All the Lovely Bad Ones Page 9

  "Truth to tell," Ira said, "the county's money went to them, not us. They ate beef, and we ate gruel."

  A new picture appeared on the TV. Miss Ada sat at a desk, writing in an account book.

  "That's the one she showed the county inspector," Caleb told us. "It was all lies."

  The camera shifted to Miss Ada's bedroom. She was writing in another account book. When she finished, she put the book in a metal box and locked it.

  "That's the true account book," Caleb explained, "for her and Mr. Jaggs, so they'd know how much money they'd hidden away."

  "They also wrote the names of those who died and what they died of," Ira added.

  "Even the ones they said ran away," Caleb said. "All the names of the dead are in that book."

  As he spoke, a new picture formed on the TV screen. Miss Ada was beating Caleb's back with a cane. His shirt was off, and you could count his ribs.

  "I'll teach you to steal food!" she yelled as she brought the cane down again and again.

  When Caleb's back was bleeding, she thrust him aside and grabbed Ira. "Thief! Liar!" she cried as she beat him.

  Last of all, she turned her attention to Seth. "With whom did you share the cheese?" she asked softly. "Tell me, and save yourself a beating." Seth stared up at the woman, his small face clenched with hatred. "I didn't share it with nobody. I et it all myself."

  Miss Ada caressed the cane with her long, slender fingers. "Those children knew the cheese was stolen from my pantry. They must be punished, too."

  "I ain't telling you nothing," Seth said.

  "Maybe this will change your mind." Miss Ada brought the cane down across his back with a loud whack. She paused and looked at him. "Well?"

  "You can beat me till you bust your cane," Seth said, wincing from the blow. "I won't tell you nothing."

  In horror, Corey and I watched her take the cane to Seth again. When she was through, she called Joseph. "Take these boys outside and leave them there till morning. I want the name of every child who ate that cheese. Perhaps a night in the cold will loosen their lips."

  Joseph grabbed the boys as if they were no more than unwanted kittens and dragged them outside. Without a word, he turned and went back into the house. The door slammed. The bolt slid home.

  The boys huddled together on the snowy ground, barefoot and coatless. The wind roared in the trees, and icicles shone in the moon's cold light. Slowly, the picture dimmed.

  "In the morning, we knew something had changed," Caleb said. "We weren't cold. And we weren't hungry."

  "And our backs didn't hurt none from the beating," Seth put in.

  "That was almost the strangest part of all," Ira said.

  "So we just lay in the snow," Caleb said, "thinking all three of us must be dreaming the same dream."

  "Then the back door opened," Ira said, "and Mr. Jaggs saw us lying on the ground. 'Get up, boys,' he hollered, 'I'm not finished with you!'"

  "We rose up to face him," Caleb said, "but our bodies stayed on the ground. That puzzled us greatly."

  "We grabbed each other's hands because we felt too light to stay on earth," Ira added. "I reckon that's when we figured out what had happened to us."

  Caleb nodded. "The trouble was, we weren't ready to be dead."

  Seth sighed. "It weren't fair."

  On the screen, Mr. Jaggs strode angrily across the frozen ground toward the boys' huddled bodies. "Get up!" he yelled.

  When no one moved, he nudged Seth with his boot. The boy's body rolled over. His sightless eyes stared up at Mr. Jaggs.

  The man recoiled. "Dead." He stared at Ira and Seth. "All three."

  Frightened, he retreated to the steps and opened the door. "Joseph," he called in a high voice. "Ada. Come quickly."

  "What is it?" Miss Ada called from inside. "I've scarcely touched my breakfast."

  Joseph appeared in the doorway, looked at the boys, and called to Miss Ada. "Come quickly, Miss."

  Holding a dainty teacup, Miss Ada peered over her brother's shoulder. "What's the matter with them?" she asked crossly. "Why don't they get up?"

  "Good Lord, Ada, can't you see?" Mr. Jaggs stared at her, his voice shaking. "They're dead."

  Miss Ada choked on her tea. "Dead? How can they be dead?"

  Joseph stared down at the boys. "It was cold last night, miss, below freezing."

  "How do we explain their deaths?" Mr. Jaggs asked.

