Part 26 (1/2)

Please be careful. I worry about you, given your propensity for plunging into trouble. And please write to me.

Your most devoted servant, Jaimy

Chapter 29.

I mope around for a bit, but then, like always, I get over it.

In a few days I take tea with Maudie and we both grumble over our losses.

”Never trust a drunk,” says Maudie, again.

”Older and wiser now,” says I. ”How much did he get you for?”

”Some lodging, some board,” sighs she, who warned me in the first place but who I guess didn't take her own advice. ”But what I hate most is losin' the business his fiddle and you brought in.”

What I hate most is being taken for a fool. I just found out that the Battle of Culloden Moor was fifty some years ago and Gully couldn't possibly have been there, Jacky Faber, Cheapside scammer, was scammed again, scammed royally. And all my money gone. I had noticed that my concertina was gone. I find out later that Gully had sold it at the p.a.w.nshop and it's gonna cost me two dollars to get it back.

”Aye,” I says. I could do a solo act, but we both know that without Gully's fiddle and without his wild craziness, it wouldn't work. Just some afternoon shows with me makin' a few sailors cry in their beers with my sad songs-not the thing that fills the coffers. I mean, I'll do it, 'cause I really need the money now, but it ain't gonna be the same.

I bid Maudie good day and go out and climb aboard Gretchie, her saddlebags bulging with the stuff from the greengrocer's that I was sent to buy. I bring her up to a brisk trot 'cause I want to get back quick to show Mr. Peet my latest poor attempts at miniature portrait painting and to get his kind advice, and I got a math problem I can't figure out that I want to see Mr. Sackett about.

And then, after I'm done with the work of the day, I must make my preparations for tonight.

I put the last strand of the mop to the top of my watch cap and sew it in tightly. Then I patiently unravel the mop strand as I have done to all the other strands I have sewn on to the cap.

I have long since sent Amy down to her own bed, complaining of sickness that I do not want to pa.s.s on to her.

I am going out to visit the Preacher, but this time I do not put on my black gear but instead keep on my serving-girl outfit. And this time, instead of blackening my face, I take flour and spread it over my face, rubbing it in so it won't dust off. Then I rub it on my hands. I have already worked it into the strands of my watch-cap wig.

Now I take a little dish and put some soot and a little water in it and mix it around with my finger till it's a black paste, and with my biggest watercolor brush, I fill my eye sockets with black and then paint six up-and-down lines of black from my upper lip down to my chin, to look like the teeth in a grinning skull. Then I put on the white, Dutch-boy wig.

I wrap my black cloak around me like a shawl to keep me from being spotted in my white blouse, and I open my window and go down the rungs, tying the rope to the third rung from the bottom, and drop down to the ground.

I stick to the shadows and work my way around to the graveyard, looking up to see that the Reverend has yet not come to the window of his study. He may never come to the window this night, but I must be patient-if not this night, then the next. If not then, then the one after that.

Patience.

I dart across the road and fling myself down next to the stone wall that lies between Janey's grave and the church. I worm my way along on elbows and knees till I am lying next to the grave, and there I lie and wait, hidden from the church by the wall and hidden from the road by a row of bushes. The side of the school that faces this way is the opposite side from my rung ladder and, like my side, is made up mostly of ma.s.sive chimney. It is the blind side of the school, without even one window.

The moon is rising and casting a fine light on the graveyard. I wait, my eye on the window.

What to do while I wait? Maybe I'll compose another letter to Jaimy: ”Dear Jaimy, I hope you are well and pa.s.sing your time in joyous pursuits. I myself am lying next to a grave in the middle of the night waiting for a demented witch-hunter to-” Hus.h.!.+ There he is!

I hear him before I see him. ”Sorceress! Witch!” comes clearly across the churchyard from the window. Then, ”Demon!” I put my eye to a cleft between the stones and I can see him, but he cannot see me. He is gesturing and posturing like before, but this time I can see his crazed face straight on and it is not a sight to make one sleep easy at night. While he seems to be shouting and pointing directly at me, of course he is not. He is pointing at poor Janey in her grave.

I know the way he moves through this performance of his, having watched it twice already, and I wait for one of those times when he steps away from the window to rant and rave inside and pour another drink and gather fury for another bout of arm-waving, pointing, and hissing.

There he goes! Now!

I get up and stand on top of the grave. I step carefully so as to leave no footprints. The earth is hard, but still...

