The Girl Behind the Glass Read online

  “Where are you? Did you leave? What happened?” Hannah called.

  Nothing in the parents’ bedroom either. Nothing that a small breeze could knock over. No way to make a loud noise. Hannah would just have to concentrate.

  Back in Selena’s room, Hannah had stood up. She had retrieved the piece of paper and was clutching it to her chest.

  Bats.

  “I think I heard you. Say it again?”

  BATS!

  “Cats?”

  What was the matter with her? She must not be trying. She had filled her head with nonsense about that soldier and now she would never hear. Never never never. And all the bats would die.

  Die.

  “Eye?”

  It was hopeless.

  “Cat’s-eye. I know. That’s a kind of a stone. Maybe you had one that was really valuable and someone tried to steal it from you but you wanted to give it to your fiancé so you fought the thief until—”

  A breeze blew out her stupid candles.

  She buried her face in her hands.

  “I’m sorry. I’m trying to understand. Only I just can’t.”

  She was sorry. And she was very upset.

  It was wrong to be angry. Especially with her. Friends should forgive friends.

  “Should I try again?”

  The breeze blew on her hand. With trembling fingers, she relit the candles.

  Then she shut her eyes.

  That was better. One darkness could meet another.

  Let the real world go away. Just listen.

  Listen.

  “I’m listening,” she whispered.

  She was. She really was.

  THUMP.

  Oh no.

  “I heard it.” She clapped her hands excitedly and shut her eyes again. “I don’t know what it means. Is one thump yes? Or no?”

  THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.

  It was too late.

  “Tell me.”

  Footsteps ran up the stairs. The door to the bedroom opened. There was a gasp, then more thumps. Three big puffs of air blew out the candles.

  Selena wailed, “Mom! Hannah is in my room again!”

  Caught. No way to escape. No way to explain. The sister screamed: Why do you keep going where you’re not wanted? Look what she’s done to my things. She’s cut up all my dresses. Why would you do that? What’s the matter with you, anyway?

  Maybe then she would know how it felt to lose something. How it felt to suffer. Why should she have everything? Even the cat liked her better. The only one who didn’t was the mouse that limped. Poor Whiskers. That was why she let the cat kill him in her closet. She could have saved him. But she didn’t. She only cared about her dresses. She would never save anybody. She would let others die too. She was a terrible horrible selfish monster.…

  The mother came in. And the father. Clomping up the steps. Taking off his belt.

  No, this time it was the Zimmers, hurrying to see what happened to their precious darling.

  Selena pointed at the floor. “Look what Hannah did.”

  “What’s going on up here?” Mr. Zimmer said.

  “Is this why you didn’t want to go to the mall?” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  Don’t just stand there, Hannah. Run. Don’t let them take away your things. If you hurry, you can hide some. Just like the precious thing in the attic. Run, Hannah, run.

  Hannah didn’t. She stood up and slowly folded the piece of paper.

  “She ruined my special candles,” Selena said.

  “SpongeBob is special to you?” Hannah said.

  “My friends gave them to me before I moved. You wouldn’t understand. You don’t have any friends,” Selena said.

  “Yes, I do,” Hannah said.

  “Name one,” Selena said.

  Hannah couldn’t. She didn’t know the name. All she thought about was the soldier.

  “You have to pay me for the candles you ruined,” Selena said.

  “You never pay for what you ruin,” Hannah said.

  “What’s the matter with you girls? You never used to fight so much,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  “It’s because of this house.” Hannah held out the piece of paper. “Something happened to this soldier here.”

  Mrs. Zimmer wouldn’t look. She thought she couldn’t stand it here one more minute. “You know we can’t move until the new house is ready.” She turned on her husband. “And your father refuses to call the contractor.”

  “I do call him. He never calls me back,” Mr. Zimmer said.

  “He walks all over you just like everybody else does,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Mr. Zimmer said, even though he knew she meant he was weak. He hated being told that.

  Mrs. Zimmer also hated—more things than could be named.

  Hannah was scared to see her parents acting like this. “It is the house. Can’t you see that? Now you’re fighting. And you never used to fight either.”

  “Don’t blame the house. You’re the one who’s acting crazy,” Selena said.

  Mr. and Mrs. Zimmer looked at Hannah and wondered what was going on inside her head.

  Hannah recognized the expression on her parents’ faces. It was the one the children at school got when they were thinking something was wrong with her.

  She ran into her room and slammed the door.

  “You owe me money!” Selena shouted after her.

  The house was quiet now, although the walls still seemed to quiver from all the yelling. There was a fresh outburst when Mr. Zimmer made the mistake of asking about dinner. Apparently there wouldn’t be any that night—except of course for the mice and the bats. And for Anna, who was spending the night with Georgia and her friends. What kind of food would they be eating?

  Hannah got her book. Books could be so comforting—unless they described shell-shocked soldiers. The book said many of the men who came back from the war would just sit and stare at nothing.

  Not all of them did. One paced back and forth, as if he were still in a trench, still in the war, even though it had been nearly twenty years since he had been attacked by Germans. His back bent. His hair got gray. His ditch got deeper. He kept fighting his war against a mother in a vegetable garden and two girls hanging their father’s shirts on the clothesline.

