Help Wanted

by Richie Tankersley Cusick

  “Something was up there!” Robin insisted, but Parker turned to Winifred.

  “What’s that stuff hanging up there in the storage room?” he asked her.

  “Storage room?” For a moment the maid’s face looked blank, but then she began to nod. “Why, drapes, Mr. Parker. They needed a proper washing, and they wouldn’t fit in the machine. So I thought I’d just use that old tub up there—it did nicely.”

  “See?” There was no mistaking the smugness in Parker’s tone, and Robin felt a surge of anger go through her.

  “I know what I saw!” she burst out at him.

  “Oh, come on, it was an honest mistake.” Parker laughed. “And in the bad light—you were nervous—”

  “She’s come back.” Claudia sat up straighter on the couch and stared at them.

  The room grew uncomfortably still. Robin saw Winifred put one hand to her heart. Old Mr. Swanson slammed his fist down on the desk, and everyone jumped.

  “Balderdash, I tell you! It’s all balderdash! If you keep this up, Claudia, I swear on your mother’s grave, I’m going to have you locked up!”

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” Claudia replied calmly. “She’ll find me there just like she found me here. She can go anywhere she pleases. She can follow me anyplace I go. I can’t hide from her. I can never hide from her. She’ll have me when she wants me. It’s inevitable.”

  Even in the shadowy room Robin could see the old man’s eyes fairly shooting sparks. The tension in the air was so thick, the room seemed ready to explode.

  “Don’t you believe me?” Claudia begged. She looked at Robin and her voice tightened. “Don’t you believe her?”

  “I saw something,” Robin said.

  Everyone stared at her.

  “That’s why I went up there in the first place,” she explained. “I heard someone calling for help. I thought it was Winifred, that maybe she was hurt.”

  “That wasn’t me,” Winifred said nervously, “and I certainly wasn’t hurt.”

  “She said Claudia’s name.”

  Claudia went pale. “Me,” she whispered. “I told you.”

  “I did call out to Claudia,” Winifred said cautiously, as though afraid she’d be reprimanded for it. “I thought I heard a door slam and that it might be her coming home. I called out to her, but I don’t think you could have heard me in the study.” She glanced at Robin, then quickly away.

  Silence fell again.

  “It moved,” Robin insisted. “I saw it—it moved in the bathtub like it was trying to get up!”

  “Maybe it was waiting for you to hand it a towel,” Parker deadpanned.

  “It’s not funny!” Robin said furiously.

  “I didn’t say it was! All I said was—”

  “I have to go,” Robin said stiffly. “I’ve got to get home.”

  “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll never come back,” Claudia said.

  Everyone looked at her. No one even seemed to be aware Robin was there. At last Parker glanced over, almost as an afterthought.

  “Did you drive?” he asked.

  Robin shook her head. “No. Walked.”

  “Then you shouldn’t go alone. I’ll take you.”

  “I don’t want you to take me. I’d rather walk.”

  “I’ll take you,” he said and gave a sweeping bow.

  Robin clamped her mouth shut. She jumped as Winifred tapped her on the shoulder and magically produced her jacket.

  “Thanks,” Robin whispered.

  The maid nodded and vanished into the shadows down the hall. For a long moment Mr. Swanson glared at Claudia, until finally the girl stood up, held her head high, and walked deliberately past him out of the room.

  “Come on,” Parker said, and before Robin could even say good night to Mr. Swanson, Parker took her arm and guided her swiftly down the hall and out the front door.

  The night was bitingly cold. As Robin zipped up her jacket, the porch light popped on without warning, and she jumped back with a cry.

  “It’s you, isn’t it?” Parker teased. “You have some kind of aura around you. You make lights go off and on and spirits walk.”

  “If I had powers like that, I’d make you disappear,” Robin retorted.

  He chuckled and hopped lightly down onto the driveway. She watched as he tried his car door, but when it wouldn’t open, he leaned over and peered into the window, then turned back to her, swearing.

