Unquiet Dreams Page 12

  ***

  "Careful!"

  "Sorry, ma'am! These curvy stairwells are a bitch—uh, sorry ma'am." Betty gritted her teeth silently. There were so few things they had that were of any worth. At least the bed could be taken apart, no worry there. Everett snaked his arm around her waist, warm and damp. "Come have some lemonade, dear, you'll feel better if you don't watch."

  "My imagination is worse," she groused, but let him pull her toward the kitchen.

  "I thought you didn't have any imagination," he grinned over the pitcher. "That's what you told Ms. Real Estate."

  "It doesn't take much to figure out that my mother's armoire is going to have some serious scrapes on it."

  "Nah, it'll be the walls. That armoire is even tougher than your mom."

  "Very funny." The kitchen was a shambles. Betty had entertained fantasies of a big family dinner their first night in the new house, foolish of course. Not pizza again, though. Her family's love for the gooey mess didn't overrule her need for an organized meal. Wasn't there an Italian restaurant over by the highway?

  ***

  Perhaps it was all the garlic—really the cook had been overly generous with it—or just the sheer amount of food—after all none of them were used to such quantities—it could after all, just be the newness of the house. Whatever the reason, Michael had a humdinger of a nightmare. It was bound to happen, she supposed, not that it made it any easier to listen to his shrieks and to hold his trembling body till he calmed. Betty couldn't bear to see either of her kids in any kind of pain, but well, life was like that. Michael's tears were tapering off to sniffles and the hitching coughs were gone. Elaine snored on, happily oblivious, in the next room.

  "Feel better?"

  "Yes, I guess."

  "Don't do that, here, use a tissue." He blew a resounding honk and stared stonily at Puff the Rabbit clutched under his arm like a bagpipe's bladder. "Do you want to tell me about it, Michael?" Quick shake of the head. "It might help . . ." No sign either way. Betty lifted his chin up gently to meet his eyes. It was always so unexpected, the beauty of his soulful eyes, even if she couldn't help but think of Elvis. She smiled in spite of herself. "Tell me."

  "It was . . . the people who lived here . . . before."

  A sigh; of course, but still she had been right to tell them. Elaine was fine, anyway. Michael was just sensitive. But he would get used to the idea. It was just his overactive imagination. "You imagined them?"

  "I guess."

  "Well now, Michael, I didn't tell you about this sad business to give you nightmares."

  "I know, Mom."

  "You remember what I told you about it?"

  "Mmmm hmm."

  "I told you it was a terrible thing that happened here, a very sad family and a poor man who was quite out of his mind." He nodded but gripped Puff a little harder. "Bad things happen everywhere, right? And a bad thing happened here once but it's over and those poor people, well, they're . . . at rest now. Right?" Another nod. "No such thing as ghosts, remember? Just stories bad people tell to scare little kids." For god's sake why did people tell scary stories—as if there weren't enough to worry about in the world today, people had to invent such things and make those terrible movies like that horrible man with the razor nails.

  "I guess. I want to go back to sleep now." He turned away and burrowed his face into the pillow. Puff 's ears flopped over his eyes. Betty couldn't help smiling as she leaned over to kiss them both.

  "Goodnight, sweetheart."

  Well, that went better than I thought it would, she mused, padding her way down the hall back to her room. One little bad dream, over and done with, now they could get on with things. Betty wedged herself in next to Everett, who had of course slept through the whole thing and taken advantage of her absence to grab a larger share of the covers. Wiggling her butt, she worked them both back toward the center of the bed. Tomorrow, I can get that kitchen done, if nothing else. Life would be back to normal with her kitchen in order.

