The Old Willis Place

by Mary Downing Hahn

  Love, Lissa

  Chapter 16

  When Georgie and I woke in the morning, the falling snow hung like gauze between the mouth of the cave and the ravine, blurring rocks and trees, earth and sky. The only sounds were the gurgle of the creek and the wind, now a soft murmur.

  Georgie peered out at the snow, at least a foot deep already, and laughed. "No school today!"

  It was a joke of long standing now, left from the time when we'd actually gone to school and celebrated days off.

  Nero sat at the cave's entrance, his displeasure evident. He looked at me as if to say, "What sort of bad joke is this?"

  "The little mousies are safe from you today," I told him.

  Nero twitched his tail and stalked to the back of the cave. There he snuggled in the blankets and watched the snow through slitted eyes.

  "Do you think the police will come in this weather?" Georgie asked me.

  The night before, I'd told him what I'd asked Lissa to do. I'd thought he'd be angry, but he'd listened calmly. "It's the first step." He'd tapped the side of his head. "I feel it here. You know, like the rules."

  Now the two of us watched the snow fall: barefoot, barelegged Georgie, half naked, with feathers in his hair; me with my long braid, and Lissa's sweatshirt over Miss Lilian's flowered skirt. Neither of us knew what to expect next or how to prepare. Without saying a word, we left the cave and walked through the snow toward the house. We had to see the police come. We had to watch them go, too. We had to be sure.

  We met Lissa and MacDuff halfway down the driveway. She ran to us, her face pale despite the wind and snow. "I've been looking for you," she cried. "I was scared she might have gotten you last night."

  Lissa didn't need to say the name. We knew who she meant. "We heard her," I said. "She came close a few times."

  "Old witch," Georgie muttered. "She won't get us again."

  Lissa breathed a sigh of relief. "She caught me last night. She thought I was you, Diana."

  For once, Georgie looked at Lissa without sneering. "How did you get away?" he asked.

  Lissa shook her head. "I guess she wanted Diana, not me.

  "I bet you were scared," Georgie said, some of his old scorn returning.

  "I was terrified." Lissa began crying. "Dad went to the house to look for the children's bodies, and I got scared and followed him. That's when she grabbed me. She was so horrible...."

  I hugged her as if she were a little child, years younger than I was. "I told you she wouldn't hurt you," I whispered.

  "Did your father find the children's bodies?" Georgie asked.

  Lissa nodded. "Just where Diana said they'd be. He called the police. They're supposed to come today." She looked around doubtfully. "But with all this snow..."

  I drew in my breath and took Georgie's hand. There was no turning back now. Whatever I'd begun the day I met Lissa had to run its course.

  "I see them." Georgie pointed down the driveway.

  The three of us ducked behind a tree. Led by a police car, a hearse made its way slowly toward us.

  "It's the same one that took Miss Lilian away," Georgie said.

  "How do you know that?" Lissa asked.

  "All hearses look the same." I spoke quickly to keep Georgie from saying anything else. "That's what he means."

  Georgie frowned, but he didn't argue as I'd feared he might. Instead, he gave Lissa a sassy look, which she ignored. The two of them would never be friends.

  The police car passed us, its lights flashing. An officer in the passenger seat was drinking coffee from a paper cup. The other was intent on driving. Behind them the hearse slipped and slid, but the driver managed to keep it on the driveway.

  "Where do you suppose they'll take us?" Georgie asked me.

  "The police aren't going to take you anywhere," Lissa said. "They've come for the children's bodies, not for you."

  Georgie drew closer to me. "You think you're so smart," he told Lissa scornfully. "But you don't know anything."

  "Shh," I warned him as softly as I could.

  The wind whipped Lissa's hair around her face, and she hunched her shoulders against the cold. From the looks of her, she was scared and cold—and very unhappy.

  The silence between us grew. We were alone in the trees. The police car and the hearse had vanished around a bend in the drive. Every now and then, we could hear tires spin in the snow.

  "Let's not fight any more, Georgie," Lissa said. "I'm sorry for all the dumb things I've said and done. Dad says I'm too prickly. I guess he's right."

  I looked at my brother. "You're sort of prickly yourself, you know."

