The Old Willis Place

  "What could she tell the police?" Daddy asked. "She's been in the hospital since the children disappeared. Out of her head. Irrational. She couldn't possibly know anything about Georgie and Diana."

  Georgie and I hid in the shadows, yearning to tell our parents where we were and what had happened, but in those days, the rules held us fast. We dared not speak to Mother and Daddy.

  Long after the police and their dogs had given up the search for us, Mother and Daddy kept looking. We followed them through the woods, around the pond, along the creek, to every place we used to go. I think they expected us to pop out from behind a tree, laughing at the prank we'd played on them. At night, we listened to them weep for us, their lost children. We cried, too.

  If only we'd told Mother and Daddy about our secret room. They would have found the door and opened it. They wouldVe let us out and the bad thing wouldn't have happened.

  Weeks passed. Summer faded into fall. Miss Lilian came home from the hospital, leaning on a cane, a nurse by her side. In no time, she ran the nurse off. She said she didn't need anyone looking after her. Waste of money, she complained to Mother.

  Although the police never questioned Miss Lilian, Mother asked her if she remembered anything about the day Georgie and I disappeared.They were sitting on the terrace, Miss Lilian in a lawn chair and Mother on the lion bench, shelling peas into a bowl. Georgie and I hid in the boxwood, close enough to hear every word.

  "I had a stroke," Miss Lilian said, as if that were far more important than Georgie's and my disappearance. "I don't know anything about that girl and boy. Don't ask me again!"

  "But you must have heard something," Mother persisted. "A car, perhaps; a stranger's voice, a cry—"

  With some effort, Miss Lilian got to her feet. "I know nothing about it! Nothing! I almost died myself that day. Or have you forgotten?"

  Leaving Mother on the lion bench, Miss Lilian hobbled into the kitchen, thumping her cane with every step.

  Mother sat and wept quietly. Although we were near enough to reach out and touch her, we could do nothing but watch. The rules were strict. And harsh.

  After a while Miss Lilian came to the door. She stood there a moment, glowering at Mother. "I can't afford to keep you and your husband here any longer," she said. "I want you out of the tenant house in forty-eight hours."

  Mother stared at the old woman in disbelief. "But Miss Lilian, who will take care of you?"

  "I don't need anyone! Especially you, wasting my time and money moping around, crying, thinking of no one but yourself."

  We followed Mother back to the tenant house. Daddy was drinking a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

  "Miss Lilian has dismissed us," she told him. "We have two days to pack up and leave the farm."

  Daddy sighed and set his cup down. "It's for the best, Alice. We can't stay here. It's too hard."

  Mother sat down at the table with him. "But what if they come home and we're not here?"

  Daddy shook his head, his face sorrowful. "Don't talk that way," he murmured. "They won't return. You know it and I know it. They're gone."

  Mother shook her head. "They're here on the farm. I feel them near me. So close, so..." Her voice broke and she began to cry. "How can I leave them?"

  Daddy reached for her hands and held them tightly. "They'll always be with us. As long as we live, wherever we go."

  And so two days later, Georgie and I hid in the woods and watched Mother and Daddy load their belongings, and ours, into a rental truck. Mother looked tired and sad. Daddy had no smiles, no jokes. He moved slowly, struggling with the weight of mattresses and furniture.

  After Daddy loaded the last box, they got into the truck and drove down the lane. Georgie and I followed them through the woods, silently begging them to turn back, to stay near us as we'd stayed near them.

  The truck stopped at the gate and Mother stepped out to open it. An autumn breeze stirred her hair and sent a scurry of leaves racing toward her. She looked back at the farm. Softly she called our names, as if she hoped we might finally hear and come running.

  Georgie made a move toward her, but I seized his shirt and held him back. "No," I whispered. "We can't go to her. You know that."

  He struggled for a moment and then went limp in my arms, his body shaking with sobs, his face against my chest. The rules kept us where we were, as much a part of the farm now as the trees, more firmly rooted to its earth than the deer and foxes.

  Silently we watched Daddy drive the truck through the gate. Mother closed it behind him. She lingered, her eyes searching the woods, whispering our names again. Daddy called to her softly, and she climbed into the passenger seat. The door closed almost noiselessly, and Daddy turned off the engine. They sat together for a long time, talking.

