The Ghosts of Stone Hollow Read online

  “Maybe it was a storm,” Amy said. “Maybe the wind broke it in.”

  Jason didn’t answer. But he stared at the door for a long time before he pulled Amy around it and on into the room.

  The main room of the house was empty, except for a few dust-covered piles of trash. Layered over with dirt and drifted leaves, the piles of trash were anonymous lumps, except where here and there something recognizable protruded—faded and musty articles of clothing, a part of a broken chair, and a rusty coffeepot. Under ordinary circumstances, Amy would have immediately begun to explore the trash heaps, undeterred by the dust and grime and the musty smell of mouse and mold. Ordinarily the fascination of long-forgotten articles, each one possibly the key to some ancient secret, would have been enough to make her forget everything else. But nothing was ordinary in Stone Hollow and, still hanging onto Jason, she let herself be led into the second room.

  The second room was smaller and completely empty, except for what appeared to be a rough handmade frame for a very small bed. A sudden realization made a shiver prickle up the back of Amy’s arms and legs.

  “That must be her bed,” she whispered. “The little girl who died of the lockjaw.”

  Jason stared at the bed for a while before he nodded slowly. “That’s why it’s here,” he said.

  “What do you mean—why it’s here?”

  “Well, it’s the only piece of furniture left, except for broken pieces of things. As if people came and took everything they could use, a long time ago. Except they didn’t want the bed because—”

  “Because she died there,” Amy breathed. “Jason, I think I’ve seen enough. I mean, I think I’d better be starting home before my folks start worrying about me.”

  “Don’t you want to see the other room first?” Jason asked. “There’s just one more.”

  The last room, apparently a kitchen, was a lean-to addition with a slanting roof. It was long and narrow and ran the length of the shack at the back. Like the front room it was scattered with piles of trash, and against one wall sat the rusted remains of a wood-burning iron stove. One of its heavy iron legs was missing, so it leaned at a crazy angle. Its chimney pipe had broken loose from its vent in the ceiling and jutted forward to end in midair. Beyond it a kitchen table with two missing legs crouched in the corner like a wounded animal.

  Somehow, the kitchen seemed the saddest and the most frightening of the three rooms—even worse than the bedroom with its tragic bed. Amy wasn’t sure why, except that kitchens should be warm and busy and good-smelling. In her mind it was easy to see it differently, with a neatly aproned woman leaning over a floury table, and a little girl standing on a chair alongside to watch. It was easy to right the stove and fill it with glowing heat and cover its top with gleaming pots and pans. In contrast, the desolate, dirty ruin seemed almost unbearable.

  “Please, Jason, let’s go,” she said.

  But just at that moment there was a rustle of movement and the sound of footsteps in the main room of the house. Amy grabbed Jason so hard that he staggered backward. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out; and before she could try again, the noises approached the door to the kitchen and came through, and it was only Caesar.

  “Caesar,” Amy said. “I’d forgotten all about him. Look what he’s doing.”

  Caesar was running back and forth across the room sniffing frantically. Now and then he made a whimpering sound. He stopped at a pile of trash in the far corner of the room, smelled for a long time, and then raised his head and made a strange, drawn-out noise that sounded almost like a howl. The howl over, he turned, ran past Amy and Jason without seeming to notice them, and disappeared through the doorway. They followed after him, out through the littered front room and around the fallen door; but by the time they emerged onto the sagging front porch, he was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where could he have gone?” Amy said.

  “He must have gone down to the creek. He’s probably running around down there in the underbrush. Let’s go look for him.”

  Amy nodded reluctantly. She couldn’t leave without Caesar, and the only way to get him back was to find him. Calling him was out of the question. To stand there and shout into the breathless silence of the Hollow would be impossible.

  A slight weed-grown indentation that might once have been a well-worn path led from the back of the shack to the creek. A second path, branching off, led to some small outbuildings that Amy had not noticed before. One of them was surrounded by the remains of a wire fence and had probably been a chicken house. The other, was slightly larger and might have been a toolshed or granary.

