“Certainly.”
“Okay. Fine. Would you just ask her if she knows what happened to my new fountain pen? See, on the way home from school today, out in front of——I mean, it was when I was walking home from school, I happened to see Diane and she borrowed my fountain pen. She needed it to write down a phone number or something. And then someone else borrowed it to write a phone number, and I never got it back. And it was a new one I just bought.”
“Where did you say you were when you saw Diane?” Mrs. Darby said in a tight voice.
“Well, I didn’t say, exactly. It was just on the way home. She was with Brenda.”
There was a pause before Diane’s mother said, “Jessica, I really must insist that you tell me where Diane was when you saw her this afternoon.”
“I can’t, Mrs. Darby,” Jessica said. “I can’t get Diane in trouble when she’s such a good friend of mine, and everything.”
“I’m quite certain that I already know where Diane was when she borrowed your pen,” Mrs. Darby said. “So you might as well tell me all about it. I promise I won’t say anything to Diane about where I found out.”
“Won’t you?” Jessica said. “Do you really promise—because I’d just about kill myself if Diane got mad at me.”
After Mrs. Darby promised and repromised not to tell how she’d found out, Jessica told her that she’d met Diane and Brenda on Spencer Street, near the drugstore.
“Near what store?” Mrs. Darby asked.
“Well, it was pretty near the drugstore.”
“I suppose you mean she was in front of that penny-arcade place, Dino’s I believe it’s called?”
“I guess it wasn’t too far from there?”
“What was Diane doing there?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all, Mrs. Darby. She was just talking to—uh—some other kids. I think they’re friends of Brenda’s. And this one—uh, person—wanted to know Diane’s phone number, and that’s how I happened to lend her my pen.”
When the conversation was over, Jessica went on sitting by the phone for a while, thinking and planning. Important ideas kept flashing into her mind. It occurred to her that it would be wise to call back soon and say she’d found the fountain pen. Then Mrs. Darby wouldn’t have to mention it to Diane. And later in the evening, maybe even quite late at night, she could call and not say anything when Mr. or Mrs. Darby answered the phone, as if someone wanted to talk to Diane who definitely didn’t want to talk to her parents. Knowing Diane’s parents, Jessica could easily imagine what would happen at the Darby house that night. She could easily predict that it would be at least a month before Diane would have another chance to swim in Brenda’s fancy swimming pool—or to do much of anything else, for that matter.
When Jessica was finally finished at the telephone, Worm was no longer sitting in the middle of the floor. She looked in all his usual hideouts before she found him at last, curled up at the back of her closet. She pulled him out and put him in the middle of the floor, but he refused to speak, or even to pay attention. Turning away from Jessica he collapsed limply on the floor.
“You know what I did, don’t you?” she asked him, but he just flicked a narrow glance in her direction and began to lick the soft inward curve of a paw, where the claws lay hidden in gray velvet.
“It wasn’t my idea,” Jessica said, but Worm went on washing. She sat down near him then and pounded on the floor with both fists. Worm leaped to his feet, with curved back and flattened ears. Jessica grinned angrily. “See,” she said. “Stop pretending. Stop pretending you’re just a cat.”
That night very late, Jessica awoke feeling hot and heavy. The blankets seemed tight and twisted, and the darkness pressed down on her chest like a weight. No matter how she turned and struggled, she couldn’t get comfortable, and pictures kept forming in the darkness behind her eyes.
The pictures flowed and changed, blending into dreams as, now and then, she sank briefly into restless sleep. Diane and Brenda, walking up Spencer Street together, melted into a dream in which Diane, flattened into a gigantic paper doll, with her pretty round-eyed face torn and crumpled, drifted behind Brenda.
The dream dissolved, and Jessica awoke to stare into darkness until sleep came again. But with it came another dream—an old familiar one. It had been years since she had dreamt it, but nothing had changed. It was as it had always been, clear and sharp in detail, and full of an incredible intangible terror.
