How It Happened in Peach Hill (20 page)

She would never answer that question out loud, but I knew. She squeezed her eyes shut for an instant, and her shoulders gave an involuntary shudder before she straightened up again.

“Well, that’s that,” she said, crisp and certain.

“Not quite,” I said. She cocked her head inquiringly.

“He knows about us,” I repeated. “He’s with us or he’s against us, you see what I mean?”

“Ah,” said Mama. “Aha!” And she started to laugh. Suddenly, she clapped her hands together as if I’d given her a prize.

“Gregory Sebastian Poole,” she said, “you’ve met your match.”

The knocking came scarcely later than dawn, rousing us both. We huddled in the hallway.

“It could be Gregory,” whispered Mama, “come to confess.”

I crept into the front room and peeked out the window, catching a flash of copper buttons.

“It’s the police!” I hissed, just as another knock was heard.

“Oh, pish,” said Mama. “We can manage the police.” She opened the door, and in stepped Officer de Groot, with his partner close behind. I shrank back into the parlor, eager to listen but not wanting to be seen in my nightdress.

“Uh, oh, Madame, oh, Cath—uh, I hope we’re not, well, of course we are, disturbing you?”

And they called me the idiot? Between Mama’s satin wrapper and tumbled hair, he didn’t know where to put his eyes.

“Good morning, Officers. This is a little earlier than I had expected you.”

“Tell you the truth,” said Officer Rankin, “it was the gentleman, Mr. Poole, who suggested we come by early, in case you had a trip in mind.”

Mama’s eyes found mine peeking out from behind the door. She hid her grin with a haughty glare. “Indeed? Well, here we are, as you can see.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Officer Rankin. “But what he also said, ma’am, was that if you answered the door at all, that is to say, if you hadn’t made a run for it, then we were to consider you both innocent of all suspicion. It was a childish prank, he said.”

Mama signaled and I reluctantly appeared, with my eye askew and my mouth pretending it belonged to a fish.

“And my daughter so frightened that she has become an imbecile again?” said Mama. “How do I cope with that?”

“We’re very sorry, ma’am. We don’t understand how that happened. We did nothing to harm the girl.” Officer Rankin seemed genuinely remorseful.

“The whole episode is puzzling to me,” he went on. “But I’ve learned one thing in all my years on the force: the darkest secrets have the smallest doorways. And that just makes me search all the harder for the key.”

That was not a comforting thought. But Mama managed a graceful farewell and sent them on their way.

“And now the day lies before us,” she said, stretching.

“I think I may go back to bed for a while, until Gregory calls. You can do the same, darling, since you can’t go to school.…”

Oh, no!

“But Mama, we’re safe now. Can’t I just say I woke up and I was better?”

“No, Annie, and don’t you get fussy on me. The stars are now aligned to put this latest tragic episode to some good use. You will remain in this condition until I decide otherwise.”

What had I done? I had slammed a door and locked it. I couldn’t gallop off to school. I was an idiot. I really was a fool.
We might have escaped from one difficult situation, but I was Mama’s prisoner again.

When Peg arrived, she found me hiding in my room. “Oh, my poor little Annie.” She scooped me up and murmured into my hair. I felt sick. She’d already heard the news. Everyone in Peach Hill heard everything. “I hate to think what must have happened to shut your brain down.”

She could maybe help me, if I told her the truth right then.

“Peg,” I said.

“Peg loves you, honey. You understand that, don’t you? As addled as you are?” She whispered slowly and clearly, the way she’d always done before, when I was an imbecile.

I nodded. I couldn’t tell her. It wasn’t only today; it was all the other days, and weeks, when I’d been a wonky-eyed, chapped-lipped moron. I’d lied to Peg a hundred times. Why would she bother to let me explain?

“Don’t pamper the child,” said Mama from the doorway.

“This misfortune has befallen her because of disobedient and deceitful behavior.”

“But ma’am—”

“She is to be left alone.”

Peg stroked my hair.

Mama tapped her toe until Peg was in the hall.

“I can help you, ma’am,” said Peg. “We’ll set things up the same and make it work all over again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll be wanting to mend her like you did the last time.

Heal her, with a miracle.”

“Well, no, Peg, not at once. I’m not ready—she’s not—”

“She’s not herself, is what she’s not. But you got the Gift, ma’am. You just say those prayers again, and put your hands on her shoulders, and she’ll be right as rain.”

