“Yes, yes, I see that,” the doctor said. “But in this state, I worry—well—that is—has she harmed any of the children?”
“She wouldn’t,” Lionel said, and only a moment later realized that this wasn’t entirely true.
Mrs. Mannerd covered her eyes with one hand. “A few weeks ago she bit one of the older boys. Three times her size, and she knocked him flat on his back. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see for myself.”
“She wouldn’t hurt me,” Lionel insisted.
“Lionel, hush,” Mrs. Mannerd said.
“Ah,” the doctor said. “I wonder if we might speak privately, then?” With a sweep of his arm, he gestured to the door.
“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Mannerd said, and led him into the kitchen.
Just as soon as they were gone, Marybeth covered her eyes. “How bad was it?” she said. “The scratch.”
“It was nothing,” Lionel said. He was lying, but he didn’t care so long as it might console her.
“I nearly killed him,” Marybeth said, still covering her eyes.
“It’ll barely leave a mark,” Lionel said.
Marybeth shook her head. “Not that. Reginald. Back at the farmhouse. He handed me the ax and told me to try chopping the firewood. I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but we never get to do anything like that here, and I wanted to try it.”
She lowered her hands from her eyes. Her fingers were scarred from all the digging through the hard earth. Even when she looked like herself, parts of the blue creature were taking over her skin.
“As soon as I’d raised the ax, this strength overtook me, and it was like I was watching everything happen in a dream. It tried to make me swing the ax right into his chest. Or—someone’s chest. All I know is that the blue creature wanted to do something terrible. I don’t know how I managed to stop it, but I was able to drop the ax and run.
“Once I got as far as the farmhouse, the old woman who lives there came out and offered me something to eat. And I think—the blue creature likes her. I’m not sure why. I remember stepping inside, but after that it’s all foggy until you found me in the barn.”
She hugged her knees to her chest. “Lionel, what am I going to do? I don’t want to hurt anyone. Why would it want me to kill Reginald? He was nice.”
“Maybe he isn’t nice,” Lionel said. “Maybe the blue creature sees something that you don’t.”
Marybeth shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “Something made it angry, but it wasn’t him. It’s got a vicious side, and I’m scared of what it will make me do. It’s getting harder to control.”
“Don’t try to control it,” Lionel said. “You can’t control wild animals. You can only listen to them. That’s how you’ll come to predict its behavior and understand what it wants.”
“I can’t be like you,” Marybeth said. “I’ve been trying for years. I want to see things the way you see them, but I just can’t. I’m too ordinary.”
“If you were ordinary, none of this would be happening,” Lionel said, and for the first time in weeks, he laughed.
Marybeth forced a smile.
“Anyway, you don’t need to see things the same way that I do,” he said. “You’ll always have me. I’m not going anywhere.”
“It does seem to like you,” Marybeth said. “For now, at least. But you must be careful. You can’t let it hurt you. If it takes over, and it can’t be stopped, promise me you’ll do whatever you have to do to protect yourself.”
This was why Lionel hated using words. He knew what Marybeth was asking, but he couldn’t bring himself to promise that he would hurt her if it meant protecting himself against the blue creature’s wrath. He wouldn’t.
He sat beside her, and she rested her head against his shoulder. Neither of them said anything more.
CHAPTER
13
After the doctor was gone, Mrs. Mannerd set about doing the only thing she knew to do when she was worried.
She cooked.
It would be another hour still before the older children returned from school. And after that mess with the doctor, Marybeth was quiet. She was sitting under the kitchen table reading a book, with Lionel curled beside her like a house cat. It was impossible to know which one of them was trying to comfort the other.
Mrs. Mannerd did not know what was happening to Marybeth, but she blamed herself for whatever it was. It must have been difficult for that bright and well-behaved child to grow up in such chaos, without her own mother to raise her properly. She needed more than this little red house could provide for her, Mrs. Mannerd thought.
The truth was that Marybeth probably could have been adopted years ago. She could be living right now in a house of her own, with parents who doted on and loved her.
When she had first arrived at the little red house, she was a tiny thing with pink chubby cheeks and soulful eyes. She was quiet but warm, undeterred by the tragedies of her young life and inquisitive about everything. She had followed Mrs. Mannerd around the kitchen, watching the way she measured the butter and sifted the flour and cracked the eggs.
By then, the war had been over for more than a decade. Times were especially trying, and most were struggling to take care of their own children, never mind looking to take in any strays. But still, there were a few who had inquired about Marybeth. And Mrs. Mannerd had been unwilling to part with her.
She had her reasons. They seemed too strict, or not strict enough, or they already had a small litter of their own, or they wouldn’t have the means to provide for her in the way that she deserved.
But there was another reason, too.
Years before that, when Mrs. Mannerd was a young newlywed, Mr. Mannerd built her that little red house with the hope that they could one day fill the rooms with children of their own.
Only the children never came. Year after year and one doctor after another, there were no explanations as to why.
It was Mrs. Mannerd’s sister who suggested that the couple take in a few of the unwanted children. There was certainly no shortage of those.
