Second Child

  Melissa sighed and shook her head, then pulled away from her father as he reached out and ran his fingers through her newly short hair.

  “Hey!” he protested. “Where are you going?”

  “You’re laughing at me,” Melissa accused.

  “No, I’m not,” Charles told her, pulling her close once again. “In fact, I like you with short hair. It makes you look even cuter.”

  Melissa gazed up at him, wondering if he was telling her the truth. She searched his eyes, but saw nothing except the same warm twinkle that was always there when he looked at her. “Do you really like it?” she asked wistfully. “You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?”

  “You know I wouldn’t do that,” Charles replied. “If it looked like straw, I’d tell you.” He cocked his head, his eyes squinting critically. “Actually,” he went on, his voice taking on a gently teasing tone, “if you bleached it out, it might look kind of like straw.” He ducked away as Melissa swung at him, then hugged her once more. “Tell you what—I’ll bring you a surprise. Okay?”

  “What?” Melissa asked.

  “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

  Suddenly, from the top of the stairs, another voice spoke. “What about me?” Teri asked. “Will you bring me a surprise, too?”

  Charles, his arm still around Melissa’s shoulders, smiled up at Teri. “Absolutely,” he told her. “Aren’t you going to come down and give your father a hug?”

  Teri, moving almost shyly, came down the stairs. “I—I didn’t want to get in the way,” she murmured.

  Charles slipped his free arm around Teri. “You couldn’t,” he said. “Two daughters, two arms. Seems like it works out perfectly.” Then his voice took on a more serious tone. “Look out for Melissa while I’m gone, okay?”

  Teri smiled at him. “Sure,” she said. “We’ll have so much fun, she won’t even know you’re gone.”

  “Great,” Charles replied, giving Teri a quick squeeze, then letting her go to hug Melissa once more. “You’ll be fine,” he assured her once more. “And I’ll only be gone a couple of days. Okay?”

  Melissa nodded but said nothing. And maybe he’s right, she thought a few minutes later as her father disappeared around the curve in the long driveway. Maybe with Teri here, it will be okay.

  * * *

  Darkness fell, and as Melissa sat on the quickly cooling sand, her back propped up against one of the large logs that surrounded the fire pit on the beach below the Cove Club, she decided she was glad she’d changed her mind about coming. It hadn’t been nearly as bad as she’d imagined it would be—in fact, she’d actually been having fun. The first few minutes, of course, had been terrible. As she and Teri had approached the crowd already gathered on the beach, she’d had an almost irresistible urge to turn around and go back to Maplecrest. But, as if sensing her sudden panic, Teri had taken her hand. “Come on—it’s going to be fine. Just stop worrying.”

  It turned out that Teri had been right. If anyone had noticed that her clothes didn’t quite fit right, no one said anything about it. Jeff Barnstable had even told her that her hair looked nice.

  “You should have done it a long time ago,” he’d said. “You always looked like you were trying to hide or something.”

  Slowly, as the evening went on, she’d let her guard come down, and even joined in a game of volleyball. When they began to choose up sides, she was sure she’d be the last to be chosen, but then Teri had suggested they just split up into two teams and let everyone play on whatever side they wanted to. Except that every time one of the teams scored a point, the person who scored it had to drop out.

  Melissa found herself giggling as she remembered the result, for after an hour in which all the best players did their best not to score, only she and Jerry Chalmers were left on the court. The rest of the kids had all gathered around, cheering for their last remaining teammate, and for nearly ten minutes she and Jerry had struggled just to complete a serve. In the end, when Melissa finally managed to get the ball over the net, and Jerry—who it turned out was even clumsier than she was—missed it entirely, everyone, including she and Jerry, were laughing so hard that no one cared who had won.

  When she’d asked Teri where she learned those rules for volleyball, Teri had winked at her. “I just made them up. But it was kind of fun watching everyone trying to do badly, wasn’t it?”

