“Melanie, that show is all in your mind. You haven’t had an exhibition in two years.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Mr. Splinter felt tired. For several years, he had struggled to keep his promise to his mother, but he would fight no longer.
“Melanie,” he said, “there’s a place we’d like you to visit up north—just to see how you like it. We think you might be happier there. It’s called Lilyvale.”
Melanie looked at him with flat, gray eyes. “You promised Mother that you wouldn’t send me away,” she said. Then she evaporated.
Mr. Splinter found himself in his bed, awakened by the echoing of footsteps walking up and down a stairway. The steps seemed to come from the tower. He looked at his alarm clock: 2:00 a.m. What was Melanie doing in her studio so late at night?
Something worried him. A terrible idea entered his mind: Or was it a memory?
Wearing his pajamas, Mr. Splinter walked down the stairs to the parlor.
In the parlor, he found three familiar white-haired ladies dressed in flowing petticoats—the translucent inhabitants of the house who always sat on the velvet chairs drinking sherry at this time of night. Mr. Splinter never questioned their presence or thought of them as ghosts: they were simply part of the house during the small hours after midnight. He was no more surprised to see them there than he was to see the grandfather clock.
“Good evening,” they said to him, lifting their small crystal glasses.
“Good evening,” said Mr. Splinter.
“So she’s finally gone?” they asked, speaking as a group—a chorus of whispery voices.
“Who’s finally gone?”
“Your sister, of course. You were supposed to look out for her. Your mother wouldn’t like this one bit!”
“Melanie isn’t gone,” said Mr. Splinter.
“Oh no, she’s gone,” said one of the old ladies.
“You should check the tower. There’s something going on there,” said another.
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“You’re already too late!”
Mr. Splinter hurried past the old ladies, whose clothing seemed to swirl about the furniture like dust in the moonlight; he rushed outside, into the cool wind.
Mr. Splinter heard a siren approaching from the marina at the bottom of the hill. Melanie had taken to locking the door to the tower while she was working on her art, but Mr. Splinter remembered her hiding place for the spare key—inside the mouth of the angel statue—the beloved statue she had helped a sculptor friend design.
But this time something was amiss: when he reached into the angel’s mouth, he found that the key was gone.
Mr. Splinter walked toward the tower door, where he was surprised to find the key left right in the lock. He turned the key, but the door stuck. Mr. Splinter gave it a violent push and burst into the tower.
“Melanie?”
He ascended the stairs: thump, thump, thump, thump, thump …
“Melanie!”
As always, Mr. Splinter would be too late; Melanie would be gone, and he would be left in the tower alone, surrounded by his dead sister’s paintings and feeling as if he were walking inside the fragile, abandoned shell of a creature that he had not tried hard enough to save.
But this time, something was different. He heard something—someone breathing. Maybe Melanie’s death had been a bad dream. This time she’ll still he there, and I’ll have a chance to fix everything.
The sounds of sirens grew louder—maddeningly shrill whines that hurt his ears. Mr. Splinter hurried to the top floor of the tower, and there was Melanie, cowering on the floor. “Melanie—thank God you’re okay.”
The sirens became shrill voices.
People were screaming at him—two imps shining lights in his eyes so that he couldn’t see.
Mr. Splinter awoke from his dream to find himself standing in his pajamas in the tower, faced with two shrieking girls—his daughter and that strange friend of hers, Gilda.
Gilda and Juliet had nearly passed out from fright at the sounds of a decidedly three-dimensional ghost ascending the stairs to greet them. Then—when they saw that it was Mr. Splinter—they screamed even louder, for he seemed to approach them with a Frankenstein-like blankness, as if he didn’t quite see them or know what he was doing.
“He’s asleep!” said Juliet, watching in horror as her pajama-clad father stumbled around the room.
“Melanie? Melanie—is that you?” he kept saying.
“Whatever you do, don’t wake him up,” Gilda warned. “If you wake up a sleepwalker, they either die or kill you or wet their pants or something.” She wasn’t sure whether this was actually true, but she had heard it at a slumber party and didn’t want to take any chances.
But then Mr. Splinter woke himself up. He gazed around the room with a startled expression like that of a trapped animal. “How? What?”
Gilda felt sorry for Mr. Splinter. It was always embarrassing when adults suddenly looked as frightened as children.
“You were sleepwalking,” said Juliet accusingly.
Mr. Splinter rubbed his eyes. Then he rubbed his whole face as if hoping to wake himself up from yet another bad dream until he realized that he was, in reality, standing in the tower with Gilda and Juliet. “I was sleepwalking,” he said. “Well, that explains some things.”
“What things?” Gilda asked.
Mr. Splinter thought of the leaves that had occasionally made their way into his bedsheets—the inexplicable dirt he had sometimes discovered on his hands or feet during his morning shower. “Just—things,” he said.
“Mr. Splinter,” said Gilda, shining her flashlight directly into Mr. Splinter’s eyes, “how often do you walk in your sleep? Does this happen every night?”
“I honestly don’t know, and please don’t shine that flashlight in my eyes.” Mr. Splinter groped along the wall, searching for a light switch. He found one, and light filled the room.
