A Coming Evil (8 page)

Lisette tugged Cecile aside. "She's going to see that we didn't clean," she hissed. "And then she'll be angry."

Cecile shook her head. "If she complains that we didn't do a good job, I'll tell her she's always criticizing. She always feels guilty when I cry and tell her nothing I do pleases her."

It wouldn't work with
my
mother,
Lisette thought,
but Cecile should know.

In the kitchen, Aunt Josephine spooned the last of a package of coffee into the pot. "This is the good kind," Aunt Josephine said. "Real coffee, not ground acorns or beans. Just what we need to take the chill off after being caught in a downpour."

But there was more to it than that, Lisette suspected. Aunt Josephine was shivering and Lisette doubted it was just the cold, because Maurice wasn't shaking.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Cecile said.

Aunt Josephine whirled to face her. "Would you stop talking about ghosts?" she snapped shrilly.

There was a moment of strained silence; the hiss of the gas burner was the only sound.

Then Aunt Josephine said, "Cecile, get the cups out. I'm going to put on some dry clothes."

While Cecile acted as hostess, Lisette followed Aunt Josephine into the hall.

"I'm fine," Aunt Josephine told her. Then, lowering her voice, she said, "Have you been frightening Cecile with ghost stories?"

"No," Lisette said. "Truly. It's Cecile who keeps mentioning gh—"

"This business of a German ghoul with awful wounds and..." Aunt Josephine was for once at a loss for words.

"
Cecile
was trying to scare
me
," Lisette protested. "I never said anything about ghosts at all."

"The thing is," Aunt Josephine said, "I think ... never mind." She turned to go up the stairs.

"There
is
a ghost," Lisette said so that her. aunt wouldn't be afraid, "but—"

Aunt Josephine must have thought that Lisette was simply trying to finish the statement
she
had started. She turned back with a sigh. "I thought I saw something, once. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't a ghost. And whatever it was, it wasn't the way Cecile described it. It looked like a young man—well, my age when your uncle and I were just married and we first moved in here. Up on that little hill beyond the barn—I thought I saw..." Aunt Josephine shook her head. "I don't know what I saw. But that's how ghost stories get started. There's nothing up there to be frightened of, Lisette."

Aunt Josephine's age when she and Uncle Raymond first bought this house ten years ago. That would make the ghost about twenty. Either Gerard
had a disconcerting number of companions or he himself had a disconcerting tendency to vary his age. Lisette stopped trying to figure it out when she realized Aunt Josephine was trying to set her mind at ease and was worried that she found the idea of a ghost frightening.

"I think it best that you try to put all this supernatural nonsense out of your mind." Aunt Josephine was saying, still not convinced that Lisette hadn't been telling Cecile stories.

And she never would be, Lisette realized. So she said, "I'll try."

"Good," Aunt Josephine said and once more started up the stairs.

"But if it wasn't the ghost that scared you," said Cecile, standing behind them in the hall that led from the kitchen, where neither of them had noticed her, "then what
did
frighten you?"

Aunt Josephine glanced at Lisette before answering Cecile, and in that glance, Lisette knew. "There was just this German officer who was making me nervous."

"Do you think he knows?" Cecile asked.

Aunt Josephine shook her head. "No."

Before she could say anything else, Cecile said, "We shouldn't have taken them in. They'll get us all killed."

"Cecile!" Aunt Josephine sounded genuinely shocked. "I don't think he suspects anything. I think
he's just interested—" She stopped, as though Lisette and Cecile were too young to understand. But Lisette had seen the look that officer had given her, and she suspected she knew exactly what he was interested in.

Cecile didn't look convinced.

"You come upstairs," Aunt Josephine told Cecile. To Lisette she said, "You entertain Monsieur Maurice."

In the kitchen, Lisette saw that Cecile had set out cups, napkins, a bowl with a tiny bit of sugar and another with milk, and even a plate of biscuits, everything ready so that there was nothing for Lisette to do except sit there and wait, with nothing to say to Maurice.

After a while, Maurice said, "So, how do you like Sibourne?"

"Very much, thank you," Lisette lied.

"You must be looking forward to school—next week, isn't it?"