  Miss Ada gripped her teacup, her face pale. "Why, we say what we always say when there's a mishap," she stammered. "They died of fever. Or they ran away."

  "But the county inspector is visiting this afternoon," Mr. Jaggs said. "He'll see the bodies. He'll know they froze to death."

  Miss Ada seemed to recover her wits. "For heaven's sake, Cornelius. We'll bury them before he arrives and report them as runaways."

  "We done similar many times afore," Joseph put in.

  "But not on the inspector's visiting day." Mr. Jaggs looked uneasily at the men and women's quarters. "They'll be coming out any moment. They mustn't see the bodies."

  The picture dimmed, and a new one slowly formed. Wrapped in sacks, three bodies lay on the ground, screened from the house by a tall, shaggy row of bushes. Near them, Joseph struggled to dig three graves in the cold earth. Neither Mr. Jaggs nor Miss Ada was there to help. The only sound was the thunk of the pickax and the rustle of the wind in the bushes. A bunch of crows streamed past, cawing as they flew. Far away, a dog barked.

  Gradually, Corey and I made out the ghostly shapes of the boys standing in the hedge's shadow. They watched Joseph and murmured among themselves.

  Every now and then, the man raised his head and looked around, as if he expected to see someone. The boys were invisible to him, but he seemed to sense they were there. He dug faster, cursing to himself, perspiring despite the cold wind.

  When the graves were ready, he dumped each boy into the earth and began shoveling dirt on top of their bodies. From a nearby tree, the crows cawed to each other, taking in the scene with their beady eyes.

  Joseph shook his fist at the birds and swore loudly. "Get away from here!"

  The crows stayed where they were, cawing and hopping from branch to branch as if they were mocking him.

  Joseph flattened the earth over the graves. The sound echoed from the barn and the crows cawed louder. When he was done, he marked each grave with a small white stone. As he trudged away, his work done, the camera zoomed in on the stones: 27, 28, and 29. No name, no date—just a number. Slowly, the camera moved back and panned the scene. The stones stood in a row with many others, each marked with a number.

  The nameless dead of Fox Hill County Poor Farm lay buried in the very place that had puzzled Corey and me a few days ago.

  From the hedge's shadow, the boys crept toward the graves and stared down at them, their faces as sorrowful as mourners at a loved one's burial.

  Once more the picture dimmed and faded to black.

  13

  Ira looked down at us from the top of the bookcase. "Now you know how we came to be what we are," he said.

  "The lovely bad ones," Caleb added with a sad smile.

  "That's us," Seth boasted.

  And the shadow children echoed, "Bad ones, bad ones, lovely bad ones. Lovely, lovely, lovely!"

  Caleb wedged himself between Corey and me on the sofa. "We tormented those three from the day we died till the county came snooping around, asking questions they couldn't answer."

  "Joseph was the first to skedaddle," Ira said. "We'd just about run him ragged with tricks and pranks. Soon as he heard rumors there'd be an inquiry, he took off."

  "Mr. Jaggs was close behind, hugging the money box to his belly." Caleb laughed. "I wish I could've seen his face when he opened it and found nothing inside but old newspapers and stones."

  All three laughed. "That were one of our best pranks," Seth said.

  "A true gentleman," Ira said. "He left his own sister in the lurch."

  Seth sighed. "Then she went and
hanged herself and ruined all our fun by becoming a ghost herself."

  Ira looked uneasily toward the dark windows. "Better not say more."

  "Do you think she heard?" Seth asked in a low voice.

  By now, Corey and I were shivering with fear. What we'd seen on the TV screen had been bad enough, but the idea of Miss Ada outside in the dark was even worse. It was all too easy to picture her stalking toward the inn on soundless feet, her face grim, the cane in her hands.

  "Can she still hurt you?" Corey whispered.

  "Yes, but it's different from before," Caleb said. "In the old days, she beat us and spoke cruelly and starved us and worked us hard."

  He hesitated as if he were looking for the right words. When he went on, his voice was so low we had to lean closer to hear him.