  Jason turned off the path toward the larger shed. “Come here,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

  “What is it? What’s in the shed?”

  “Not the shed,” Jason said. “It’s empty except for some old bottles and cans and a few broken barrels. Over there, that’s what I wanted you to see.”

  They had rounded the shed, and beyond it near the trunk of one of the largest oak trees was what appeared to be part of a picket fence. It had been a very low fence, not more than two feet high and judging by the pickets that remained standing, it had enclosed a very small area.

  “What do you think it was for?” Jason asked. “Some kind of animal pen?”

  Amy shook her head. “A grave,” she whispered, “I think it’s a grave. Look. See how the ground is rounded up there in the middle?”

  “I thought of that,” Jason said. “But there isn’t any tombstone. And besides, wouldn’t it be against the law? I thought people had to be buried in real graveyards.”

  “I guess they do now,” Amy said. “But people who lived way out in the country used to make their own graveyards, just for their own family. I’ve seen them before. They usually have little fences around them.”

  “I don’t see any tombstone,” Jason said.

  “It might have been made of wood and just rotted away,” Amy said. “Or somebody took it. Jason, don’t. Don’t go in there.”

  Jason was climbing over the fence into the tiny enclosure. Amy backed away as Jason bent over the grass-covered mound.

  “Here it is,” he said, “at least a part of it.” He turned toward Amy, holding up a small dirt-colored slab of wood.

  “Put it down,” Amy said, retreating farther. “Let’s go. Let’s find Caesar and get out of here.”

  Jason followed, then, but when they returned to the path, Caesar was still nowhere in sight. They continued on the path until it ended at the stream, at a place where rocks had been piled to form a small dam, behind which the water backed up into a deep clear pool. A smooth flat rock at the edge of the pool made a perfect place to stand for dipping water. Staring at the shady pool, Amy pictured them again, the woman and little girl. This time the woman was bending down to dip water in two wooden buckets, and the little girl was hanging on to her skirt.

  “Look,” Jason said suddenly. “There he goes.”

  Amy looked in time to catch a glimpse of Caesar trotting away from them around a bend in the creek bed. They ran after him, climbing over rocks and pushing their way through low-growing bay and willow trees and clumps of heavy brush. Rounding a pile of boulders, they caught another glimpse of Caesar, not far ahead of them. Amy called to him, but he went on as if he hadn’t heard.

  They had reached the upper edge of the valley now, and not far ahead the hills that formed the eastern wall rose with clifflike steepness. The bed of the creek was becoming a crevice, increasingly deep and narrow as it penetrated further into the hill. After climbing through the branches of a fallen tree, they came all at once onto both Caesar and what seemed to be a dead end. Just ahead was a sheer rock wall eight or ten feet high. The water of the creek spilled over it in a slender stream and fell down into a deep rocky pool. Near the pool Caesar was sniffing around what seemed to be the remains of several broken barrels and a large mass of metal pipes and vats.

  “The still,” Amy whispered. “This must have
been where they had the still.” She caught up with Caesar and grabbed his collar. “Come on, Jason. I’ve got him. Let’s go.”

  But Jason was standing near the waterfall, looking up at the face of the cliff. “Look,” he said, “footholds.” Only a few feet away from the falling stream of water, a series of holes in the solid rock led to the top of the cliff.

  “Jason,” Amy said more urgently, “come on.” But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t going to do any good. Turning loose of Caesar’s collar, she got ready to follow Jason up the cliff.

  It wasn’t easy. The holes had obviously been dug for full-grown people, and Amy had to struggle to make it from one hole to the next. When she was almost to the top she panicked, feeling certain she could never reach the next step. But then, just above her, Jason said, “I’m up. Reach up with your left hand, and I’ll pull.”

