Neely found it hard to believe, all right.
"Yes, indeed," Carmen went on. "A couple of hours ago he started insisting that I bake some cookies because he was expecting guests."
"Expecting guests?" Neely grinned. "You mean he was expecting Grub and me a couple of hours ago? He didn"t even ask us till about twenty minutes ago."
Carmen made a snorting noise. "That"s our Curtis," she said. "And then, just as I get the first batch in the oven he comes running in insisting that I have to come down here and pick you up. Immediately. So at the moment he"s sitting in front of the oven holding two hot pads and waiting for the timer to go off. Or at least he"d better be or he"s going to have some lumps of charcoal to serve his guests."
Neely looked back at Grub and they both giggled. Somehow the picture of Curtis sitting in front of the oven clutching the hot pads was pretty funny. But then she thought of something else and quit laughing. The unfunny part was that she didn"t even wonder why no one asked Curtis"s mother or father to take over the cookie baking. She"d learned enough about Curtis"s family by now to know why that probably wasn"t a possibility.
A minute later Carmen glanced over at Neely and when Neely smiled she smiled back-frowning at the same time. Not many people can do that but it seemed to be a specialty of Carmen"s. Still smile-frowning, she shifted gears and tromped on the gas pedal as the car slid backward on the muddy road.
"Neely," she said suddenly, "about Curtis. He sometimes has these strong-well, violent really-enthusiasms about things...or people. It"s happened before."
"Enthusiasms?" Neely was puzzled.
Carmen nodded. "Enthusiasms. Obsessions almost." Carmen wasn"t looking at Neely now. Instead she was staring intently ahead at the muddy road, her face tense and squinty-eyed. "I-I worry about him," she went on finally. "He"s had a hard time of it, you know."
"I know." Neely was feeling very uneasy. "That is, I can imagine."
Carmen shifted again and reached over and patted Neely"s hand. "I"m sure you can," she said. "I"m sure you can imagine how hard it"s, been for him. He"s hurt and angry. Sometimes he"s terribly angry. You mustn"t forget that. You mustn"t forget that Curtis can be terribly... She paused again and glanced at Neely and then quickly away. "Angry," she said again softly-but it somehow sounded as if she"d meant to say something else.
Neely was still wondering what other word Carmen had been planning to use when suddenly she changed the subject entirely and started asking Neely about her first week at school.
"I hear you won an election," she said.
"Well, just for sixth-grade representative," Neely said. "Sixth graders don"t get elected to really important things at a middle school because it"s their first year."
"Curtis seemed to think it was important," Carmen said, and then she asked Grub, "How about you, Grubbie? How was your first week?"
Grub leaned forward and put his chin on the back of the front seat and looked at Carmen in the rearview mirror.
"Okay, I guess," he said. "I"m in third grade now." He stopped and thought for a moment, chewing on his lower lip. Then he smiled brightly and said, "I only have nine more grades to go."
Just at that moment the Buick slid to a stop in front of the iron gates of the Halcyon estate. Only half the gate was open.
"Oh, dear," Carmen said. "The gate. I left it open but the wind must have blown it shut."
"I"ll get it," Grub said, and jumped out of the backseat. The gate was heavy and as Grub tugged his feet slipped and slid on the muddy road. Carmen and Neely leaned forward watching. Grub gave up on pulling and ran around to the other side and tried pushing. The gate began to move and he looked over his shoulder grinning triumphantly. Beside her, Neely heard Carmen catch her breath in a strange wobbly sigh.
"Such a lovely child," she said. "You must watch over him, Neely. You must protect your little brother."
Neely felt a strange shudder travel down the back of her neck. "Why?" she started to say. "What do you-"
But at that moment Grub opened the door and jumped back into the car smelling of rain and wet hair. Carmen was saying, "My, my. What a strong young man you are to manage that heavy gate in all that rain."
Grub looked proud and pleased. "It"s a good thing I wore my boots," he said.
As Neely glanced back at his wet and shiny face the shudder came again, trembling slowly down her spine.
Chapter 32.
THE COLD WIND-DRIVEN RAIN, DRIPPING DOWN THE STONE walls and trickling across the windows of Halcyon House, looked like sad, gray tears. But inside the huge old kitchen the air was warm and dry and smelled like a bakery. Apparently Curtis had done a good job. In the middle of the kitchen table there was a platter of nicely browned oatmeal cookies.
