea?"

  "Not a glass of thick, sweet wine you people use in your religious rituals?"

  Rynn’s face shining in the firelight, was still a mask.

  Mrs. Hallet, the first to break the lock between their eyes, seized the excuse of the umbrella to cover her defeat and she moved to the hall to hang its bright stripes on a wooden peg.

  "Or aren’t you old enough to drink wine?" she said, preparing her cross-examination. She slammed the door and strode with muddy steps that brought her brushing past the girl back into the room.

  "You did tell my son fourteen. You told me thirteen. Now which is it to be?"

  "Thirteen."

  "And brilliant. As so many of your people are."

  "Mrs. Hallet, will you please accept my apology for what happened yesterday?" The woman waited until she had returned to her position of command at the hearth before she spoke.

  "Have you learned to say it the way the phonograph record does?" She stretched her hands to the fire and appeared to consider the apology. "I’m very much afraid it isn’t that simple. The more I’ve thought about what happened here yesterday, the more convinced I’ve become that you and your father would find yourselves far more at home some place where you could—let’s say—speak the language you seem to prefer."

  With the poker from the woodbox the woman jabbed the flames. Her metallic hair flashed in the light, as if on fire.

  "On the telephone you made a great point to my son that your father wished to speak with me. Here I am. I certainly wish to speak to him. He is home?"

  "Yes."

  "Call him."

  "I’m afraid right now he’s translating. He couldn’t be disturbed—even for Officer Miglioriti."

  "Officer Miglioriti works for people like me," Mrs. Hallet said, making it unmistakable that the girl was never again to confuse power and the law with some affable young man whom she could hire or fire.

  "It’s high time," she said, "that all of us faced the simple fact that we’ve made a mistake about this house." The fire blazed.

  Mrs. Hallet warmed her hands. "In case you’re wondering what I’m doing, I’m waiting right here till you call your father."

  "You didn’t answer—about the tea."

  Mrs. Hallet gave herself a long moment to study the room as if the considerations of the previous day enabled her to see it in a new light.

  "The two of you, living here—in this lane—so few neighbors. And with winter coming and so little in common with the rest of us. No. I shouldn’t think it would be your sort of place at all. For the life of me I can’t imagine what made any of us think you could be happy here—”

  "My father and I love this house—"

  "Such a lonely place for a little girl who’s by herself so much of the time. No. I think we’ll make other plans—"

  "We have a lease for three years."

  Mrs. Hallet continued to rub her pink hands. "Leases have been known to be broken. No. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn your father has already decided to go somewhere you’ll both feel more comfortable."

  "You mustn’t worry about us, Mrs. Hallet."

  "There it is again. That continual mocking tone. And don’t look at me with those eyes so full of hurt and pretend you’ve been misunderstood. You try to act as if you don’t intend things to sound the way you say them. But you and I know very well exactly what you intend."

  "There are the glasses, Mrs. Hallet. On the table."

  "Am I being dismissed?"

  At a loss for words, Rynn listened to the woman’s deep breathing.

  "Call your father!" Her voice was raw with anger. "Right this minute!"

  "I told you. He can’t be disturbed."

  Mrs. Hallet had left the fireplace and was already in the hall reaching for the study door, where she paused as if waiting for the girl’s command.

  When it came, Rynn had never spoken with more authority:

  "Don’t open that door!"

  "You and I know perfectly well," Mrs. Hallet said, "he isn’t there."

  Rynn’s voice was quiet, calm. "Open that door, Mrs. Hallet, and I shall have to tell my father about your son."

  "My son?" Mrs. Hallet’s hand dropped from the door knob, her words the snarl of a trapped animal.

  "About the other evening. I haven’t told my father yet."

  Though Rynn could not see Mrs. Hallet in the darkness of the hall, she knew the woman’s face was fiery with rage.

  "Told your father what?"

  "What happened here."

  Rynn waited, allowing the silence to indict the woman’s son.

  "The way he acted. Apparently people in the village know all about him—”

  Mrs. Hallet
sprang from the shadows.

  "Miglioriti! He’s a liar’"

  "Not Officer Miglioriti, Mrs. Hallet." In contrast to the woman’s red, raw hysteria, the girl, almost serene, grew in command.

  "What did that goddamn wop tell you?"

  "Nothing, Mrs. Hallet."

