Help for the Haunted (33 page)

“I see,” I told her.

“I know what you're thinking, Sylvie.”

“You do?”

“Yes. I bet you're wondering why, if I did not believe the things they said about Penny, did I go along with your father and remove her from their home?”

She was right, that had been on my mind.

“Whether or not I believed them was beside the point. Getting the doll out of their home was what they wanted, and it seemed like the most sensible—the most
kind
—thing to do in order to help them move on. Besides, your father believed what they said. That's happened many times, in fact. He sees things a certain way that I do not. When we prayed with them, he felt strongly that a door had been opened inside that apartment. For that reason, he asked me to keep the doll away from anyone else until we got home. He especially didn't want either of you near her—” My mother stopped. “Near
it,
as your sister pointed out. I suppose I should break that habit at least.”

This time, the mention of Rose led me to try and picture her at that moment, in the passenger seat for a change, while my father sat at the wheel. I imagined the thick silence between them as they sped north toward the New York border and that school beyond. Maybe she was right, I thought. Maybe any place would be better for her than our house, considering how strange things had become.

Keeping my eyes on the doll, while digesting the things my mother had said about how harmless it was, I couldn't help but tell her, “I still don't like the idea of having Penny around. I don't like seeing it in your rocker. And however it happens, I don't like it ending up in your bed. Plus, I don't like that its picture was in the paper. Kids in school, people in town, they all know what's going on here, Mom. And knocking down our mailbox and trash cans is their way of showing us they don't like it.”

My mother fell quiet before telling me, “At the moment, there's nothing we can do about what people out there think. But we can do something about Penny. And whatever the truth about the doll, at the very least we can put it someplace where you won't have to see it. Someplace where, no matter what anyone believes, it will seem incapable of doing harm.” She got up and walked toward Rose's old rabbit cage, where Mr. Knothead once lived, twitching his wet nose, devouring the endless carrots my sister fed him, dropping his stinky pellet turds through the metal bars to the lawn beneath. It was not so terribly big, that cage. Not so terribly heavy, either. That's something I learned when my mother detached and slid it out from the wooden stand, then asked me to give her a hand. Together, we wedged our fingers between the bars and carried it across the lawn, up the stoop, inside the house, and down to the basement. The most out of the way spot, we decided after some discussion, was atop that hulking bookshelf by the crawl space. We steadied the cage up there, and then my mother disappeared up the stairs, returning with Penny in her arms. After placing the doll's wet body inside, she closed the door and fastened the latch, letting out a breath.

“Tell me, Sylvie. Does that make you feel better?”

The sight of Penny shut away behind those metal bars should have done something to alter my feelings. But looking at the thing on the other side—leaves gone from its hair, bracelet twisted tight around its wrist, candy-cane legs crossed daintily over each other, smiling just the same—the truth was, I felt no different. Still, I knew what my mother wanted to hear, so I opened my mouth to give her the right answer.

Just as the phone had interrupted my mother earlier, it released a shrill ring from upstairs at that moment, interrupting me as well. The sound startled us both. And this time, it kept ringing well past the point when the machine should have picked up. My mother sighed. “The tape must be full. I should probably get the phone, in case your father is trying to reach us from the road.”

She walked to the string dangling from the lightbulb. She was about to give it a tug when she stopped. “I was just thinking,” she said, “about when I was a girl. During long nights on the farm, I used to sometimes feel scared sleeping in my room. When that happened, my father used to leave the light on for me. He said it would be harder to imagine bad things happening when there was light to see by. I think the same applies here. Let's leave this one on. How does that sound?”

As that phone rang and rang above our heads, I looked up at the rafters and felt an odd sense of alarm. But I told my mother her suggestion sounded like a good idea, and with that, she let go of the string, leaving the light burning in the basement as the two of us headed up the stairs.

Back in the kitchen, with the door shut behind us, I plopped down at the table and began flipping through that swatch book while my mother picked up the phone. The Paisley Party. The Bloomsbury House. The Littlest Stars. Each of the patterns had a clever name, and the day my mother brought the book home she asked which design best matched the person I was. I'd been unable to choose then, and all these months later, still none seemed right.

“I'm sorry,” I heard her say into the phone. “But I'll have to ask you to call back when my husband is home. He handles that sort of thing. Thank you.” When she hung up, my mother looked to see what I was doing at the table, asking if I'd found anything close.

“Not yet,” I said, just as the phone rang once more. The sound caused us both to groan, and our groans caused us both to laugh.

“I understand now the way a receptionist must feel,” my mother sighed, before answering again. There was a long pause, and then, in a voice that sounded cooler, less polite than on the previous call, she asked, “At a pay phone where? Mars Market? I see. You're quite close actually.”

The Purple Parade. The Stars and Stripes. The Milky Way. I kept flipping, searching for the perfect pattern.

“Well, I suppose it would be okay. I can't promise I'll be of much help, though. It doesn't work that way. Besides, my husband is not here and normally he—” She paused, then continued, “If you take a left out of the lot onto Holabird Avenue, you'll come to an intersection. There, you take a right. Well, no, actually. Not a right. You know something? It's funny, I don't often drive the route myself, so I'm not the best source of directions. Tell you what, ask someone there. Since our street is easy to miss, I will walk to the end of the lane and meet you. Okay then, Mr. Lynch.”

The name caused me to look up. I shut the book and waited as she said good-bye. The moment she put down the phone, I repeated: “
Mr. Lynch?
”

“That's right. I'm not sure you remember, but we met him and his daughter a few years back in Ocala.”

Even after so much time, the memory of that night lived vividly in my mind. I heard the apprehension in my voice when I asked, “What does he want?”

“Well,
he's
been the persistent one I was referring to earlier. Calling for days on end, in fact. Now, apparently, he's turned up right here in town. Says his daughter is having troubles again, worse than before, actually.”