Gilda and Juliet felt silly; they had simply assumed that none of the lights worked.
Mr. Splinter cringed when he saw the eye paintings more clearly. In the light, they suddenly looked more cartoonlike than scary—almost silly. Gilda realized that the entire scene suddenly appeared quite ludicrous: she and Juliet in their raincoats and hats, Mr. Splinter in his red pajamas—each bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. If her own father had been there, he might have slapped his knee and had a big belly laugh.
The girls watched Mr. Splinter warily, wondering whether his confusion at finding himself in the tower had overwhelmed his anger at discovering that they had broken his strict rule about entering it.
After Mr. Splinter had regained some composure, he turned to face Gilda. “I can only conclude that you’ve been a very bad influence on my daughter, Gilda,” he said. “I don’t know how the two of you found your way in here, but you obviously knew that you were breaking one of the rules of the house. Tomorrow we’ll make arrangements for you to return home.”
“Wait a minute!” Juliet protested. “You can’t send Gilda home! The summer’s just started, and she’s my friend. In fact, she’s a relative! If she goes, I go.”
“We’ll talk about this in the morning, Juliet.” Mr. Splinter turned to leave.
“Wait—why didn’t you tell me that Aunt Melanie was a painter?”
Mr. Splinter ran his hands through his hair in a gesture of weary frustration. He turned to face Juliet. “Does it really matter to you that she was a painter?”
“Of course it does! She was my aunt and—and it isn’t fair that you keep everything about her locked up in here!”
Mr. Splinter sighed and sank down onto a stool that faced an easel. “I suppose I was just trying to protect you from what I thought was a bad influence,” he said, surveying the paintings that surrounded him. “Toward the end of her life, Melanie became a very disturbed individual. I thought her paintings might be too—too frightening.”
“But I already knew that she must hav
e been disturbed,” said Juliet. “I knew that ever since I found out she jumped out the window! It would have been nice to know something good about her, too!”
Mr. Splinter clasped his hands together tightly and placed them over his mouth, as if he were trying to contain some powerful emotion.
“You and Mother have always been worried that I’m going to turn out just like her,” Juliet added bitterly. “Haven’t you?”
“That’s not true at all,” said Mr. Splinter, shaking his head. But he was thinking that his daughter’s gray eyes were much like the painted eyes that peered at them from the walls and ceiling. He hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, but there had been many moments when his daughter looked so much like a young version of Melanie that he almost couldn’t stand to look at her.
“Juliet,” said Mr. Splinter, suddenly sitting up straighter and looking determined to assert his parental authority, “I understand that you’re angry with me right now, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that a rule is a rule. You know that this tower has always been off-limits, so there must be some consequence for your behavior.” As he said the words, Mr. Splinter felt tired and false.
Juliet stared at her father. “That’s all you have to say to me?”
“A rule is a rule,” said Mr. Splinter weakly. Weren’t good parents supposed to create structure? To maintain rules?
“Fine,” said Juliet. “In that case, I’ll be moving out tomorrow”
“Juliet!”
Ignoring her father, Juliet grabbed Gilda by the hand and hurried down the steps, leaving Mr. Splinter alone in the tower.
“So are you really going to run away?” Gilda asked, taking off her raincoat once they were back in the house.
“I’m coming home with you,” said Juliet.
“Oh.” Gilda knew that her mother hated sleepovers and unannounced houseguests. “I should probably at least ask my mom if that’s okay first.”
“Don’t worry,” said Juliet. “I have a credit card. I can buy my own groceries and stuff.”
Gilda reflected that a credit card would probably make her mother more receptive to the idea, since she always complained about the price of meat and cereal. Gilda imagined bringing Juliet to school with her. All the kids in her class would be intrigued with the high-fashion waif from San Francisco. “She’s my cousin,” Gilda imagined herself telling people. “She lives with us now.” Then she would tell everyone how she and Juliet solved the mystery of the ghost in a mansion in San Francisco—how they discovered her father’s bizarre habit of sleepwalking—and they would be fascinated. At Christmastime, the two girls would return to San Francisco to visit Mr. Splinter, who would buy them elaborate gifts to appease his guilty conscience.
“I guess my mother won’t mind if you come live with us,” said Gilda.
“Great,” said Juliet. “I’ll start packing.”
Mr. Splinter remained alone, sitting in the upper room of the tower for a long time. He had to face the truth: Despite all his efforts to bury the memory, he had been unable to erase the fact that he had failed to save his sister’s life.
24
The Good-bye Letter
Juliet opened her suitcase, reflecting that she didn’t own a single thing that seemed appropriate to wear in Michigan—the rough wilderness that was soon to be her new home. She packed a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and then sat down on her bed to think.
“Juliet?” She heard her father rapping on her bedroom door. “May I come in?”
Juliet waited several seconds, then opened the door, but quickly turned her back to her father.
“I think we should talk,” said Mr. Splinter.
Juliet shrugged.
“I suppose I owe you an apology,” he said. “I wasn’t very, um, sensitive to your feelings about your aunt Melanie—or your need to understand what really happened years ago.”