  "Nothing? When he’s always hated Frank. Did he tell you that before Frank married her, he had an affair with my son’s wife? You wonder why he hates my son?"

  "He wasn’t even going to tell me your son’s children aren’t his. I had to ask."

  "What else did he say? I demand to know what else he said!"

  "Even when I asked about psychiatric treatment for your son, or why the police don’t do anything—"

  Nothing Mrs. Hallet might have done in this moment would have surprised Rynn. But now it was the livid woman’s turn to throttle her rage.

  "Why should they do anything?"

  "When your son offers candy to little girls—?"

  With great viciousness the woman slapped the girl a stinging blow across the face. Her face aflame Rynn ran to the table and shoved the carton of clinking glasses close to the edge.

  "Your glasses, Mrs. Hallet."

  "You are going to get out of this house!"

  "My house, Mrs. Hallet." Rynn blinked back hot tears.

  "With—or without your father—"

  Rynn choked down a sob. "It’s true, it is a lonely place out here in the lane. Often I am alone. That doesn’t worry me, Mrs. Hallet. If it worries you, that’s a problem you had better work out with your son'"

  "Goddamn you!"

  The rain drummed on the roof.

  Mrs. Hallet moved to the table and thrust her hand into the carton.

  "No seals," she said. "Without the rubber seals the glasses are worthless."

  Rynn peered into the box. Her hand searched madly, rattling among the glasses. At last, defeated, she closed the carton lid.

  The woman held the girl with her stony eyes. "Right now I want the glasses! And the seals. This time, don’t you dare tell me to come back later!"

  "You don’t need those seals," Rynn cried. "You don’t even really want those glasses..."

  Mrs. Hallet had made other fast, decisive moves, but none had prepared Rynn for the way the woman grabbed the table to drag it off the braided rug. She clutched wildly at the woman’s tweed coat.

  "Get out of my house!"

  Table legs screeched across the oak floor.

  Mrs. Hallet flung back the braided rug to reveal a trapdoor. Clawing at the hasp, she pushed back the bolt.

  The girl, shaking with rage, felt helpless to move.

  The woman lifted the door to its full height before she dropped it back over its hinges with a slam against the wall.

  Her fury turned to terror. Rynn watched stunned as the woman went to the top of the steps and looked down, pulling her tweed coat around her against the cold.

  Rynn broke the paralysis of fear to lunge at the woman, but she was shaking so violently she could not complete the move, and she cried out, a cry full of raw fury, a cry shocking in one so young.

  "I’m warning you, Mrs. Hallet!"

  Her voice had stopped the woman at the study door, but this time Mrs. Hallet paused only long enough to wind her coat more tightly around her before placing her first footstep with a scrape on the ancient stone.

  Rynn trembled above the stairwell, almost in a trance, watching the woman’s metallic gold hair and the shoulders of the brown tweed coat sink with each step. On the stairs where she was forced to lower her head to pass under the oak planks of the floor, Mrs, Hallet brought her glasses to her face to peer down into the dark.

  Another step, then the sound of scraping feet stopped.

  "Oh, my God...." Her voice was a whisper.

  Then she screamed.

  As if the scream were a signal, Rynn leaped forward and pulled the door from the wall. It fell into place, shutting out the scream from below.

  Rynn threw her full weight onto the oak planks and clawed at the wrought-iron hasp, bending it on its hinges.

  Thuds pounded on the door.

  Pushing the rusty bolt back through the hasp took all the girl’s force.

  Thuds banged from below as Rynn slowly rose from the planks. Each thud, like one of her own heartbeats, drove her back from the door.

  A muffled scream, as if far away, was all but shut out by the heavy oak.

  Two more thuds.

  Suddenly, as she shrank away from the door something sprang at her from behind, blocking her retreat. Not even daring to gasp, she reached behind her to find the empty chair rocking, creaking wildly back and forth…back and forth.

  7

  THE LITTLE GIRL sat rocking. For how long she had no idea. Was it hours ago she had run to lock the front door and yank the curtains further shut so no one could see in? Was it only minutes?

  A log burned through and fell into the fireplace.

  Rain pattered on the roof.

  She rocked, back and forth, back and forth.

  Firelight wavered. The room was growing cold.

  She sat as catatonic as one of those pitiable wretches forgotten in some madhouse, locked into herself, left to stare forever at the peeling plaster on the wall or at a point in the middle distance. But she was not mad, nor was her mind a blank. Her mind had never been so clear.

