Ghost Girl

by Torey Hayden

  Disgruntled, I stared at her, willing her to talk to me.

  “Please? I’m missing my playtime. I said I’m sorry, so can I go?”

  At last I flapped a hand at her. “Yes, go ahead.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Thursday afternoon, Arkie Peterson dropped by. Like so many of her visits, this one was completely unexpected. She was wearing an unusual combination of calfskin vest and long, dangly rhinestone earrings that gave her the sort of tarty cowgirl appearance only Arkie seemed to be able to carry off and still not hurt her professional image.

  “How’s it going?” she asked, sitting down on the edge of the table where I was working.

  I rolled my eyes. “You found me a corker in Brucie.”

  She grinned gleefully. “I told you last spring I’d picked a winner.”

  “Ever notice how the really weird ones get their names reduced to silly diminutives?” I remarked, rising to get a pen from the canister on top of the bookshelf. “Like Brucie instead of Bruce? I’ve had a load of them. Dirkie. Cliffie. Jamesie.”

  “Jadie,” Arkie added.

  “Yes, Jadie.”

  “Hoo-hoo,” said Arkie knowingly. “Enough corks for a winery there, eh?”

  “I’m going to need to have a long talk with you about her.”

  “Ah, wrangling for another expense account dinner at Tottie’s?”

  “Wrangling for a chance to have you sitting still in one place for twenty minutes. I’ve got to talk to you. I mean really talk. Seriously. And privately.”

  Arkie sobered. “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “I think she’s being sexually abused.”

  “Really? Has she said something?”

  “Not in so many words, no, but one can put two and two together. Something very strange is up with this girl.”

  “Is this all from that incident with Reuben in the spring?”

  “Well, I found that unsettling, but I think I could have accepted it as a one-off incident. Kids are sexual, whether we like to think it or not, and disturbed kids can get pretty creative in that realm. But it’s adding things up.” I then told Arkie about the incident with the puppy.

  Arkie frowned in revulsion.

  “She was talking about sucking milk out of a penis, definitely a penis and not a teat, and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to substitute ‘milk’ for ‘semen.’ Your average eight-year-old wouldn’t come up with that on her own. Most kids that age are appalled by the idea of sexual intercourse, much less fellatio.”

  Folding her hands together in front of her, Arkie rested her thumbs against her lips in a pensive pose. “All it takes, though, is one blue flick. Who’s to say her daddy doesn’t have a whole porn library sitting at home on the shelf? Who says she’s not sitting up at eleven-thirty at night watching the wrong TV station? Kids know more these days, Torey. They have access to a lot more information than we had.”

  “I don’t dispute that, but there’s a big difference between seeing it and doing it. Even Jeremiah was horrified by what she intended, and God alone knows what he sees at home. And that’s the point. It’s even more than doing it, it’s wanting to do it.”

  Arkie fell silent.

  “I realize there’s nothing much I can do at this point. If she doesn’t make a specific accusation, I know I can’t push. I’m all too aware of the danger of ‘leading questions’ and ‘eliciting information’ and all that crap, if something does come out and it does go to court, but I’m starting to get very worried about this kid. To use a hoary old hippy phrase, I really do get bad vibes.”

  “Yeah,” said Arkie, “I can appreciate that now. I’ll make a note in her file, and I’ll have a browse through all the old notes to see if there’s anything mentioned that might contribute. Otherwise, I think you’re following the best path. If she is being abused, either we need concrete evidence or she has to say something outright; so it’s eyes and ears open and let’s see if we can ask the right questions.”

  “Yes,” I replied, but, in fact, what I’d been hoping for were the right answers.

  During the following week, just after afternoon recess, all of us were seated around the table in the classroom. Reuben, Jadie, and Jeremiah were doing written work from their folders; Philip was cutting and pasting pictures from a magazine as part of his project on foods; I was working with Brucie on color identification. Indeed, we were just reaching the stage where, as a class, we could all sit down and work together and genuinely accomplish something in the process, so I was finding the peace blissful. Then, Jeremiah started making a quiet scrabbling noise with his fingers on the underside of the table.