Obviously Maurice knew nothing about being thirteen. Lisette just smiled politely.

After another while, Maurice said, "That cousin of yours, she's a very lively girl."

"Yes," Lisette said.

"My wife and I, we've watched her grow up every summer since she was born."

Lisette continued to smile.

"Seen the ghost, have you?"

"Excuse me?" Lisette said.

"Your cousin, she mentioned the ghost. I thought he'd gone away, but apparently he's come back."

"Gone away?" Lisette asked. "Come back?"

"I've lived here all my life," Maurice said. "As you can imagine, that's quite a long time."

Lisette found her polite smile again.

"As a boy, I used to climb all over these hills. Got myself lost in the woods more than once. Came nearer to drowning than my mother ever suspected. But that hill by the new bam, between my property and your uncle's—this was when the land belonged to the Martinage family, before your family ever moved in..." Maurice nodded, having either lost track of his sentence or getting caught up in his memories of the former owners.

"What about the hill?" Lisette asked. Maurice was obviously the kind of person who was not particular and would talk to anybody on any subject.

"Haunted. By a ghost my own age."

"Parage?" Lisette asked.

Maurice chuckled. "My age back when I first was old enough to be on my own—five, six years old."

Personally, Lisette didn't think that five or six was old enough to be on your own in the country, but she didn't say so.

"We grew up together," Maurice said, "that ghost and me. Not that we ever talked, mind you. But I'd catch glimpses of him. Oh, sometimes I wouldn't go up that particular way for a year or two at a time. And
sometimes I'd go up there and wouldn't see him. But when I did, it always turned out he'd kept apace of me. Ten, twelve years old. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, twenty."

"But then he went away?" Lisette asked.

"About the time I was in my mid-twenties, I didn't see him anymore." Maurice winked at her. "Probably because I finally reached the age of reason. Finally realized I was too old to believe in ghosts." He winked again.

Aunt Josephine came down then, wearing a dry dress, fussing about pouring the coffee. Cecile passed the plate of biscuits after taking two for herself.

Lisette nibbled on a biscuit and tried to keep a polite look on her face as though she were listening while Aunt Josephine and Maurice talked about neighbors and weather and food prices. Mid-twenties, Maurice had said. Maurice thought the ghost had disappeared because Maurice had stopped believing in him.

Lisette wondered if Gerard had really disappeared because he'd reached the age at which he'd died.

By the time Maurice left and the children were back upstairs, Lisette was determined to see Gerard after all, to learn if she was right. The rain had finally stopped, but the grass and trees were dripping. Mud glistened on the side of the hill, and Lisette knew better than to ask if she could go out to play. Still, the perfect opportunity presented itself after lunch, when Aunt Josephine announced that she had a headache and was going to take a nap.

Before Aunt Josephine had made it to the top of the stairs, Cecile sidled up to Lisette. "I know what you're planning," she whispered. "And you better not, or I'll tell."

Lisette forced an I-couldn't-begin-to-imagine-what-you're-talking-about smile. "I was just going to suggest a nice game of hide and seek. I'll be it."

"Oh no you don't," Cecile said. "Hide and seek gets played
in
side."

"Well, I'm going
outside,
for a few minutes," Lisette hissed. There was no telling how long Aunt Josephine's nap would last. Lisette fought the impulse to push Cecile out of the way.

Cecile took a step toward the stairs, and Lisette clamped her hand over Cecile's mouth. Just then Emma came around the corner from the living room.

"What are you doing?" Emma asked as Cecile tried to bite and Lisette tried not to yell.

"Go away," Lisette told her. Then, to Cecile she offered, "I'll brush your hair."

Cecile kept struggling.

Lisette took a deep breath and said, "I'll let you brush my hair."

Emma shook her head. "Don't let her brush your hair," she warned with a shiver.

But Cecile had stopped struggling.

"All right?" Lisette asked. "You let me go out for a little while and you don't tell your mother, then we'll brush each other's hair?"

Cecile nodded and Lisette removed her hand from her mouth. Cecile said, "Except that we'll brush first, and
then
you'll go out."