“As I said, Peg, she brought this on herself. She can live with the consequences for a few days, as far as I’m concerned.”

Peg’s silence was like electricity. I sat on the edge of my bed, realizing the cold truth. Even if I really had been an idiot, even if Mama had been able to heal me, she would have chosen not to because there was nobody there to watch.

“You may let in the first customer, Peg,” said Mama. “And make appointments with the rest, every half hour as usual.”

“But there’s no one out there, ma’am.” Peg’s voice seemed to come from a stranger.

“What do you mean, no one?”

“I mean not a living human being stands outside that door, ma’am.”

Ooh, Peg, I thought. Mama doesn’t like being sassed.

I heard my mother’s swift steps and the sound of the door opening and closing. Peg was muttering in the kitchen, “You think I lost my marbles too? You think I went blind overnight? You think I don’t know what ‘no one’ means?”

I almost laughed out loud. I could hear her cussing and banging the cupboard doors. She still could not believe what she’d just heard falling out of my mother’s mouth.

Mama was back in the kitchen. “There’s no one out there.”

“As I was saying,” said Peg.

“I don’t understand. How could there be nobody?”

“You asking because you want an answer or just asking?” said Peg.

Mama’s voice was sharp. “Do you have something to say, Peg?”

Oh, Peg! Please don’t! She needed this job.

“No, ma’am.”

Peg went about her chores while Mama paced and checked the street yet again in case a troupe of fortune-seeking housewives should appear, waving their palms before them. Peg brought me lunch on a tray. We heard Mama pick up the telephone receiver to listen for a moment before clunking it down.

“The telephone works fine,” said Peg, “just like it did five minutes ago, last time she checked.”

I looked at her.

“Just nobody calling, that’s all.”

“I’ll thank you to keep your opinion to yourself, Peg,” snapped Mama, coming into the bedroom.

Peg looked sideways at me. “Not an opinion,” she said. “It’s a fact. It’s Annie they want to tell their fortunes. But she’s been unhealed and back to stupid, so why would they come to you, if you can’t help your own daughter?”

“That will be all, Peg. You are excused.” Mama spoke as if she were spitting ice. “Permanently.”

Peg stood up like a duchess and left the room.

“No!” I cried, scrambling to follow her. Peg took off her apron and plucked her coat from its hook.

“Peg loves Annie,” she said, gathering her handbag.

“Annie loves Peg,” I said.

She crossed the kitchen floor and stepped out the back
door, with her chin tipped up to the storm clouds. I watched with an ache in my heart so fierce I thought I might choke.

“Well, now,” said Mama. “That’s done.”

“She’ll talk, Mama,” I said, fighting the wobble in my voice. “This won’t make things better.”

“I won’t have servants sassing me.”

“She only—”

“ ‘Only’ is too much,” said Mama.

There was a knock. We looked at each other. Mama went to answer, praying for a client. Rain pattered against the kitchen window.

“Oh, it’s you,” I heard her say. “My daughter is ill. And beyond that, she is now sixteen and no longer attending school.”

I crept forward along the hall.

“I’m interested in her welfare, despite her age,” Mrs. Newman said. “This is merely a friendly inquiry. Oh! Annie! Hello. Your classmates have been asking about you, worried that you’re not in school.” Sammy?

“With good reason, as you see,” said Mama. Her hand around my shoulder managed to pinch. “Annie has suffered a dreadful fit. She has always been a sensitive child.”

I tried a loony grin, but my eyes filled up, and I bit my lip to keep the tears from spilling.

Mrs. Newman looked at me closely. “I’m sorry to hear that you’re not well,” she said. “Your friend Helen was also absent today.”

“Well, thank you very much, then, Mrs. Newman,” said Mama briskly. “Good of you to visit. Annie needs her rest now.”

I touched Mrs. Newman’s arm as Mama opened the door. Both of them stared at me. I was certain Mrs. Newman knew I had something to say, but so did Mama. They were watching every move I made. As the truant officer stepped into the drizzle on Needle Street, I tugged at her sleeve.

“Mrs. Newman!” My dimwit voice was too loud, like a honking goose. Mama moved in, ready to pounce. Mrs. Newman was flustered with both of us so close.

