The Girl Behind the Glass Page 3

  didn’t?

  Maybe the book that followed The Subtle Knife had a happy ending. Maybe it was in the box upstairs. If only the twins would stop whispering in their room and unpack the rest of their books.

  Anna picked up a sheet that should have been on her bed and put it over Hannah’s head. It wasn’t even white. She looked like a walking rainbow.

  “Whooo. Whooo,” Hannah said.

  “You sound like an owl.”

  “What should I say?”

  “Something to scare her.”

  Hannah spoke in a deep, hollow voice. “Seleeeenaaaa, yoooou look fat in those jeeeeeeans.”

  The twins laughed—until their mother opened the door.

  “Knock first!” the twins yelled.

  Mrs. Zimmer knocked twice on the open door, came straight in, and yanked the sheet off Hannah. “Didn’t I tell you not to tease Selena?”

  “We’re only playing,” Anna said.

  “Well, stop. You haven’t unpacked one single thing,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  The twins fidgeted with the sheet. Even their mother knew they were up to something. She just didn’t know what.

  “Why won’t you? You’ll feel better if you get out your books,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  Yes, everybody would.

  “School starts in less than a week,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  Of course, all children had to go to school—if they could go. School wasn’t so bad for girls like Hannah and Anna. But Hannah was worried. “Why can’t we be in the same class like we were in Brooklyn?” she said.

  “The principal believes that twins gain more independence when they’re encouraged to reach out to others,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  The twins thought those words were babble.

  Mrs. Zimmer tried again. “Just think of all the new friends you’ll make.”

  “We have friends,” Anna said.

  “In Brooklyn,” Hannah said.

  “You can make more friends,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  It was true. They could—if they would only stop paying so much attention to each other.

  “Should I buy us a treat at the cute little bakery on Main Street? Your dad is going out to buy more extension cords,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  “Something chocolate?” Anna said.

  “Of course,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  Then Hannah thought of something. If the parents were gone, she and Anna had an opportunity to scare Selena. “Is Selena going?”

  “To a hardware store?” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  They all laughed. Mrs. Zimmer hugged her daughters and left.

  Hannah pulled the sheet over their heads and whispered to Anna.

  After a few moments, two car doors slammed. An engine roared to life. Gravel crunched under the tires.

  The house was quiet. A few greedy mice scampered out into the kitchen, even though not everyone had left.

  Selena was trying on an outfit she planned to wear on the first day of school. She looked very strange. Other children never had new clothes. Not once. At least those hand-me-down dresses weren’t torn. The shorts Selena put on were frayed at the bottom and faded on the thighs. Her shirt had so many holes, she had to wear it over another shirt. Even then, the straps of her brassiere showed. She didn’t have shoes on her feet, just rubber soles with straps between the toes. And yet she primped and pranced in front of the mirror on her dresser, delighted with how she looked.

  “Hannah Anna, I’ve decided what I’m going to wear. Now I can help you.”

  She knocked on their door. The twins didn’t answer.

  “You need to plan ahead. First impressions are very important. Since it’s a brand-new school, this is your first first impression. You can be somebody totally new and cool. Wouldn’t that be great? Hannah Anna?”

  Selena opened their door. Nobody was there.

  “Did you go to the hardware store? You really are nerds.” She shrugged and sashayed back along the hall.

  Where were the twins? There was a squeak on the attic steps. Selena didn’t notice. She was thinking that she was alone in the house so she could do whatever she wanted to do. She was thinking there were cookies in the kitchen. Then she scolded herself to resist temptation and hurried back into her room.

  Meanwhile, careful feet crept up the attic steps.

  Hannah and Anna pulled themselves up along the railing until they reached the top. Their hearts pounded with nervous excitement. They could hardly see anything. Their eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark. The only light came in through the cracks under the eaves.