  ***

  Michael dreamed. It was the third time that night he'd come down the green-carpeted stairs in a pre-dawn Christmas morning haze of snowy sunlight. Puff mutely bore the terrorized clutching of his sleeping arms. In his dream, Michael was without the comfort of his friend. He didn't even want to go to the kitchen. He knew it was like the panda box in Ms. Edwards' story and like his Dad's scary comment "curiosity killed the cat," which he guessed was why they didn't have one. Maybe if he'd listened to his teacher's story with more than one ear he'd know why he had to keep going back down to that room, but the other ear just had to listen to the conversation between Jimmy and MaryBeth, which he'd understood no better but had something to do with the potty things. His breath stopped as he turned the corner through the doorway and there they were.

  Michael whimpered in his dream and body. He could hardly stand to see his dad's rare steaks—let alone this much blood. The first time he'd dreamed this, the red tide had thrown him into a jerking wakefulness. But now, even though he knew he dreamed, such relief was out of reach. A dull thudding filled his head.

  Two little girls looked like painted dolls, carelessly thrown in the corner of the kitchen. Barely perceptible under the pungent aroma of blood were the lingering smells of holiday cooking: pecan pie, chocolate pie, Christmas cookies, biscuits and of course, a turkey. But the carving knife was sunk deeply into the mommy's back where she slumped over the pedestaled table. Michael sucked his thumb, tears rolling down his dreaming face. He heard a sound and turned back to the girls. Did they move? He wasn't sure.

  "Michael…" The whisper was so hoarse and low that he thought perhaps it was all in his head, but then their eyes opened and again they said his name, "Michael…help us…"

  His screams were muffled by Puff as he wet his pants. Stop, stop stop! He could think nothing more, couldn't think at all when the two chilly blue hands brushed his foot, their touch softer than Puff's paws.

  ***

  Betty awoke with an instinct of panic. Michael's dark form smudged the doorway. Another nightmare, she thought, until she felt, heard even rather than saw the drops fall from the knife's shining point.

  "Michael?" He swayed as if moved by an imperceptible breeze. He did not answer. Slowly so as not to startle him, she eased herself out of bed, quashing her impulse to rush over to the small boy twisting in the moonlight. "Michael," she gently laid her hands on his arms, "What is it?" His eyes, glazed, mirrored her face unblinking. Her hand slipped down to his, loosing his grip on the handle. The knife dropped to the carpet and she could not stop her annoyed thoughts about the stain.

  Betty searched fervidly for a wound. "Michael, did you hurt yourself?" No answer. But he did not appear to be bleeding. She breathed freely for a moment—then stopped. Betty rose, gently brushing the catatonic boy aside to run down the hall. No, no, no, not Elaine, it can't be. I can't take it. No! She threw the door open. Elaine's body sprawled over her bed, sheets crumpled to the floor. Her breathing bordered on a soughing snore—but she breathed. Betty felt a joyous sob rise, flattened immediately by a flush of shame. How could she think him capable? Betty turned; Michael stood tentatively, blinking now, awake.

  "Mommy?" The single word tugged at the roots of her love and she hurried to swallow his trembling body in a hug. His words were incoherent mumbles and cries. When at last his shaking slowed, she held him away from her to wipe his wet cheeks.

  "Michael, what happened?"

  "I dreamed again. They were there again."

  "Who was there?"

  "The people who were killed."

  "Michael—" How to address this?

  "I know it was a dream, but it was real too." His words tumbled out now, "The little girls wanted me to come with them. Their daddy is real mean—they say he'd be nicer to them if they had a brother because he always wanted a son and didn't love them because they were girls and he killed them, he killed them all." His sob wrenched her already aching heart and she set aside argument, and logic and se
nse, and they clung to one another like the grieving souls they were; the knife a mute witness to their embrace.

  ***

  Blood—but no wound, no source. Betty twittered fitfully, waiting vainly at the window for dawn. He said it was their blood. And not a knife she recognized, but after twelve years of marriage and three moves, they had accumulated a lot of detritus that had ceased to look familiar years before. Betty ached for her son, for her homey dreams, for her family. She was not willing to release any of them yet, though they seemed to be scattering from her protective grip and, in the process, pulling her flesh apart.