  “Some evil spirit locked my keys in. Do you care if we walk?”

  “I can go alone, I don’t need you to—” Robin started, but Parker grabbed her elbow and steered her down the drive.

  “I just live over on—”

  “I know where you live,” Parker said, grinning.

  Robin stared at him in confusion. She felt overwhelmed by everything that had happened, and as he ushered her quickly away from Manorwood and on through the neighboring streets, he seemed almost in a jovial mood.

  “Wait,” she said at last, stopping on the sidewalk. “I’ve got to talk about what just happened back there.”

  “You mean my keys? It’s very simple, really. See—you just leave them in the ignition, push the lock on the door, and—”

  “Will you be serious—I’m really upset about this!” Robin broke out of his grasp and whirled to face him. “I don’t understand what’s happening!”

  For a long moment Parker stared at her. When he finally answered, his voice was hard.

  “Claudia’s paranoia is what’s happening.” Abruptly he turned and started walking again, but he did slow down enough to let Robin catch up.

  “Claudia’s paranoia? I don’t know—”

  “She’s always seeing things. Predicting things. Particularly her own death—it’s a personal favorite of hers.”

  “But I saw something, too! Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “Saw something? Or thought you saw something? Look, Robin, I don’t know what Claudia’s told you, but she’s a master at getting sympathy. And I’ve seen you in class long enough to know you’re always rooting for the underdog. You don’t have to corroborate her story just because you feel sorry for her. She knows exactly what she’s doing.”

  “Parker—”

  “She’s not what you’d call stable.” Parker tapped the side of his head. “Right? She’s the one who found her mother—slit wrists and all. If you ask me, Claudia hated Lillith all those years, and if she’s trying to get rid of some deep childhood guilt by making up weird nightmares about her mother coming after her, that’s her problem, not yours.”

  “I need to sit down,” Robin said. She lowered herself to the curb and put her head down on her knees.

  “Sorry.” Parker sat beside her and stared off down the street. After a moment he put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a shake. “Come on, don’t take this thing so seriously. So you thought some curtains were drowning in the bathtub—so what? It could happen to anyone!”

  “You’re really heartless, you know that?” Robin whispered, but in spite of herself she smiled.

  “Thanks,” Parker said. “You’re too kind.”

  “But”—Robin drew a shaky breath—“I really thought it was a woman. I really thought it was …”

  “Lillith?” Parker asked gently, and she nodded.

  “Lillith … or Claudia … I don’t know what I thought.” Robin sighed. “It was just so awful.”

  “You can’t save Claudia, so forget it. For the longest time I tried to get close to her after Dad married Lillith—Claudia didn’t want anything to do with me. So finally I stopped trying. She’s a strange kid. She fantasizes … makes things up. Sees things that aren’t there.”

  “Do you think she’s … you know … dangerous?”

  “To herself? Yeah, I think she could be suicidal, and I also think it wouldn’t take too much to push her right over the edge. I just give her space and go my own way and let her go hers. Then everyone’s happy.”

  Again Robin nodded. Things s
till weren’t any clearer, but she at least felt calmer.

  “Okay?” Parker nudged her.

  “I guess so.”

  “Then come on. I better get you home. Your folks will be worried about you.”

  “No, my mom never gets home till late.”

  “She doesn’t?” he asked casually.

  “No. She works and then she goes to school at night. She and my dad are divorced, and he lives with his new wife in Rome.”

  “No siblings to fight with?”

  “My older brother, Brad. But he’s away at college.”

  “So you’re alone a lot.”

  Robin glanced at him. A little shiver of apprehension went up her spine.

  “Yes,” she said and wondered why she suddenly wished she hadn’t said anything at all.

  Parker helped her up and they kept walking, neither of them speaking again till they reached her house. He waited while she unlocked the door, and then he took a step back, the old cocky grin back on his face.

  “If you need protection, just call me,” he teased.

  “Protection from what?”

  He shrugged. “You never know.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” She waved and locked the door behind her.

  She was exhausted.