However, the hot chocolate he"d decided to add to the menu hadn"t been quite as successful. The top of the huge old-fashioned eight-burner stove was awash in sticky boiled milk. While Carmen cleaned up the mess, she and Curtis argued about the proper way to make hot chocolate.
It was too bad about the ruined hot chocolate, but as far as Neely was concerned it did come in handy as a topic of conversation. At least while Carmen and Curtis argued about spilled milk Neely didn"t have to think of things to say, which at that particular moment might have been a problem because her mind kept skidding off the track and back onto the subject of Grub in danger.
In between listening to Curtis and Carmen"s argument she kept hearing Carmen"s voice saying "You must protect your little brother." The thing was, she did protect Grub all she could. She always had. But apparently Carmen felt she hadn"t done it well enough. Or that she would need to do it better. Curtis and Carmen were still fussing at each other when Neely suddenly realized what Carmen had been talking about.
It was the nursery, of course. The nursery, and the fact that she had allowed Grub to play there by himself while she and Curtis played pool or badminton.
Curtis had said that Carmen thought the nursery was haunted, and of course she would think it was dangerous for Grub to be there all alone. Or-Neely again felt the shiver threaten the back of her neck-all alone perhaps, except for...Monica. It would be almost impossible, she knew, to keep Grub away from the nursery, but at least she could make sure he no longer went there by himself.
So a little later when the cookie eating was over and Carmen had taken herself off, still grumbling, to her own room, Neely immediately turned down Curtis"s suggestion of a game of pool.
"I"m tired of pool," she said. "Why can"t we do something in the nursery?"
Curtis"s lumpy unformed face tightened into an angry scowl. "Why?" he said. "What could we do in that crummy place?"
Neely shrugged. "I don"t know. There"s all that great stuff in there. There"s all kinds of-"
The scowl deepened and Curtis"s voice went high-pitched and sarcastic. "I get it. You want to play with the piggies and horseys. Sure. You just want to play Farmer in the Dell with little ol" Grubbie."
Neely sighed and stood up. "Grub," she said. "I"m beginning to feel like a nice refreshing walk in the rain. Come on, let"s go home."
Grub stared at Neely and she looked back, trying to make her eyes say she was sorry but that it was necessary, and at the same time watching to see what his reaction would be. With his big eyes wide open with shocked surprise, and with all the damp curls hanging down across his forehead, he looked so much like something on an old-fashioned valentine that Neely found herself smiling just a little...until she noticed that Curtis was watching her. After a second Grub nodded sadly, got to his feet, and headed for the door. Neely followed and they were almost there when Curtis yelled, "Wait. Wait a minute. Okay. You win. We"ll do something in that stupid old babies" playroom."
In the nursery Grub immediately went into his favorite corner with the toy circus, while Curtis wandered around trying out windup toys and musical instruments. Neely wandered, too, for a minute, but she knew immediately where she was heading and it didn"t take her long to get there-the dollhouse. She really didn"t know how much she"d missed it until she was there. Without even meaning to she put out her hand to touch things-the beautiful sideboard, the grand oval dining table, and the delicate rocking chair.
The gorgeous old grandfather clock that could actually tell time had run down. She picked it up, checked her watch, set the time, and then wound the key. When it was ticking she put it back in the living room, and then decided it might look better in the front hall. That meant she had to move a sideboard and when that was done she decided to do a complete job and rearrange the furniture in every room.
This time she didn"t pretend she was Monica, or at least not exactly. It somehow didn"t seem natural with Curtis there in the room making weird noises on the accordion. But she did find herself trying to imagine where Monica might have put a particular piece of furniture, before she decided on each new location. The rearranging took quite a lot of time and, of course, she stopped now and then to check on Grub.
Grub had set up the three rings of the circus and like always he was talking softly as he played. Neely looked to see if Curtis had noticed but he seemed to be too busy with the accordion. Besides, she told herself, even if he did notice he"d probably only think that Grub was making the circus people talk to each other. After all, lots of little kids do that kind of thing when they play.
She was still rearranging furniture when the nursery door burst open and Mrs. Hutchinson came in. She was wearing a satin robe that looked like a j.a.panese kimono, her blond hair needed combing, and her voice was slurred and mumbly.
"Well, well, well," she said. "Isn"t this touching? Children playing again in the old family nursery. How sweet."
She started around the room in her high-heeled slippers, wobbling a little when she stopped to look at the old toys and musical instruments, and almost falling down when she bent to peer into the dollhouse. When she"d regained her balance she grabbed up the dining room cabinet, tipping it so all the dishes in the gla.s.s-fronted cupboards slid to one side. Neely reached out to catch them if they fell.
