Daphne shook her head. "No, she was right. I'm a horrible person." She stretched the fern out and watched it roll back up, as tightly curled as ever. "You'd hate me if you knew what I was really like."
"No, I wouldn't, Daphne." I pushed my glasses up onto the bridge of my nose and waited for her to go on.
When she continued to sit there silently, coiling and uncoiling the fern, I added, "You're one of the nicest people I know. Do you think most sisters would take care of Hope the way you did? Josh would have run away and left me if we'd had to live with somebody like your grandmother."
"Sometimes I did want to run away." Daphne looked at me, her eyes full of worry. "But it's not Hope I feel bad about. It's Grandmother. Sometimes I hated her, Jessica. Sometimes I used to lie awake in that cold house and wish she were dead. I'd listen to her breathing in the dark and I'd wish she'd stop!"
Her eyes dared me to tell her how nice she was now that I knew the truth about her. "What kind of person has thoughts like that, Jessica?" Her voice was shrill, her face fearful.
"Maybe everybody," I whispered.
Shuddering, I remembered something I'd done when I was seven, something I was ashamed of still. "When my father told me he was getting a divorce, I told him I hated him and wished he was dead. I screamed it at him, Daphne, and then I ran upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom. I wouldn't come out till he was gone."
I pulled my jacket closer about me. "After he went to California, I used to tell people he was dead. I thought that sounded better than admitting he had left my mother and gone all the way across the country. And I used to wish it were true, Daphne."
"But he didn't die," Daphne said, "and Grandmother did, that's the difference. When they told me she was dead, I was glad, Jessica! I knew I'd never have to see her again, I'd never have to go back to that house, I'd never have to hear her talk about Daddy like he was still alive."
She clenched her fists. "Then, while they were standing there, waiting to see what I was going to do, I started to cry. And I cried and cried and cried. I cried harder than I did when Mommy died, but it wasn't because I was sad. It was because I felt so guilty and bad and horrible."
"Oh, Daphne, you're not horrible, you're not."
"But to hate my own grandmother, to be glad she's dead! She couldn't help being the way she was, Jessica. She didn't mean to scare us." Daphne stared at me. "Only an awful person would feel like that."
I shook my head. "Please don't talk that way, Daphne. You did your best to take care of Hope and your grandmother. And she was scary, I was terrified of her. Anybody would feel the way you did."
"Do you really think so?" Daphne gazed at me thoughtfully, her brow wrinkled.
I nodded.
"And you still like me? Even now that you know what I'm really like?"
"You're the best friend I've ever had."
Daphne smiled then, just slightly and not for very long. "I'm glad you came, Jessica."
"Me, too." We stood up and brushed the dirt and leaves off our jeans.
"Where did Hope go?" Daphne looked around.
About twenty feet away, we saw Hope sitting on top of a boulder, peering at us like a little wood elf.
"Come on." Daphne jumped the creek and ran up the sloping ground toward Hope. "Hey, you, come down from there!" Laughing, she grabbed Hope's foot and gave it a gentle tug.
"Help, help, it's the giant troll girl!" Hope squealed and pulled away.
Daphne growled menacingly, and I tackled her from the rear, "I'll save you, elf girl! Run, run for your life!" I shouted to Hope.
While Daphne and I wrestled, Hope ran off through the trees. Laughing hysterically, Daphne and I jumped up and ran after her, growling and roaring like wild things.
We chased each other through the woods, changing iden tities and sides, until we were exhausted. Finally we collapsed on a moss-covered rock, gasping for breath. As our breathing returned to normal, the three of us gazed quietly into the delicate green woods, each thinking our private thoughts. It was as if we were lying again on our rocks above the Patapsco.
"Oh, Daphne," I said, breaking the silence, "I almost forgot to tell you! Our book won first prize." I handed her the note Mr. O'Brien had given me for her.
Smoothing the paper, Daphne read it. "That's wonderful!" She smiled, and her mouth, her eyes, her whole face looked happy. "But how can I go to the banquet? I'll be in Maine then."