  Once upon a time, the attic had been full of treasures. In the corner above the parents’ bedroom, a pile of old rugs could be a magic carpet or Huck Finn’s raft or something to hide behind. A barrel of mismatched dishes were perfect for tea parties. A trunk could be a table. Next to the chimney were boxes of old photos, Christmas ornaments, wooden skis, a lamp that didn’t work, a wooden high chair, and a homemade rocking horse.

  The attic had no treasures now. Everything in it had been carted away. Except one thing. One precious thing had been hidden below the floor next to the eaves when all the books in the smallest bedroom were being taken away. Not a living soul knew where it was—not even the critters. For almost eighty years, no one had been able to take it out and look at it. But now that girls were here, maybe …

  “Now what?” Anna whispered.

  “I find the spot above Selena’s closet.” Hannah walked toward the center of the attic. She waved her hands in front of her to feel her way through the darkness. The space was nearly the size of the whole house. There were no walls.

  “You think here?” Hannah whispered.

  “Farther,” Anna whispered.

  Hannah stopped. She sensed something stirring in the darkness above her head. She knew she and Anna weren’t the only ones in the attic. She just didn’t know who else was there.

  “What is it?” Anna whispered.

  Hannah wasn’t sure. She was listening. Was there enough silence? Maybe she would go and find the precious thing.

  Look.

  Anna was too impatient. “Hurry up,” she whispered.

  So Hannah stopped listening and sat on the floor. It was very dirty. She lifted her feet and kicked the boards with the heels of her shoes.

  BOMP, BOMP, BOMP. Slow, deliberate thumps, like the drums in the parades that honored the soldiers on Armistice Day.

  The sound woke up all the bats. They unfurled their wings and dropped from the rafters. They swooped around the attic.

  The twins didn’t appreciate the dance. Hannah rolled onto her stomach. Anna crouched on the floor. They both covered their heads with their arms.

  Too bad they couldn’t enjoy Selena’s screams as she ran from the sound, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. Ha!

  Back in the attic, the bats swirled. The twins didn’t dare move as long as they felt the whoosh of wings. Finally the bats realized it was too early to hunt. They returned to their naps.

  When Mr. and Mrs. Zimmer came home, they found Selena lying on the sofa, holding her stomach and moaning.

  “What’s wrong?” Mrs. Zimmer dropped the bag of baked goods and rushed to her daughter’s side.

  “I heard a noise coming from my closet,” Selena said.

  “There’s going to be noises in an old house,” Mr. Zimmer said.

  “I’m sure it was nothing,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  “Then something really terrible happened!” Selena wailed.

  The twins clattered down the stairs and into the living room.

  “What’s wrong?” Anna said.

  “What happened?” Hannah said.

  The twins were thinking how well their plan had worked—until Selena finally managed to say, “I ate all the chocolate-chip cookies.”

  “Is that all?” Mr. Zimmer said.

  “I can’t wear these shorts on the first day. I know I gained at least ten pounds,” Selena said.

  “You couldn’t have. A package of cookies o
nly weighs one pound,” Mr. Zimmer said.

  Mrs. Zimmer was staring at the twins. “What’s on your clothes?”

  Hannah and Anna looked down at the dark powder on their shirts.

  “How did you get so filthy?” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  “We were outside,” Anna said.

  “Playing,” Hannah said.

  “That is not outside dirt. Where have you been?” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  “You were up in the attic,” Selena said.

  Apparently she wasn’t as dumb as people thought.

  “You made the thumping noise. You scared me into eating all those cookies. I hate you! I hate you both!”

  “How could you do that to your sister?” Mrs. Zimmer was thinking the twins were driving her crazy.

  “How could you make us move to this house?” Hannah said.

  “You know perfectly well why.” Mr. Zimmer was thinking he was sick of their complaints.

  “You don’t care about us,” Anna said.

  “You only care about her,” Hannah said.

  “That isn’t true,” Selena said.

  Yes, it was. And everybody in the house knew it.