"Oops." Mrs. Hutchinson smiled apologetically and put the sideboard down. "Must be more careful, mustn"t we? Worth a fortune nowadays, beautiful old doll furniture like that. Absolute fortune."
She then went on around the room, stopping briefly to inspect the accordion Curtis was holding. Making a face, she put her fingers in her ears. "So that"s what was making that awful noise," she said. "I thought something was dying."
When Curtis"s mother got to Grub"s corner she immediately began to make another embarra.s.sing fuss over him. She mussed his hair and then, putting her hand under his chin, she tried to turn his face up toward hers. Grub blushed and squirmed and tried to get away. After she finally turned him loose and teetered to the door, she turned to blow kisses in his direction before she disappeared down the hall.
As soon as Curtis"s mother had gone they all went back to what they"d been doing before. But not long afterward Curtis put down the accordion and went over to sit on the floor next to Grub. The next time Neely checked he was holding one of the animals and he and Grub were talking softly together. Neely smiled. Curtis seemed to be the one playing Farmer in the Dell, or whatever, with Grabble. The next time she checked they were getting to their feet and heading for the door.
"Curtis wants to show me something in the ballroom," Grab said. "We"ll be right back."
Neely might have gone, too, but she had only one more room to rearrange and she didn"t want to leave the job unfinished. She had almost completed the last room when a disturbing thought occurred to her. It was the first time she"d been in the nursery all alone. And maybe if, as Carmen seemed to think, something might happen when Grub was there all alone, perhaps it might happen to anyone who was there all by themselves.
Still holding the dollhouse baby crib in her hands, Neely began to walk slowly around the room, stopping now and then to listen for phantom voices and watch for the glowing lights or swirls of heavy mist that you always read about in ghost stories.
Nothing happened. No mists and no voices. Not even when she was standing in Grub"s favorite corner where he usually played his games of circus or farmyard with his invisible companion. She was still standing there, thinking that it was no use, that nothing was going to happen, when it suddenly occurred to her that quite a bit of time had pa.s.sed and perhaps she"d better go see what Grab and Curtis were doing in the ballroom. Quickly putting the baby crib back in the dollhouse, she ran up the stairs to the third floor.
They were in the ballroom all right, standing together on the little bandstand in front of the big picture window. Curtis had his hand on Grub"s shoulder and they seemed to be looking out at the endless view. When Neely let the door slam Curtis took his hand off Grub"s shoulder and started to thump on one of the drums. Grub jumped down from the platform and ran. Dashing down the long stretch of ballroom floor as if he were in some kind of race, he skidded to a stop a few feet away from where Neely was standing.
"Hi," Curtis called from the bandstand. "I was showing Grub the drum set. I was telling him about how we could start our own band."
On the way downstairs Curtis babbled away about his idea to start an orchestra using the drum set and some of the instruments from the nursery. "I was showing Grub where we"d all sit on the bandstand," he said. Grub didn"t say anything at all but, of course, there was nothing too unusual about that.
Chapter 33.
THAT NIGHT, PROPPED UP AGAINST THE HEADBOARD OF her bed in a comfortable nest of pillows, Neely stared at page twenty-seven of a really interesting book for about thirty minutes without reading a single word. She stared at the page and thought, instead, about what Carmen had said about protecting Grub.
She"d hoped to see Carmen again before she left Halcyon House, to ask her exactly what she"d meant, but there was no one in the kitchen when Neely and Grub and Curtis went back downstairs. And since the rain had stopped she couldn"t very well suggest that Carmen ought to drive them home. So she"d had to go on guessing what Carmen meant when she said "watch over your little brother."
Neely was sure-well, almost sure-that the warning concerned the nursery and Monica. Obviously Carmen believed in ghosts in general and in the Monica ghost in particular. But that didn"t explain why she thought Grub especially needed protection. Why would the Monica ghost-why would anybody, ghost or not-want to hurt Grub? And if someone or something did want to hurt him, what could Neely do to prevent it?
There were other questions too. Questions with no answers or with too many answers. So for at least half an hour Neely stared at page twenty-seven and thought and thought without coming to any conclusions, except a couple of halfway ones. One halfway conclusion was that Carmen was probably wrong about Grub being in any special danger. After all, Neely herself had been alone in the nursery and absolutely nothing had happened.