  “Jeremiah, please finish your work,” I said. A pause ensued and then the scrabbling again. “I’m going to get you,” he whispered playfully to Philip, sitting across from him.

  “Jeremiah,” I said, a little more firmly.

  He brought his hand back up onto the table and feigned work.

  This time he laid a sheet of paper over the top of his hand and then wiggled his fingers. “It’s one of them tarantula spiders,” he whispered with mock malevolence and made the paper edge toward Philip. “One of them great, big, hairy boogers and he’s coming to get you.”

  Jadie’s eyes went wide and dark as she watched Jeremiah’s obscured hand. Reaching over quickly, I snatched the paper off, exposing his creeping fingers. “Silly boy,” I said to her. “Just pretending.”

  Showing Jeremiah up didn’t stop him. His fingers scrambled the rest of the way across the table to Philip. “Coming to getcha!” he shrieked and then, with the lightning swiftness Jeremiah was renowned for, he leaped over the table and had Philip playfully by the throat.

  “Jeremiah! I mean it. Settle down. This is your last warning.”

  Rolling his eyes, Jeremiah settled back into his seat. “Probably just say that ’cause I’m an Indian kid. Wouldn’t always be getting so mad at some kid with white skin.”

  “White, brown, black, or purple with pink polka dots, I’ll get after you, if you keep disrupting everything. It’s not your skin I’m worried about, it’s your actions.”

  “Whew, listen to this lady, man,” he muttered. “Not even worried about our skins.”

  We returned to our activities for perhaps three or four minutes before Jeremiah’s fingers began to wiggle yet again. With exaggerated effort, he tried to control them, falling off his chair and pinning them to the floor.

  “I’m trying to, man,” he said to my unvoiced disapproval and got back up on his seat, “but these fingers, they got a life of their own.” And with this comment, he wriggled them again, running them up his other arm and leaping them over onto Jadie’s shoulder.

  Jadie jumped with a scream from her chair. “Get him away from me!” she cried. “Make him stop!” Before I could react, however, she had bolted from her chair. Scuttling across the room and into the cloakroom, she slammed the door behind her. I struggled to catch up with her, but before I could, I heard the key turn in the lock.

  “Jadie? Jadie, let me in.”

  No answer.

  Gently, I tried the doorknob to make sure it was actually locked, but I didn’t rattle it, in case I frightened her further. “Would you please let me in?”

  No reply.

  “It’s only me, Jadie. Let me in, please.”

  Nothing.

  At last I turned and went back to the table, where the boys sat, wide-eyed, watching.

  “How come she did that?” Jeremiah asked.

  “How come do you think?” I replied irritably.

  He looked at the door a moment, then wearily shook his head. “You know, you can probably hate me for saying this, but you’re really not such a hotshot teacher. You’re supposed to be making it so they don’t keep thinking there’s crazies in here. Now she’s gone and locked herself in the closet.”

  “She just wants to be alone for a bit.”

  Jeremiah frowned and ran a hand through his dark hair, making it stand straight up. “Just t
hat last year she didn’t talk, but there really wasn’t nothing wrong with her otherwise. Now she talks and you find out she’s fucking crazy. And I hate to say it, but that’s probably your fault.”

  Throughout the remainder of the afternoon, Jadie stayed in the cloakroom. The occasional muted thunk of movement passed through the wall to us, but otherwise, there was no indication she was in there. Certainly, there was no indication she was coming out. At last, the going-home bell rang.

  “What the fuck we gonna do now, lady?” Jeremiah asked. “We don’t got no coats or nothing.”

  Rising, I approached the door. “Jadie? It’s time to open up. That was the bell, and the boys need their things so they can go home.”

  Beyond the door there was no sound whatsoever.

  “Gonna have to break the door down, lady.”

  “Open up, Jadie. The buses are waiting. The boys need their things.”

  Reuben, distressed by this change in the usual routine, began to cry.

  “AHHHHHHH!” shrieked Jeremiah with ear-splitting loudness. He gave the air a martial arts-style kick. “Gonna bust that door right down!”