  Best not to think about that.

  A breeze turned the page. Hannah didn’t turn it back. She shut the book and put it on her desk.

  “Poor Lieutenant Maplethorpe,” she said.

  After her mother came in and said good night, Hannah put on the enormous T-shirt she wore instead of a proper nightgown. She put her foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. She paused in midair when she saw Anna’s empty bed. She thought how disconnected she felt. This was the first night in her entire life she would be without Anna. Why didn’t Hannah remember she wasn’t alone?

  A breath tickled her cheek. She slowly touched the place.

  “Are you here?” she whispered.

  Yes.

  “I almost heard you before. Then Selena came.”

  Sisters spoiled everything.

  “It’s quiet now. Try again.”

  Bats.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t quite hear. Can you be louder?”

  No.

  “Know?” She didn’t understand. And yet she did. “Oh. It isn’t hearing. It’s knowing. Like how I know what Anna’s thinking.”

  Her lip quivered. “Like how I used to know.”

  She thought that she didn’t understand Anna at all anymore—not even when Anna actually spoke.

  Bats bats bats. Bats in the attic. Save the bats. Don’t let them be killed. Do something.

  Hannah wasn’t listening anymore.

  She sat on the edge of Anna’s bed. She picked up the pillow and hugged it. It smelled like something Hannah recognized as lip smackers. Whatever that was, it reminded her of Georgia. She quickly dropped the pillow back on Anna’s bed.

  She sat there, longing for her sister, as
darkness settled around the house.

  Did she feel lonely enough to understand? Did she know what it would be like to be left behind? Without even the comfort of the critters? Didn’t she care?

  No.

  It would be better to talk to the bats. Better join their dance. There were only six nights left.

  The next morning Hannah didn’t get dressed or comb her hair or eat breakfast. She was too busy waiting for Anna to come back. All Hannah could think was that Anna should have been home by now. Only Anna wasn’t.

  At first Hannah waited in the living room. She got tired of jumping up to look out the window every time a car passed by. So she sat on the front porch and plucked the leaves off the chokeberry bush. She couldn’t see if Georgia’s van was coming around the corner. The hemlock trees were in the way. So Hannah went to the edge of the yard and stood next to the hemlock trees.

  Their branches waved, shush, shush, shush.

  Hannah wasn’t listening. As she paced back and forth under the trees, she remembered that the purpose of Georgia’s party was to do makeovers. What sort of girl would Anna be when she got back?

  A car zipped past. A stone spurted from the wheel. It almost hit Hannah’s leg. She didn’t care. She kept walking much too close to the edge. How long could she keep this up? Some had done it for nearly eighty years.

  Mrs. Zimmer came out of the house. She was worried too—about Hannah.

  “Why don’t you come in and have breakfast?”

  Hannah shook her head. She didn’t want food.

  “Anna just called. They’re going to the movies. They won’t be back until five.”

  “Five?” Hannah thought that sounded like forever. It wasn’t, of course. She should have known that.

  Mrs. Zimmer stroked the hair back from Hannah’s face. “Come inside. Have a shower. When was the last time you washed your hair?”

  Hannah rolled her eyes, but she let her mother walk her back toward the house on Hemlock Road.

  “You’ll feel better if you do. You can use that ginger shampoo that makes your scalp tingle.”

  Did it? Or did something else electrify the top of Hannah’s head? She couldn’t be sure.

  She did think the shampoo smelled good. Her mother was right. Being clean did make Hannah happier. If only others were still able to feel things like that.

  The bathroom mirror was fogged with steam. Hannah wiped it with the sleeve of her bathrobe. She combed her wet hair. It looked longer and darker than it usually did. She was thinking how Anna would probably come home with the rest of her hair all in little braids. They might even have little plastic beads stuck on the ends so that Anna would rattle every time she tossed her head.

  Hannah was glad not to be made over like that. She draped half of her hair in front of her right shoulder and the other half in front of her left. She tried to make the ends curl. They were as straight as ever.

  Then she leaned closer to the mirror.

  The long, wet hair reminded her. She took a step back. She slipped on the damp floor. She gripped the edge of the sink and leaned forward again to stare at the green eyes in the mirror.

  Whose eyes were they?

  She stroked the wet hair along her face.

  The day Miz D collapsed, the day Hannah tried to see what her teacher had seen, Hannah had expected a soldier’s face. She had been so certain he was the ghost.

  Only now she knew he wasn’t.

  Now she remembered what she had seen.

  A girl with green eyes and long, wet hair.

  Yes, Hannah knew what she had seen.

  She kept staring at the green eyes. She leaned closer. Her breath fogged the mirror. Still the eyes in the mirror burned. There was so much to say.

  “Who are you?” Hannah whispered.

  Maybe now she could understand everything. Or at least enough to save the bats.

  Please listen. Can you hear? Do you know?

  Now the mirror showed just Hannah’s eyes, confused and a little bit frightened.

  She didn’t need to be afraid.

  “I’m sorry. I still don’t understand,” Hannah whispered.

