Hallow House - Part Two (23 page)

Naomi badgered her, wanting to hold Ivan, so she handed him over. Christmas had been wonderful, but Johanna was eager to get on with the ski trip. Ever since their talk in the north tower, Brain had avoided being alone with her and that was one of the reasons she couldn't wait to go skiing. She was the best skier of the girls at school, better than many of the boys, and almost as good as Brian. She'd surely find a way to talk to Brian alone on the slopes or at the hotel.

Kahweah Academy chartered two buses for the Yosemite excursion. The twins, Johanna and Brian were in the first bus, but Sue crowded past Johanna and slid into the seat next to Brian before she had a chance to claim it.

Skiing conditions were good at Badger Pass, with enough snow to make the runs fast and temperatures below freezing to keep the snow from getting sticky. Many of her classmates headed for the beginner slopes, but Johanna meant to start with the intermediate run. She checked her clamps, zipped up her new buttercup yellow jacket and caught the tow. As she left it at the top, she picked out Brian's orange jacket with the white stripes on the left sleeve. He was halfway up the hill on the tow. Should she wait for him? She decided not to.

The air was clear, the pines standing etched against the snow with such clarity that the view seems artificial. Johanna took a deep breath of the crisp air and pushed off, taking her first run with care, but alive to the rush of wind, the feel of being the only one on the hill. Nothing was ever as good as the first run.

After lunch at the Ski House, the buses drove on to the ice rink for an hour or so of skating before the group checked in at the Ahwahnee Hotel. Johanna was only a fair skater, she'd never been able to keep her ankles from wobbling. Brian took her around for the rink for a few turns before he skated solo, showing off with a series of loops and figure eights until he joined the other boys in a crack-the-whip line. Johanna laughed with the others when Brian, cast from the end of the line, went head over tea-kettle into a snow bank.

The Ahwahnee Hotel was an old and beautiful building with architecture that reminded Johanna of Hallow House. "Victorian" as one of their chaperones called it.

Naomi and Katrina were sharing a room and, to her dismay, Johanna found she'd drawn Sue Middleton for her roommate. She and Sue kept up a pretense of friendship which Johanna knew on Sue's part was based solely on her interest in Brian. She didn't really like Sue and was sure Sue felt the same about her.

Snow began falling soon after they reached the hotel and after supper everyone was ready to go out into it. The flakes fell soft and feathery on Johanna's face as she raced around with the others. She stuck out her tongue to catch the cold wetness and, as she did, a snowball caught her on the shoulder. She whirled and scooped snow into a ball, but Brian dodged and he missed him. Soon they all, shouting and laughing, were covered with snow.

Finally Johanna found herself alone with Sue in their shared hotel room,, without having had a moment to be alone with Brian. Sue undressed, tossing her clothes carelessly onto the floor, and donned emerald green pajamas, She climbed into bed and stared at Johanna.

Johanna turned her back as she took her clothes off, slid her white flannel nightgown over her head and finished undressing underneath.

"You're built almost like a boy," Sue told her.

"So?" Johanna countered, wishing she didn't flush so easily.

"Ralph likes you, you know," Sue went on. "He says you're the best skier in the whole school.

"Oh, no--Brian is."

"School was really dull until Brian came last year. :You, too, of course. And the twins. Your sisters are really cute. I always wanted to be a twin, didn't you?"

Johanna shook her head. Sometimes she wondered how Naomi and Katrina could stand to be duplicates and always do everything together.

"Is Brian going to Stanford next year or to one of the Ivy league schools back east?" Sue asked.

"He doesn't know yet."

"I keep asking him, but he just grins at me--he's got the cutest smile. Doesn't it send you? Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting you're his cousin."

She doesn't forget that for a minute, Johanna thought.

"You probably feel more like he's your brother, growing up with him and all."

"Not exactly."

"Oh?"

Johanna didn't respond, easing down into bed and pulling the cover up around her.

Sue flicked off her bedside lamp and, after a moment Johanna did the same, unwilling to have her roommate tease her about being afraid of the dark.

Sue sighed dramatically. "It'd be a lot more interesting if Brian were here instead of you." She giggled. "Have you ever let a boy--you know--touch you?"

Johanna was glad the room was dark. "No."

"I have," Sue said.

She doesn't mean Brian, Johanna assured herself uneasily.

"What to know what it feels like?" Sue asked.

"I'd rather not."

Sue laughed, but said no more and soon Johanna fell asleep...

She wandered in a snowstorm, her skis lost, the flakes falling thicker and faster until she could hardly drag her feet through the drifts. She turned to go back but the trail she'd made was gone, covered with snow. What should she do? She'd never been so cold.

She saw a figure in an orange jacket far ahead of her and knew it must be Brian, so she slogged through the drifts trying to reach him. A sound behind her made her turn. To her horror, a skier in a dark cowl was nearly upon her. Fearing the dreadful thing that cowl hid, she shouted Brian's name.

He turned and skied back toward her and she struggled to reach him. He was almost close enough to touch when she saw he, too, wore a cowl over his head. Afraid of what she might find inside that cowl, she stopped. Behind her the hooded figure closed in. Caught between them, she screamed…

Chapter 35

In the darkness someone asked, "What's the matter?" A hand shook her shoulder.

Johanna jerked away with a gasp.

"It's me, Sue," the voice said and a light went on.

Johanna sat up and stared at Sue who was standing next to her bed.

"Do you always yell in your sleep and thrash around like that?" Sue asked.

"I had a n-nightmare." Johanna gathered up the blanket that had slipped off one side of the bed. Her feet felt like ice.