  Now, as darkness gathered around them and Jeff Barnstable threw another log onto the fire, Teri dropped down onto the sand beside her. “Isn’t this fun?” she asked. “And we have the whole beach to ourselves. Back in California the beach would have been jammed.”

  From the other side of the fire Brett Van Arsdale grinned at Teri. “What makes you think we have the beach to ourselves?” he asked.

  Teri stared at him. “But we do—there’s no one on it but us.”

  Brett’s eyes widened strangely in the flickering firelight. “Isn’t there?” he asked, his voice dropping low as he drew the words out. “Maybe,” he suggested, “there is. Maybe there’s someone out there, watching us.”

  Despite herself, Teri shivered and scanned the darkness that surrounded the fire. “Oh, come on,” she said. “You’re just trying to scare me. And if you’re going to tell the story about the man with the hook, don’t bother—I already heard it about a million times.”

  “Sure,” Brett said. “But I’ll bet you haven’t heard the one about the ghost of Secret Cove.”

  Teri cocked her head suspiciously. “Oh, come on …”

  “Tell her,” Ellen Stevens said. She turned to Teri. “It’s really weird, and no one tells it as well as Brett. Come on, Brett—tell it for us.”

  A silence fell over the group, and then, his voice barely audible, so that Teri had to strain to hear him, he began. “It was the night of the August Moon Ball. They’d just built the clubhouse, and everyone was there. Everyone, anyway, except the servants. And one of them was planning to go, too.”

  Around the fire the teenagers snuggled closer together as Brett, in a low voice filled with portent, went on with the story…

  It was almost eight o’clock, and the girl peered at her reflection in the flickering light of the oil lamp that stood on the small table by her cot. She looked beautiful tonight—the white dress she’d been working on for two months fit her perfectly, and with its long sleeves ending in lacy cuffs, and the fifteen rows of tiny ruffles that covered its bodice, it looked almost like a wedding dress.

  Perhaps, indeed, it might be her wedding dress, except that she was sure it would be bad luck to wear the same dress at her wedding that she’d worn at her first big party.

  But she could never afford another dress like this one—

  She stopped herself. Of course she could. After she married Joshua, she’d be able to afford anything she wanted. Surely he would buy her the material so she could make herself a wedding dress even more beautiful than this one.

  Her eyes wandered to the third finger of her left hand and the small gold ring set with a single perfect diamond that he’d secretly given her three months ago.

  “We won’t tell anyone,” he’d said. “We’ll keep it secret until the ball. By then I’ll tell my parents, and everything will be all right.”

  And tonight, the night of the ball, they were going to make the announcement. She would stand beside him as he told all his friends that he’d fallen in love with her and was going to marry her.

  They’d be surprised—she knew that. But when they saw how happy Joshua was with her, they’d all gather around her, and suddenly she’d be a part of them.

  She checked her dress one last time, then blew out the lantern and left her room under the eaves of the mansion, making her way quickly down the back stairs. She was about to slip out the door when she heard the cook’s voice speaking sharply to her.

  “And where do you think you’re going?”

  The words made the girl freeze, but finally she turned to face the woman she’
d worked for since she was fourteen. “To the ball,” she said.

  The cook glared scornfully at her. “And what makes you think they’ll let the likes of you into a place like that?”

  The girl smiled serenely. “They’ll let me in,” she said. “I’ve been invited.”

  “Have you, then?” the cook asked, her skepticism clear in her voice. “Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t pay any mind to what the boys around here tell you. They’ll say whatever they have to to get into a girl’s—”

  “Not Joshua!” the girl exclaimed, her face burning with embarrassment at the cook’s insinuation. “He’s not like that!”

  She scurried out the back door before the cook could say anything else, and hurried across the lawn to the beach, carrying her dancing shoes—the shoes she’d spent nearly a week’s salary on—in her hands. She hiked up the skirt of the dress, determined not to let anything stain its hem, and started down the beach toward the bright yellow gaslights that glowed from the windows of the new clubhouse perched on the southern point of the cove.