"Maybe your relatives would drive you down here and you could all stay at our house for a few days. Wouldn't that be great?"
"Me, too?" Hope asked.
"Of course you, too!" I grinned at Hope. "We couldn't leave you and Baby Mouse out, could we?"
"That's a wonderful idea, Jessica." Daphne smiled again. "I hope Alice and Dave will bring us."
"They have to," I said. "The book would never have won if you hadn't drawn the pictures."
"But I couldn't have drawn the pictures if you hadn't written the story," Daphne said.
I shook my head. "You thought of a lot of the ideas. Even the ending. It's your book, Daphne. I couldn't have written it without you."
Daphne looked pleased. "I still think it's equal, half yours and half mine."
Hope snuggled up against Daphne and smiled. "It's part mine, too. Baby Mouse wouldn't have been in it if I hadn't been there."
Daphne and I laughed. Then from somewhere behind us we heard a bell ring.
Hope jumped up, looking close to tears. "Oh no," she wailed, and threw her arms around me.
"What's the matter? What does that bell mean?" I asked.
Daphne slid off the rock. "Come on, Hope." Turning to me, she said, "It means free time is over and the visitors have to leave. We'd better go back."
As we walked silently down the path, Daphne and I looked at each other. I knew that my face was just as sad as hers.
"You will come in June, won't you?" I asked her as we neared the end of the woods.
She nodded. "If Dave and Alice will bring me."
"They must!"
"There's your mother," Hope said.
Mom waved to us. "Hi, girls." Smiling, she greeted Hope with open arms. "You've grown, haven't you?"
Hope laughed. "I've gained three pounds. They have good food here."
Mom turned to Daphne and gave her a hug. "You look fine, too."
Daphne drew back, embarrassed, I guess, by Mom's hug. But she smiled.
"We're going to Maine next week with Alice and Dave," Hope said. "They have a big house near the ocean and a dog and two cats."
"That's wonderful, Hope." Mom looked at Daphne, her eyes full of questions.
"Alice is my mother's second cousin," Daphne said. "The social worker found her."
"They came to see us, and they want us to live with them. They have one little baby, but they want some big girls like Daphne and me, too." Hope clung to Mom's hand and danced about, laughing. "They're fixing up our bedrooms and everything. We'll be able to see the ocean from our windows."
"I'm so happy." Mom scooped Hope up and gave her a kiss.
Slowly we walked across the parking lot toward Roseland. A tiny sliver of moon and a single star hung in the pale sky just above the treetops, and the windows of the house glowed yith lamplight. All around us, people were calling good-bye. Headlights swept across our faces as cars left the lot.
"There's the second bell," Hope said sadly.
Daphne and I looked at each other. "I wrote my address at the bottom of Mr. O'Brien's note," I said. "Will you write to me?"
"Of course." Daphne smiled at me.
"Do you promise?"
She nodded solemnly. "May the sky fall on me, may the earth swallow me up, may the waters of the sea sweep over me, if I don't write to you, Jessica," she said gravely in her best Cragstar voice. "That's a special threefold oath. It's very sacred."
"May the same three things happen to me if I don't write to you." I grabbed her hand and shook it hard. "I'll see you in June."
"In June," Daphne
promised. She pumped my hand vigorously as Hope threw herself at me, pulling my face down for a big, wet kiss.
"Good-bye, Jessica." Daphne released my hand and turned toward Roseland. "Did you really mean what you said?" she asked suddenly, her face swinging toward me in the dusk.
I nodded, knowing immediately what she meant. "Yes, you're the best friend I've ever had."
"You, too," she said. Then she was gone, running toward the glowing windows of Roseland with Hope behind her, looking back and waving.
About the Author
MARY DOWNING HAHN, a former children's librarian, is the award-winning author of many popular ghost stories, including Deep and Dark and Dangerous and The Old Willis Place. An avid reader, traveler, and all-around arts lover, Ms. Hahn lives in Columbia, Maryland, with her two cats, Oscar and Rufus.
Mary Downing Hahn, Daphne's Book
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