  She went up to her room and ran a hot bath. She couldn’t get the strange evening out of her mind. She kept seeing the stairs looming above her and that lifeless form floating in the bathtub and that dark spreading pool across the floor …

  “She’s the one who found her mother—slit wrists and all.…”

  “I don’t want to think about it,” Robin told herself fiercely. She decided to do some of her homework while she soaked in the tub, so she picked up her history book and eased herself down beneath the suds.

  “Oh, no.”

  It only took a glance to realize the book wasn’t hers. Robin stared at it in dismay, remembering how she’d stopped to talk to Claudia at lunchtime and how their books had been lying side by side on the bleachers. I must have accidentally picked up the wrong one.

  As Robin prepared to put the book aside, she saw a plain white envelope fall out and land in the water. Quickly she scooped it up, then pulled out the small piece of paper inside to dry it on her towel. She didn’t mean to read the message, but when she saw the strange writing, she knew something was wrong.

  It was wild writing, manic writing, and the color of it wasn’t like any ink Robin had ever seen before.

  It had dried to an ugly reddish brown, swashed in thick uneven streaks, and there were drops splattered messily all over the paper and in between the letters.

  Blood? Dried blood?

  Robin felt as if she was going to be sick.

  And yet still she had to read the message … again … and yet again …

  CLAUDIA, I’M COMING FOR YOU.

  And the message was signed, MOTHER.

  Mother,” Robin repeated dully.

  She didn’t see the bathroom door begin to open …

  Or the hand slide around one corner of the door …

  “Mother,” she said, louder this time.

  “Robin?” the voice answered, and Robin shrieked as her own mother stuck her head into the room.

  “Goodness, Robin, I thought you heard me come in! I didn’t mean to scare you. How’d the new job go today?”

  “New job?” Robin stared, her mind racing. “It went … great. I love it. It’s going to be … great.”

  “Great.” Mom gave her a puzzled look. “Class was called off tonight, so I went by the store. Could you give me a hand with the groceries—the trunk’s full of them.”

  “Yeah, just let me throw on some clothes.”

  “Please do,” Mom teased and closed the door behind her.

  Robin shut her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she stared down at the bathwater. The note was floating facedown among the suds where she’d dropped it, and when she lifted it up again, the paper was curled and soggy and … blank.

  Someone’s playing a joke on Claudia—a cruel, vicious joke. What else could it be? But I’ve got to tell her about this note … don’t I? How can I tell her? Maybe I shouldn’t tell her. It’ll just upset her. But maybe she’s already seen it—maybe someone already put it there and she already read it and that’s why she acted so strange when we talked on the bleachers.…

  Robin dressed quickly and went downstairs. She didn’t want to think about her job anymore—not Manorwood, not Claudia, not Parker, not anything. It was so seldom that Mom got home early, and she wanted to make the most of it. They made pizza and popped popcorn and watched videos that Mom had rented at the grocery store. But through it all, Robin’s mind was somewhere else, no matter how hard she tried to concentrate. She kept seeing Claudia’s pale, frightened face … so much like the face in the portrait …

  It was a relief to finally crawl into bed. Robin pulled the blankets up to her chin and burrowed deep beneath their warmth. Maybe Parker’s right … maybe Claudia, really is crazy … imagines crazy things …

  But you saw that thing in the bathtub. And it didn’t look like curtains when you saw it the first time.

  So maybe I’m crazy, too. Maybe it’s contagious.

  Robin groaned and pulled the covers over her head. The whole thing was ridiculous—too fantastic to even worry about, much less believe. She wouldn’t think about it anymore. Winifred had simply been calling Claudia, and Robin had followed the sound accidentally to the storage room, and both she and Claudia had seen the curtains floating there in the dim light … and then they hopped out of the tub by themselves and hung themselves over the chair to dry.

  You don’t believe any of it, Robin told herself angrily. So stop trying to convince yourself that it all makes sense.