I could still see him calling into the bushes. I could still hear her snarling. I remembered the girl's strange silence as her mouth moved up and down like a marionette's beneath the lights of that parking lot. “Maybe you should have told him no.”

“Sylvie, that doesn't sound very Christian of you.”

She was right. But I kept going anyway. “Just because he decides to show up in Dundalk does not mean you're obligated to drop everything and walk to the end of the street to pray over her.”

By then, my mother was about to exit the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, took a breath, and said, “A prayer does not cost a person anything, Sylvie. Remember that. Now I cannot guarantee I'll be of any help this time, but taking a few moments out of my day to at least
try,
well, it's no great burden. So I'm going to change my clothes and meet them.”

In the middle of that book there was an entire section of white swatches that I'd flipped through before. While I listened to the creak of floorboards upstairs as my mother got ready, I turned to them again. The Whitest Clouds. The Whitest Seashells. The Whitest Cotton. I studied each until my mother returned downstairs. Her hair had been swept up into pins once more. Silver crosses dotted her ears; another cross hung around her neck. She wore one of her many gray dresses.

“Did you always dress that way?” I couldn't help but ask.

My mother tilted her head, fidgeting with the back of one of those crucifix earrings. “No. Some years ago, your father suggested it. He thought it best that we present a consistent version of ourselves to the world when we're working.”

Not quite beneath my breath, a word slipped out: “Costumes.”

“Pardon?”

The way she said it gave me the sense that she genuinely had not heard. I looked up at her and tried explaining, “Those dresses. That jewelry. Dad's brown suits and yellow shirts. They're like costumes.”

“Well, I suppose that's one way to look at it, Sylvie. For me, it's simply easier not having to wonder what to put on. There's no time wasted shopping or standing in front of my closet debating—neither of which I care to do. Anyway, I hope to be back home in a bit. After that, let's try to salvage what's left of the day and do something fun.”

Once she said good-bye, I went back to flipping through those swatches, listening to her move down the hall, the front door opening and closing. All those patterns did nothing to take my mind off where she was going. When I couldn't stand my curiosity a second longer, I shoved the book aside and stood from the table.

Outside, I caught up with my mother just as she started down the lane. When we arrived at the corner, a van was already parked there, emergency flashers blinking away.

The Forgotten Followers: A Ministry
—those words were painted on the side, under a thick coat of grime. Someone had doodled on the muck too. I made out a stick-figure animal, headless, with an endlessly twirling tail, and random letters and numbers in a helter-skelter pattern:
M,
A,
Z
,
6
,
13
.

As we drew near, Albert Lynch gave a hesitant wave from the driver's seat. Something about the sight of him sent a peculiar shudder through my body. My mother didn't give even a hint of uneasiness, however, so I just followed along. The man's smooth, babyish skin—a detail I remembered from that night in the parking lot—looked the same. But he sported a pair of bug-eyed glasses now, and a wispy mustache had sprouted above his lip. That night in Florida, Lynch had been wearing a baseball hat. Without it, I could see his bald head, so shiny it seemed polished.

Rather than open his door, Lynch disappeared between the seats into the back and slid the side door open. From what I could tell, whatever seats had once been in the back were all ripped out. Abigail lay on a thin mattress inside, looking as limp as Penny.

Slowly, the girl turned her head to see us, blinking and gazing out with a dazed expression. Her stillness lasted only a moment, however, because the second she noticed my mother, Abigail shook off the blankets wrapped mummy tight around her legs. She sat up, then pushed her body to the edge of that van, hopped out, and walked toward us with a slight but noticeable limp.

“Well, hello again,” my mother said as the girl took her hand.

A rustling came from the van. My mother and I looked to see what was going on, but the sound caused Abigail to slip behind her, hiding. Since the girl was paying no attention to me, I took the opportunity to study her. Fifteen, I guessed. Maybe sixteen. Somewhere between Rose's age and my own. She was not a child as she had been that night in Ocala; she was taller and had breasts now, the start of them anyway—enough to give a hint of shapeliness beneath her ratty tee. That blond hair of hers, messy as ever, fell to her waist. Her feet were bare, a few toes on her left, black and blue.

“Mr. Lynch?” my mother called into the van.

I stepped closer to peer inside. Sleeping bags and pillows and books were strewn inside. A cloth painting of the cross with the sun setting behind it covered what I could see of the far wall. In front of that painting stood a cardboard box flipped upside down and littered with half-melted candles and more books. A makeshift desk, I thought, or quite possibly an altar.

After rustling around in the back of the van a bit longer, Albert emerged, arms full of rumpled clothes. He looked down at the blankets Abigail had shaken off, then looked up to say, “Did she—”

“Did she what?” my mother asked.

“Did she walk out there on her own? Just like that?”

“Just like that,” she told him as Abigail stayed tucked away behind her, dragging those bruised toes against the pavement with enough force that it looked painful.

Lynch must have had plenty of practice getting in and out of that van, yet when he set those clothes aside and stepped out, he did so without accounting for the steep drop, and stumbled, nearly falling, before steadying himself. Once his feet were planted on the pavement, he came closer, bringing a cloud of stale cologne or maybe the air-freshener smell from that van along with him. “Thank you,” he said to my mother in the astonished voice I remembered. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“Please, there's no need to thank me. I haven't done anything yet.”

“You agreed to meet me on such short notice. And you don't realize it, but I haven't been able to get my daughter up and out of that van in nearly a week.”

Abigail's foot stopped grazing the pavement a moment as she peeked out from behind my mother. When her father noticed her wide blue eyes looking at him, he gave the same hesitant wave he'd given us, but the girl just flinched and ducked behind my mother again, pancaking her face so hard into my mother's back I worried it hurt them both.