  Mr. and Mrs. Zimmer didn’t make the twins cut a switch for playing that trick on Selena. Nobody took away their books. However, Hannah and Anna were punished. For the next two days, Selena followed them everywhere, asking if she had lost any weight yet or if her thighs still looked too big to wear shorts. Finally the twins went outside to escape. They walked purposefully down the driveway. They stopped next to the oldest tree at the edge of Hemlock Road.

  What was the matter? Couldn’t they leave the property? Was this their punishment too?

  They looked toward the right. The trees blocked the view of the old lady’s house. They looked left. The road curved before they could see the stone gates that guarded the driveway that snaked up the hill to the fancy house, where no one was allowed to go.

  “Where’s the sidewalk?” Hannah said.

  “I hate that we have to be driven everywhere,” Anna said.

  “Especially since Dad can’t,” Hannah said.

  Mr. Zimmer had taken a train to his job.

  “And Mom won’t,” Anna said.

  Mrs. Zimmer was cutting cloth on what should have been a dining room table.

  “I guess I’ll have to learn to drive,” Anna said.

  “In five years,” Hannah said.

  The twins sighed. They were thinking of that other street—the one lined with cute shops instead of gloomy trees.

  One branch swayed, as if to say, We understand how you feel. Please don’t blame us. We can’t help the way we are.

  Hannah watched it. She wondered why it moved when all the rest were still. “Remember the first day, when the tree waved? Why does it do that?”

  She was asking Anna, even though Anna didn’t know or care. She had spotted one of the cats slinking past the porch under the red chokeberry bush.

  “Ooh, a kitty,” Anna said. Both twins ran after it.

  The gray one, with the white front paws, wasn’t the meanest or the ugliest. But like all cats, it searched for a defenseless critter to kill.

  “Is it a stray?” Hannah said.

  “It doesn’t have a collar,” Anna said.

  “Maybe we can keep it,” they said together, and excitedly clasped hands.

  Didn’t they know what a cat could do?

  “Here, kitty,” Anna said.

  “Here, Muffie,” Hannah said.

  “Is that its name?” Anna thought that sounded a little childish.

  “How about Mr. Muffin?” Hannah said.

  The cat, who should be named Mr. Murderer, raced around the side of the house. The twins followed.

  “Wait, Mr. Muffin,” Anna said.

  The backyard was even more neglected than the front. Once upon a time, there had been a garden. A mother had planted seeds and the seeds had become vegetables that she made her children eat. One October, long ago, squash rotted on the vines. No one was there to pick the Halloween pumpkin and carve a face that could scare away the devil.

  The cat had spotted a brown bird pecking at the dirt under a bush. The bird cocked its head to one side and hopped. The cat crouched very low to the ground, inching forward, one white paw at a time. The bird didn’t see the danger. The twins should be paying attention. They should do something. It was very wrong to let an innocent critter die. One little death could lead to another.

  The gray tail lashed back and forth. Just as the cat coiled itself to pounce, a gust of wind rustled the leaves right above the bird. It flapped away. It had been saved.

  Hannah and Anna didn’t notice that—or how close they were getting to the place.

  Some places were powerful because of what had happened there. Some were powerful because of what hadn’t. The twins walked toward a place that was both.

  Did they realize that? No. Anna was planning how to persuade their parents to get a cat. Even Hannah was thinking that it was pleasant to be outside instead of in the gloomy old house.

  How could they know? The place looked like a field, bordered on the south edge by large gray rocks. The grass was beautiful. The golden stalks swayed in a gentle breeze. And yet something had happened in the shadow of those rocks. It changed the place forever. It could never be forgiven. It was the worst thing that could be done to anyone. Then other people covered everything up with dirt. Yes, dirt. They didn’t want anyone to see the place and remember. So no one ever did.

  The twins paused. They had reached the edge of the deep ditch. Would they cross it? Could they? Or would they be stuck pacing back and forth and back and forth?