  "So what if I am?" He scooped up a handful of snow and hurled it at a tree—splat. "I could've thrown it at you," he told Lissa with a grin, "but I didn't."

  Lissa smiled. "It's good you didn't," she said. "My dad taught me how to make a really hard snowball."

  Georgie touched my hand. "Come on."

  With MacDuff bounding ahead, we plodded on through the snow until the house was in sight. Georgie pulled me behind a huge oak. Lissa hid with us, pressed beside me.

  The hearse and the police car, its lights still flashing, were parked by the front steps. The tall double doors stood open. While Mr. Morrison talked with one of the police, the men from the hearse maneuvered a gurney up the rotting steps. Excited by the commotion, MacDuff ran to Mr. Morrison. One of the policemen patted him.

  "Are you going to watch them bring the bodies out?" Lissa whispered. I had a feeling she wanted to leave.

  Georgie nodded, but I touched his arm. "Let's go."

  "Why?"

  "Because it's morbid to stay here and watch," I told him.

  "Don't you want to be sure they find us?"

  I glanced at Lissa, but she was edging away toward the warmth and safety of the trailer. She hadn't heard Georgie.

  "Please, Georgie," I whispered. "Watch what you say. Do you want Lissa to know everything?"

  He shrugged. "It doesn't matter anymore."

  "I'm going to the trailer with her," I said. "Please come with us."

  Georgie didn't answer. Nor did he move. His attention was fixed on the house's open doors and the darkness beyond.

  I left him there and ran after Lissa. "Wait!"

  Behind me, the policeman's voice droned on. He was saying something about ghosts, old mysteries, Miss Lilian's role in the children's disappearance. With every step I took, my back prickled. I was tempted to look over my shoulder, but whatever came out of that cellar was best not seen.

  From the high gray dome of the sky, a hawk dove toward the field not far from the drive. In a second he was flying upward again, a mouse in his talons.

  Lissa glanced at the hawk and shuddered. "I hate this farm."

  "Hawks have to live," I said.

  "It's not just the hawk and the mouse," Lissa said. "That's just plain old nature. I mean ghosts and dead children and crazy people—things that give me nightmares. I want to leave, like you."

  I followed her into the trailer. "Do you want hot chocolate?" she asked.

  "No, thanks."

  "How about peanut butter cookies?" She held out a plate. "Dad and I made them this morning. Don't they smell delicious?"

  I shook my head. "Thanks, but I'm not hungry."

  Lissa sat down at the counter. I took a seat beside her. "I guess your parents don't allow you to eat sweets ," she said.

  "That's right." I toyed with a pencil lying on the counter, spinning it idly this way and that. It was hard to think of anything but the cellar and what the men from the morgue were doing down there.

  Lissa fixed herself a cup of cocoa and ate a few cookies. I breathed in the aroma. It was almost as satisfying as actually eating and drinking.

  "Let's play checkers," Lissa said. "The board's all set up."

  I followed her to the sofa. The checkerboard lay on the coffee table, ready to go. "Red or black?" Lissa asked.

  "Black." I picked up a checker and rolled it in my fingers.
Maybe a game would take my mind away from the cellar.

  Lissa won easily. Not because she was a good player. I made sloppy moves, I overlooked traps, I let myself be cornered and captured.

  "What's wrong, Diana?" Lissa asked.

  "Nothing." I gathered up my captured men and began setting up the board for another game.

  "You're miles away," she insisted. "I can tell by the way you're playing."

  I sat back and studied the checkers lined up on the board, so orderly, so perfect. Had the men put the bodies in the hearse? Was Georgie still watching? I shouldn't have left him there all by himself in the snow. I should have made him come with Lissa and me.

  "It's the children in the cellar, isn't it?" she asked. "You're thinking about them."

  Lissa jiggled the board accidentally, and I nudged a checker back into position.

  Undiscouraged by my silence, Lissa moved closer to me. "How did you keep it a secret so long?"

  I sighed. "There was no one to tell."

  "Your parents—you could have told them."

  "I wish to heaven I could have." I slid away from Lissa and gazed out the window across the room. Bare trees blew in the wind. Georgie was out there, small and thin, his hair full of leaves and feathers, watching, waiting.