  She came at last to the foot of the path leading up from the beach to the clubhouse, and stopped to put on her shoes. She waited for a few minutes, for it was here that Joshua had promised to meet her. Together they would walk up the path and enter the clubhouse, and people would know what had happened before Joshua even told them. In her mind she’d rehearsed the scene over and over again: Joshua, tall and handsome in his cutaway jacket, his arm protectively around her shoulders, his handsome features set determinedly as he announced to his friends that he’d decided to marry her. She had even imagined the disapproval she would see in their eyes for a moment, before they realized how much in love she and Joshua were. But when they saw, their disapproval would vanish and they would welcome her with open arms.

  A slight breeze came up, and the girl shivered, then looked around once more for her fiancé. She looked at the watch tucked into her tiny beaded bag and saw that it was almost eight-thirty.

  She was late.

  He must have already been here, and was waiting for her up above, in front of the clubhouse itself.

  She climbed the path, carefully holding her skirts well above the dusty trail. At last she reached the top and stopped to catch her breath. Now, through the windows, she could see everyone dancing. All the women in their beautiful dresses, their throats covered with beautiful necklaces, jewels dangling from their ears, sparkling in the gaslight with an almost unnatural beauty.

  And then, spinning out of the crowd, his arms around a beautifully pale girl in a dress the color of an emerald, she saw Joshua.

  He was smiling down at the girl, and she seemed to be laughing at something he was saying. Then he looked up and saw her.

  Instantly, she saw him recognize her and stop dancing, and she turned away from the window, hurrying toward the door, knowing he would be waiting for her just inside.

  She pushed the door open and stepped into the club-house, then crossed the foyer to stand in the immense double doors that opened into the huge dining room where the ball was being held.

  Joshua, still standing with the pale girl in the green dress, was staring at her.

  Then, slowly, the other couples on the floor stopped dancing and began to turn toward her as well.

  She paused, puzzled. Why wasn’t Joshua coming over to her? Why was he just standing there, looking at her, his eyes looking …

  And then she knew.

  His eyes looked frightened.

  As if he hadn’t expected to see her.

  He hadn’t told his parents at all.

  She could hear the people around her murmuring among themselves now, and here and there a soft titter of laughter. Instinctively, her eyes locked on Joshua’s, she started toward her fiancé.

  And then, miraculously, he came to life and started toward her. A moment later he was there and his hand was on her arm.

  And then he spoke.

  “I have to talk to you,” he said, his voice low. “In the kitchen.”

  His fingers closing on her arm like a vise, he steered her across the room, weaving through the crowd, which seemed to draw back to let them pass. Then they were through the door, standing in the kitchen.

  The cooks and waiters, all of them in their uniforms, stared curiously at her.

  “Wh-What is it?” the girl murmured. “What’s wrong?”

  Joshua licked nervously at his lips, and his eyes refused to meet hers. “I can’t marry you” he said. “I talked to my father, and he said if I marry you he’ll disown me.”

  The girl gasped. This couldn’t be happening—it was impossible.

  “I have to have the ring back,” Joshua told her. He was holding her hand now, his fingers on the ring.

  It wouldn’t come off.

  Jerking her hand away, the girl tugged at the ring, struggling to pull it off her finger. “Is that all it’s about?” she demanded. “Just money? You told me you loved me. You told me—” She choked on her own words, her eyes flooding with tears. She pulled harder at the ring, but it seemed to have become a part of her finger.

  Joshua, his eyes suddenly cold, was already turning away from her. “It’s all right,” he said, as if talking to a child. “Why don’t you just leave? I’ll get the ring tomorrow.”

  And then he was gone, disappearing through the doors to the dining room, not even looking back at her.

  She stood stunned, staring at the door through which her lover had gone. It had been so easy for him—he’d never cared about her, never!