  “No, you are not. Now cool it,” I said and grabbed him. “Jadie!” I called through the door.

  Nothing.

  I knew I could get in there if I had to, as Mr. O’Banyon had a master key for all the doors, but I was reluctant to call him up. A major part of Jadie’s and my relationship revolved around the security of these doors, and I didn’t want to damage her faith in them. On the other hand, I was growing desperate.

  “Now, if I have to, I will open that door, Jadie,” I said in my sternest, most definite teacher’s voice. “Or else you can. And I think it’d be a much better idea if you opened it.”

  At last came the soft sound of the key turning in the lock. The latch snicked and the door came open. Jadie, her eyes red and puffy, stood forlornly inside the cloakroom.

  “Jeremiah,” I said, “pop out and see if Mrs. McLaren is still in the hallway with her boys and girls. Ask her if she’d be kind enough to see that you and the others get down to your rides.” Going into the cloakroom, I quickly snatched up the boys’ wraps and lunchboxes and Reuben’s ever-present Dutch girl cookie jar top.

  Lucy appeared.

  “Do me an enormous favor, okay?” I asked and smiled as winningly as I could, then I disappeared back into the cloakroom.

  Head down, long hair falling forward to obscure most of her face, Jadie just stood. Beyond her on the bench were the Sasha dolls, removed from their box and all carefully laid out, side by side.

  “Looks like there’s a family there,” I said, approaching the dolls. “This one could be the mama and this one the daddy. And these look like they could be the children.”

  Jadie didn’t move as much as a muscle.

  I sat down on the bench beside the dolls. “What’s this one doing?” I asked, picking up the doll with the long dark hair, the one Jadie favored. “I wonder how she’s feeling.”

  Jadie remained motionless.

  Gently, I caressed the doll, pushing back its unbrushed hair. “Shall we play at dolls?” I asked Jadie. “This can be your doll. You pretend to be her and tell my doll what yours is thinking about. Okay?” I held the doll out to her.

  Jadie turned away to avoid my giving it to her.

  Pulling the doll back in, I stood it on my knee. “Oh, I’m feeling unhappy,” I whimpered in a high-pitched falsetto on the part of the doll. “I’ve got terrible feelings inside me, all scared and miserable.”

  “Oh dear,” I replied solicitously in my own voice. “Why’s that?”

  “I’m frightened. I’m so, so scared,” the doll whined.

  “Oh? Why’s that? Can you tell me about it?”

  “Terrible things are happening to me and I don’t know how to stop them,” the doll cried.

  “How awful for you,” I murmured sympathetically and enveloped the doll in a tender hug. “Oh, poor you. I feel bad for you when I hear you’re unhappy. Come here and let me hold you. Let me help.”

  Jadie took a step closer. Watching her furtively with my peripheral vision, I continued my conversation with the doll.

  “I’m frightened! I’m frightened!” the doll cried in a piteous voice. “It’s hard for me to tell you. I’m afraid you won’t understand. I think you won’t believe me. I’m scared you’ll think it’s my fault.”

  “Oh dear,” I said, turning to look at Jadie, “she’s so unhappy. What can we say to her? Come here. Can you think of something to tell her to make her feel better?”

  Staring at the doll, Jadie hesitated, a perplexed expression on her face. Then, very cautiously, she took a step nearer. A pause, then she extended her hand in an uncertain manner. “Don’t be afraid,” she whispered and lightly caressed the doll’s hair.

  “I wonder why she’s so frightened,” I said.

  “It’s her birthday.”

  “Ohhh,” I said in a wise and knowing tone, although I hadn’t any idea why Jadie should consider a birthday frightening. “Poor dear,” I said to the doll. “You’re so, so scared, aren’t you? But I’ll hold you tight.” I cuddled the doll against my body. “Words are a good thing, because they help me understand. I’ll keep you close and you can tell me all about what’s wrong. Then I can help.”

  Jadie began to weep.

  “Come here, lovey,” I said, extending my arm toward her. “You can tell me, too.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  “I can’t. You won’t understand.”

  “You can. And I will.”

  “I can’t and you won’t.”

