Dreadful Sorry (22 page)

"He
couldn't
be that man I saw in the visions, you know—that awful Uncle Wallace? Or could he? No, Uncle Wallace has to be dead by now. Miss Wilkins said—" She tried to remember what Miss Wilkins had said earlier that day.

"Miss Wilkins?"

"She's the librarian. That little cottage where the library is now was her house when she was a girl, and today she told me all about the Holloway family—" Molly broke off at the sudden flash of pain in her stepmother's face.

"Paulette!" She jumped off the couch.

"Wait ... it's just ... a cramp." Paulette closed her eyes for a long moment, "Gone now."

"Should I get Dad?" Molly asked worriedly.

"No, that's okay."

"Should we call the doctor?" She adjusted the pillow at Paulette's side. "Do you want anything?"

"No, I'll be fine."

Bill came into the room carrying a pitcher of iced herbal tea and a plate of crackers topped with sliced cheese. "Are you hovering, Molly? Give poor Paulette some room to breathe."

Molly sat back down next to Paulette on the couch. Bill poured them all glasses of tea and then settled himself into his recliner, propping his ankle up with a sigh.

Paulette balanced a cracker on her thin knees and sipped some tea from her glass. Molly watched her drink, noticing how delicate the bones of her face were and how fragile her hands looked holding the heavy glass.

Paulette noticed her scrutiny. "Hey, I told you something fascinating—now it's your turn to tell me something."

"She wants to know why you were out with Killer Bernstein," growled Bill.

"Well, I have to admit I was surprised when we drove up and there you both were. What happened today? How did you link up with Jared, if you hate him so much?"

"Link up," echoed Molly. "Like links on a chain." Bill and Paulette both raised their eyebrows. And then, of course, she had to go on to explain all that had happened to her that day.

Bill lay stretched out in the armchair in perfect repose, listening. Paulette, on the other hand, seemed to come to life as Molly spoke. Her weariness dropped away, and she shifted this way and that on the couch, interrupting several times to ask questions or to press for details of what Grace Wilkins had said, or what Molly had seen at Clementine's graduation ceremony, or what Uncle Wallace had looked like. Her hair stood up around her head like a halo as she scrubbed her hands through the strands.

"Oh, Molly, Molly!" Paulette said when Molly concluded her account with the talk she and Jared had had out on the headland. "This is wild.
Really
wild."

"There are even more weird connections." Molly held up one finger. "Fact: I just heard the story of the Holloway family today." She held up another finger. "Fact: You met Mr. Holloway at the hospital! That's just too weird to be another coincidence."

Paulette nodded with excitement. "It's
astonishing!
That means it's not just you and Jared having these connections. It's like you said—links on a whole
chain
of coincidences, and we're all part of it." Her eyes sparkled. "I mean, just think of it! All your life, you're afraid of water ... then just when you're having major trauma with your mom and that coach about swim lessons, Jared shows up in town and tosses you in a pool. And you're there in Battleboro Heights having bad dreams about a house ... and you come to Maine and find
this
house.
Ooh!
It gives me the creeps, but isn't it wild?" She looked delighted.

Wild,
thought Molly drily. A wild chain of coincidences. All leading her—here? But where did the water come in? She crossed her arms across her body protectively, quite sure she wouldn't like to find out.

"You want to know what I think? I think my theory is right. Reincarnation," asserted Paulette. "It's the only thing that makes sense, right, Bill?"

"It's an interesting idea," he said, sounding unconvinced. But at least he was polite. Her mother, Molly reflected, would be laughing so hard she'd be rolling on the floor.

Molly frowned at Paulette. "How is reincarnation supposed to work? I mean, I know the theory goes that when a person dies, his soul is born again into a new baby. Right? And so the soul lives on—a whole different life. Right?"

"That's it exactly!"

"But why? I mean, what's the point?"

Paulette grinned. "Horatio, do I detect a glimmer of new philosophy?"

Molly slumped back into the couch cushions.