  Michael slept, his brow touched with shadows, his features animated by his strange sorrows. How is this child mine? she thought. A whole little person, unlike them both, born from her body, from his seed—an amazing alchemy that produced something completely new and different—and now frightening, as if he were a key to a world of which she wanted no part.

  The knife gleamed with snickering menace from the dish rack as if muscling aside the other cutlery. Was it really not here? Would the first rays of true dawn make it shimmer and disappear? Betty ran her finger over its still-warm edge. Too real; when her family rose and clambered down for breakfast, it would still be here. It must be theirs. There must be an answer, an excuse, a reason—one that would be clear in the daylight.

  ***

  "Michael?" Although he lately thought himself too old for her help in the bath, he submitted dully to her fussing today, as if it were of no real moment. Betty hoped the warm yellow haven might prove safe for confessions and truth. "How did you get the knife?"

  Michael squeezed Mr. Duck, who emitted a mooing sound and a whoosh of water, but he did not immediately answer.

  "Where did the blood come from?"

  He sighed and looked up at her. His sad little face! Betty wanted so badly to apprehend the peril he faced, even though her heart cringed and a part of her head said for the umpteenth time that he's just too sensitive.

  "It was their blood."

  "The girls?"

  "Maybe their mom too. I don't think—I don't think," he sighed again and held Mr. Duck's protesting body under water, "that their dad used it on himself. I think he used a gun. BLAM!" The rubber duck popped out of the water and Betty stifled a scream while her heart hammered. Michael looked back down at his hands, spread through the bubbles of his bathwater. "You don't believe me."

  It stung more than her self-recriminations had. "I—I'm trying, honey. It can still be a dream even though it seems very real—"

  "But can they hurt me?" His fear was naked, elemental. Save me, mommy, make everything okay.

  "No, Michael, they can't hurt you." Could he see her fear? Feel her waver? "I think, I think that maybe they can convince you to hurt yourself while you're…sleepwalking or whatever it is when you can see them. That's why I was so…worried last night. I thought you might have hurt yourself."

  "But they can't hurt me?" A thousand woodland creatures gazed through that pair of brown eyes, frightened, unable to comprehend the world and its dangers.

  Betty reached through the suds for the sponge and squeezed warm water over her son's back. "No, Michael," and her mind snapped shut on the possibilities, scooted them under the dark corners in the back and closed a lid. "They can't hurt you, I'm sure of it." I have to be.

  ***

  "You're only dreams," Michael stated with more courage than he felt.

  "No," the little girls corrected him, "We are ghosts."

  "My mother said you were only dreams and you can't hurt me." He gripped Puff's paw, feeling a flush of frustration.

  "We know what we are. What makes you think your mother knows so much?" the older sister added with a superior smirk.

  "My mom knows a lot!"

  "I think she's just scared of us."

  "No she's not," Michael parried weakly. He wanted to take Puff and go back to bed and sleep without dreams and be far, far away.

  "Our mother knew a lot too. It didn't stop our daddy from killing her."

  "Where is your daddy now?"

  The two looked up. "He's asleep."

  "Ghosts sleep too?" Michael forgot his denial.

  "Sort of. It's not really like sleep. It's just there's nothing to do. If you came here, we could play."

  Michael rested Puff under his chin. "What?"

  "All kinds of things. We want new games, we're tired of our games. You could bring your sister too," added the younger girl, who was immediately silenced by a quick elbow to her stomach. "No girls!" her sister hissed.

  "You want me to come into the wall with you?"

  "Just for a little while," they wheedled.

  "And if I don't like it—"

  "You can leave." They smiled eagerly.

  "Can I bring Puff?" Almost hoping they would say no, so he could as well.

  "Sure!" Their little white hands slipped out from the wall, beckoning. "Just take our hands and close your eyes. It might hurt a little tiny bit, but it will be over really quick…"

  Michael jammed Puff under his elbow and let his hands be grasped by the cold white ones. They can't hurt me, he thought, and took a big breath to balloon his cheeks out, then nodded. The cold fingers grabbed him and pulled him into the wall, peeling his skin away. Oh Puff, I'm so sorry.