She seemed to be waking from a deep sleep, but instead of being in her own bed, she was lying on a small white cot that sat in the very middle of a small room. Except for the bed, the room was completely empty and bare, with no furniture or pictures, not even a window. The walls and ceiling and floor were all the same—a nameless nothing color—too dull to be white, but not so deep as gray. As Jessica lay motionless, already terrified without yet knowing why, she began to feel the bed shrinking beneath her, while all around the pale walls began to expand, moving outward and away. She reached out, trying desperately to grasp something, but it was too late—there was nothing there. At last everything was gone. Everything, memory and thought and finally even fear, and she was left floating in the middle of a nothingness that went on and on forever.
Jessica awoke wet with sweat and sat up in bed. Then, just as she had always done when the dream came, she slipped out of bed and crept noiselessly down the hall. The door to Joy’s room opened without a sound, and the light from Jessica’s room, seeping down the hallway, was enough to show that Joy was there—a lump under the covers, her blond hair spread out on the pillow. When she was sure, Jessica went back and crawled into bed.
Chapter Six
AT LAST IT WAS MORNING, AND THE ALARM CLOCK’S jarring clamor put an end to both sleep and dreams. Jessica got up quickly and had the coffee on and the table set before Joy appeared, puffy-eyed and tousled.
“Well,” Joy said, when she noticed what Jessica had done. “What’s this? What have you done now?”
“What do you mean, what have I done now?”
“You know what I mean. Every time you start getting useful, it turns out I’m about to get some unpleasant news. Like an F in math or a broken window. What have you been up to this time?”
“I—haven’t—done—anything,” Jessica said very slowly and distinctly. “I just wanted to talk to you. I just thought if I helped, you might have time to talk to me before you left for work.”
The eggs and toast were on the table before anyone broke the angry silence. At last Joy sighed and said, “I’m sorry, Jessie. I shouldn’t have said that.” She smiled a lop-sided smile and blinked her long eyelashes. “You know how grumpy I am until I’ve had my coffee.” She glanced at her watch. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Nothing,” Jessica said.
“No, tell me,” Joy said. “I want to know.”
“Nothing,” Jessica said. “I didn’t want to talk about anything.” She got up from the table, clattered her dishes into the sink, and went to her room. Locking the door behind her, she sat down on the bed.
A few minutes later, Joy’s hurrying footsteps stopped at Jessica’s door. “Jessie,” she said, trying the doorknob.
Jessica sat perfectly still. “Jessie!” Joy said louder. “Open this door.” Finally she yelled, “Brat!” And her footsteps went angrily down the hall and out the front door.
Jessica lay on the bed, thinking. It was just as well, she decided, that she hadn’t tried to tell Joy about what had happened. Joy would never have believed it about Worm. She would have laughed, probably, the way she’d laughed once when she saw Jessica and Brandon doing one of their book plays. Or, even worse, she might have taken it seriously, too seriously. She might have sent Jessica to a psychiatrist again.
Joy had sent Jessica to a psychiatrist once, when the first-grade teacher had complained that Jessica slept all day in class. The psychiatrist had been a very smart man; he had figured out right away that Jessica slept all day in school because she didn’t sle
ep at night. But he wasn’t smart enough to find out why. Jessica had decided she didn’t want anyone to know about the empty-room dream, so she had made up a story about being afraid of a monster who sometimes hid in her closet. The psychiatrist had made Joy stay home every night and come into Jessica’s room over and over again to show her that the closet was empty. After a while, Jessica got better at sleeping, except when Joy was out, and Joy had quit sending her to the psychiatrist.
But whether she laughed or sent for a psychiatrist, Joy would certainly never have believed, for even a moment, that Worm had really talked to Jessica. The thing was, Jessica was not really sure of it herself. Perhaps she’d only imagined it.
She might very well have imagined it; and if she had, she knew why—and what had caused it. All those years that she’d spent playing those crazy games with Brandon—games where you had to imagine all kinds of crazy things—had gotten her so much into the habit that she wasn’t able to tell, sometimes, whether she was imagining or not.
