The Unwanted (8 page)

Time seemed to suspend itself.

And then the figure raised one hand. Once more Cassie heard a single word drift almost inaudibly above the pounding of the surf from the beach a few blocks away.

“Cassandra …”

Cassie remained where she was, her eyes closed as she
strained to recapture the sound of her name, but now there was only the pulsing drone of the surf. And when she reopened her eyes a few seconds later and looked once more into the graveyard, she saw nothing.

The strange figure that had stepped out of the shadows was gone.

She went back to her bed and pulled the covers close around her. For a long time she lay still, wondering if perhaps she’d only imagined it all.

Perhaps she hadn’t even left the bed, and had only dreamed that she’d seen the woman in the graveyard.

But the woman in the graveyard had been the woman in her dream. But she didn’t really exist.

Did she?

“Can’t I go with you?” Jennifer Winslow begged. The little girl was gazing at Cassie with the wistful expression that never failed to soften her father, though her mother usually ignored it. “Please?” With Cassie, the look seemed to work.

“All I’m going to do is look around the town,” Cassie replied. “Don’t you think it might be kind of boring?”

Jennifer shook her head vehemently, and pushed her empty breakfast plate aside. “I like to go for walks. And I know all the neatest places too.” She turned to her father. “Can I show Cassie the boat? Please? We won’t touch anything!”

Keith glanced questioningly at Rosemary, then shrugged. “Why not? In fact, maybe we should all go for a cruise this afternoon. We can run over to Hyannis if the weather holds.”

“And if you get all the yard work done,” Rosemary added pointedly. “I believe Jennifer was going to help you with that.”

Jennifer’s eager smile faded. “Do I have to?” she asked plaintively.

“Why don’t Jennifer and I go for a walk, and then we can both help Dad?” Cassie suggested. Her eyes fixed on Rosemary, and a small smile played around the corners of her mouth. “We won’t be gone very long. I promise.”

Rosemary hesitated, feeling vaguely uncomfortable, as if she’d just been manipulated. And yet what Cassie had suggested made perfect sense. Still, she felt a certain reluctance
as she nodded her assent. She said nothing until the girls had shrugged into their jackets—Cassie nearly lost in one she had borrowed from her father—then sat down opposite her husband. “Do you get the feeling we’ve just been worked around?” she asked, carefully keeping her voice light.

Keith glanced up from his paper. “Worked around? All they wanted to do was go for a walk. I’m just glad that Jen wanted to go with Cassie, and Cassie didn’t object to her tagging along.”

“Jennifer knew perfectly well she was supposed to help you this morning,” Rosemary pointed out.

Keith snapped the newspaper impatiently. “There’ll be plenty of other mornings, and there isn’t that much work to do in the yard. Let them have a good time. Considering what Cassie’s been through—”

“It’s not that,” Rosemary objected, suddenly wishing she’d never brought the subject up, but determined to have her say. “It’s just that I had a feeling both girls were trying to manipulate me.”

Now Keith set the paper aside entirely. “Oh, come on, Rosemary. Jennifer’s always trying to work her way around both of us. All Cassie did was suggest a compromise.”

“Then why did I suddenly feel as though I’d lost control of my own daughter?” Rosemary blurted out. “Why do I feel as if everything has changed?”

Keith was silent for a moment, then reached out to cover Rosemary’s hand with his own. “Because it has, sweetheart,” he said gently. “I know you weren’t planning on having to deal with a teenager for another few years, but sometimes things don’t work out the way we want them to. Let’s not start getting ourselves worked up over nothing, all right? Cassie’s only been here a few hours. Let’s just get used to it.” He grinned. “Or are you planning on turning into a wicked stepmother on her very first day?”

“I don’t know what I’m planning.” Rosemary sighed. Slipping her hand out from under Keith’s, she got up and started clearing away the breakfast dishes. “It’s just a feeling I have, that’s all. I would have thought Cassie would want the nicer room, but she didn’t. And I’ve never yet met a teen-aged girl who wanted a younger sister tagging around after
her. It just doesn’t seem … well, I guess she just isn’t reacting to things the way I would have thought she would.”