  ***

  Betty jerked awake, pulled from fitful dreams. It was a scream, she was sure of it. Hastily she swung her legs over the side and shuffled, still dazed, to Michael's room, calling his name in a stage whisper. He and Puff were gone, leaving behind the tangled bedclothes of a restless night. To be sure, Betty crouched down to look under the bed then crossed to the closet, opening the door slowly in case she might frighten the boy within, but he was not there.

  He was not in his sister's room either or the bathroom. Betty sighed and turned toward the stairs, her steps hastening when she saw the light from the kitchen, her pace doubling when she smelled the pungent, almost tangy scent of blood. But even when her eyes fell upon him she could not believe, could not accept, it just wasn't possible, and she could not believe what wasn't possible, even as she cradled his body, sobbing, sobbing holding him now as he had held Puff, hoping there was some way—

  ***

  Michael spent a long time chasing after his new playmates. He was furious. Not only had it hurt, but they had lied. His mommy was crying and holding him, what was left of him, the part not in the walls. And they were laughing. This was a thousand times worse than Elaine's teasing; she always gave up when he started to cry. These two laughed and laughed and then ran away and he chased them with Puff, striking out wildly with the rabbit but it was no good. They could push him away and trip him coming around corners, but he couldn't feel them, his hands went right through. He chased them till he was dizzy, but it did no good.

  Michael returned to the kitchen wall. His mom was still there, but now his daddy was too, looking very serious, and a lot of police officers had come. One of them was trying to make his mom let go of him. Michael pressed his face to the wall and shrieked with all his might. His mommy's head bobbed up and looked right at him. He waved frantically. Her eyes blinked. "Mommy! Mommy!" She dropped his body and tore at the wallpaper with her nails. Her mouth opened as she called his name over and over, but two police officers came and took her away, wrapping her in a blanket. His daddy frowned and ran his hand through his hair and went with the other officers into the living room.

  Michael buried his head in Puff's side and cried himself to sleep.

  ***

  "Elaine! Elaine!" His sister was snoring as usual. "Elaine! Wake up!" A snort, a muffled exclamation and Elaine was sitting up in bed, blinking.

  "Michael?"

  "Elaine. I'm here!"

  "Michael, you're dead. Daddy told me. We're having a funeral for you on Saturday. I get to wear a hat." She yawned and prepared to go back to sleep.

  "Elaine, you have to help me!"

  "Where are you anyway? I can't see you."

  "I'm—I
'm kind of a ghost."

  "You're not a ghost. That's make-believe."

  "I'm a ghost, and I don't want to be."

  "Mommy killed you because she was over—" Elaine thought carefully, "Over ought. Too much strain. She ought not have done it. Now they've taken her away."

  "Mommy didn't kill me! It was the people who lived here before!"

  "You didn't even know those people."

  "They're ghosts and they tricked me and killed me I guess, but I think I could get out if—"

  "There's no such thing as ghosts, I already told you."

  "But they're right here! Say something," he turned to his companions, but they were giggling through their hands and refused to say anything at all. "Say something!" Elaine sighed. "Well, I'm a ghost, and you can hear me!"

  "You're a dream. Tomorrow when I wake up I won't remember any of this. Good-night, Michael."

  "But—" He had to think. "We can get mommy back if you can bring me back, and then I can prove she didn't kill me, because I'll be alive."

  Elaine rolled over. "Monica has a new mom who lets her wear lip gloss. Maybe if I get a new mom, she'll let me wear make-up now instead of waiting till I'm twelve."

  "But, mommy . . ."

  "Maybe I'll get a new brother too. One that's not so creepy. Good-bye Michael. Happy Halloween, ghost."

  Michael stared at her. She began snoring again almost immediately.

  "We told you so," said his new sisters.

  He nodded dumbly.

  "C'mon, let's go show you to papa!"