That must have been it. She’d imagined it all—and it wasn’t her fault or Worm’s fault either. It was Brandon’s fault for teaching her to have such a crazy imagination.
Jessica realized, suddenly, that she had been lying on her bed thinking for a long time and she was almost late for school. She jumped up, grabbed her books and coat, and was opening the door to her room when suddenly she stopped. Worm usually stayed hidden until Joy left for work, but he would be out by now, prowling around the apartment.
Without asking herself why she didn’t want to see him, Jessica opened the door a crack and peeked around it. He was not in the hallway. Hastily she tiptoed to the door of the living room and eased through it. He must be in the kitchen, eating his breakfast, she thought and hurried across the room, glancing back over her shoulder at the kitchen door. She was already in the tiny entry hall before she saw him. He was sitting in front of the door, a tall tapering pillar of a cat, entwined by a snakelike tail.
Jessica’s heart thudded, and she caught her breath, but then she laughed disgustedly—at herself mostly, for being so ridiculous.
“Sssst,” she said. “Scat! Get out of my way.”
Worm stood up slowly, and with slashing tail, moved slowly and deliberately around Jessica, across the living room and into the kitchen. Jessica watched until he was out of sight, and then she slipped out the door and slammed it behind her.
“See,” she told herself. “He didn’t say anything. Not a word. I knew he wouldn’t.”
And yet later, that very day, she found herself saying, “I’ll tell Worm. I’ll tell him it worked.” It happened when school was over and Jessica was on her way out of the school building. She looked toward the street and there were Brenda and Diane, standing by the curb. Brenda was talking, nodding her head and making sharp angry gestures, while Diane stood with her head down, saying very little. From time to time, she shook her head. Then a car approached the curb, and she gave Brenda a quick little shove and walked away.
Diane got into the car without looking back or waving to Brenda, and Mrs. Darby, who was at the wheel, didn’t wave either. Brenda waved though, hard and defiantly, until the car was out of sight.
Jessica walked the other way, across the yard, feeling nothing at first except a kind of numbness that was almost like surprise. But then suddenly she walked faster, prodded by a sharp twinge of that fierce excitement. And that was when she found herself saying, “I’ll tell Worm. I’ll tell him it worked.”
During the next few days, Jessica told Worm how well the fountain-pen story had worked, not just once, but many times. She told him how glad she was that it had worked because it served them right. It served Diane right for trading a friendship for a crummy swimming pool, and Brenda for being spoiled and conceited and for stealing other people’s friends. It served them both right, and most of the time Jessica was sure she was glad about it. Anyway, it was done, and no one could change anything now.
As for Worm, Jessica didn’t know what to think. Sometimes she told Worm that he was just an ordinary, stupid cat, and she knew perfectly well that he had never said anything to anybody and never would. At other times she wasn’t sure. But no matter what she said to him, Worm only watched her silently through slitted eyes.
The rest of that week crept by so slowly it seemed as if it were never going to end. School, which for some time had been getting more and more impossible, became even worse. Jessica spent hours of class time thinking about Worm and other things. At last the school week ended, but the weekend was no better, and Sunday was the worst of all.
Joy left early in the afternoon for a ride in the country and a dinner date with Alan; and after a long boring day, Jessica had only hours and hours of reading or TV—and Mrs. Post’s visit—to look forward to. She had read for a long time when she began to feel hungry and decided to fix herself something to eat.
It was while she was on her way to the kitchen that she noticed Worm, sitting on the windowsill, halfway hidden by the drape. He was staring down into the back yard so intently that Jessica stopped and looked, too.
Enormous floodlights made the back yard almost as bright as day. Frank, Mrs. Post’s husband, had installed them to illuminate the murderers his wife was always looking for. But Jessica guessed that Worm was looking for something besides murderers.
“They aren’t there,” she told him. “She never lets them out this late at night. You’re imagining things.”
But Worm only went on staring, his tail twitching in sharp angry flicks. His ears were moving, too, shifting backwards, stretching his eyes into sharper diamonds. Jessica caught her breath as excitement welled up, swift and hot, drowning her first brief impulse to turn quickly away and hurry on to the kitchen. She crouched by the windowsill, bringing her face close to Worm’s.