“But she’s reacting fine,” Keith replied. “And don’t forget that she’s a stranger here. She’s just trying to feel her way along and fit in. But give her a week or so, and I’ll bet you find you have a perfectly normal teenager on your hands. Then we’ll both have something to complain about.”

Rosemary forced a smile she didn’t feel, and began scraping the leftovers into the disposal. Of course Keith was right. What had just happened was nothing out of the ordinary. She should count herself lucky that Jennifer and Cassie were accepting each other so readily.

Then why did she feel so uneasy about Cassie?

It’s just that it’s something new, she reminded herself. And if I’m feeling uneasy, how must Cassie be feeling?

Terrified, she silently answered herself. She’s lost her mother, and she’s been jerked out of the only home she ever knew.

She finished the dishes, then went upstairs to straighten up the master bedroom. Jennifer’s door, as usual, stood open to reveal the mess in which the little girl always left her room.

Cassie’s door was closed.

Rosemary stared at it for a moment, knowing she should go about her business, remembering how much she herself at Cassie’s age had resented it when her own mother violated her privacy. I won’t do anything, she told herself. I won’t touch anything, and I won’t go in. I’ll just take a look. Guiltily, she put her hand on the doorknob, twisted it, then pushed the door open a crack. Feeling like a spy in her own home, Rosemary peered into the room.

The bed was perfectly made, and the few clothes Cassie had brought with her were neatly hung in the closet. On the small dresser, her comb and hairbrush were laid out, and behind them stood a silver picture frame.

The frame was empty.

Frowning slightly, Rosemary stepped into the room and approached the dresser. Then, instinctively, her eyes went to the wastebasket that stood on the floor next to the dresser. Scattered on its bottom were the fragments of a picture.

Ignore it, Rosemary told herself, but knew she couldn’t.
Almost against her will she fished the pieces of the photograph out of the wastebasket and carefully fit them back together.

A chill passed through Rosemary as she realized what she was looking at. Cassie had destroyed her own mother’s portrait.

Cassie walked slowly beside Jennifer, studying the village with fascination. Everything about it was completely different from what she’d been used to. Everywhere, enormous maple and elm trees were just beginning to come into leaf. Their branches stretched out, meeting and intermingling overhead to form a canopy over the street. Even now, with the last traces of winter still in the air, she could picture them in summer, when their full foliage would create cool green tunnels of shade.

There were no fences between the yards, and all the houses looked to Cassie as if they were at least a hundred years old. Most of them were two or three stories high, surrounded by neat borders of tulips and daffodils which were already sprouting. Even now, in early spring, the grass was lush and green.

Then they came to the square, and Cassie looked about her curiously. There was a drugstore and a market, but they, too, looked nothing like the enormous stores surrounded with huge parking lots that she was accustomed to. Here instead were small wooden buildings looking out on the sidewalk, with diagonal parking spaces marked in the streets they faced. She could also see a little bookstore, three clothing stores, and some antique shops. Jennifer was dragging her toward one of them.

“This is Mom’s store,” the little girl said excitedly when they were in front of a window displaying a Queen Anne dining room set. “Isn’t it neat?”

To Cassie the shop didn’t look much different from the other antique stores on the block, but she dutifully squinted in through the window, scanning the contents of the store as Jennifer continued, “It’s open every day during the summer, and sometimes Mom lets me help out if I’m real careful not to break things. That’s in the summer, though. This time of year hardly anybody comes out here.”

As Jennifer chattered on, Cassie turned away from the shop, and surveyed the rest of the square with disappointment. “Is—is this all there is?” she asked finally, and Jennifer giggled next to her.

“Except for the stores down on Bay Street,” she explained. “But only the summer people go to them.”

“But where do you shop?” Cassie asked. “Isn’t there a mall?”

Jennifer shook her head. “Sometimes we go to Providence, or Boston. We don’t even have McDonald’s in False Harbor.”

Cassie looked curiously at the little girl. “But … what do all the kids do here?”

Jennifer shrugged, unconcerned. “There’s lots to do. All summer long we can go to the beach, and in the winter you can go ice skating on the pond out by the school,” she explained. Then, as a figure turned the corner onto the square a block away, she fell silent, and a moment later tugged at Cassie’s hand. “Come on,” she said in a whisper. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

Startled, Cassie looked down to see Jennifer watching the approaching figure, her small face creased in worry. “What’s wrong, Jen? Who’s that?”

