Don't Tell

“Lauren,” Holly said, “I think you need to talk to someone else. Coming back to Wisteria has been a lot harder on you than any of us thought it would be. We need to find you another counselor, one who is more—”

“It’s real! It’s happening!” I exploded. “Accept it!”

“It’s real, it’s happening,” Nora echoed.

The others gazed at Nora, then me with the same concerned, tolerant expression. I would have been angered by their patronizing looks, but I didn’t believe they were thinking what their faces showed. I didn’t trust any of them.

Not Nora, not Aunt Jule, not Nick, not Holly. They knew things they weren’t telling me. Maybe they had agreed among themselves not to tell me.

“I promise you,” I said, “I’m going to find out what happened to my mother and what is happening to me.”

“All right,” Holly answered softly, soothingly.

“Nick, I want to keep Rocky tonight.”

“If it makes you feel safer,” he replied with a shrug.

“It does,” I said, starting toward the house. “Rocky doesn’t pretend like the rest of you.”

sixteen

I finally got some sleep Tuesday night, lying with my back against Rocky’s, listening to his dog snores. Early the next morning I went outside with him. While he swam, I fell asleep again on the grassy bank. Holly awakened me.

“This doesn’t look good,” she said, smiling, “one of my party guests asleep on the lawn the morning after.”

I sat up. “What time is it?”

“About nine-fifteen. How are you feeling?”

“Okay. My headache’s gone and I’m not nauseated anymore.”

She nodded. “I opened the greenhouse door and turned on the fans to air the place out. Did you realize there’s a big exhaust fan at the back of the greenhouse? Of course,” she added quickly, as if afraid she’d hurt my feelings, “it might not have helped last night.”

“The exhaust fan was sealed,” I told her, “as it is in winter.”

“No, it’s automated now. The flaps open when you turn on the fan.”

“So you replaced the fuses?”

“The fuses?” she repeated. “I just hit the switch.”

“Holly, there wasn’t any electric power in the greenhouse last night. I couldn’t turn on the fans or the light.”

She bit her lip, then said quietly, “Sometimes, when people get frightened, they think they’re doing something, but they’re not thinking clearly so they’re not doing it right.”

“I was doing it right.”

She didn’t want to argue with me. “Well, maybe. Let’s get some breakfast.”

“You go ahead. I’m not hungry.”

“Come on, Lauren, you’ll feel better if you eat something.”

I gave in and called Rocky. Nick’s wet and fragrant dog made it as far as the hall entrance to the house. “Please, not on an empty stomach,” Holly pleaded.

I brought Rocky’s breakfast out to the porch, some of last night’s meat and a piece of toast, though the toast was supposed to have been mine. Heading inside to make more, I entered through the dining room door and stopped in my tracks.

Aunt Jule’s work lamp had been knocked over, its white globe broken, the fragments scattered on the table. In the basket next to it a dozen colorful embroidery threads were tied together in fantastic knots. I debated whether to call to the others. No, Aunt Jule might accuse me again of seeking attention. Let her find it and see how it felt when this strange phenomenon was directed at her.

I started toward the kitchen, then backtracked — there was something amiss in what I had just seen. While the lamp’s cord was pulled from the socket, it wasn’t knotted. The cord of my bedroom lamp had been yanked from the wall plate and knotted. The lamp broken the day I arrived had also had a knotted cord. Perhaps it was the process of making the knot, the psychokinetic force used to tie the cords, that caused the lamps to tip over, and similarly, the force exerted to knot the swing’s rope that caused it to snap. But there was no knot in this cord. It was as if someone had added the lamp to the scenario, overlooking that one detail. Maybe someone was mimicking Nora.

But who — who would have a reason to hide behind her behavior and wait for a chance to kill me? The question I had asked myself at the bank two days ago flickered in my mind again, and this time I couldn’t snuff it out. What was the nature of the relationship between my mother and Aunt Jule? Had it gone bad at the end?

My mother had died the summer she’d written the new will, which left everything to me, with that one provision. Aunt Jule had asked me here, knowing I was nine months away from my eighteenth birthday and that she would inherit the money if I died before then. But I couldn’t believe that my own godmother would hurt me.

I wasn’t naive. Life in Washington had taught me how the desire for money destroyed the values of all kinds of people.

But while I could almost imagine that Aunt Jule only pretended affection for me — perhaps it wouldn’t be hard, visiting me twice a year and seeing me now for just a few days — I couldn’t believe that she would allow her own daughter to be blamed.

Still, some curious puzzle pieces fit. Perhaps Aunt Jule had been refusing to get help for Nora because she knew she would need her as a cover. If Nora were accused of murder, she would be helped rather than harmed, getting the psychiatric care she needed and eventually released. In the end Nora would share in the wealth she had “earned.” Aunt Jule had always had a knack for quietly getting what she needed.

Hearing footsteps on the stairs, I continued on to the kitchen. My godmother entered a few moments after me.

“Good morning, girls.”

“ ’Morning,” we both murmured.

“How did you sleep, Lauren?”

“Okay,” I answered.

“And you, Holly?”

She pulled her head out of the newspaper. “Not bad.”

“Well,” Aunt Jule said, “Today’s a new—” A long, plaintive whimper came from the next room. Holly quickly put down the paper.

“I didn’t do it!” Nora cried. “I didn’t!”

“Here we go again,” Holly muttered as the three of us hurried into the dining room.

I watched Aunt Jule’s face, searching for some sign that she already knew what was there. Both she and Holly noticed the lamp first, then the knotted embroidery silk.

Holly suddenly turned to me. “You don’t seem very surprised, Lauren. Did you know this was here?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “I saw it when I came in.”

Holly frowned, silent for a moment. “I want to believe you. I really want to believe you’re not playing pranks, but I just don’t know what to think.”

“I didn’t do it!” I insisted.

“I didn’t do it,” Nora echoed.

“Then who did?” Aunt Jule asked, setting the lamp base upright.

Nora edged toward me. “It’s a secret. Don’t tell.”

“Oh, shut up!” Holly said.

Aunt Jule fingered the knots, her lips pressed together.

“If someone tells, will Sondra wake up?” Nora asked. “I won’t tell.”

Holly whirled around and Nora winced.

“I hate this, Mom!” Holly exclaimed. “Can’t you see that Nora needs help? She’s making life miserable for all of us.”