Miss Spitfire (10 page)

She's alone, and she knows it.

The sight of her like this makes my chest constrict. I know how it feels to be alone, yet I took Helen's fear for granted. Now it shames me. I ache to gather her into my arms and press kisses into her hair, to tell her that nothing here will harm her. But I know I can't comfort her. Nothing can. If I try to touch her, she'll only lash out at me, just as I did when the nurses tried to wrench me from Jimmie's deathbed. I kicked and scratched and bit them until they dropped me on the floor and left me, a heap of pain beyond words.

Beyond words. The description is so apt for Helen, I'd laugh at the thought if I could squeeze a breath past the ache in my chest.

We're so alike, Helen and I. If I could only reach her,
her whole life would change. And perhaps mine, too. What would it be like, I wonder, to have someone love me again? I look at her, abandoned on the floor like a pile of rags. How could she love me after all I've done to her? I'm not even done with her yet. I suppose I'll have many more battles with the little woman before she learns the two essential things I must teach her: obedience and love. And then, perhaps, language.

When supper comes, she stirs at the scent. We don't have a table, so I leave Helen's plate on the floor beside her. Abandonment is no match for her appetite—she eats heartily with her fingers. I don't protest as long as she stays out of my plate.

After supper she seems brighter and devotes herself to her dolls. It's an amusing and pathetic scene. I don't think she has any special tenderness for them—the rough way she handles her cloth-and-china brood makes me wince. My fingers itch to scoop them up one by one and shelter them from Helen's mechanical rocking, dressing, and feeding. But if I go near her, she coils her muscles and swings a fist at me. Instead I perch on the edge of the window seat and feast on the sultry evening air as the round moon rises.

At last Helen yawns and digs at her eyes with her fists. Leaving my roost, I dangle her nightgown over her like a morsel on a string. To my surprise, she takes the bait and undresses quietly, then crawls into bed. I stand over her, marveling, as she burrows into the quilts.

Her curls glow like honey and molasses in the moonlight. The look of her makes me recall the sympathetic way the priest, Father Barbara, would rub my own hair when he made his rounds through the almshouse. I wonder how Helen's curls would feel between my fingers. I kneel beside the bed, scarcely daring to breathe. My hand floats over her head, stroking the thin layer of air that tingles with life above her.

“Ah, you're my girl now, aren't you?” I whisper.

My girl
. A smile warms my face; I like the sound of it. Humming to myself, I rise and tidy the room, stacking our supper dishes and arranging Helen's dolls in a row along the bay window. I offer a word of comfort to each of them as I smooth their dresses and straighten their limbs, keeping my voice low so Percy won't hear as he tends the fire. Well satisfied with our quarters, I undress and slip under the covers beside Helen's warm little body.

When she feels me next to her, she leaps from the bed like a spark from a fire. “Now what?” I wonder, raising my head from the pillow. I scoot over to Helen's side of the bed and pull her back in. Arms flailing, she rolls herself right back out onto the floor. Hanging my head over the side of the bed, I reach down and lay a tentative finger across her hunched shoulder. Like a rankled crab, she waves a threatening arm my way, then scuttles across the floor.

“Lord above,” I groan, climbing out of the bed. The chill of the floorboards against my bare feet makes
me shiver. Wrapping a shawl round myself, I march to the window and grab a doll at random—a big, pink-cheeked, fuzzy-haired member of the family—then wave it under Helen's nose.

“Here, sleep with her instead.” Backing toward the bed, I try to lure Helen under the covers. She follows only as far as her arms will reach. Exasperated, I fling the doll to the floor at Helen's feet and sulk.

Next I try cake. Helen follows the scent to the edge of the bed, but when I lay the mouthful on the quilt just out of her reach, she grunts and slouches to the floor in a pout.

I know if I were willing to lie on the floor, she'd sleep in the bed without me. I'm almost tired enough to do it. My eyes ache from squinting through the firelight; they're dry and rigid as two panes of glass every time I blink. I'd love nothing more than to curl up under a blanket and close them for good. But now that I've wrested Helen from her indulgent parents, I'd be a fool to let her cow me, too.

