Dreadful Sorry (25 page)

The road around the cliff was treacherous, and Molly had to slow to a crawl at several places. Then she turned off onto the dirt road into Blueberry State Park, and there was the ranger's office, just as Jared had said. She drove into a grove of pines dotted with colorful tents. Vacationing families were eating breakfast at the picnic tables. A few small children played in the pine needles. Jared jumped up from his seat at a picnic table when he saw the van.

"Want to see my humble home?" he asked through the window when she'd parked near the picnic table.

His face so near her own made her tingle. "Well, for a second. Visiting hours start at ten." She opened the van door and climbed down.

He led the way to a small orange tent with a steeply pitched roof. He knelt to unzip the flap and stepped back so she could look inside. "Go on in, if you want," he invited her. "It's small, but it's cozy."

She stooped, then peered in at the rumpled sleeping bag, blanket, and pillow and shook her head. "That's okay. It looks—nice, though. Like a little nest." She backed away and stood up, bumping right into Jared. "Oh, sorry!"

He wrapped his arms around her. "Is this another sign you're falling for me?" he asked, and her face grew warm, but she didn't pull away. They stood like that for a moment, her hands on his shoulders and his arms tight around her, and she had a dizzy memory of Clementine standing like this with Hob in his bedroom just before Uncle Wallace burst in.

She extricated herself and walked to the van. "Where do you cook?" she asked, determinedly casual. "Do you make a campfire?"

"Well, there's this little grill. I keep planning to cook fish on it. And hot dogs." He climbed up into the passenger seat. "But so far I've been eating stuff you don't have to cook. Bread and cheese. And picking blueberries. There's a little café down by the wharf in Hibben. In fact, I called after work to see if you wanted to come into town and have dinner with me, but your dad said you'd gone to bed really early." He looked at her. "Maybe we can have our first date there."

"Haven't we already had our first date?" She turned the van carefully in the small dirt clearing and headed back out to the cliff road.

"Those weren't dates. Those were—confrontations, or something."

"Or something," she murmured.

As they drove to Benson, Molly told Jared about the most recent vision—how Uncle Wallace had locked Clementine in her room, how he'd burned her atlas, how Abner had tried to help by getting the key but failed, and how Aunt Ethel had died after her miscarriage. Her voice trembled at the last.

Jared reached over and tugged her braid. "Poor Clementine," he said slowly. "What a guilt trip! But you know it wasn't her fault Aunt Ethel died. Not really."

"But maybe if Clementine had stayed, the way Uncle Wallace told her to, she could have done
something.
She just ran away. It was terrible!" She edged the van around another curve.

"She was scared. She ran away because she didn't know what to do."

Molly was silent a moment as a car in front of them pulled into a lookout point, then she shook her head. "She didn't run away because she was scared. I was in her head and I know. I'm beginning to think that deep down she wasn't a very nice person at all. She ran away because she didn't want to bother with her aunt. She just wanted to get away from that family and the responsibilities they were heaping on her, and so she left. She didn't
care.
"

"But maybe
later
she felt guilty."

Molly shrugged, though his words struck a chord with her. Later? How much later? Was it possible that Clementine felt guilty about neglecting Aunt Ethel and wanted Molly somehow to help make things better? But that didn't make any sense. Aunt Ethel was long dead. She was beyond help.

From her perch in the driver's seat, Molly could see over the sheer drop to where the sea pounded the cliffs, waves exploding into plumes of foam. It seemed to her the sea was especially rough today.

The road wound on for miles and miles until at last it descended steeply into Benson. Benson was larger than Hibben and had made more headway with the tourist trade. The wharf at Benson was crowded with camera-toting visitors. Tables topped with gaily colored umbrellas dotted Hill Street, Benson's main road, where merchants sold local blueberry jam and pies, fresh fish, handcrafted jewelry, whittled ships inside bottles, and wooden toys. A man with a bassoon voice stood near a boiling vat of water, bellowing that fresh lobsters could be had at a bargain price. Molly piloted the van carefully down Hill Street, consulted her hastily scrawled directions, then turned up a steep lane to arrive at a white clapboard building with a wide front porch. Two old women wrapped in shawls sat in identical rocking chairs, knitting and listening to the radio.