  "Maybe they'll change their minds," Georgie whispered. "Maybe they'll stay."

  I shook my head. Miss Lilian had fired them. The old stone tenant house was no longer their home.

  Finally, Daddy started the truck and turned east on the state road, just two lanes in those days. Georgie and I climbed onto the gate and watched until the truck vanished from sight and the road was empty.

  For weeks afterward, Georgie went to the fence and watched for the truck to come back. I didn't go with him. I knew it would never return.

  Finally, Georgie got mad and stopped going to the gate. He said Mother and Daddy had forgotten about us, but he was wrong. No one forgets the people they love. I just wished I knew where they'd gone and what had become of them.

  Not long after our parents left, Miss Lilian hired a caretaker, a lazy old man named Jimmy Watts. He spent most of his time drinking whiskey and never fixed anything. He did Miss Lilian's grocery shopping, and that was all.

  He lasted maybe a year. Then he quit, and Miss Lilian hired Earl Powers. He stole money, jewelry, anything he thought might be valuable. Miss Lilian fired him.

  After that, Georgie and I couldn't keep up with the hired men. They came and went, each one as lazy as the one before. None of them bothered with repairs. Paint peeled, ceilings sagged, the roof leaked.

  Years passed. Georgie and I lost count of them. We stayed the ages we'd been when the bad thing happened.

  But Miss Lilian got older—and crazier. We helped the process when we could. We flitted through rooms, just out of sight, knocking pictures off walls, throwing things, slamming doors, turning lights on and off. We played the Stein-way in the middle of the night, filling the darkness with half-remembered music, alarming the cats and terrifying the hired men. Poltergeists, said one. Ghosts, said another.

  "I know who you are!" Miss Lilian would yell and brandish her cane. "Leave me alone! You'll be sorry for this!"

  Georgie and I laughed. The old woman couldn't scare us now. We hated her and she hated us.

  Then things changed again.

  One winter day we ran through the house as usual, chasing each other up and down the steps, laughing and shouting, daring Miss Lilian to come after us with her broom. For once she didn't respond to our taunts. No shouts, no curses, no threats, no tottering footsteps.

  Georgie and I dashed from hiding place to hiding place, searching for the old woman. Cats meowed and darted out of our way. A starling trapped in the house flew up the stairs to the second floor. We heard its wings flutter as it brushed past us.

  The door to the front parlor was closed. Behind it, I sensed an odd silence. An emptiness beyond emptiness. Georgie looked at me, suddenly fearful. I slowly opened the door and peered into the darkness. Miss Lilian sat in her chair by the window, its velvet drapes drawn against the daylight. Still, she sat so still. Too still.

  "Is she asleep?" Georgie whispered.

  "No," I said. "She's dead."

  Georgie and I backed away. With shaking hands, I shut the door as soundlessly as possible. We ran out of the house, leaving her to be found by the hired man.

  As we raced home to the shed, new rules established themselves in our heads, just as the old ones had:

&n
bsp; Rule Three: Stay away from the house.

  Rule Four: Do not disturb Miss Lilian's slumber.

  A week or so later, a hearse came for Miss Lilian. It was a cold, rainy day, as dreary as you can imagine. The lane was muddy, the weeds were dry and brown, the trees bare. A flock of crows watched from the oak tree, perched on the branches like mourners in a church.

  As the undertakers prepared to leave, one said to the other, "Well, that's that. Almost a hundred years old and not a soul to mourn her."

  His companion nodded. "It's a sad thing to die alone."

  With that, they slammed the hearse doors and drove away, taking Miss Lilian's body with them.

  But not her spirit. Miss Lilian remained in the parlor, just as Georgie and I remained on the farm.

  Now, thanks to me, the old woman was free. And I was afraid as I'd never been before.

  THE DIARY OF LISSA MORRISON

  Dear Dee Dee,

  I haven't written to you for a couple of days, but that's because Dad enrolled me in a gymnastics class and I've been busy

  I met a girl named Chelsea who told me about something scary that happened at Oak Hill fifty or sixty years ago. Two children disappearedfrom the farm, a boy and a girl. The police searched everywhere, but they were never found. To this day no one knows what happened to them.

