and the memory of the things her friends had said to her came flooding back. “Maybe I should change your name,” she said to the doll, staring into its sightless brown eyes thoughtfully. Then she thought better of it. “No! I named you Amanda, and you
Taking the doll with her, she went down the hall to the room next to her parents’ that was to be Jennifer’s. She went in, wondering what to do first.
All the furniture was there: a crib and a bassinet, a tiny chest of drawers with a top that converted into a changing table. The walls had been freshly painted, and at the windows there were curtains covered with Pooh and his friends. Propped up in the one full-size chair in the room was a stuffed animal — Kanga, with Baby Roo peeping shyly out of her pocket. Michelle propped Amanda up next to the toys, and set to work.
She soon realized that there wasn’t all that much to do. She found a pink blanket (edged in blue — just in case) and carefully arranged it in the bassinet. Then, picking up her doll, she went on to her parents’ room, where she changed the bed so June would find it fresh and clean.
When she had gone over June’s list in her mind several times, and decided she’d done everything she could remember, she took Amanda and returned to her own room, where she dumped her schoolbooks out of their bag. She stared at them resentfully. It was unfair that she be expected to do her homework on the very day when her baby sister had been born. Deciding that Miss Hatcher would understand, she returned to her window seat, her doll held comfortably in her lap.
As she stared out the window, Michelle’s mind began to wander. She wondered what things had been like when she had been born. Had she had a sister who had set up a nursery for her? Probably not. Unhappily, she reflected that she probably hadn’t even been taken home from the hospital, at least not until the Pendletons had come for her.
She never thought of them as anything but Mom and Dad. But, of course, she realized with a start, they weren’t
What had her real mother been like? Why hadn’t she wanted Michelle? As she turned the matter over in her mind, she hugged the doll closer, and began to feel lonely. Suddenly she wished she hadn’t told Jeff and his mother to leave her alone.
“I’m being silly,” she said out loud, the sound of her own voice startling her in the silence of the house. “I have a wonderful mother, and a wonderful father, and now I have a sister, too. Who cares what my real mother was like?”
Resolutely, she left the window seat, and picked up one of her schoolbooks. Better to do her homework than make herself miserable. She settled herself on the bed, tucked Amanda under her arm, and began reading about the War of 1812.
• • •
At five-thirty, Michelle put her books aside and started out on the path along the bluff. It was still light, but there was a damp chill in the air. The fog would roll in off the sea long before she got to the Bensons’. She wasn’t sure she wanted to walk the path in the fog. Retracing her steps, she went back to the house, and down the driveway to the road. The trees around her were beginning to turn, and the tinges of red and gold among the green seemed to offset the grayness of the mists that were gathering over the sea. Then, as she came abreast of the old cemetery, she glanced eastward. The fog had, indeed, made its silent way to the bluff and was swirling softly toward her, its billowing whiteness turning to brilliant gold where the fading sun still struck it, then giving way to the chilly gray of the offshore mass behind it.
Michelle stopped walking, and watched the fog as it crept steadily toward her, flooding across the graveyard whose only visible feature, from where she stood, was the gnarled oak tree. As she watched, the fog engulfed the tree, and it faded away into the grayness.
Suddenly, something seemed to move in the fog.
It was indistinct at first, no more than a dark shadow against the gray of the mist.
Tentatively, Michelle took a step forward, leaving the road.
The shadow moved toward her, and began to darken, and take on a shape.
The shape of a young girl, clad in black, her head covered with a bonnet.
The girl Michelle had seen the night before, in her dream.
Or had it been a dream?
The beginnings of fear gripped Michelle, and a coldness surrounded her.
The strange figure moved in with the fog, advancing toward her. Michelle stood transfixed, staring, unsure of what she was seeing.
The fog drifted around the black-clad child, and for a moment it disappeared, until the wind shifted, and the mists suddenly parted.
She was still there, silent, completely still now, her empty eyes fixed on Michelle with the same milky pale, sightless stare that Michelle had seen the night before.
The figure raised one black-clad arm, and beckoned.
Almost involuntarily, Michelle took a step forward.
And the strange vision disappeared.
Michelle stood quite still, terrified.
The fog, very close to her now, was beginning to surround her, soft tendrils of mist, cool and damp, reaching out to her as moments before the dark apparition had beckoned.
Slowly, Michelle began to back away from the mist.
Her foot touched the pavement of the road, and the firm feel of the asphalt beneath her seemed to break the spell. Only seconds before, the fog seemed to have become almost a living thing. Now it was only fog again.
As the fading light of the September afternoon filtered through the mist, Michelle hurried along tibie road toward the comfort of the Bensons’.
“Hi!” Jeff said as he opened the door. “I was going to come and look for you — you were supposed to be here at six.”
“But it can’t be six yet!” Michelle protested. “I left home at five-thirty, and it only took me a few minutes to walk down here.”
“It’s six-thirty now.” Jeff pointed to the grandfather clock that dominated the Bensons’ hall. “What did you do, stop in the graveyard?”
Michelle gave Jeff a sharp look, but saw nothing in his eyes except curiosity. She was about to tell him what had happened when once again she remembered the conversation at lunchtime that day. Abruptly, she changed her mind.
“I guess our clock’s wrong,” she said. “What’s for dinner?”
“Pot roast.” Jeff made a face and led Michelle to the dining room, where his mother was waiting.
Constance Benson surveyed Michelle critically as she came into the room. “We were getting worried — I was about to send Jeff out looking for you.”
“I’m sorry,” Michelle said, slipping onto her chair. “I guess our clock must be slow.”
“Either that, or you were dawdling,” Constance said severely. “I don’t approve of dawdling.”
“It was the fog,” Michelle confessed. “When the fog came in, I stopped to watch it.”
Michelle reached out and helped herself to the pot roast, unaware that both Jeff and his mother were staring at her in puzzlement.
Constance’s eyes went to the window. If there had been fog, she certainly hadn’t seen it. To her, the evening looked perfectly clear.
CHAPTER 8
Cal reached out and squeezed June’s hand affectionately. They were nearly home, and he drove slowly, weaving back and forth to avoid the worst of the pits in the road, then sighed in relief as he turned into their