So, in one way or other, the rooms were filled with children. Something was always cooking on the stove, and there was always water in the tub, and there was always something that needed to be cleaned, and someone to help clean it.
Sometimes a noisy house is the only thing to make up for the emptiness.
Just as children went, children arrived. Tall ones and short ones, clean ones and sloppy ones. Some of them, adults with children of their own now, still wrote letters on the holidays. Others dropped off the face of the earth.
But for all the children who had come and gone through that door, there was only one who ever reminded Mrs. Mannerd of the child she had always longed to have.
Marybeth.
Marybeth herself had no way of knowing this, but she quite resembled Mrs. Mannerd as a child. She had the same sharply parted brown hair, the same nearsighted vision, and the same shyness. And the way that she could tame that wild boy, Lionel—well, that was some magic.
And she had always seemed happy here. Well adjusted, well groomed, literate, and kind. Mrs. Mannerd had hoped that Marybeth would grow into a happy woman one day, and that at the very least she’d visit sometimes for tea.
But now Marybeth’s mind was starting to slip away. If only Mrs. Mannerd had let her be adopted by one of those nice couples, none of this would be happening. She had to fix this somehow.
“Marybeth,” she called from the stove.
“Yes, Mrs. Mannerd?” She sounded so much like her normal self that it was a heartbreak.
“Come and mind the soup while I season the roast.”
Dutifully, Marybeth dragged the footstool to the stove and stirred the bubbling pot.
Mrs. Mannerd stood beside her as she minced the garlic. “I wanted to speak with you about what happened this afternoon,” she said in a low voice.
Marybeth stared guiltily into the pot and nodded.
“You aren’t a bad child, Ma
rybeth,” Mrs. Mannerd said. “I know that you don’t want to run away or hurt people. But sometimes—oh dear, how do I say this? Sometimes there are wires in the brain that just fry up. Like the time I plugged too many things into the extension cord and it blew sparks.”
Marybeth started to get a sick feeling in her stomach. Broken. Mrs. Mannerd was trying to tell her that she was broken.
“It isn’t as uncommon as one might think,” Mrs. Mannerd said, trying to sound cheery. “It’s just the sort of thing people don’t talk about, that’s all.”
Marybeth could certainly understand that. She and Lionel had done their best to hide her strange new affliction. If it wasn’t all better, there was some peace in pretending that it was.
“It happened to my grandmother, in fact,” Mrs. Mannerd said. “One day she forgot how to use a fork and thought that Millard Fillmore was president.”
Marybeth didn’t know what to do with herself, so she stirred the stew. Finally she asked, “Did your grandmother get better?”
“No, dear. No, she didn’t. But she was very old, and you are very young. That makes all the difference. You can bounce right back from this, the same way you bounce back from a cold.”
Marybeth dreaded the answer, but still she forced herself to ask, “How?”
Mrs. Mannerd lowered the flame on the stove and put her hand over Marybeth’s to stop the stirring.
“The doctor has recommended a place that could help you. It specializes in children with—well—with difficulties. We have an appointment to see it tomorrow morning.”
Marybeth went pale. She did not try to argue or cry. She was too postured for that. Too good. But she wouldn’t have minded if the blue creature took over right then and clawed through the screen door so that she could escape.
“You aren’t being punished, even if it may seem that way,” Mrs. Mannerd said. “This is to make you better.”
It wouldn’t work. That was what Marybeth wanted to say. She had fallen into a river and a ghost swam inside her, and now it would never leave.
After the silence had become unbearable, Mrs. Mannerd said, “Do you have anything to say?”
Marybeth forced herself to look at her. “Will I be able to come home?”
Mrs. Mannerd drew a deep breath. But if she had an answer, she didn’t get to give it before she was interrupted by a crash in the dining room that shook the floor itself.
She ran into the dining room with Marybeth at her heels, and discovered that the china cabinet had been toppled over. Bits of the good dishes and teacups were scattered everywhere, and the front door was open, revealing light flurries of snow and letting in a bitter chill.
“Lionel!” Mrs. Mannerd cried, but he was long gone.
Marybeth found him on the big rock by the river, gnawing on a stick trying to sharpen it.
“Here, I’ve brought your coat,” she said. “Please wear it. I don’t want you to get pneumonia.”
Lionel stopped chewing only long enough to do as she asked.
“I wouldn’t go back to the house for a while,” Marybeth said. “I’ve never seen Mrs. Mannerd so mad. That’s the very worst thing you’ve ever done.”
“Good,” Lionel said, and spat out a mouthful of splinters. “I want her to send me away, too.”
Of course he’d overheard. He heard everything in that house because he knew all the places to listen while still being out of sight.
Marybeth sat next to him. “You know that won’t work,” she said. “Mrs. Mannerd isn’t going to send you away. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“There are plenty of things wrong with me,” Lionel said.
“Not like there is with me,” Marybeth said. “Maybe it won’t be such a bad thing. Maybe it will help.”
Lionel looked sharply at her. “You don’t really think that.”
She hugged her arms to her chest. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else. Maybe I should be sent away. Maybe it’s where I belong.”