“Say something,” she said. “Say something! Like you did before. Say something, you stupid cat!”
Worm’s evil, angry face was turning toward her, and Jessica could feel the excitement growing and spreading, when suddenly his ears twitched and flicked forward. He leaped down from the sill and slid, a flowing gray shadow, beneath the overstuffed chair. At the same instant, there was the familiar creaking of the stairs, and a moment later a knock on the front door.
Jessica stood up slowly, breathing hard, her fists clenched at her sides. She waited until Mrs. Post had knocked twice before she yelled, “Come in.” She stayed at the window with her back to the room as Mrs. Post puffed across to her favorite chair and sighed slowly into it.
“Jessica,” she whined. “You still aren’t remembering to lock the door. I’ve talked to your mother about it, and she agrees with me that you really must be more careful. You really must remember to lock the door whenever you’re here alone. Didn’t you read in the paper this very morning about what happened to that poor woman in the Parkwood Apartments? And that’s not such a long way——”
Mrs. Post’s voice trailed off for a moment and then rose again like the whine of an electric saw. “What are you doing there in the window, Jessica? What is it? What are you looking at?” The tone sharpened as if the saw had struck a nail. “Is there someone in the back yard?”
A sound moved through the angry fumes in Jessica’s mind. “A man,” it howled. “There was a man in the yard.”
“There was a man in the yard,” Jessica said. “He was sneaking along by the fence, and he had something tied across his face.”
Almost immediately, Mrs. Post was behind her, smothering her against the window frame as she peered out into the yard. Her soft bulges pressed around Jessica, smelling of disinfectant and stale lilac powder.
“Where?” she said. “Where is he? Lord help us. Where is he? I told Frank this was going to happen. Where is he, Jessica? I don’t see anyone.”
“He’s gone,” Jessica said. “He went in the back door into the downstairs hall.”
“Ohhh!” Mrs. Post made a noise like a stepped-on rubber squeak-toy and moving faster than Jessica would ever hav
e imagined she could, she dashed to the telephone and began to dial. “Ohh, ohh,” she squeaked with every number. Then she stopped dialing and only moaned while she waited for the phone to be answered. It must have rung several times before she whispered, “Hello, hello, Frank, is that you?” There was a pause and then she rushed on in a frantic whimper. “Frank, there’s a man down there—in the hall. He went in just a minute ago—through the back door. No, just now—just a minute before I called. You were? For how long? Well, no, but Jessica did. Well, just a moment. I’ll be right down.”
Mrs. Post hung up the phone and surged out the door, calling back for Jessica to be sure to turn the lock. Jessica did, and then immediately ran back and dropped to her knees beside the overstuffed chair, but Worm was not there. Sometime during the phoning he must have crept out of the room. Jessica looked in most of his usual hiding places before she found him in her bedroom, sitting in the middle of her bed. As she came in, he began to wash his face, licking a paw and scrubbing behind his ear and down his face, but all the time watching Jessica through the cracks of his slitted eyes.
Jessica laughed harshly, and the angry excitement burned higher as she sank down beside the bed, bringing her face close to Worm’s.
“All right,” she said. “You can stop pretending. You can stop acting like an ordinary cat. I heard you. I heard you say there was a man in the yard.”
Worm had stopped washing, but his face remained blank and innocently owllike. He stared at Jessica with eyes whose pupils, in the dim light of the bedroom, had grown to enormous black holes.
“We really scared old Post,” Jessica said excitedly. She bugged her eyes, pitched her voice to “electric-whine,” and said, “Where is he? I knew it. I knew this was going to happen.” She laughed again at her own impersonation. “She’s probably down there right now telling Frank ‘I told you so.’ She’s always fussing at him about robbers and murderers and making him put double locks on everything, and he always just laughs at her. So now she’s down there saying ‘I told you so!’”
The Witches of Worm Page 5