“I’m going to Michigan to live with Gilda,” said Juliet coolly.
“No, you’re staying here because this is your home,” said Mr. Splinter, staring at his daughter’s angular shoulder blades.
“Some home.” Juliet tossed her ballet shoes in her suitcase.
“This is your home, and I’m your father.”
Juliet turned to glare at Mr. Splinter. “You probably wish you weren’t my father.”
“That isn’t true,” said Mr. Splinter.
Juliet pretended to fold a T-shirt very carefully, her back still turned.
“I admit, I’m not very good at being your father,” Mr. Splinter added lamely.
Juliet shrugged. She took the ballet slippers out of her suitcase and frowned at them critically, as if imagining the outfit she might wear with them.
“I know I’ve never wanted to talk about your aunt Melanie,” Mr. Splinter admitted, “and that wasn’t fair to you…’. It’s just—I felt so responsible for what happened to her. I suppose I wanted to make the whole memory disappear.”
Mr. Splinter watched Juliet, thinking that he no longer knew who his daughter really was. He felt as if he had just woken up from a long, bad dream, and sensed that he had missed an opportunity that had probably passed several years ago. Was he now in danger of losing his daughter as well as his sister? What could he possibly say that would make Juliet want to talk to him again?
“I think I’ll arrange to have the boards taken off the tower,” he ventured.
Juliet finally turned to look at him. “What for?”
“Well, I’ve obviously kept it locked up for too long. Maybe we can renovate it.”
“What about Melanie’s paintings?”
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Splinter, tentatively approaching Juliet and taking a seat on the edge of her bed to face her. “What do you think we should do with them?”
Juliet thought for a moment. “I guess we could put a few of them in the house. We hardly have any art on the walls.”
“But—they’re a little unsettling, don’t you think?”
“That’s what makes them good! Especially the portraits.”
Mr. Splinter rubbed his temples. He obviously hated the idea of hanging Melanie’s artwork in the house, but he was doing his best to stay open-minded in an attempt to reclaim his daughter’s trust. “Well, maybe we can hang a few of them,” he said, as patiently as he could manage. “I’m the first to admit, I didn’t understand what she was trying to do with those paintings.”
“I’m going to take art this year in school,” said Juliet, speaking defiantly.
“You were always good at art.”
“You and Mother never seemed to think so.”
“Now, you know that isn’t true, Juliet.”
“It is true!”
“We always encouraged you to take courses that would help you get into a good college, but I’m sure we never told you that you aren’t good at art.”
“But what if I don’t want to go to a good college? I mean, what if I want to go to an art school? Or no college at all?”
Mr. Splinter sighed, then tossed his hands in the air in a gesture of frustration. “We both just want you to be happy. I don’t think either your mother or I ever knew that you wanted to pursue art!”
Juliet felt confused. She felt certain that her parents had discouraged her from drawing and painting, but perhaps they had done so without realizing it. “Well,” she said, “I guess I never knew I was interested in art either—until now.”
Mr. Splinter nodded, eyeing Juliet’s half-packed suitcase. “At any rate, I do hope you won’t be running away to Michigan.”
Juliet pretended to concentrate on rearranging some of the clothes in her luggage.
“I would miss you,” Mr. Splinter added awkwardly.
“I’ll think about it,” said Juliet.
Mr. Splinter turned to leave.
“Wait,” said Juliet. “Can’t Gilda stay longer? She practically just got here!”
“Yes—I suppose so. Gilda can stay for a while longer.”
• • •
Shortly after her father left, a piece of paper appeared under the door of Juliet’s room. For a moment, Juliet stared at it as if it were a large spider creeping across the floor. Finally, she picked it up and read it with a shaking hand. Her face wore an inscrutable, pinched expression that turned into a small smile by the time she reached the end of the letter.
Dear Juliet,
This is a letter from your aunt Melanie.
I’m writing because I never got a chance to say good-bye to you. Please try to forgive me for not being there in person to see you grow up.
I’m glad you found my paintings. You and Gilda did brilliant investigative work!
I thought you might also want to know a few more things about me since I’m not around to tell you:
1. My favorite color is purple. I urge you to draw some pictures using lots of purple every now and then.
2. I happen to know that your father’s feet are extremely ticklish. (Do what you will with this piece of information.)
3. The fairy we saw in the garden WAS real.
4. I can’t explain why I jumped out the tower window years ago, but it was a mistake.
5. Whenever you feel really down, do what your cousin Gilda does and make a peanut butter, chocolate syrup, and banana sandwich.
Love always,
Aunt Melanie
25
Beach Bunnies
Today we’re heading for the beach,” Summer declared, “and I won’t take no for an answer!”
The fog that had covered the city every day for several weeks had finally lifted, and with music blaring loudly from the radio of Summer’s aging white convertible, the three drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and then through a forest of redwoods, where Summer deftly navigated the steep curves and hairpin turns of the road. Sitting in the backseat, Gilda struggled to control a growing sensation of car sickness.
“Woo-hoo!” Summer hooted. “Love these hills!” She peered into the rearview mirror. “Okay back there, Gilda?”
Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator Page 19