  Someone knocked loudly on the door. Hannah jumped.

  “You know there’s only one bathroom in this house,” Selena said. “Mom and Dad are taking us to the movies. And this time you have to come.”

  After a flurry of getting ready, including a desperate search for Selena’s missing shoe, the family went off in the silver car.

  Yes, some were left behind again. But the Zimmers would bring Hannah back. They had to.

  Anna was with them when they returned. Anna did have dozens of braids tipped with colorful beads that clacked when she tossed her head. She had a circular piece of shiny plastic that played loud music. She had a million stories about how much fun she had had with Georgia and the other girls. If only she had stayed there.

  That night, Anna kept talking about why Hannah should make friends with Kyla because she was so funny.

  Hannah didn’t need Kyla. Hannah had a friend.

  Hannah. Are you listening?

  Anna spoke. “I know I’m talking a lot. But compared to Georgia’s, this house seems so dead.”

  Dead?

  “You really should have come.”

  Hannah didn’t answer. She was asleep.

  The pest-control people were coming on Friday. Selena was counting the days. Why wasn’t Hannah?

  On Monday Hannah came home from school. Her face was pale. Her eyes were red. She couldn’t answer when her mother asked her what was wrong. Anna had to say that Miz D had died.

  Now Hannah thought of nothing else except her poor teacher. That death made Hannah so sad—and scared. She too had seen the face.

  On Wednesday there would be a memorial at the school. All the students would attend. The room would be full of people, all saying how wonderful Miz D was and how sorry they were. Yes, everybody was sorry she was gone.

  Once upon a time, there had been another funeral on a rainy day so dark it might as well have been night.

  The mother and the father were in black clothes. The sister wasn’t. She wore a lavender dress. It was the only one that hadn’t been ruined. It hadn’t been hanging in the closet when the other dresses were cut up. The mother made the sister wear a black ribbon. Her sleeve flounced over it.

  The rain beat at the dying leaves and knocked them off the trees.

  The father, the mother, and the sister got in the old flivver. As usual, it didn’t want to start. It was always breaking down.

  The mother was agitated. She worried about being late.

  The father said, They won’t begin the service without us.

  The sister said nothing.

  The engine whirred and whirred.

  Then the father yelled, Didn’t I tell you both not to go over there? Didn’t I say to stay in our yard?

  The sister nodded and smoothed her dress. Yes, Father.

  She always pretended to be the good daughter. But she wasn’t. She just never got caught.

  The engine roared to life. The old flivver backed out of the driveway. The father, the mother, and the sister left.

  No one else could.

  Was the running board too slippery? Surely the old car wasn’t too fast.

  The father had said, Stay in the yard. The father must be obeyed even though it was too late to change anything.

  There would be no leaving. Did it matter why?

  The family came back that day. One week later they left again. They didn’t say good-bye. And they never returned.

  But Hannah would.

  A different car drove into the driveway. It wasn’t the flivver or the Zimmers’ silver car. It was red.

  The doors opened. Three people got out: Hannah, Anna, and a woman dressed in a dark gray suit. She was medium height, with stylish light-brown hair and glasses. She was a stranger, and yet there was something suspiciously familiar about her.

  Mrs. Zimmer came out on the front porch.
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br />   “This is Miz D’s college friend. She was at the memorial,” Hannah said.

  “I’m Emily Stryder.” The woman held out her hand for Mrs. Zimmer to shake.

  “Her grandmother used to live in the house,” Hannah said.

  “I wanted to see it. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been torn down,” Emily said.

  So many people had come and gone over the years. So many people, with nothing to distinguish them. Even their screams sounded alike—after all these years.

  “It is pretty old,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  Emily walked across the yard. “The girls told me Tina had her heart attack right here.” She got out a handkerchief and blew her nose.

  “We’re so sorry,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  “Her heart was bad. Had been for years,” Emily said.

  “You see?” Anna nudged Hannah.

  Hannah ignored her and moved closer to Emily. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Yes?” Emily said.

  “Did your grandmother ever tell you about anything unusual that happened in the house?” Hannah said.

  “You must have heard the stories about the green eyes.” Emily smiled like she wanted to pat Hannah on the head. “Old houses are full of strange noises and dark corners. They aren’t haunted. They’re just falling apart.”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling her.” Mrs. Zimmer did pat Hannah on the head.

  Hannah shook off her mother’s hand. “It isn’t just falling apart. I saw the eyes.”

  “I’m sure you thought you did,” Emily said.

  Then Hannah remembered. “I can prove it. There’s something I can show you. Upstairs. In the closet.”

  Emily thought the quickest way to exit was to look at whatever Hannah wanted to show her. “All right.”

  Hannah led the way. Emily frowned at the unpacked boxes in the hall and the fabric strewn about the dining room. Selena’s room was even messier.

  “And I thought my daughter was bad. Is this your room, Hannah?” Emily said.

  “It’s our sister Selena’s. The day we moved in, she felt something strange in her closet. So later Anna and I went in. And the door got stuck.”

  “It was a humid day,” Mrs. Zimmer said.

  Hannah lifted the hook and opened the closet door.