“What do you suppose it means?”
“I’m sure it doesn’t mean a thing,” June said, holding out her arms to take Jennifer, who was awake again and beginning to cry. Michelle handed the baby back to her mother almost reluctantly. “She needs to be fed,” June explained. “Then you can hold her again.”
Michelle stood up, uncertain whether she should stay in the room while her mother nursed the baby. “Why don’t you make a pot of tea?” June suggested. “And tell your father to come up. Okay?”
June watched Michelle leave the room, as Jennifer eagerly began sucking at her breast She tried to make herself relax, but it was impossible. Something had happened to Michelle. She couldn’t figure out what it was, except she was almost sure that it had to do with the graveyard. But what?
• • •
Michelle lay awake in bed, listening to the silence of the house. It seemed to her that it was too silent.
That, she was sure, was why she wasn’t able to sleep.
That, and the fact that she was all alone at her end of the house.
Down the hall.
That’s where everybody else was.
Her father, and her mother, and her baby sister. Everyone but her.
She got out of bed, put her robe over her shoulders, and left her room.
She stood outside her parents’ room for a moment, listening, then silently opened the door and went in.
“Mommy?”
June turned over and opened her eyes, surprised to find Michelle standing by the bed. “What time is it?”
“It’s only eleven,” Michelle said defensively. June pulled herself up to a sitting position.
“What’s wrong?”
“I–I couldn’t sleep.”
“You couldn’t sleep? Why not?”
“I don’t know,” Michelle said quietly, sitting down on the bed. “Maybe I drank too much tea?”
“That’s coffee, sweetheart.” She felt Cal shift next to her, then the baby suddenly began crying. Cal woke abruptly and switched on the light. Then he saw Michelle.
“What are you doing in here? Is that why the baby’s crying?”
Seeing Michelle suddenly on the verge of tears, June tried to save the situation. “The baby’s hungry, and Michelle couldn’t sleep. Why don’t you get Jenny for me, and then go down and reheat the tea? Michelle can stay with me while I feed little miss loudmouth.” She winked at Michelle, and Michelle suddenly felt better.
“I’ll get Jenny,” she offered.
Sighing heavily, Cal pulled his robe on and went downstairs. June waited until he was out of earshot, then tried to apologize for him. “He didn’t mean that it was your fault Jenny was crying. He was just asleep, that’s all.”
“It’s all right,” Michelle said listlessly. “I was just lonely, I guess.”
“Well, it’s a big house.” A thought struck her, and without waiting to think it out, she spoke. “Maybe we should move you down to this end, closer to us,” she suggested.
“Oh, no,” Michelle replied quickly. “I love my room. I feel like I belong there. Ever since I found Mandy …”
“Mandy? I thought her name was Amanda.”
“Well, it is. But Mandy’s the same thing, just like some people shorten my name to Mickey. Ugh! But Mandy’s pretty.”
Cal came back into the room, carrying a tray with three steaming cups of tea. “Only this once,” he announced. “From now on, just because Jennifer gets hungry it doesn’t mean we’re going to have a picnic. And you, young lady, are supposed to be in bed. You have to go to school tomorrow.”
“I’ll be all right. I just got lonely.” She took a sip of her tea, then stood up. “Will you tuck me in?”
Cal grinned at her. “I haven’t done that for years.”
“Just tonight?” Michelle pleaded.
Cal glanced at his wife, then nodded. “All right,” he said. “Finish your tea, and let’s go.”
Michelle drained her cup and leaned over to kiss her mother, then followed her father out of the room and down the hall to her own bedroom.
Climbing into bed, she pulled the covers snugly around her chin, and offered her cheek to her father. Cal bent down, kissed her, then straightened up.
“You’ll be asleep in no time,” he promised. He was about to turn off the light and return to June and the baby when Michelle suddenly asked him for her doll.
“She’s on the window seat. Could you get her for me?”
Cal picked up the ancient doll, and glanced at its porcelain face. “Doesn’t look very real, does it?” he commented as he handed the doll to Michelle. She tucked it protectively under the covers, its head resting on her shoulder.
“She’s real enough,” Michelle told her father. He smiled at her, then turned off the lights. Closing the door quietly behind him, he started down the hall.
Once again, Michelle was alone in her room, listening to the silence of the house. As the darkness gathered oppressively around her, she drew the doll closer, and whispered softly to it.
“It isn’t like I thought it was going to be. I was looking forward to having Jenny so much. But now she’s here, and everything’s so different. They’re all in there together, and I’m all by myself. Mommy has Jennifer to take care of now. But who do I have?”
Then a thought came to her.
“I could take care of you, Mandy. Really I could …”
She snuggled the doll closer, and a tear trickled down her cheek. “I’ll take care of you, just like Mommy takes care of Jenny. Would you like that? I’ll be your mother, Amanda, and give you anything you want. And you’ll stay with me, won’t you? So I’ll never be lonely again?”
Crying quietly, with the doll pressed close against her, Michelle fell asleep.
CHAPTER 9
Michelle awoke on Saturday morning to the soft sound of birds chirping. She lay still in bed, enjoying the knowledge that this morning she didn’t have to hurry, this morning she could stay in bed for a few minutes and enjoy the sun flooding her room, its warmth seeping through the blankets and filling her with a sense of well-being. Today was going to be a good day.
Today was the day of the picnic at the cove.
Until this morning, Michelle hadn’t been sure she would go to the picnic.
The pain of Susan Peterson’s taunting had begun to fade after three days; even the memory of the strange girl who had appeared first in her dream, then in the graveyard on Tuesday, was fading. And since the arrival of Jennifer, Michelle’s mind had been too full of other things to dwell on the black-clad image that had seemed to want something from her.
Now, surrounded by sunlight, she wondered why she had been worrying, why, when Sally Carstairs had called her last night, she had said she might not be able to go. Of course she would go. If Susan Peterson tried to tease her, she would just refuse to let it get to her.
The decision made, Michelle scrambled out of bed and put on a pair of well-worn blue jeans, a sweat shirt, and her sneakers. As she was about to go downstairs, her eyes suddenly fell on her doll, still resting on the pillow where she always kept it now at night. Picking it up, Michelle carefully propped it up on the window seat.
“There,” she said softly. “Now you can spend the day sitting in the sun. Be a good girl.” She bent over and kissed the doll lightly, as she had seen her mother kiss her baby sister, then left her room, closing the door behind her.