"Your mother will have ten fits," said Paulette, smiling at the thought. "When you go home you'll be talking about oversouls and karma and astral travel like this psychic I know in San Francisco. She's the one who taught me what little I know about this stuff. There's a theory, she told me, that says the reason we're born again and again is to work out situations and relationships with people. And if something—or someone—cuts our life short before we have worked out what needs working out, we'll be encountering those people and those situations—in one guise or another—again and again in other lives until we've learned how to work out what we need to learn."

Bill leaned forward in his chair. "So what do we have to work out together, sweetheart?"

"Oh, I'm sure
we've
got everything figured out this time around, Billy." She laughed. "We're absolutely the most perfect couple I know. Don't you think so, Molly?"

"Sure," said Molly absently. She was busy following another train of thought. "Listen, Paulette? What was that old Mr. Holloway's first name? Did he say?"

"Didn't I tell you?" asked Paulette. "His name is Abner."

Without warning the humming began in Molly's head, and a child's voice piped the words. She stood up in a daze, putting her hands to her temples and pressing,
Lost and gone forever, Dreadful sorry, Clementine!
The tune in her head held memories of salt and seaweed, a subtle smell of fish, the thrum of waves dashing on rocks below the headland. Then the song disappeared as abruptly as it began.

Bill pushed himself out of the recliner and came to stand near Molly. He kissed the top of her head. "You know, honey? I think you're at the end of your rope with all this weird stuff going on all the time. Maybe you and Jared ought to go to Benson tomorrow and visit this Abner Holloway guy in his nursing home. It can't hurt—and maybe he'll have some answers. All I know is, I don't think you can take much more of this."

"I think you're right, Dad. Whenever I try to figure things out, I just feel like going to sleep for a thousand years." Molly walked toward the door. "I'm going to take a nap. Wake me up before the next millennium." She passed through the library into the big hallway. Bill and Paulette came out of the library after her, heading toward the bathroom. Bill's arm was wrapped protectively around Paulette's shoulders. She walked with her hands pressed against her abdomen.

"Just a few little cramps," she was saying.

In the hallway there was the acrid smell of a pipe. The humming began again in Molly's head, at first faint, then growing ever louder. Molly shook her head vehemently. "Please, no," she murmured. But as she started up the stairs to her room, she felt the swish of long skirts around her ankles. As she opened her door and crossed to the bed, she heard children's voices calling to her: "
Oh, Clemmy, were you really running away?
"

"Oh, Clemmy, were you really running away?" Abner looked frightened.

All the children crowded behind them in the front hallway, their expressions mixed. Anne tossed her head and looked disdainfully at her wayward cousin. The others seemed excited by their cousin's disobedience.

Uncle Wallace ordered Clementine into his study. She took a deep breath and walked through the library. All the young cousins, as well as the hired girl Janie, followed, but Uncle Wallace closed the door to the study firmly in their faces. Clementine could imagine them all pressed to the door, eager to hear what happened. She could hear the rustling and whispering as they waited. Abner's voice was loudest: "What's he going to do to Clemmy?"

Uncle Wallace stood with his back to the fireplace, with Clementine in front of him. He did not speak for a long time but busied himself filling his pipe with fresh tobacco, tamping it carefully down into the smooth wooden bowl. She kept her eyes lowered, hoping a show of meekness would appease him.

Finally he struck a match, cupped his hands around the pipe to light it, then sucked hard to get it burning. When thin blue smoke curled up to his satisfaction, he withdrew the stem from his mouth and frowned at her. "Niece, you are a disgrace to the family. What do you have to say for yourself?"

She remained silent.

Her silence angered him further, and he began to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace, puffing on his pipe.

Uncle Wallace spoke at length about how ill Aunt Ethel was, and how the children depended on her, Clementine, and how her selfish insistence on going her own way was hurting everyone who counted on her. If Clementine would not stay home willingly and help with the children, Uncle Wallace pronounced, she would remain locked in her room until her duty became clear to her.

She stood with her head bowed, trying to make his words bounce right off her. She imagined she could see them, all the words, falling into the corners and ricocheting off the ceiling. She vowed she would not be held prisoner by her uncle, no matter what.