With a sigh I resign myself to the storm I'm about to cause, then bend over and toss Helen into the bed. The sight of her face as she bounces across the mattress chokes a laugh out of me. Her furious jabbering puts me in mind of a chipmunk's chatter.

My amusement doesn't last. When I try to climb onto my side of the bed, Helen crawls away. I race round the foot of the bed and block her. She howls and moves aside. From one end of the bed to the
other the battle rages. At every turn Helen finds me barring her path. Each time she touches me, she screams with fear and frustration, until I'm ready to scream myself.

“Stop it,” I cry at her, shaking the bedstead with both hands. “You're the monster here, not me!”

I lunge across the mattress at her, crazy with the fury, but she dives under the bed, out of my reach. Blind to reason, I drop to the floor and plunge in after her. The advantage of size keeps Helen just out of my grasp, but I wriggle along behind her, taking up the chase as we emerge on the other side of the room.

The rampage roars on for another hour at least—round and round the bed, over it and under it too. I've never seen such strength and endurance in a child. More than once Helen climbs the wooden headboard to avoid my acid touch. I even have to strip her, shrieking, from the heights of the bedposts.

Nothing I do holds her. I can't keep a grip on her limbs or pin her down with my own weight. Thrashing, bucking, kicking, or biting, Helen finds a way to squirm away from me every time. She has an uncanny knack for seeking out my tenderest spots for abuse—clamping her teeth onto the soles of my feet, slamming her palms against my nose, jabbing at the soft flesh under my ribs, or sinking her sharp little heels into my breasts.

Finally exhaustion and rage drive me outside myself, and I tear the quilt from the bed, obeying an
impulse I hardly understand. Perched on a pillow near the headboard, Helen seems wary of the shuddering bed as I yank the covers from the frame.

Panting, I creep toward her, clutching the quilt to my chest and dragging my feet softly across the floor so she won't sense my footsteps. With a wild whoop I unfurl the quilt like a canopy over Helen's head, chortling as she tries to bat it away. Working quickly to avoid her sailing fists, I bring the corners of the cloth together at her ankles. A sharp tug topples Helen from her feet, capturing her like a rabbit in a snare. She claws and howls from inside the makeshift sack, but I pay no attention. Instead I roll her up tighter than a caterpillar in a cocoon, allowing her only the luxury of air. All she can do is yell, but that doesn't keep me from straddling the whole bundle to keep her from unrolling herself.

As the minutes stretch by, her screams melt into a sort of drone, and I struggle to hold my eyes open. They're so sore I feel as if my eyelids are dragging over a layer of sandpaper each time they droop.

By the time Helen bays herself to sleep, the fire's died down to nothing but a glow. At last I roll over and close my eyes. A wave of heat pours over them, until I'm sure they've turned to liquid. The last thing I'm aware of before I drift away is Helen inching herself away from me, even as she sleeps.

Our first fights are brutal but short lived.

The entire first day Helen will have nothing to do with me and plays with her dolls more than usual. Over and over again she wanders to the door, touches her cheek, and shakes her head. Seeing her so docile and homesick makes me sick at heart, but I show her no mercy. I insist that she dress, wash, and eat like a civilized human.

All that long day Helen persists in contesting every point to the bitter end. The battles are no easier here, but at least without the Kellers looming over my shoulders, I can discipline her without feeling like a sneak thief.

Every moment she tries my composure in one way or another. It's as if she senses my struggle to control myself. Before long I begin to believe she's trying to bait me into mistreating her.

But I don't give in.

My muscles shimmer with unspent anger when she deals a blow I can't repay, for fear of mirroring my father's senseless floggings. When she hurls herself to the floor in a tantrum, it takes all my strength to anchor myself against the window seat until she's spilled every drop of her energy. Hardest of all is keeping her sealed inside this place when I can plainly see she's thirsting for a familiar touch. But forlorn as she seems, Helen still spurns the slightest brush against my skin, flaring my compassion into pain. Each time she cringes from me, I press my fists to my mouth to keep from striking her. By the time the urge passes, I can feel the print of my teeth against the insides of my lips.