"No," Lisette said. "If your mother decides to get
up after only fifteen minutes or so, we can still brush while she's up, but I can't go out. That's the whole point. And I'll brush for as long as I was out. You can time me."

"I'll time you," Emma volunteered, as though she could tell time.

"Go away," Cecile told her. Then, to Lisette she said, "Brush first."

"Why do we always have to do everything your way?" Lisette asked.

"Because this is my house."

"Yes," Lisette said, "but whenever you stay at my house, you say we have to do what you want because you're my guest."

"You're not my guest," Cecile said. "You're a refugee."

"You little beast." Lisette grabbed for Cecile's hair.

"Fight! Fight!" Emma cried.

"Shhh!" Both Lisette and Cecile hovered over the little girl.

"Lisette!" Aunt Josephine called down from her room. "Get the children to play more quietly."

"Yes, Aunt Josephine," Lisette said at the same time Cecile said, "Yes, Maman." To Emma—and to Louis Jerome and Anne who had come running in from the living room—Lisette said, "We're not going to fight." She glowered at Cecile. "Five minutes," she said.

"You said for as long as—"

"That's only if I go out first."

"Brush first, and however long you brush, if you're gone longer than that, I'm going straight upstairs and telling."

"Fine," Lisette said. "Beast."

Ten minutes of brushing was all Lisette dared—five minutes of her brushing Cecile's hair, and five long minutes of Cecile brushing hers. Louis Jerome timed.

"Where are you going?" Etienne asked as she put on her boots afterwards.

"To check on the rabbits," Lisette told him.

"I fed them already this morning."

"I'm not feeding them, I'm checking them."

Emma asked, "Are you going to eat one?"

Lisette sighed. "No, I'm not going to eat one. I'm checking them."

"Checking for what?" Louis Jerome asked. "Is there something wrong with them? If they get sick—"

"Louis Jerome," Lisette said, "the rabbits are fine, I'm fine, everything is fine. Please keep the children from disturbing Aunt Josephine, all right?"

She could tell that he was certain she was keeping dire news from him, but he nodded.

"You're wasting time," Cecile said as Lisette tied on a kerchief to cover the dozen or so barrettes Cecile had fastened in her hair. Cecile was leaning on the doorway, making a show of looking at the clock.

"You can't start timing until I leave, or I'll count the time you took to get the brush."

"Hmph!" Cecile said.

Lisette had to assume that signified agreement. She closed the kitchen door behind her quietly so as not to rouse Aunt Josephine. As she closed the porch door, a gray and white paw reached out through the wooden steps, just barely missing her leg with outstretched claws.

"See if you get fed today," Lisette told the cat, then dashed across the lawn and up the hill.

"Gerard! Gerard!" she cried. It had started raining once again. Did ghosts come out in the rain? It seemed a ridiculous question, but what did she know of ghosts?

"Lisette," Gerard said as clearly as though there had never been a problem with hearing him. He stepped out from among the trees and put his hands out as though to take hers; but then he remembered in time. Looking at her quizzically, he said, "Thou art wet."

"It
is
raining," she pointed out.

But perhaps it wasn't as obvious as she had thought, for he looked around, then said, "Oh."

In the gloomy light he wasn't nearly as transparent as he'd seemed that first day. But she could see well enough to tell that the rain went right through him. Then again, that was normal. As normal as things were around him.

"Gerard," she said, "I have to talk to you, and I only have a few minutes." Were minutes too advanced a concept for someone from the fourteenth century?
His expression was tense and wary, but that may have been due to the way she was acting, which she knew was less than calm and reasonable. Where should she begin? Did he know that he was a ghost? Should she tell him, or would that somehow change things irrevocably—cause him to disappear or, worse yet, start haunting in earnest? She couldn't believe that. She remembered his tendency to make the sign of the cross when startled or worried, and how Aunt Josephine had described him as looking sweet and lost, and how he'd been around Maurice for nearly a quarter century without ever doing anything to make Maurice frightened of him. He'd tried to keep her from falling down the hill—or rather, as he'd seen it, to keep the hill from swallowing her up. That wasn't someone to be afraid of.

"Yes?" he prompted, waiting for her questions.