"Are you hearing a word I've said, girl?" her uncle asked roughly and snapped his fingers under her nose. Her head jerked up and her eyes blazed with hostility. "I demand obedience from you. We'll see how many days up in your room it'll take to make you see reason!"

He reached for her arm, but she pulled away defiantly. Rage boiled in her belly at the thought of how he hoped to break her will and keep her from living her own life. He would lock her in her room, he would lock her in this house with all the children to look after, and her life would wither away! No books, no school, no job teaching, no college education!

"Don't touch me!" she yelled at him. "I
won't
stay with you! I don't care about any of you! I just want to be away from here, learning something useful about the world!" She heard a gasp from the children behind the closed study door.

She used her haughtiest voice, one that sounded like Miss Kent's voice when she spoke to recalcitrant children. "I tell you, I'm leaving here, Uncle Wallace. And there is nothing you can do about it. You have no right to try to stop me."

For a moment she feared he would strike her. His eyes blazed and he choked on a mouthful of smoke. Then he set his pipe carefully down in its stand and grabbed both her arms. He yanked them behind her back. "You and your fancy education." His voice was low and dangerous. "To your room, niece."

She didn't say another word as he pushed her in front of him toward the door, holding her arms behind her back as if she were shackled.

Janie gathered the silent children around her in the library and they all watched Uncle Wallace march Clementine back out into the hall and up the stairs. But Abner pulled free and raced up behind her. When he saw his father step out of Clementine's room and lock the door, he waited in the shadow of the hallway until his father disappeared down the hall into the master bedroom. Then Abner crept forward and whispered through the keyhole: "Clementine! I'll help you get out if you promise you won't leave me. You said you would stay for always. I need you, Clemmy!"

Pesky little Abner. But she knew she could count on his loyalty and devotion. He might be able to help her. She made her tone light. "Of course, I promise, Abner. You're my own sweet boy, aren't you? How could I ever leave you?"

"You won't?"

"Never. Now come closer and listen to me. I have a special job for you to do."

They held a whispered conference. There was no way to remove Uncle Wallace's keys from his vest pocket without his knowledge. But Janie always left after supper and hung her ring of keys on the nail behind the pantry door. Abner would stand on a kitchen chair and steal the keys and bring them upstairs. He would open the door and free his beloved cousin.

Clementine spent the rest of the day preparing her escape. Uncle Wallace usually ate with Aunt Ethel in her room on the days she could not make the journey downstairs—Clementine hoped today would be one of those days that Aunt Ethel felt especially indisposed. Abner would open the door around seven o'clock, and she would leave immediately. But she had a whole day to get through first, locked up here in her room. She'd be surprised if they could manage without her help even half the day. No one was as good as she at calming fussy Augustus when he cried. She hated Uncle Wallace, hated him and weak Aunt Ethel. She wished they were dead. She flopped across her bed, listening for sounds of life in the big house.

She heard Aunt Ethel moaning down the hall. She heard the children's voices through the open window, laughing and shrieking outside on the headland. She heard Janie's voice nagging at them. She wished she had something to read. Her favorite book, the
Atlas of the World,
was down in Uncle Wallace's study. He had confiscated her sewing basket and the hatbox. She lay across the bed, thinking about the atlas, planning where she would travel once she finished college. Europe appealed—a nice long tour of the Continent. And then a journey through South America.

Clementine must have slept for a while because when she woke up the clock in the hall was striking seven. Evening already—and her stomach was rumbling. She had not eaten all day. She remembered the picnic Janie had packed her that morning—was it only this morning she had run off to talk Hob into taking her to Benson?—and looked around the room for the wrapped bundle of food, but it wasn't there. Then she remembered it was stowed inside the hatbox. She must retrieve her things, of course, before making her escape. She could eat then.

Seven o'clock meant supper was over and Janie would be leaving. Anne would be the one to get the children ready for bed, since Clementine couldn't. Abner would be coming any minute with the key.