  "Now all she has to do is look at us," he whispered. "There's a darkness in her eyes that brings back all the hurt of being alive. We feel the grief we felt then, the hunger, the thirst, the cold. Every bad thing that happened to us happens over and over. Our folks die. Our little sisters and brothers die. We die."

  "And she laughs," Ira hissed in anger.

  "When she comes, there's no one to help us," Seth said. "And no place to hide, except in the cold, dark ground."

  Neither Corey nor I knew what to say. We just sat there, taking in the awfulness of what we'd heard. The boys watched us. The wind blew harder and the rain pattered like tiny footsteps on the driveway.

  "When we go down into the earth," Caleb said at last, "we sleep the way cats do, ready to wake at the least sound."

  "If it hadn't been for you," Ira muttered, "we'd be sleeping right now—and so would she."

  Seth yawned. "Sometimes it's fun to wake up, but truth to tell, it wearies me. I wish I could close my eyes and never open them to this world again."

  Ira went to the window and peered out. "Watching for her is the worst part. She could be anywhere, you know."

  "Not anywhere," Caleb said. "She can't leave this place any more than we can."

  Suddenly, the shadow children began to move, flitting this way and that, a child's profile here, the outline of a hand there. Their whispering grew louder. "Run and hide, run and hide."

  As Caleb, Seth, and Ira faded into the darkness with the others, a cold wind blew through the window.

  "There is no escape for you," a voice cried. "There is no peace!"

  The shadow children twisted and turned. They rushed from one corner to another, but they couldn't reach the window or the door. She was already ahead of them, blocking their way out.

  Corey leapt to her feet. "Stop," she cried. "Leave them alone!"

  A tall shape spun toward us, and we saw Miss Ada's white face, skin stretched tight over her skull, eyes sunk in blackness, hair tangled and coarse. The smell of earth clung to her. She wore the rags of a long dress, but her feet were bare.

  "You made a mockery of me," she hissed. "You are as bad as they are. Just wait, you wicked, disrespectful children—you will be punished."

  Miss Ada turned back to the shadow children. But they had drifted out the window like smoke, leaving only the echo of laughter behind.

  "I'll see to you later!" she shrieked at us and vanished as suddenly as she'd appeared.

  Stunned, Corey and I ran to the window, but all we saw was the dark night and the falling rain. Lightning flickered and briefly lit the lawn. The grove crouched silent and still, hiding its secrets.

  Long after I went to bed, I lay awake. Miss Ada's face seemed to hang in the dark over me. Her voice rang in my ears.

  "I'll see to you later, I'll see to you later, I'll see to you later, later, later, later...."

  It was almost light by the time I finally shut off her voice and fell asleep.

  Corey hadn't slept any better than I had. We sat at the breakfast table and picked listlessly at our food. Lulled by the monotonous sound of the rain tapping on the windows, we were barely able to keep our eyes open.

  Grandmother peered at us. "What's the matter with you two? You look like you didn't sleep a wink last night."

  "It's the weather," I mumbled. "This kind of rain makes me feel like staying in bed all day."

  Corey yawned so widely I could see her tonsils. "When is it supposed to stop?"

  "Sometime this afternoon, the paper says." Grandmother sipped her coffee. "How about a trip to Burlington? We could go shopping to replace the clothes that—" She broke off, her face troubled. "The clothes that were, um, somehow ruined the night those people..." Her voice trailed off without finishing the sentence. It wasn't a night Grandmother liked thinking about. There had been too much she didn't understand, couldn't explain. Too much that didn't fit into her rational view of the world.

  Corey and I wasted no time getting ready to go. We needed a break from the inn—and the bad ones—for at least a few hours.

  Grandmother had some errands to do on Church Street, so she turned us loose in the Marketplace. "I'll meet you back here in an hour," she said. "We'll have lunch and then shop."

  Marketplace was a pedestrian area, kind of like an open-air mall, with plenty of shops, including Gap and a bunch of other big-name stores as well as little-name stores, craft places, and tourist traps. There were fountains and benches and sculptures and lots of open-air eating places deserted because of the rain.

  The weather drove us in and out of stores where stuff was too expensive or we already had it or we didn't like it.