"Well, I certainly hope you don't have any more," Sue said grumpily. "Brr, it's freezing in here."

Johanna slept fitfully after than and woke early. She dressed quietly so as not to awake her sleeping roommate and slipped out the door. Despite the early hour, a few people were in the lobby. She recognized two of them--Lyle's Gray's parents who had come along as chaperones--and decided to ask if she had to wait to eat with the group, like it had been last night.

They stood in front of the large stone fireplace, their backs to her. As she approached, she heard Mr. Gray say, "Smart idea to put the boys and the girls in separate corridors."

"Oh, you men," Mrs. Gray said, "Always thinking about sex."

Johanna stopped a ways behind them, wondering how to politely break into their conversation.

He laughed. "Boys will be boys."

"Speaking of boys, this is the first time I've seen Vincent Gregorys' son. Martha Chase insisted the boy is a dead ringer for Sergei Gregory. I never did meet him, but this boy is certainly good-looking."

"Sergei was, too. I remember him as a boy with his mother. Now she was really something."

"So I've heard." Mrs. Gray's tone was dry.

"My knowledge is not personal, as you know very well," he muttered.

"Martha says the whole business of her death and Sergei's was hushed up, that it wasn't suicide at all, that Sergei killed his own mother and because of it, his father shot him. I never know whether or not to believe Martha, but she's usually partly right."

"She's a damn squawking hen. There was something fishy about the two deaths, though. Tom Jackson's cousin used to be a deputy sheriff and he told me there's some kind of weird room in the Gregory house where Delores was found dead with her throat cut from ear to ear. They discovered her little baby there alive, but covered with all that blood."

"The baby? How dreadful. Say--wouldn't that be the little girl who goes to school with Lyle now? What's her name...?"

Johanna backtracked as quietly as she could, her heart slamming against her chest, making it hard to breathe. She felt like she might die any minute. All she could think of was getting to Brian, so she plunged into the corridor opposite the one where she and Sue had their room.

She had to find Brian, but she didn't know which room was his. Staring at the numbered doors, she tried to push back the words that surfaced in her mind.
...weird room...all that blood...father shot him...

"Brian," she whispered. "Please, where are you?"

In desperation she knocked at a door. After a moment a bleary-eyed man, a stranger, peered out at her. "I'm s-sorry," she muttered and fled.

She wandered along corridor after corridor hoping Brian would emerge from one of the rooms, becoming confused about which corridor she'd already been in. Despite the fact it was morning, the halls were dim and shadows lurked at their far ends. She didn't dare knock at a door again and face another stranger. Finally she leaned up against a wall and sobbed, tears running unchecked down her face. When someone touched her, she tried to jerk away until she heard Katrina's familiar voice.

"Didn't I tell you there was something wrong with Johanna?"

"But you never know what," Naomi said. "If you're going to foresee things, I wish you'd come up with more details."

"We found her, didn't we?" Katrina's voice became coaxing. "Come with us, Johanna. You can't stay here."

She let the twins lead her, not caring where she was going. By the time they brought her inside their room, she'd begun to focus again. She accepted the damp washcloth Naomi brought her and wiped her face.

"Are you okay?" Katrina asked anxiously, peering at her.

Johanna knew she must never say a word to the twins of what she'd overheard. "I was l-looking for Brian and I got l-lost."

"You weren't anywhere close," Naomi told her. "He and Ralph were going to get rid of their roommates 'cause neither of them like who they had and bunk in together. Ralph's in 209."

"How come you know all this?"

Naomi shrugged, "Katrina listens a lot and she tells me what she hears. But I don't think you ought to go to a boy's room. We're not supposed to."

"I just want to talk to Brian. There's nothing wrong with that. Thanks for rescuing me. I guess I got scared when I realized I was lost."

The twins glanced at each other, but didn't say anything.

Johanna used one of their brushes to put her hair in order, then left the room and went in search of 209. As she came close to the right number, she saw Ralph walking ahead of her toward the lobby. Good. If Brian was still in the room, he'd be alone. At the door, she raised her hand to knock, realized the door wasn't latched and pushed it open.

Brian was nowhere in sight. But Sue was. She sat on one of the beds, naked to the waist. Johanna could hear water running in the bathroom.

Sue looked at her and giggled. "Guess I forgot to lock the door."

Johanna, shocked, stood speechless. She heard the water shut off and shifted her gaze to the bathroom door.

"We could do without your company," Sue said.

Her words broke Johanna's immobility. She turned and fled, running down one corridor after another until she found a door that led outside. She plunged out into the snow, hardly noticing the storm was over, even though the sun glinting off the snow hurt her eyes. After slogging on until she was breathless, she finally paused and looked around. Half Dome rose to her right, towering thousands of feet above her. Pines clustered close, screening her from the sun. She shivered, half-frozen, since she'd dashed out with no jacket or boots.

The hotel was visible through gaps between trees. As she watched, someone in an orange jacket started to follow the trail she'd made across the new-fallen snow. Brian. She didn't want to see him, couldn't bear to see him. Tears in her eyes, she retreated farther into the pines, stumbling and sobbing until at last, spent, she fell into a drift and stayed there, her face pressed into the cold snow.

"Johanna!" Brian called.

She didn't answer,

But he found her anyway, hauling her to her feet, taking off his own jacket and wrapping it around her. "What're you doing out here with no snow gear on?" he scolded. "What's the matter with you?"

As he led her back to the hotel, she moved like an automaton, keeping her eyes unfocused so she wouldn't have to look at him.