  "I can't believe your parents are as strict as you say." Lissa slumped on the couch and propped her feet on the coffee table, further disturbing the order of the checkerboard.

  Silently I leaned forward and moved the pieces back to the center of their squares.

  "Oh, Diana." Lissa sighed. "Sometimes I feel like I don't know you at all."

  "You don't," I said.

  She stared at me, speechless for once.

  Mr. Morrison chose that moment to open the door. MacDuff followed him inside, wagging his tail, shaking snow off his fur.

  Lissa jumped to her feet, scattering the checkers in her haste.This time I ignored them. What did it matter, anyway?

  "Did they take the children away?" she asked.

  Mr. Morrison blew his nose. "They've made arrangements to bury them at Mount Holly."

  "Do their parents know?" Lissa asked.

  Mr. Morrison shook his head. "It's such a sad situation. The children's parents are both dead. No uncles, no aunts, no living relatives."

  I got to my feet, my chest tight, my legs weak. "They're dead?" I asked. "Mother and Daddy both?"

  Lissa looked at me oddly, but I was too upset to wonder why. All I could think of was what her father had just said, his voice so calm, his manner so ordinary.

  "That's what the police told me," he said. "They're buried at Mount Holly. At least the children will be with them now."

  I covered my face with my hands. All this time, I'd pictured Mother and Daddy alive somewhere, waiting for news of us. I hadn't considered the weeks, the months, the years as they'd rolled past. As Georgie had said, it was hard to keep track of time without birthdays and holidays.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Now, now, Diana," Mr. Morrison said softly. "I don't blame you for crying, but it happened long ago. Try to think of it as a story you read in a book."

  "You don't understand," I whispered. At that moment I wanted him to put his arms around me as if I were his child, his daughter. I wanted him to comfort me, to stroke my hair. I wanted to tell him everything about Georgie and me and Miss Lilian and the terrible thing that happened to us. I wanted him to know who those bodies belonged to. Instead, I shrugged his hand off and edged away from him, closer to the door, closer to escape. "Its not a story,"I said. "It's true."

  Lissa eyed me solemnly, full of curiosity, but for once she had no questions.

  "Of course it's true," Mr. Morrison said, beginning to sound uncomfortable. "I was only trying—"

  "I know," I said. "It's okay." I'd reached the door. My hand was on the knob. I turned it.

  "Don't leave, Diana," Mr. Morrison said. "I'll fix you tea, hot chocolate—"

  "Dad." Lissa took her father by the arm. "I think Diana wants to go home."

  With MacDuff between them, Mr. Morrison and Lissa stood in the doorway and watched me leave. "Find Georgie," Mr. Morrison called. "Bring him back here. We can watch a video. Eat supper. I make a great vegetarian chili."

  "No," I said. "I'm sorry. I can't."

  I turned my back on the open doorway and the warmth inside and ran across the field toward the woods.

  Chapter 17

  I found Georgie in the cave with Nero, huddled under a pile of blankets, his dirty face tear-streaked.

  "Georgie, Georgie." I threw myself down beside him and held him tight. "What did you see? What did you hear?"

  He cuddled close to me, as much in need of comfort as I was. "They came outside with the gurney," he whispered. "They'd zipped us—our bodies—into black bags. Oh, Diana, the bags were so small. I guess all they found were—"

  "Hush." I covered his mouth with my hand. "I told you not to watch."

  Georgie pushed my hand away. "You have to hear this part, Diana. It's about Miss Lilian."

  I lay back, propped on my elbows, and let him go on.

  "The police were talking," Georgie told me. "One said it might've been an accident, but the other said the door was bolted from the outside. That meant someone had locked us in, he said—and who else could it have been but that crazy old woman?"

  "It's a shame nobody figured that out sooner" I said. "Miss Lilian got away with killing us. She never went to jail, she was never punished."

  "It's not fair." Georgie scowled. "It's not fair, Diana!"

  I pulled the covers up under my chin. The fading light of day shone through the cave's opening, barely illuminating the darkness around us. "Did the police say anything else?" I asked.