  We ended up in the Dusty Jacket, a secondhand bookstore, mainly because we'd noticed a huge orange tabby sleeping in the window. Corey wanted to make sure he was real.

  "Indeed, he is real." The man behind the counter had a bushy gray beard and thick gray hair. Perched on the end of his nose was a pair of old-fashioned glasses with gold rims. He wore a plaid shirt tucked into faded corduroy trousers. For some reason, I liked him right away.

  "A watch cat," he added, "that's what Mog is. He guards the place at night." Corey poked her head around a display of books to get a better look at Mog. The cat opened one eye a slit, twitched an ear in Corey's direction, and went back to sleep.

  "Resting up for his nocturnal rounds," the man said.

  "Does he really chase burglars away?" Corey asked.

  He laughed. "Well, I've never been burgled, so I reckon he does."

  "I bet it's mice he chases," Corey said. "Not burglars."

  "Oh, yes, he chases a fair number of mice. Catches them, too. And then lines them up in a row on the counter for me to admire."

  While Corey and the man talked, I prowled around the store. Like most used-book stores, there didn't seem to be much order. No Dewey decimal system, for example. Just piles of nice old books with yellowing pages, going soft around the edges.

  "Are you looking for anything special?" the man asked.

  "Local history, I guess."

  "I have lots of local history," he said, "going all the way back to Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. Ethan was born here, you know. In fact, his brother started the University of Vermont."

  He pulled a biography of Ethan Allen off a shelf and showed it to me. "Good read," he said. "I recommend it highly. All yours for fifty cents."

  "What we'd really like to find is a history of Fox Hill," Corey said.

  "Are you staying at the inn?"

  "Our grandmother owns it," I told him.

  "Elsie's your grandmother? Well, I'll be. She's one of my regulars, a real nice woman. Comes in sometimes just to visit Mog." He offered his hand. "My name's Jack Pumphrey."

  I shook his hand. "I'm Travis Donovan, and this is my sister, Corey."

  "What's going on at the inn these days?" Mr. Pumphrey asked. "There were a lot of strange stories before Elsie bought the place, but I haven't heard much lately."

  Corey and I exchanged a glance, unsure what to tell Mr. Pumphrey. Taking a deep breath, I decided to ask him what I really wanted to know—needed to know. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

  Mr. Pumphrey hesitated a moment, as if he
, too, wasn't sure what to say. "I hope you won't think I'm crazy for telling you this, but I once saw a ghost myself, right here in this store. Of course, I didn't realize he was a ghost at first. He was standing by that shelf over there, looking at books. There was nothing out of the ordinary about him. But when he left, he walked out through the wall instead of the door. That gave me a turn."

  Mr. Pumphrey laughed nervously and picked up his cat. "Scared poor Mog, too. He puffed up to twice his normal size and ran and hid. I didn't see him for the rest of the day. He's a real fraidy cat. Thunder and lightning scare him, too."

  "Did the ghost ever come back?" Corey asked.

  "Not that I know of, but Vera Bartholomew, who runs the antique shop around the corner, claims she's seen the same chap in her place. He's particularly fond of one old armchair. She's thinking it used to belong to him. Could be, I guess, could be."

  Mog squirmed, and Mr. Pumphrey set him gently down. "Why are you two so interested in ghosts? Have they showed up at the inn again?"

  "Yes, sir," I said. "They sure have."

  Deep in thought, brow wrinkled, Mr. Pumphrey stroked his beard. "Ghosts have been seen there off and on for years," he said. "Boys, mostly. And a woman. Hanged herself a long time ago." He reached down to stroke Mog who was rubbing against his legs and purring. "You want your lunch, don't you, sir?"

  He straightened up and grinned. "Just last week, some nut driving a hearse came in here with a hippy-dippy woman. They wanted books about Fox Hill, but I didn't have anything that suited them. They both claimed they'd seen ghosts there."

  "That was Chester Coakley and Eleanor Duvall," Corey said. "They're psychics. Grandmother accused them of faking the ghosts and threw them out."

  Mr. Pumphrey laughed and went on stroking Mog. "That sounds like Elsie. She has her mind closed against any possibility of the supernatural. Won't even discuss it."