  She struggled with the ring again, but still it refused to budge. But she had to get it off her finger—it felt like it was burning her!

  She had to get it away from her.

  Her eyes darted around the kitchen, and then she saw it.

  On a large chopping table only afoot away, there was a meat cleaver.

  A strangled cry coming from her throat, she seized the cleaver in her right hand, at the same time laying her left arm on the chopping block.

  The cleaver rose above her head, hovered for a split second, and then she brought it down.

  The razor-sharp blade slashed through her left wrist, and she froze for a moment, her hand lying severed on the wooden table, blood spurting from the stump where the hand had been only a second before.

  As one of the kitchen girls screamed, she dropped the cleaver to the floor and picked up the severed hand.

  A moment later she pushed through the door into the ballroom. The dancing had started again, but she shoved her way through the whirling couples, her eyes scanning the crowd until she finally found Joshua.

  She stopped, waiting for him to turn.

  And then, at last, he saw her.

  His eyes widened slightly as he gazed at her blood-drenched dress. And then, as she hurled her left hand at him, the hateful ring still on its third finger, he stepped backward.

  The hand struck his chest, then fell to the floor, leaving his white shirt stained with crimson.

  As screams began to fill the ballroom, the girl fled, plunging out into the night.

  For her, the ball was over.…

  Brett’s voice trailed off. For several seconds no one said anything at all. And then, at last, Teri spoke. “But what happened to her?”

  Brett shrugged. “No one knows,” he said. “No one ever saw her again. Or the hand, either. After the panic died down at the dance, the hand was gone, and so was she. She just disappeared. But they say she’s still around. They say that sometimes she walks on the beach, or in the woods, hunting for her hand. And this year, she’s supposed to come back.”

  Teri smiled. “Come back?” she asked. “But you just said she never left.”

  “But this year is different,” Brett said slyly. “The Cove Club opened exactly one hundred years ago. This year’s August Moon Ball is the centennial.”

  “So?” Teri smirked. “What’s supposed to happen?”

  Brett leaned forward and once more his voice dropped. “She’s supposed t
o come back,” he said. “She’s supposed to come back and get her revenge.”

  Teri glanced around at the rest of the kids, trying to decide if any of them believed it. “What’s she supposed to do?” she asked. “And who was she? What was her name?”

  “D’Arcy,” Brett told her. “D’Arcy Malloy. She was a maid in your house.”

  “D’Arcy?” Teri repeated. She turned to Melissa, who was sitting very still, staring into the fire. “But that’s the name of your friend, isn’t it?” she asked.

  Melissa’s head turned, and her eyes, large and hurt, met Teri’s. “You weren’t supposed to tell,” she said, her voice trembling. Then, before Teri could say anything else, Melissa jumped up and darted off down the beach, instantly disappearing into the darkness.

  When she was gone, Ellen Stevens looked over at Teri. “What do you mean, her friend?” she asked.

  Teri was silent for a moment, but then her lips curved into a faint smile. “Melissa has an imaginary friend,” she said. “She told me about her last night. Her name is D’Arcy.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Melissa stumbled along the beach, determined not to give in to the sob that lurked in her throat. At last, when the bonfire was only a spot of orange light in the distance, she came to a stop and sat down on the sand, staring out to sea.

  It’s no big deal, she told herself. So what if Teri told them about her friend? It was she herself who had behaved stupidly. If she’d just taken a second to think about it, she could have laughed it off—even made the story Brett had told better by admitting that her friend was the ghost. After all, in a way it was true—ever since she’d first heard the story of D’Arcy Malloy when she was only six or seven years old, she’d thought about D’Arcy, even gone up to the attic to the little room where she was certain D’Arcy must have lived.

  And then, as she’d gotten older and found it harder and harder to make friends with the rest of the kids, she’d started talking to D’Arcy, and imagined that D’Arcy was talking back to her.