“Please telephone if you need anything,” she said to Mama, but I knew she meant it for me. “Oxford two three six two.”

There is an instant after a match has been struck before the flame ignites. Waiting for Mrs. Newman to trot out of earshot, I felt that about-to-be-burning moment. Mama yanked me inside and shut the door with a smack.

“You were trying to tell her something.”

“No, Mama.”

“You are doing everything you can think of to destroy me,” she said quietly.

“No, Mama. That’s not true.”

“When did you stop listening to me? When did you begin to have your own opinions about everything?”

There came another thump at the door. Mama sighed. Her hopes for a customer were dimming. I crept backward to my bedroom, not wanting to playact anymore.

“Ma’am?” I kept my door open to listen. “Is this where Annie lives?” Sammy!

“And if it is?” Mama had abandoned her charm.

“I’d like to speak with her, please.”

“That won’t be possible,” said Mama. “She’s ill.”

“But could I just see her?” Dear Sammy. “I—uh—I brought her an assignment from school. Some reading.”

“No,” said Mama. “She’s ill. She won’t be returning to school.”

“What? But then I have to see her. She’s my—I’m her—I mean, we’re—”

No, Sammy! Don’t say it! My palms went clammy as I clutched the door frame.

“Are you telling me that you’re a special friend of Annie’s?”

“Uh, yes, I guess so.”

“Annie?”

Oh, no!

“Annie? Come out here, please!”

I shut the door of my room with a bang and threw myself onto the bed. How could she? She couldn’t!

The door flew open and Mama scorched me with a whispered tirade. “You come into the hall this instant and you give that handsome boy a look at his sweetheart; a creeping sneak, a disobedient liar and a cross-eyed fool!”

Her fingernails dug into my shoulder as she dragged me upright by my blouse.

“You get out there and be repulsive or I will cross your eyes permanently!”

Sammy flinched when he saw me coming. With my left eye wobbling, nose red from crying, mouth agape and heart splintering into a hundred pieces, I was not the sweetheart he’d kissed behind the Blue Boy Bakery.

“Hoi!” I leered through tear-puffed eyes and waved, as sweetly odd as I could manage. Sammy just stared. Mama patted my shoulder, still tingling from her grip.

“You see, son? Annie has had a little setback and will not be at school again. Thank you for stopping by.” Mama opened the door.

“But—but—ma’am! Can’t you fix her, like you did before? Please, ma’am?” He was so urgent, my tears came trickling out again.

“I’ve been praying, son. Naturally, there is nothing I wish for more.”

“Sammy!” I whispered. Mama’s fingers closed in a pinch. I could almost feel my skin turning purple.

“I’m sure it means a great deal to her that you came over. Good-bye.”

He retreated into the street. He tossed me one more anguished look and hurried away, black hair flying.

I slammed the door and bawled, huge gulping bellows. Mama slapped me,
thwack
, across the cheek. “You’re hysterical.”

I gulped.

“I hate you!” I’d never said anything I meant so passionately.

“The only good to come of this,” said Mama, “is that now we can have a public healing, where everyone is watching!”

“No!” I said. “I will not do that! You can’t make me!”

Mama just laughed. “You’ll see.”

I went straight back to my bed, praying that I could sob myself into oblivion. Could she have done anything more cruel? Sammy’s eyes haunted me. They’d been full of disgust.

But I didn’t sleep, of course. The hours ticked by while the same questions rang inside my head. Had Mama always been cruel and I hadn’t noticed? Why did I see it now? What could I do to save myself?

Helen knew all about the trials of heartless parents. I would find Helen. Maybe she could tell me what to do.

No reason to disturb my mother. I bundled on an extra sweater under my jacket and began the long hike out to the Way. Clouds raced across the moon, blown by a fierce wind. Light dipped or shone in brief turns.

I was no more than halfway there when I saw her, small and hunched and limping toward me. Her gait was uneven and slow.

“Helen?” The wind sucked the word and took it the wrong way, so I was almost on top of her before she heard me calling again. “Helen!”

One look at her face told a terrible story. Even with the shifting shadows, I saw that her right cheek was red and misshapen, her eye a dark crack in a swollen blue egg.

“Oh, no.”

She was wearing a man’s plaid shirt over her dungarees, wrapped across her skimpy body, held closed with a belt. A felt pouch was tied to the belt with string.