  She wasn’t ready for the alarm to go off at seven; she felt as if she’d just lain down and closed her eyes. She got dressed in a half stupor and grabbed some cookies to munch on the way to school, but when she opened the door to go outside, she nearly fell over a lump huddled on her doorstep.

  “Claudia!” Robin exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

  Claudia looked terrible. Her eyes were smudged with black hollows, and Robin could tell the girl hadn’t slept all night, either.

  In spite of her disheveled appearance, Claudia managed a wan smile.

  “Waiting for you,” she said calmly.

  Robin hesitated, then sat down beside her on the porch.

  “Are you okay?”

  Claudia stared at her a moment, then slowly shook her head. The violet eyes filled with tears.

  “Not really.”

  On an impulse Robin reached out and put her arm around the other girl’s shoulders, giving her a quick squeeze.

  “Me, neither. But oatmeal cookies always give problems a clearer perspective, don’t you think?”

  Claudia looked startled as Robin held out a cookie. Then, smiling almost shyly, she accepted it and took a cautious bite.

  “Specialty of the house.” Robin chuckled. “My mom doesn’t do much cooking, but this I insist upon. Of course, it helps having a brother away at college who constantly needs care packages sent with his favorite food in them.”

  Claudia considered this a minute. “You really love your brother, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Robin smiled, thinking of him. “I miss him a lot. We’re buddies.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “Oh.” Robin bit off a raisin and thought a minute. “You know … Parker really doesn’t seem so bad.”

  “Not to you. He thinks you’re wonderful.”

  “He does?” Robin asked, surprised, then quickly tried to act indifferent. “I didn’t know that.”

  “I haven’t heard him talk about any other girls,” Claudia said. “That must mean something.”

  Robin didn’t answer. She chewed a long time.

  “Claudia,” she ventured at last. “I got your book by mistake yesterday. And … I found something in it. By accident.”
r />   Claudia’s look was instantly suspicious. Robin took a deep breath and went on.

  “Here.” She pulled the note from her purse. It was stiff and curled, and as she handed it over, Claudia’s look was equally as blank.

  “There’s nothing on it.”

  “I know. I dropped it in the bathtub.”

  Claudia stared at her.

  “The thing is,” Robin went on uncomfortably, “the note was … upsetting. Claudia—I think someone is trying to play a joke on you. A really mean joke. Do you know anyone who would want to upset you like that?”

  “What did it say?”

  “It said”—Robin took another deep breath—“well, someone wanted you to think it was from your mother.”

  “Wanted me to think?” A deep shudder went through Claudia’s body. “If it said it was from her … then it was from her.” She lowered her head into her hands and hunched her shoulders forward.

  “Come on, Claudia, you don’t really believe your mother is sending you notes from the dead, do you? It just doesn’t happen and—”

  “You don’t even know my mother!” the girl said sharply. “You don’t know what she was like! She had powers! If they were that strong when she was alive, then how much stronger must they be now from the other side! Don’t you see—I don’t have a chance. She wants me with her, and she’ll do anything to get me!”

  “But why?” Robin insisted. “Why would your mother want to hurt you?”

  “Because I didn’t help her!” Claudia’s voice rose and her body went rigid. “Because she begged me to help her and I didn’t help! I just … let her die.”

  She buried her face in her hands and began to cry softly. Robin watched her for a moment, then put a cautious hand on her shoulder.

  “Claudia, you didn’t even know! There wasn’t anything you could do. It wasn’t your fault. And I don’t believe for a minute that your mother wants to hurt you. But I do believe that someone wants you to think she does.”

  The crying stopped. “Who then?” Claudia whispered.

  Robin shook her head. “Who do you think?”

  Claudia’s small hands wiped tiredly at her tear-stained cheeks.

  “Well … Parker of course. He hates me. And his grandfather hates me. He never liked me or my mother. Father is out of the country, but I’ve never doubted his love for me.” At this she smiled a bit, but then it faded almost instantly. “So … you’re saying … you think someone is deliberately trying to … drive me crazy?”