  Chelsea says their ghosts are still here, along with Miss Willis's ghost. Sometimes teenagers come to the farm late at night. She knows several, including her own brother, who say they've seen Miss Willis looking out the parlor window. Others claim they've seen the children. Just glimpses of them, wild and ragged, flitting through the woods or standing by the gate late at night. Chelsea thinks they're evil, wicked, dangerous, just like Miss Willis. She says she'd never sleep if she lived on the farm. It's way too scary, everyone thinks so. Even her brother, who's not afraid of anything.

  I didn't tell her Id been inside the house, and I didn't tell her I'd seen Miss Willis. I had a funny feeling Diana didn't want me blabbing about the ghost. It's kind of a secret, even though I never promised not to tell. Even Dad doesn't know about Miss Willis.

  So I just said in this really casual way, "Oh, I've never seen a thing. Your brother must be making that up to scare you"

  Of course, down deep inside, I was so scared I couldn't look Chelsea in the eye. Sometimes I try hard to believe Dad's right about me imagining stuff, and that's all Miss Willis was—a figment of my imagination. But if Chelsea's brother and his friends have seen Miss Willis—well, then, she must be real.

  And I never knew about the two kids going missing. Maybe that's why the policeman said I shouldn't be wandering in the woods by myself.

  As for the ghosts of the kids, I guess Chelsea's brother saw Diana and Georgie running around in the woods the way they always do. I'd better tell them to be more careful or they'll be caught and then there'll be real trouble.

  Oh, Dee Dee, I just had the strangest thought—I've got goose bumps all over. What if Diana and Georgie are the ghosts! That couldn't be, could it? I've touched Diana plenty of times, and she's just as solid and real as I am. So's Georgie. Of course, Miss Willis looked pretty real, but I bet if I'd touched her she wouldn't have been solid. Brrr—not that I ever want to see her or touch her!

  I haven't seen Diana since the day we went inside the old Willis place. I think she's probably mad at me for dragging her in there. I can't really blame her. It was so stupid. I must have been crazy that day.

  I haven't seen Miss Willis, either, thank goodness. I'm hoping she's gone back to being dead, resting in peace or whatever. But sometimes I swear I hear someone playing a piano. It's always the same thing—the Moonlight Sonata over and over again. I tell myself it can't be Miss Willis, but who else could it be?

  Dad's never heard it, so naturally he thinks it's my imagination or maybe a car's radio as it goes past the farm. Which is ridiculous beyond belief. The road's too far away to hear car radios no matter how loud they are. And why would it always be the same music? I swear, Dee Dee, sometimes I worry I'm losing my mind. I wish I'd never gone inside that house! Nothing's been the same since.

  I miss Diana. She might be a little strange, but she's much more interesting than Chelsea—who's not very smart and never reads a book unless her teacher makes her. She can do better cartwheels than I can, though, and she loves to show off her backbends. She wants to be a cheerleader. Not me. I'm going to be an Olympic champion—if I can just get better at backbends and cartwheels.

  I really need to talk to Diana. She ought to know people have seen her and Georgie on the farm. I think I'll go to those houses across the highway and look for her. Maybe if I apologize again, we can make up and befriends like before. I could teach her how to do cartwheels and backbends and we could practice together and soon I'd be better than Chelsea.

  Love, Lissa

  ***

  Later the very same day

  Guess what, Dee Dee? I went to those houses like I said I would. It was a long walk, but it was a sunny day and not too cold. It's a nice neighborhood. Lots oj trees and a pretty little pond with a path that goes around it. I saw ducks and geese, mothers with strollers, people walking their dogs, joggers, some boys riding bikes. I wished Dad and I lived there. I noticed a house for sale, which I plan to tell him about.

  But I didn't see Diana or Georgie. After a while I went up to a group of kids sitting on a little dock. They looked friendly, so I asked them if they knew a girl named Diana or her little brother, Georgie.

  They said no, they'd never heard of them. I talked to them a long time, but they were absolutely positive Diana and Georgie didn't live in their neighborhood. They said they knew everybody with kids. No one was homeschooled. Everybody went to public school—except one boy named John, who went to St. Mary of the Mills.

