what I thought was best.” Her crying became louder. “Stop it, stop it. I don’t care what you think!” She began to sob.
“Aunt Iris,” I said, moving quickly to her side. “Aunt Iris, it’s me, Anna.” I pulled on her hands, trying to get them away from her face so she would see it was just us there, but her arms were surprisingly strong. She kept her face hidden and continued to cry.
“Everything’s okay. It’s just a — a dream,” I said. “You’re having a dream. Aunt Iris, can you hear me? Look at me.” I pulled on her fingers.
Quick as a cat, she struck, making long scratches down my arm. I stepped back, surprised, rubbing my raw skin.
“Aunt Iris, it’s just a stupid clock!”
The crying lessened. Spreading her fingers, she looked through them like a child, peering anxiously at the tall clock’s face.
I walked up to it. “See, it’s ticking and has a pendulum, and hands that show—” I broke off, aware of a strange cold that emanated from the area in front of the clock. The skin on the back of my neck rose in goose bumps.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I walked toward a window, then returned to the clock and walked toward the open hall door, trying to find a source for a draft. The air was stale, motionless, warm — except in front of the clock. I shivered.
“Stop blaming me, William,” Iris said bitterly. “I had no choice. Do you hear me?”
I stared at the clock: painted numbers, hands like delicate arrows, a gold moon setting in its crescent-shaped window.
What was she seeing that I couldn’t?
Her voice began to rise in pitch. “Listen to me!” Her body trembled with anger. “Why don’t you listen to me?” she screamed, and charged the clock, slamming against it, making it rock.
I tried to drag her back from the heavy piece, afraid she would pull it down on herself. I couldn’t loosen her grip. The strength in her arms and hands seemed unnatural.
Uncle Will, I prayed silently, please stop. Please go.
Please leave her in peace.
A second later Aunt Iris ceased struggling. Her shoulders hunched and her hands hung limply at her sides. I eased her into a nearby chair. She sat silently, head bowed, knees together, one bare foot crossed on top of the other.
I stood next to her, shaking — after my spontaneous prayer I had felt the cold drain from the air. I paced back and forth in front of the clock. The air was warm now; only my skin felt cold and clammy.
“He’s left,” Aunt Iris said.
“I–I couldn’t see him.”
“I could. He’s gone.”
“You fought a lot with Uncle Will, didn’t you?”
“He was my older brother. Papa died when I was eighteen. William came back from the war and started acting as if he were my father too.”
“And my grandmother, your sister, she wasn’t around?”
“JoEllen was ten years older than William,” Aunt Iris explained. “She hated the Shore and moved out of the house at seventeen, moved to Philadelphia and married twice — came back here only once. She brought your mother when Joanna was a young teenager. Perhaps JoEllen foresaw that she would get cancer and her daughter would need us one day.” Closing her eyes, Iris rested her head against the high back of the chair. Her big hands hung heavily off its carved arms. She breathed slowly, deeply.
She was exhausted.
“Maybe we should get a little more sleep,” I said. “Come on, Aunt Iris, I’ll help you upstairs.”
Although she wouldn’t let me take her arm, she walked with me. Outside her bedroom door, she stopped, looking lost.
“This is your room. Would you like to go in?”
Her mouth worked, but she said nothing.
“Or maybe you would like to talk for a few minutes,” I suggested. “Are there some things you want to talk about?”
“I can’t.”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
Her hands became agitated, her fingers plucking at her tattered nightgown. “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you!”
“You can’t tell me. . about something from the past?”
“Past, future, it’s all one.”
“Sometimes it helps to talk.”
She shook her head. “There are secrets I can never tell.”
“Well, maybe not the secret part, but it might help to—”
“Never, never, never!”
“Okay.” I’d had enough. If she needed to talk, there was always tomorrow. “Try to get some sleep. G’night.” I headed down the hall to the entrance of Uncle Will’s room, aware that she was watching me. When I reached the door, I turned back and saw a suspicious look on her face.
“Why are you going in William’s room?”
“Because that is how I get to the other room, where my bed is, where you left the fan,” I added, hoping it would jog her memory.
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re searching for something.”
“I’m going to bed, and I think you should too.”
“I can’t.”
I sighed and retraced my steps. Squeezing past her, I entered her bedroom and turned on a small lamp. She followed me into the room as far as her bureau, stopping suddenly, looking fearfully into the mirror that hung above it.
Her bed hadn’t been slept in. I pulled down the covers and plumped the pillows, trying to make it look inviting. She watched, facing me, then turned away to watch me in the mirror. She looked at me directly again and turned a second time to the mirror image, as if she thought she were seeing two different images and couldn’t decide which one was real. She was giving me the creeps.
“Your bed is ready,” I told her.
“You’re on his side.”
“What?”
“It’s the two of you against me,” she insisted, looking at me through the mirror.
“Who?” I asked, although I guessed that she meant Uncle Will and me.
“Don’t play dumb! You and William are trying to get rid of me. You want to push me out of my home. You want this place for yourselves.”
I walked across the room to her. “Aunt Iris, I have a home in Baltimore, and I’ll be going away to college in August. I’m not going to push you out of your home.”
“You think I’m crazy,” she said.
When I didn’t respond, she whirled around to face me directly. The anger in her eyes made me take a step back.
“You want to send me away.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” I replied. “I came for a visit.”
She turned back to my reflection in the mirror. “I don’t like what I see.” The way she peered into the glass made the mirror seem as deep as Oyster Creek. “I don’t like it at all.”
Her fingers curled around a hairbrush with a silver handle.
She lifted it slowly, her eyes locking on mine in the mirror.
Inch by inch, she pulled back her arm, as if fearing too quick a movement would give her away. The ornate