  With Jason pulling and Amy’s feet scrabbling frantically on the sheer rock face, she finally reached a point where she could fall forward on her stomach onto a flat surface. She was still lying there, breathing hard, when she heard Jason say, “It’s here. This is the place.”

  Amy jumped to her feet.

  Directly in front of her the hill was scooped out to form a shallow arched cave, a kind of natural grotto. At the back of the grotto water trickled out of the rock wall in several places and ran down into a wide shallow pool. The water flowed around a small island of rock and then narrowed into a thin stream before it reached the edge of the cliff and plunged down into the pool below.

  “It’s just a spring,” Amy said. “There are lots of them in the hills around here.”

  Jason didn’t answer. He was standing very still staring into the grotto. He did not move for what seemed like a very long time. Looking in the direction that he was staring, Amy saw only water and rocks. She heard nothing but the gurgle and splash of the falls and now and then a whimper from Caesar, where he had been left at the foot of the cliff. But she felt something.

  Afterward, when she tried to think about what she had felt, she discovered that there were no words with which to think about it. The closest word was almost—an almost seeing, almost hearing. Like the almost memory of a dream, when you waken suddenly and the dream is still there, although no single detail of it is clear.

  At last Caesar barked sharply, and Jason started. He looked around as if he were just awakening in a strange place. Seeing Amy he motioned to her and began to back toward the spot where the footholds led to the level below. He went down first, climbing easily, with his quick, agile, monkeylike movements; and when Amy started down, he reached up and steadied her feet in the shallow footholds. Caesar was waiting for them near the ruined still, and this time he stayed close by as they made their way down the creek bed to the clearing. They almost ran across the flat valley floor, past the ruined house, and up the steep slope to the ridge. When they reached the ridge, they stopped for a moment to look back.

  Jason was smiling. “That was it,” he said. ‘That’s where it all comes from.”

  “Where what comes from?” Amy asked.

  “Whatever it is that makes it different down there. The thing that makes everyone afraid to go there.”

  Suddenly Amy was exasperated again. “What thing?” she demanded. “What did you see? All I saw was a spring in a kind of cave.”

  Jason turned to look at her. “You didn’t see the Indians, then?” he asked.

  Amy backed away, staring at him. Then she turned and began to walk toward home. It was the first time all afternoon that she had remembered he was crazy.

  chapter nine

  WHEN JASON SAID that he had seen Indians in Stone Hollow, Amy was too horrified to say anything. She didn’t know why, exactly, except that she had spent all afternoon with him just as if he were an ordinary normal person. She had even depended on him at times when she had been frightened and he had seemed less so. And then to be reminded suddenly that he was crazy—and probably a lot crazier than she had realized before! It was a shock.

  On the way home she walked fast for a while, not letting him catch up with her, glancing back now and then and hurrying when he got close. But afterward, when the shock had had time to wear off, she began to feel curious again. She began to wonder just how being crazy worked. What kind of Indians did being crazy make you able to see? Did something in your head tell you you had seen Indians when you really hadn’t? Or did you really see them, right down to what they were doing and wearing, perhaps like images on a movie screen? It was a fascinating thought. For a moment she found herself almost wishing that she could have seen them, too.

  She stopped and looked back at Jason, who was walking slowly now, not trying anymore to catch up with her. When he noticed that she had stopped, he stopped, too, and looked at her questioningly. She looked back, not letting her face show anything, because she really wasn’t sure yet just what she wanted. After a moment he smiled and hurried to catch up.

  Watching him come, it occurred to Amy that being crazy was a lot different from being stupid. For instance, she couldn’t imagine someone stupid, like Gordie Parks, figuring out what you were thinking almost before you knew yourself.

  As soon as Jason caught up, Amy said, “Look, about those Indians, how many of them did you see?”

  Jason thought for a moment. “There were three,” he said. “Three there by the spring, but I think there were more not far away.”

  “What were they doing?” Amy asked.