The receptionist took their names. "Oh, yes," she said to Molly. "Mr. Holloway will be down in a minute. You can wait in the lounge."

They followed her down a hallway to a large, pleasant room. The floor was covered with a luxurious Oriental carpet. The walls were lined with books, and the long windows were fitted with cushioned window seats beneath. At one of the two long tables against the wall, a woman in a wheelchair sat reading the day's newspaper with a magnifying glass. Another woman sat crocheting in the far corner.

The women looked up when Molly and Jared entered. The one reading the paper waved her magnifying glass. "Make yourselves right to home," she called. "Nice to see some fresh faces around here. Not that I can see much, anyway."

"
Um
—thank you," answered Molly uncertainly. The woman turned back to her newspaper.

Four overstuffed armchairs, several straight-backed chairs, and a long couch were grouped at the far end of the room near the fireplace. Molly and Jared perched in two of the chairs and waited, looking at each other steadily. Outside the windows Molly could see attendants pushing men and women in wheelchairs across the lawn toward the building. Dark clouds blew across the sky and obscured the sun. Wind whipped the tree branches. The woman with the magnifying glass coughed a few times and rustled her newspaper. "Looks like rain," she announced. "Even I can see that."

Molly and Jared didn't have long to wait before a tall, white-haired man entered the room. He gripped a cane and walked slowly, his head hanging low to watch the floor as he crossed shakily to greet them. Molly and Jared looked at him expectantly.
This is little Abner?
thought Molly.
I can't believe it!

He wore a pair of faded black pants and a long-sleeved white shirt buttoned up to the neck, and his long bare feet were encased in black corduroy bedroom slippers. He shuffled to their armchairs, stooping over his cane. When he reached their chairs at last, he raised his head. And with a start, Molly recognized him:
the old man on the plane!
She saw that he remembered her, too.

He smiled broadly and reached out to shake her hand. "You're the young lady from the airplane! Now what in the world brings you here?"

She brought forth her most gracious smile. "I'm Molly Teague. It's nice to see you again, Mr. Holloway, and it's an astonishing coincidence that we've already met."
But I don't believe in coincidence anymore.

He gripped her hand with his thin, cool one. "Now, doesn't that beat all?"

Molly introduced Jared, who shook hands politely, then murmured to Molly with unconcealed amazement in his voice: "You already
know
him?"

"He sat in front of me on the plane to Bangor."

"I was in Boston for some special heart tests they don't do way up here," Abner explained. "Spent four days in the hospital walking on treadmills and getting strapped into all sorts of outlandish contraptions."

"Did it help?" asked Jared politely.

"Well, I'm still able to get around, and that's what counts, isn't it?" Abner eased himself down onto one of the straight-backed chairs. "Can't sit anywhere else," he muttered. "Otherwise I'm there all night—maybe stuck for good! Have to call one of the nurses to fetch me out again." And then he looked straight over at Molly. "Nice-looking girl—thought so on the plane, too."

There was a long pause. She could hear the rustle of the newspaper as the woman in the wheelchair turned a page. She could hear the whistle of the rising wind outside. Both Abner and Jared were waiting for her to speak. She realized this was her show, but she had not rehearsed how to go about asking what she needed to know.

She cleared her throat and leaned toward Abner. "Mr. Holloway, I'm staying with my father and stepmother over in Hibben," she began. "In your old house, you know? And yesterday, I met Miss Wilkins. You know, Grace Wilkins, at the Hibben Library? She mentioned she knew you and said that you'd grown up in the house my father bought."

She'd thought he was trembling before, but now, quite suddenly, he was shaking with new violence. "Ah, Grade," he said, and gripped the wooden arms of his chair tightly. The shaking subsided. "But the receptionist said you wanted to talk to me about Clementine Horn. It must be Gracie, then, who told you about her. Who else would even know the name anymore?" He rubbed his hand across his eyes, then leaned forward. "You mustn't believe a word anybody says about Clementine," he said, his eyes burning fiercely. "It's all lies."

Molly and Jared exchanged a glance.