  “Give me a chance, all right?” I smiled gently at her. “Right here, nice and safe. I’ll keep my arms around you.”

  “I can’t,” she cried passionately. “You just don’t understand.” And with that, she broke out of my grip and turned on her heel. Running to the door, she unlocked it and bolted out before I could get to her. I was left with the sound of her footsteps echoing away into the silence of the empty corridor.

  School began at 8:45, so most mornings I came about eight. I used the forty-five minutes to lay out last-minute materials, make sure I was organized, and then, on most mornings, to socialize. Getting a cup of coffee from the lounge, I would wend my way back via the front office, Alice’s room, and a few others, just to say hello and see how things were getting on, before ending up in Lucy’s room, where I often stayed until the bell rang.

  So my rounds started the following morning, but before stopping in to see Lucy, I went back to my own room to put my now empty coffee mug on the desk. Opening the door, I was surprised to find Jadie sitting in her chair at the table.

  “How did you get in here?”

  Jadie didn’t respond. She was still dressed in all her outer clothes, right down to her mittens.

  “Mr. Tinbergen’s going to be mad, if he sees you. He’s been pretty tolerant about letting you come in after school, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to push him too far. And he’s always been very strict about children staying outside until the bell goes.”

  “My sister’s got a birthday,” Jadie replied. Her eyes were on me. Such beautiful eyes she had, such a sheer, clear blue, their intensity heightened by the thick black lashes. Her forehead wrinkled in concern.

  “Your sister’s got a birthday?” I echoed, bewildered.

  Jadie’s eyes grew wide and dark, the pupils dilating as she searched my face. I could sense her imploring me to understand, and I was briefly overcome with a feeling of utter helplessness, because I knew I didn’t in the least. “Which sister?” I murmured.

  “Amber.”

  “Oh.”

  Jadie hunched forward. “She’s going to be six on her birthday.” Her voice was so soft as to be barely above a whisper. “On the twenty-seventh.”

  “And that upsets you?”

  Clearly, it did. Head down, shoulders bent, Jadie twiddled a tassel on one mitten. A thick snuffle betraye
d her nearness to tears.

  Pulling out the chair opposite, I sat down at the table. “Could you tell me a little more?”

  No answer.

  I reached my hands across the table to touch hers. “Lovey, I want to help you. I can tell that you’ve been very worried lately; I know you’re unhappy. I know you want to help, but you have to talk to me. Otherwise, I can’t tell what to do.”

  “Amber might die.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  Jadie looked up, her expression one of anguished exasperation. “I just told you! She’s going to be six on her birthday.”

  I paused in puzzlement.

  “And I don’t want her to die.”

  “Actually, sweetheart, people don’t usually die just because they’ve turned six.”

  “Tashee did. And Amber might, just like Tashee. Maybe it’s going to be the same. I think it’s Amber’s turn now.”

  “Tashee died?”

  Jadie’s brow furrowed in an expression of suspicion. “You knew that. I already told you.”

  “Sometimes, lovey, I get a little bit confused. This isn’t because I’m not listening or because I don’t believe what you’re saying. I don’t mean to. It’s just that …”

  Jadie’s chair had begun to slide backward, and I realized she was about to run away again. Oh please, I was praying, let me know what to say next.

  “When Tashee died,” I said softly, “how did it happen?”

  Jadie regarded me warily. Then she glanced around the classroom, her eyes scanning the mopboards and crevices for cobwebs. At last she leaned toward me and said in a whisper, “Miss Ellie took the knife, the one shaped like this,” she paused to trace a design on the tabletop with her finger, “and she put it right there on Tashee’s throat.”

  Jadie paused again, swallowed, leaned even closer, until our heads were almost meeting. “When she done it, the blood came out. Sort of like in a hose. It didn’t run down, like when you cut yourself, but it sort of came up, like when you turn the hose on, and Miss Ellie caught it in the cup.”

  Placing a hand under my chin, I laid my fingertips against my lips to keep from betraying my feelings. A moment, two moments passed before I could trust my voice. “Miss Ellie killed her? Miss Ellie? The lady from TV?”