  “Sitting. The three that I saw for sure were just sitting on the ground with their backs to us looking at the Stone.”

  “The stone?” Amy asked. “What stone?”

  Jason stared at her in surprise. “The Stone,” he said, “in the middle of the spring. The one standing up like a pillar on the little island in the middle of the pool.”

  Amy didn’t particularly remember noticing, but now she seemed to recall that the little island had been rather flat, except in one place where there was a large boulder, shaped almost like a tombstone, or perhaps more like a gigantic hand. She remembered a color, too, a subtle shadowed shade, like the ghostly green of Spanish moss. And there had been that feeling, that strange indescribable feeling of something that was almost there—almost seen and heard. A shiver started somewhere in the backs of her legs and worked its way slowly upward.

  Amy found herself staring at Jason, seeing him in a new way. And wondering in the back of her mind if there was something else different about him, besides just being crazy.

  On the rest of the way home, Amy asked some more questions about the Indians and about the Stone, but Jason didn’t seem to want to say more about them.

  When Amy asked him why the Indians were there and why they were staring at the Stone, he only shook his head slowly.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure. I have to think about it.”

  He was still thinking, distant-eyed and silent, when their paths parted.

  Amy ran all the way home, as she always did when she was feeling tense or excited. She was almost home when she tripped over Caesar and fell down hard, skinning a new place on her left knee and making a fresh wound on the right one where the last scab had been almost ready to pick off.

  She limped home to a scolding for being late, and for running, and for skinning her knees again. She wouldn’t have minded the scolding much but, like so many scoldings, it turned into a discussion. This time the discussion was about how important skinned knees were. Amy’s father talked about how he’d always had not only skinned knees but also black eyes and all kinds of lumps, sprains, and bruises when he was a kid in Chicago, and how it had probably been good for him. Aunt Abigail talked about good breeding and deportment, not to mention the expensive pair of stockings Amy had ruined the last time she fell down on the way home from church. Amy’s mother talked mostly about blood poisoning and a little boy who’d skinned his knee and the next day he’d had red lines running up and down his leg and the following day he was dead. By the time everyone was
through talking, Amy was so tired she barely had time to think about Stone Hollow before she fell asleep.

  She did think about it a lot, though, the next day and the days after that. At first she thought mostly about what she had told Jason about school. How he should act as if he didn’t especially know her—and how he should not mention to anyone that she had gone with him to Stone Hollow.

  Actually she felt fairly confident that he wouldn’t talk about it. He had said he wouldn’t, and even though he was crazy, she felt sure it wasn’t the kind of craziness that would make him forget a promise. There was another reason, too, why she wasn’t too worried about Jason’s talking, and that was because there wasn’t anybody at school who would talk to him. But even though she wasn’t too worried, she kept an eye on him anyway.

  It was during that week that Amy really began watching Jason—partly in case he started talking, but mostly because she was just very interested. The reason for that, of course, was curiosity. Knowing perfectly well it wasn’t a good idea, she found herself watching Jason from behind an open book, or maneuvering to get close to him in the classroom, or even following him on the playground from a safe distance.

  It wasn’t really surprising that she was so curious, she decided. It was only natural to be interested in a crazy person when you hadn’t known very many. However, Amy had known that Jason was crazy since the first day she met him, and. it was only since Sunday that she had been so especially curious about him. Actually, it was only since that moment on Sunday when she had seen a difference in him that couldn’t really be explained as simple craziness. She didn’t know what that difference was, but it was something important, and she knew she had to find out more about it.

  There were many ways in which she could see that Jason was different. In the classroom he either worked hard and fast, or else sat staring at nothing for long periods of time. If the teacher called on him, he often had to have the question repeated, and then didn’t seem to know anything. But now and then he knew not only the answer, but also all sorts of extra facts and details, and he told about them using big or even foreign words. This seemed to really impress the teacher—and made all the kids exchange glances that meant “show-off” or even “liar.”