  “That’s weird.” Hannah shivered as she looked down. “There’s a path down there.”

  Anna was still thinking about the cat. “So?”

  “Why would somebody walk along the bottom of the ditch?”

  Why was she wondering about that? There were other, more important questions that needed answers. Like where was justice, and where was the way out of the …

  “There goes Mr. Muffin,” Anna said.

  The cat ran down into the ditch and up the other side. Anna ran after it. Just like that, she left the yard, without even trying, without even noticing.

  Hannah followed her sister. Maybe there was a way to go with her and cross the line. She was a girl who sometimes seemed to understand.

  But no.

  Nothing had changed.

  Hannah ran up the other side of the ditch. From there, she had a closer view of the yellow field and the strange sapling that grew just beyond the rocks. She thought the red lines in its leaves looked like blood flowing through veins.

  One of its branches moved.

  “It’s waving,” Hannah said.

  No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t sending a signal. It truly was the wind. Couldn’t Hannah tell the difference?

  “It wants me to come closer.”

  No, it didn’t.

  Hannah walked until she stood just a few feet from the edge.

  “Are you talking about the cat?” Anna said.

  “The tree,” Hannah said.

  Anna thought that was ridiculous. Then she spotted the cat creeping into the golden grass. “There goes Mr. Muffin.”

  “Where?” Hannah said.

  The cat disappeared except for the tip of its gray tail. Its tail stopped moving. For a moment, everything was still. Even the wind held its breath, waiting to see what would happen.

  Suddenly the cat yowled and sprang back from the field. It darted past the twins. Its tail was puffed. Its ears were flat. And its sleek gray body was covered with black muck.

  The cat darted past the twins’ legs, away from the field. Both girls followed it down the ditch, up the other side, and past the dead garden. The cat scrambled halfway up an ash tree and clung to the trunk. It was safe now. But its eyes were wild and it was still afraid.

  The twins stopped under it. Anna held up her hands. She wanted to bring it down, but she cou
ldn’t reach it.

  “What’s that smell?” Hannah said.

  The muck on the cat’s legs smelled like rotting decay. Like death. Because that was what it was.

  “Poor Mr. Muffin. Would you let us give you a bath?” Anna said.

  The family car pulled into the driveway. Mrs. Zimmer had picked Mr. Zimmer up at the train station.

  The twins ran over to their parents. “We found a cat, can we keep it?”

  Mrs. Zimmer thought a cat might be a good idea. Those mice had nibbled too many boxes. The twins led their parents to where the cat still clung to the tree.

  “It’s filthy,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  “I thought cats were clean,” Mr. Zimmer said.

  “Mr. Muffin was clean,” Anna said.

  “Until he went in a mucky place in our backyard,” Hannah said.

  “There isn’t a mucky place in our backyard.” Like so many people, Mr. Zimmer never considered what might lurk below the surface.

  “The ground is very dry.” Mrs. Zimmer pointed to what used to be the garden. “I couldn’t even dig.”

  “Were you going to plant something?” Mr. Zimmer said.

  “I just hate looking at the weeds,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  “There is a mucky, stinky, dangerous place behind the house that no one should live near,” Hannah said. She was thinking she had a new reason to get her parents to move. Would they listen to her? Would they take their daughters away?

  “Where?” Mr. Zimmer said.

  Hannah dragged him to the edge of the ditch and pointed at the field. “There.”

  “That’s not our yard,” Mr. Zimmer said. “The property line is the ditch. You shouldn’t go anywhere near that field.”

  That was what people always said. You shouldn’t have been there. If you had listened to me, this would never have happened. That’s what you get for not obeying the rules. Everybody blamed the victim for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Hannah was wondering what was hidden by the grass—until Anna said, “Can we keep the cat?”

  “Can we?” Hannah said.

  “We’ll see,” Mr. Zimmer said.

  “If it cleans itself up,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  The parents went into the house.