I just stand there with my arms to my side, in my white hair and bangs, my white face with empty eye sockets and painted teeth. No grimacing, no saying boo, no waving of arms-just standing there, stock-still in the moonlight.

He comes back to the window and launches into his routine with the accusing finger pointed directly at me and then he says, ”Corruption,” and then, ”Wicked,” and then he opens his eyes and he jerks back and don't say nothin' at all, he just stands there with his mouth wide open and his tremblin' finger still pointing. His eyes are wildly staring. I keep my own eyes as slits so he don't see the whites, but still I can see him plain.

Then he says, ”Nooooooo,” and it sounds as if it's coming from the very bottom of his twisted soul, and he stumbles back and there's the sound of a chair being overturned and a crash of maybe a bottle and he disappears from my view. I take that opportunity to nip down behind the wall and begin my creep back. Don't want to overdo things. That will do for tonight. I have a branch from one of the bushes, and I sweep it behind me to cover any traces of my being there.

When he gets up the nerve to look back out, all he will see is the grave lyin' there all still in the moonlight.

Still, but not quiet.

I pause by my rope and dust the leaves and twigs off my clothes as best I can, then up I go to the rungs, untie the rope, sling it over my shoulder, and climb up to my window, congratulating myself on a job well done.

As I've just got head and shoulders through the window, I stiffen as I hear someone in the room. The lamp is turned up and there is Amy Trevelyne, staring at me as if at a very demon from h.e.l.l itself, which, if you look at it from her point of view, she has. Then she says, ”Ooohhhh,” and her eyes roll back in her head and she faints onto the bed. On the bedside table is a bowl of chicken soup, now quite cold, that she had brought up for me. How sweet of you, Sister.

I have taken off the wig and rubbed off some of the flour and soot from my face. I am patting Amy's hand and slowly bringing her back into this world. She comes unwillingly, but as she nears full consciousness, I put my arms about her and whisper, ”Sister, please! It's just me, Jacky! Come on, now. Wake up!”

Her eyelids flutter and she looks at me and says, ”Oh, Jacky, no...” as she has so many times before.

Chapter 30.

After that first time I appeared to Reverend Mather as Janey, I let things lie for a couple of days. I watched him on the next day, though, and, sure enough, he came out to the gravesite and looked about for signs of something real and not ghostly there, but he found none. His movements were jerky and his face was sunken. That's it, Preacher, stew in your guilt for a while yet. Then we'll up the ante.

Each night after that, Amy and I would creep up to the widow's walk and watch the Preacher to see the changes in his actions. For certain he don't rant and rave and point no more. Rather, he peeks out timidly every few minutes to see if the specter has come back. It would be comical to see, if it weren't for the real tragedy of Janey Porter.

But after several days, I figured he needed another shot, so last night I got back in costume and headed out on another moonlit night, leaving Amy wringing her hands back in the room.

Again, I snuck up next to the wall and waited for him to turn back into the room. Then I stood, and when he came back and looked out, there I am as Janey on the grave. His eyes went big as saucers and he put his hands to his mouth to stifle a moan of horror, but he didn't jerk back into the room this time, this time he just stood there lookin'.

Well, I couldn't stand there all night and I certainly couldn't just walk off as if to say Good night, Preacher, we're done with tonight's haunting and I'll be going now. Haunt you next time. So there we stood as the minutes ticked by, and then I had a thought.

Slowly, slowly, I brought up my right hand and pointed an accusing finger at him, my other fingers on that hand hooked into a claw. His eyes grew even larger and then, suddenly, he buried his face in his hands and I took the opportunity to drop like a stone behind the wall.

I watched through the cleft in the stones to see what he did then. He looked out again, rubbed his eyes, and I could see profound despair was writ on his face. He appeared to be mumbling something. Prolly asking his grandfather to get him out of this. I shall have to go back up on his roof soon to hear what the two are talking about these days.

I got back to my room without incident. Amy breathed a sigh of relief at seeing me come through the window.

Word had come this Sat.u.r.day morning that Ezra wanted to talk to me again, but Peg was having none of it. ”You'll come back all tarred and feathered or else will run off with the circus. No, you ain't goin' nowhere, Miss Nothing-But-Trouble,” but I got down on my knees and clasped my hands together and pleaded, ”I'll be good I promise and you can send Betsey with me 'cause she's so sensible and Amy Trevelyne'll come, too, and she's a lady as cautious as any dormouse and...”