But the other conclusion was that maybe the best solution would be for her and Grub simply to stop going to Halcyon House altogether. She didn"t come to any definite decision about that-she didn"t want to, really-but it was, she told herself, something to consider.
It was the very next morning at breakfast when, right out of the blue, Mom said, "Neely, your father and I have been discussing it and we think perhaps we"d better put an end to these Halcyon House visits."
Neely looked up from her buckwheat pancakes, stunned into silence. For a long moment she stared at her mother while she tried to decide what she was going to say.
She was feeling shocked and indignant-and more than a little surprised that she felt this way since it was, after all, exactly what she had almost decided herself. But she was indignant. It just wasn"t fair of Mom simply to cut things off without any warning when there were so many mysteries-mysteries about Monica and all the rest of the star-crossed Hutchinsons-yet to be solved. It just wasn"t fair. And then, glancing over at Grub, Neely was reminded of another important reason why Halcyon shouldn"t be made off-limits. Which, of course, was that it still mattered so much to Grub.
"Why?" she asked her mother in a resentful tone of voice. "Why shouldn"t we go to Halcyon when we"re asked?"
"Because," Mom said, "your father and I haven"t met the Hutchinsons and it"s beginning to look as if we"re not going to. I called the other day and talked to their housekeeper, I guess it was-"
"Carmen," Grub and Neely said in unison.
"Yes, Carmen. And she seemed very nice, but she said she"d ask Mrs. Hutchinson to return my call, and no one has called back as yet. And you know, Neely, that your father and I have always insisted on knowing a little about the people who spend a lot of time with our kids."
"Dad?" Neely appealed to her father.
He shook his head, smiling. "Oh, I quite agree with your mother," he said. "At least for the time being, until we can find out a bit more about the family."
"Oh, is that all?" Neely said. "Well, what do you want to know about them? Maybe I can tell you."
Mom smiled. "Well, I don"t know if that will entirely solve the problem, but there are some things I"m curious about. They do seem to be a rather strange bunch. For instance, the fact that n.o.body seems to work. And why has this particular part of the family come to live at Halcyon after all these years?"
Neely glanced at Grub. His eyes were wide and pleading. She gave him a rea.s.suring smile, took a deep breath, and began. She wouldn"t lie, but she would answer carefully. Very carefully. "Well," she said, "I don"t think there"s anything so strange about them not working. People like the Hutchinsons don"t have to, I guess. Curtis said something about a trust fund. And besides, Mr. Hutchinson has been sick. I guess he sort of moved here to rest and get well."
"Sick?" Mom asked. "What kind of illness?"
"I"m not sure what the symptoms are," Neely said, which was pretty much the truth. "But he sees a doctor a lot. He goes to Monterey to see a doctor."
"It"s not catching," Grub said. "It"s not chicken pox or diphtheria."
Both Mom and Dad laughed, which was a good sign. And when they dropped the subject of the strange things about the Hutchinsons, Neely felt that maybe she was winning. Especially when Mom started asking about what she and Grub did when they were at Halcyon. At that point the conversation switched to pool and badminton and all the wonderful toys in the great old nursery.
Neely talked quite a bit about the beautiful dollhouse because she knew that would appeal to Mom. Mom always stopped to look at dollhouses in toy stores, and sometimes she talked about the one she"d had when she was a little girl. Houses, of all sizes, had always been important to Mom.
By the time breakfast was over the verdict was in and it seemed that Halcyon was not forbidden after all. At least not right away.
"Well, that does sound like a lot of fun," Mom had finally said. "So we"ll see. Perhaps something can be arranged to make it possible for us to meet the Hutchinsons before too long."
"And in the meantime...?" Neely asked.
"We"ll see," Mom said.
Neely was on her way to her room a few minutes later when Grub dashed after her and almost knocked her down with a giant bear hug.
"Turn loose, you klutz," Neely said, prying his arms loose and pinning him against the wall. "You trying to kill me, or what?"
"No." He giggled. "It was just a hug." He laughed again, a crowing, gurgling laugh like a tickled baby, then he ducked away and kind of danced into his room. Grub was like that when he was happy.
Neely stood there looking at his door for several seconds before she went on to her room and sat down on the bed. Grub was obviously out-of-his-skull delighted because she had made it possible for him to keep on going to Halcyon House. She hoped she wouldn"t be sorry. She hoped he wouldn"t be. Suddenly her shoulders lifted in a quick, sharp shiver.
Chapter 34.