  Georgie shifted his position to see me better. "Mother and Daddy are dead," he said in a low voice. "But I'd guessed that already. Hadn't you?"

  "I always hoped they'd come back for us someday," I told him. "I guess that's silly, but, well, I wanted it to be true, so I—" I pressed my lips together and tried not to cry.

  "They're going to bury us with Mother and Daddy," Georgie said, as if to console me. "We'll all be together, Diana."

  I wasn't consoled. I wanted to be with Mother and Daddy again, but not in a graveyard. I wanted them to be here on the farm, the way we were before the bad thing happened.

  Outside, twilight darkened into night. The wind blew harder, soughing in the treetops. Far away, from the direction of the house, came the faint sound of a piano. Miss Lilian's favorite piece, the Moonlight Sonata, floated through the darkness, eerie, distorted, out of tune. I pictured her at the piano, back in the days when its mahogany gleamed and every note was true. Her hands struck the keys, her head moved to the music's rhythm, her thin body swayed. I stood in the doorway, watching, hearing her mistakes, yearning to push her aside and play the piece properly. She looked up and saw me. Her face twisted in anger, and she slammed the piano lid shut. "Get out!" she yelled. "Get out!"

  Pushing the memory away, I burrowed deeper under the covers, hoping to block the sound of the piano. Beside me, Georgie slept quietly, Lissa's bear clasped to his chest. Nero came closer, turned around once or twice, and curled between us, purring as if he hoped to comfort us. But there was no comfort without Mother and Daddy.

  The next thing I knew, Georgie was shaking my shoulder. "Diana "he whispered. "Something's outside the cave."

  I rose to my knees, listening for sounds in the darkness outside. I heard nothing, but Nero's back rose and his tail puffed to twice its normal size. The cave filled with his eerie growling song.

  "It's her." Georgie clutched my arm, his nails biting into my skin. "It's Miss Lilian."

  We crept to the cave's entrance and peered into the night. The wind shook shadows across the snow, confusing my eyes.

  Then I heard what Georgie had heard, a voice calling, rising and falling with the wind. She was in the woods, not far away, coming toward us.

  "Run," Georgie whimpered. "Don't let h
er get us!"

  I would have taken his hand, but he was clutching Alfie. The two of us darted out of the cave and slid down the snowy bank into the creek. She must not trap us again.

  Through the woods, across fields and streams, uphill and down, we ran and she followed, calling us again and again. Our names echoed from bare trees, bounced back from the snow, became unrecognizable. Deer fled from the sounds of the chase, bounding through the snow in fright. A fox barked from a boulder and vanished into a thicket, fearful for his own safety.

  Georgie and I came out of the woods behind the house. It sat on the hill above us, a dark shape crouched against the moonlit sky, its crooked chimneys rising like broken fingers from the roof. We ran across the snowy lawn spiked with dead weeds. I looked back. She was behind us, running as only the dead can run, tirelessly, her white hair wild and loose in the wind, her gray dress fluttering.

  "Diana, Georgie," she cried, as if she knew no words other than our names. "Diana, Georgie!"

  "Not there!" I grabbed Georgie's arm to steer him away from the house.

  He looked at me, glassy-eyed with fear, as if he didn't know where he was or what he was doing.

  Still holding his arm, I skirted the house and ran down the drive. The tracks of the police car and the hearse cast shadows in the snow. Like a ghost himself, the albino deer stood at the edge of the trees. He watched us for a moment and then vanished into the shadows.

  Behind us Miss Lilian called, "Diana, Georgie! Diana, Georgie!"

  On we ran. On she came.

  At the end of the driveway we realized we could go no farther. We'd come to the fence between us and the rest of the world. I yanked Georgie to the right, planning to run along the fence, but he slipped in the snow and fell by the gate, pulling me down with him.

  We scrambled to our feet, but we were too late. Miss Lilian had us trapped between the fence and a thicket of bushes and vines heaped with snow.

  She was close enough for us to see her clearly. She was old, she was ill, she was thinner than ever. She stretched her bony hands toward us and chanted our names, "Diana and Georgie, I have you now. Don't try to escape. I've chased you more than enough!"