“It’s Miranda,” Jennifer breathed. “Let’s go somewhere else. Please?”

Cassie felt the little girl tug at her arm, but she stayed where she was, transfixed by the approaching figure. As the woman drew closer, Cassie began to feel a chill of déjà vu pass over her.

Silently, the woman drew closer. She was dressed all in black, and her skirt nearly touched the ground. She was pushing a shopping cart, and in the cart were several shopping bags that looked as though they were filled with old clothes. She moved slowly along the sidewalk, pausing every few steps to stare into the shop windows.

Every now and then her lips moved as if she were speaking, but no sound came out.

“Come on,” Cassie heard Jennifer urging her. The little girl had started to cry, and was now tugging at her arm hard. Cassie finally gave in and let Jen pull her across the street and into the square.

But she turned back to look at the strange woman once again. The woman was moving steadily along the sidewalk now. At first Cassie didn’t think she was even aware of being watched. Then, when she was directly across the street, she stopped abruptly and turned to face Cassie.

Her eyes met Cassie’s and held them for a moment. Then she nodded and turned away. Moving more slowly than before, the black-clad figure continued down the street, pushing her shopping cart ahead of her.

Cassie, her heart pounding now, felt another chill as the odd figure turned the corner at the end of the block and disappeared.

In that single moment when their eyes had met, Cassie recognized the woman in black.

It was the woman she had seen in her dreams ever since the night her mother died.

The woman who had been driving her mother’s car.

The woman who was a stranger, but who—in the dream—had also been her mother.

The woman she had seen in the graveyard last night, who had spoken her name.

But it didn’t make any sense—how could she have dreamed about that woman? She’d never seen her before, had she? Again Cassie became aware of Jennifer jerking at her arm. She looked down to find the little girl staring up at her worriedly, her face streaked with tears.

“Did she look at you?” Jennifer asked, her voice sounding surprisingly younger than before.

Cassie hesitated, then nodded.

Jennifer’s eyes widened with apparent fear. “Don’t let her do that,” she said. “Don’t ever let her do that again.”

Cassie frowned, puzzled. “Don’t let her look at me?” she asked. “Why not?”

“Because she’s a witch,” Jennifer breathed, then glanced around as if she was afraid the woman might still be watching them. “She’s a witch, and she can put a hex on you just by looking at you.”

Cassie stared at the little girl in disbelief. “A witch?” she repeated at last. “Who told you that?”

“I … I don’t know,” Jennifer said uncertainly. Then, seeing that Cassie didn’t believe her, her eyes darkened. “It’s
true,” she stated. “All the kids know she’s a witch. She lives out by the beach, and she’s real mean, and you have to stay away from her. And don’t ever let her look at you.”

“But, Jen, there isn’t any such thing as a witch. It’s just a story, that’s all. You’re not really afraid of her, are you?”

Jennifer’s head bobbed up and down. “Everybody’s afraid of her. She acts real crazy, and all she ever does is stay in her house, except when she pushes her grocery cart around.”

“She’s just a bag lady,” Cassie protested, despite the eerie feeling that had passed through her when the woman’s eyes had met hers. “They’re all over the place. We even had them at home. They used to wander up and down Ventura Boulevard all day, and sleep in the park, if the cops would let them. They’re just a little crazy, that’s all.”

But Jennifer shook her head. “Miranda’s different. Wendy Maynard’s mom told her that Miranda’s mother was just like her, and that all the kids were just as scared of her as we are of Miranda. And her mother lived in the same house she lives in, and nobody ever goes out there.”

Cassie stared at the little girl. It was just childish nonsense—it had to be! And yet Miranda was the woman she’d seen in her dreams—she was almost positive of it now. But how was it possible?

Her heart beat faster as she realized that she had to know more about the strange woman in black—had to find out the truth about her.

She was frightened now—very frightened. But at the same time, she was fascinated. “Do you know where she lives?” she asked Jennifer, and the little girl, after hesitating a moment, slowly nodded.