  What do you make of that, Dee Dee? It's very odd, isn't it? Now I have more questions than ever for Diana, the mystery girl. Or is she just a compulsive liar? I read a book once about a girl like that—she made up stories all the time to impress people. Take Miss Willis,for instance. Diana must be lying about her. Like I said, how can somebody hate you if they died while you were still a baby????? Nothing about that girl makes sense!

  Love, Lissa

  Chapter 13

  A few days later, Georgie and I were perched on a branch in our favorite tree. Without Lassie to read, I'd fallen back on Clematis. I had a feeling he wasn't listening to anything but the sound of my voice, a comforting background noise as meaningless as a cicada's song.

  Annoyed, I gave him a sharp poke in the side. "You haven't heard a word I've said."

  Startled from his thoughts, Georgie looked at me. "Do you ever get tired of being twelve, Diana?"

  I closed Clematis, keeping my place with my finger. Oddly enough, it was a subject I'd given some thought to lately. I supposed it had something to do with meeting Lissa. She'd be thirteen next year, then fourteen, fifteen, and so on. Someday she'd probably get married and have children. But I'd remain twelve. Year after year after year. Just as Georgie would remain eight.

  I reached up to stroke Nero, who was now entering his fifteenth year. He was showing a few signs of age, a white hair here and there in his coat, a certain stiffness in his gait. He was one of a long line of cats we'd owned, each growing old and dying, leaving us to find a new one.

  "Sometimes," I admitted.

  "I was trying to figure it out," Georgie said. "In real life, I'd be almost seventy now. It's hard to be sure when you never have a proper birthday."

  "I'd be seventy-two." I laughed. "That's old enough to be Lissa's grandmother. Isn't that funny?"

  Georgie didn't laugh. His face solemn, he gazed past me, across the brown fields to the bare trees beyond. "I get so bored doing the same old things over and over and over again. Fish. Catch tadpoles. Climb trees. Swim in the pond. Wade in the creek. We've explored every inch of the farm. There's nothing new to see, nothing new to do."

  I tried to think of a good answer, but I couldn
't. I was bored, too. "That's one reason I wanted to be friends with Lissa," I told him. "She was new and different."

  Georgie frowned at the mention of Lissa, but he didn't say anything about her. Instead, he busied himself peeling loose bark from the tree. "Read some more," he said. "I like to hear your voice."

  I hadn't read more than two pages when I heard a twig snap. In the woods, branches swayed, and dry weeds rustled. Georgie grabbed my arm. "She's coming," he whispered. "It's her. Miss Lilian."

  We froze, terrified. Should we run? Or stay still and hope she wouldn't see us?

  Before we'd decided what to do, Lissa stepped out from the bushes. MacDuff followed her. He fixed his attention on Nero, who lay draped over a branch, tail twitching, eyes on the dog.

  "What do you want?" I asked. It was a rude way to greet her, but I was still mad about what she'd done.

  Georgie scowled down at her. "Go away!"

  Lissa ignored him. She seemed close to tears. "Please don't hate me, Diana." She held up Lassie Come-Home. "I brought this back. I thought maybe—"

  "It's a dumb story." Georgie folded his arms across his chest and frowned at the sky. "I hate Lassie."

  "Come on, Georgie," I said softly. "Let me finish reading it to you. You're bored stiff with Clematis."

  He didn't say yes and he didn't say no, so I leaned out of the tree and Lissa handed me the book.

  "He can have the bear, too." Lissa held up Alfie. I could tell it was hard for her to give him up.

  Georgie refused to look at Lissa, but I sensed he wasn't quite as mad as he had been. I reached down for the bear and sat him on a limb near Georgie. He ignored Alfie just as he'd ignored the book, but if I knew Georgie, he was secretly pleased Lissa had returned them.

  "Can I climb up there with you?" Lissa asked me.

  I shrugged. "If you like. It's not my personal tree or anything. I don't own it."

  She scrambled clumsily up the trunk and slung a leg over the branch below mine. After she'd made herself comfortable, she said, "I have to talk to you about something, Diana."