“Stop it.” Lionel stomped his foot against the rock. “Stop it, stop it, stop it! That isn’t true.”
“Having a tantrum isn’t going to solve anything,” she said pertly. “You should apologize to Mrs. Mannerd. A lot of those dishes were from France.”
“I don’t care about France,” Lionel muttered into the stick. There were few things in this world he cared about at all, and he was about to lose one of them.
“If you behave—and I know you can, you’ve been doing so well—I’m sure Mrs. Mannerd will let you come visit me.”
Lionel inspected the chewed point of the stick.
“Oh, come now. What are you planning to do with that?” Marybeth said.
“Rip apart the mattresses,” he said, feeling ashamed under her scrutiny. She didn’t have to say a word. With a grumble he dropped it and watched it roll into the river. That horrible river where all of this had started.
Marybeth crawled to the river’s edge and looked inside. But of course it offered no answers. There was no trace of the ghost—it wasn’t the river that was being haunted. It was her.
Lionel looked too. “Why did you go back to the farmhouse alone?” he asked. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I thought I had a better chance of controlling it if I went by myself,” she said. “There’s something about that farmhouse. Something about the river and that barn keep pulling me back there. I want to go where the blue creature tells me, so that I can help it. But I’m starting to think it isn’t leading me anywhere. It’s just doing as it pleases and forcing me along.”
Lionel stared hard at the water, and he tried to think of a plan. But all the water did was remind him of his fear that she had been lost forever.
“Promise me you won’t go alone again,” he said.
“Promise,” she said.
Mrs. Mannerd was up all night. She unraveled her nicest sweater and used the yarn to knit a pair of gloves for Marybeth to cover those scratches on her hands. She wanted her to look her best for tomorrow’s tour of the institution. She added ruffles to the wrists and tried to assure herself that tomorrow would be for the best.
Upstairs, Marybeth dreamed of the boy with the blue button face and stirred in her sleep.
Meanwhile out in the hallway, Lionel kept guard over Marybeth and the blue creature both. He would not sleep. Tonight, he was the nocturnal owl, lingering up in the trees where he could see all. He was silent and invisible. If anything came out of the darkness that posed a threat, he would swoop.
But the only threat that came was the morning’s first light. It meant that soon Marybeth would be gone.
With the light, so also came the sound of the older ones getting out of their beds. Drawers were pulled open. Feet moved across the floorboards. Lionel shrank against the wall and made himself a chameleon as dingy and green as the peeling paper on the walls.
He did such a good job of it that even Marybeth walked past him. He watched her trod down the hallway as though some bird of prey were carrying her in its talons, flying so low that her feet still dragged against the ground.
When he saw her again at the breakfast table, she looked very much like a girl: clean and braided and sitting up straight. She didn’t eat. She had to subdue the blue creature. Fortunately, with the way the older ones clambered and fought over each crumb on the table, Marybeth didn’t have to resist temptation for very long before there was nothing left to tempt her.
The older ones lined up and followed one another out the door, one after the next. Shoving and giggling and chattering, they didn’t look back to see Marybeth still sitting at the table, staring at the empty spot where the plates had been.
They were silly creatures. Lionel had always thought so. They wouldn’t notice when Marybeth was gone. They wouldn’t notice that the entire world had changed.
Lionel crawled under the table and tugged at the hem of Marybeth’s skirt so that she would join him. She was wearing a dress that was an unnatural shade of mint green, both bright and faded at the
same time, with a bibbed collar and three white buttons that didn’t button anything.
She folded her legs neatly as she settled. She was trying so very hard to be human.
Lionel leaned close to her. “Let’s run away,” he said.
“Where?” Marybeth asked.
“Somewhere far. Maybe France.”
“We’d need a boat,” she said.
“No,” he said. “We’d lie on our backs on the water and float the whole way. Just us. We could do it.”
“And what would we do when we got to France?”
“Live in the wild, where it’s just the trees and the animals. We wouldn’t have to study a bit; I already know the language.”
“Is there a lot of wilderness in France?” Marybeth said, and giggled. But Lionel had been quite serious, and he frowned. He had not done a proper job convincing her, and he opened his mouth to try to say something more persuasive, but he was interrupted when the front door opened.
Lionel’s nostrils flared. He always knew their tutor by the perfume she wore, like something sweet that had been left sitting out for too long and had begun to turn rotten.
“Children?” Mrs. Mannerd called from beside the table. “Where have they gotten off to? They were just here a moment ago.”
Marybeth climbed out from under the table and said, “Right here, Mrs. Mannerd.”
Lionel felt horribly alone. He forced himself to follow her. “Can’t I go along as well, Mrs. Mannerd?” he said, forcing himself to be polite.
“After the damage you did yesterday, you’ll be lucky if I let you set foot out of this house again,” Mrs. Mannerd said, but she didn’t sound mad. Her eyes were dark and she looked tired. “If you behave for your tutor and this house is still standing when I return, we’ll talk about letting you have your crumbs for the squirrels again sometime this decade. Marybeth, get your coat.” At Lionel’s sullen expression, she softened. “I’ve told you, today is just supposed to be a tour. We’ll be back in a few hours.”