In bed at night I cry—angry tears—but they bring no relief. I only grow angrier. Beneath it all, my sympathy for Helen makes me rage against myself. The last thing she needs is pity.

In my despair I curse myself for slighting the Kellers' small kindnesses. I imagine them in the big house, playing card games while Captain Keller tells droll tales of hunting expeditions gone awry or men who dared to eat watermelons the size of which would sicken a giant.

Of them all, the one I'm most like in the world is Helen. I could almost laugh to think of it. She's every bit as wild and willful as I was. No one but Jimmie has
ever been able to tame me, and he did it without ever lifting a finger. I remember his voice, drifting across the space between our cots,
You're going to stay here with me, forever and ever
. But in the end he was the one who left. If I could convince her to love me, Helen could never leave me. She doesn't know it, but Helen needs me more than Jimmie ever did. She knows nothing about me—none of the things that matter to everyone else, at least—and still I'm not good enough for her.

The irony of my plight bites at me as I sink to sleep: Helen lies only inches away from me, and I've never felt so alone in my life.

Our grappling continues the next day, with less zeal. As the day wears on, Helen's resistance falls away piecemeal. Perhaps she senses that with no one to rescue her, it's much less trouble to submit to my will than challenge my fists. By evening I think she fights only because it's all she knows how to do.

That night I watch her eating her supper with a spoon and try to feel triumphant. The thought of ceasing our violent rows leaves me giddy, but something troubles me. I can't take my eyes from her.

“Something isn't right,” I murmur, but I can't see what it is. For long minutes I watch her spoon go up and down, up and down, with methodical precision. I feel sick, and I don't know why. Then it hits me.

The way she moves is wrong.

Eating is one of Helen's true delights, but tonight she takes no pleasure from it. She's listless, as if the food has no taste. For days I've fought for calm, and now it frightens me. It's as though a light's gone out.

By midmorning my anxiety curdles into irritation. Helen's next trick is almost effortless but every bit as infuriating: She sits still as a lump of clay, doing nothing at all.

At first I'm paralyzed with the thought that I might have snuffed her spirit out. But when I try to force her to wash and dress herself, I sense a spark of something in her. I don't know how, but I know she's paying attention. Something in her lies coiled up tight, waiting for a reaction. If she were an affectionate child, I'd call it mischief. Knowing Helen, I'm inclined to name it spite.

“And what am I to do, then?” I wonder aloud. I'm not about to play nursemaid to an oversize rag doll. It's an ingenious tactic she's come up with; I can't very well punish her for not resisting. “But if I ignore you, you still manage to get your own way, now, don't you?”

Just then Percy arrives with the breakfast tray. He's hardly through the door when Helen's nose twitches—barely a quiver—but I have my answer. “Still in there, are you? I thought as much.”

I bring the tray and Helen's clothes over to her. “I'll give you one more chance” I tell her, handing Helen her dress and pinafore. She lets them fall to the floor like so many leaves.

A sharp sigh escapes me. “Fine.” Kneeling beside her, I take Helen by the arm and yank her down next to me. With her hands in mine, I touch her fingers to the pile of clothing, then to herself, then to my nodding head. “Get dressed.”

She does nothing.

“Well, listen to this, then.” I drag the breakfast tray over and push her hands from item to item:
clothes, Helen, breakfast, nod
. Then the gestures I'm sure she'll understand:
clothes, floor, breakfast, no
. When I shake my head, a tremor of dismay flickers across Helen's face. “That's right, my girl, get dressed or starve.”

With a dramatic flounce she slumps to the floor, throwing herself across the heap of clothing like a beached fish. “Grand, just grand,” I mutter.

For a quarter of an hour I watch Helen lie there, limp as a worm, while my breakfast cools. “Not giving up any time soon, are you?” I growl, scooping up the tray and stalking to the bay window. With the tray balanced atop my crossed legs, I glower at her over my plate. When I open the window to let the breeze waft the scent of the food through the room, she doesn't budge.