  For a long time she tried to picture Mrs. Hallet beneath the shining oak boards of the trap door. There had been muffled cries many pounds. For hours, or was it only minutes, Rynn had heard nothing. She wondered. Mrs. Hallet, down in that cold cellar that smelled of old wet newspapers and crawled with spiders was she sitting on the ancient stone steps? Rynn decided that Mrs. Hallet would stand, stand and wait. No matter how long.

  That is what Rynn, in her rocking chair, was doing. Waiting.

  Her hands were cold with an icy sweat that she rubbed against her Levis.

  She must keep her mind clear. She could do that. After all, didn’t everyone say what a brilliant little girl she was? If that were true, now was the time to prove it, prove it by thinking as she had never been forced to think before. She must think carefully and decide, even more carefully, what to do.

  First thing to think about: Did she dare open the trap door? Did she dare let Mrs. Hallet out?

  She rocked steadily.

  Even though it had all happened in an instant, though it was something she would never have been able to dream herself capable of doing, it had been done.

  Could it be undone?

  Even if Rynn lay on the floor and whispered through the trap and down the stairs that she knew what she had done was a terrible thing, even if she begged the woman for forgiveness, if she implored the woman for her pardon, from her dungeon what could Mrs. Hallet say? Of course, from down there in the dark, there was nothing—absolutely nothing—Mrs. Hallet would not promise. Of course, Mrs. Hallet would vow never, never under any circumstances, to tell what the little girl had done.

  Of course that would be a lie.

  Mrs. Hallet would never forgive her.

  Mrs. Hallet with her great sprawling brick house behind the rows of evergreens and a long sweep of lawn in the village; Mrs. Hallet with her powerful friends; Mrs. Hallet who hired and fired men like Miglioriti—Mrs. Hallet would see, if it took to her dying day, that the little girl was punished. Mrs. Hallet would insist the girl pay the full measure of the law for the terrible, the outrageous, the unforgivable thing that had happened. Full measure and more.

  What would that mean? Prison? Yes, certainly. In America—as in England—they sent children to prison, children who had done far less than push old ladies down into cellars and lock the door on them. Mrs. Hallet would march into court with half a dozen lawyers and she would stand before the world and tell the terrible thing that had happened to her. The court would listen to her ordeal and stare in shock. When it came time for the little girl with a lawyer appointed by the court to stand before them and try to explain why she
had done such a thing, who would believe her? Who could forgive such a child?

  "Too bad, Mrs. Hallet, because you’re the way you are, I can never lift that door and allow you to climb those stairs. There is now no other way. You must stay down there, Mrs. Hallet."

  The little girl rocked back and forth, back and forth.

  Now the next question. What was going to happen to the woman down there? How long would she stay alive?

  Keep thinking.

  Would she freeze to death? No, the winter, though wet and cold was not yet so severe that the cellar would be cold enough to freeze. Would she starve? Of course, in time. But how long would it take? Rynn had heard of people who fasted. She had read about people who had lived for days, weeks even, without food. Before the woman starved, she would die of thirst. That would take how long? Three days?

  The chair rocked. Back and forth.

  Keep thinking.

  Three days. Go slow now. Think. Suppose it took three days for the woman down there to die. In three days anyone might come to the door. They—"they"?—who were "they"? That didn’t matter. They—someone—would come to the door. People like Frank Hallet and other adults—they. They—the ones who never bothered to ask a thirteen-year-old girl if they might come into her house. Anyone who did come in would make footsteps and Mrs. Hallet would pound on the trapdoor. Even with the braided rug back in place, even with the gateleg table covering the rug and the trap, the woman could make herself heard from down there.

  Three days.

  The little girl suddenly had an answer. She would go away for three days. Lock the door and go away. Who could get inside? With the curtains pulled shut who could see into the room? Then who could Mrs. Hallet signal? For a moment the idea of flight warmed her against the overwhelming cold and fear.

  Then she went colder than ever.

  Frank Hallet knew his mother was coming here this afternoon. He knew that from the telephone call. He would come and look. Another chill. He could get into the house; the real estate office had a key....

  Rynn rubbed her arms against the cold.

  Watching the trapdoor every step of the way, she crept from the rocking chair and crawled across to the hearth where she stretched her hands out to the warm red glow.