"Are you on about that old cousin of yours again, Abner?" called the woman from the wheelchair. "Like a stuck record, you are."

"You keep out of this, Thelma!"

Molly wiped her palms nervously on the skirt of her sundress. "Miss Wilkins said that her brother, Hob, and Clementine Horn were—"

"They were not! Don't you believe it for a minute! Clementine was a virtuous young girl."

"All Miss Wilkins said was that her brother Hob was in love with Clementine. But her brother died out in the cove, and no one knows what happened to Clementine."

Abner released his hold oh the chair and his arms began trembling again. "She was kidnapped." He shook his bent finger in their faces. "I know, I know, people said she ran away, but she promised she would stay and take care of me, and I believed her. She would never lie to me."

"Kidnapped, my foot," called the woman who was crocheting. "That girl ran off just like everybody said she did."

"No she didn't. She never would have done that to me."

The woman reading the newspaper looked over at Abner with a wry smile. "That's it, Abner. You hold fast to your dreams."

"You two keep out of it!" His voice rose to a childish whine. He rubbed his hands together, and Molly winced at the dry, sandpapery sound. "Don't pay any attention to Sarah and Thelma. They don't know a thing about it."

"Did Grace Wilkins tell you how old Abner ran off on her?" the woman named Thelma asked Molly. "Ditched her just the way his cousin Clementine ditched him."

The old man struggled to rise from his chair. His face was alarmingly red.

"But that isn't what we came to talk about," Jared said quickly. "We just want to know what Clementine's connection is to
us.
Especially to Molly."

"What do you mean?" barked Abner. "Why should my cousin be connected to you kids in any way at all? You never even knew her."

"Come on, Molly. Tell him about the visions."

"
Eh?
" shouted Abner Holloway. "Tell me about
what?
"

"Visions, Abner! The young man said
'visions'!
Why don't you get yourself a hearing aid and stop being so confounded vain!" called Thelma, rattling her newspaper. She was making no pretense at reading anymore and sat listening avidly. The other woman, Sarah, continued crocheting, but Molly could tell from the way she kept darting glances in their direction that she was eavesdropping, too.

"It's this," Molly began hurriedly. "I've seen things up at the house. And other places, too. I know it sounds crazy, but we think—that is, Jared and I think—well, that I'm being haunted by Clementine Horn. I've seen her and her aunt and uncle—your parents, Mr. Holloway—and all the children. The visions frighten me, and I want to know ... I want to ask you to tell me about Clementine. I'm trying to find out whether she's trying to contact me—or whether, well, whether we're just imagining things." She stared down at her hands.

"Molly's not imagining things," Jared added. "You see, I've had visions and dreams, too."

Abner sat back, looking confused. "Taken by the kidnappers, maybe killed."

"What kidnappers do you mean?" asked Molly faintly.

"She was kidnapped, the night my mother died. Had to have been. She would have come to me if she could," said the old man staunchly. He crossed his shaking arms tightly across his chest. "Since she never came back, it means she
couldn't
come back."

"He can't bear to think she just ran off and met somebody and didn't think twice about a little kid back in Hibben, Maine," said Thelma.

But now Abner was nodding. "Little kid, yes, that was me. She was seventeen and I was just turning five. She was half mother to me, half sweetheart. I used to ask her to promise she would wait for me till I grew up. I wanted to marry her as I've never wanted anyone else. She promised me, you hear me? I know I was only a child, but my feelings were stronger and truer then than any time after." His voice grew ragged. Molly glanced over at him with concern.

"Nobody ever loved me as Clementine did," Abner whispered. "Nobody ever could. That's why I always waited for her. I waited for Clementine to escape from her kidnappers and come back to me."

The woman crocheting snorted indelicately.

Abner sat staring at his feet, shaking his head back and forth. His wrinkled hands gripped his knees tightly. "Someday the kidnappers may let her go," he whispered. "Or she'll escape. Just wait. Clemmy is very clever."

Jared looked over at Molly and raised his brows. She cleared her throat. "Mr. Holloway, about the girl in my dreams? She's short and thin and about seventeen, with very pink cheeks and long dark hair in two braids coiled on top of her head. Is that anything like your cousin?"