The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair Read online

  “Stay away,” I whispered fiercely. “Don’t you dare come any closer.”

  I felt emboldened by my own words, and the fear abated as I backed toward the house, until I heard it again.

  I sprinted to my bedroom window, noting that my father’s room was still dark.

  “Hurry, hurry!” I whispered as I shoved myself through, my feet dangling for mere seconds as I imagined the ghost of Wilbur Truesdale reaching for me, grasping my feet. . . . Tumbling in, I slammed the window shut harder than I had meant to, slipped off my shoes, and fell into bed beside Bitty. I didn’t dare breathe.

  I stayed awake for a long time, adrenaline coursing through my body as I repeatedly glanced at the window. Adrenaline, I practiced in my head, is produced in times of stress by the adrenal glands, which sit atop the kidneys. Inhale. There is no threat. Exhale.

  There was the rustle. Wind through cornstalks. But there was no corn in here.

  It sounded like it was right outside my window.

  I leaped back to the window and locked it.

  Just in case.

  But as I did, something caught my eye. I squinted. There, standing with his hands in his pockets, was my father. His back was turned to me as he stared at the giant, hanging moon.

  At first I felt a flood of relief, but then a cold shiver rocketed through me. He wasn’t in costume any longer. His shirt was hanging out of his jacket. It was torn, reflected brightly against the glow of moonlight. My eyes widened as I felt in my pocket for the soggy fabric I had dug out of Moose’s teeth. My mouth went dry. Moose had torn my father’s shirt. Had he been at Gaysie’s? Why? When?

  He did not come to our room that night, either because he was too tired or because he knew I was already there.

  CHAPTER 21

  OVER A BLEARY-EYED BREAKFAST, NANA commented that Halloween had really done me in. “You look like you stayed up half the night.”

  I had filled Bitty in and had sought her forgiveness this morning, but she still gave me an unforgiving, murderous look.

  My father silently read his science journal as if he hadn’t been standing outside in the moonlight in the middle of the night with a torn flannel shirt. I fingered the torn fabric in my own pocket, now dry and soft.

  After breakfast I crept into my father’s room to rifle through his laundry basket. No torn shirt.

  “May I help you?” my father asked from behind me. I jumped a mile.

  I thought about saying I was helping Nana with the laundry—but he’d never believe it.

  “I . . . you didn’t come say good night last night.”

  He tilted his head at me. “I didn’t?”

  We stood and stared at each other until Nana called us to say good-bye to Lolly.

  I nodded and scooted past him, feeling a sadness I had never felt before; my father and I were keeping secrets from each other. But there had to be an explanation for his behavior, a reason he was looking more and more suspicious with the Gaysie and Wilbur business . . . but no, never! I couldn’t even think it.

  I cornered Lolly as she was packing up the car and handed her the envelope containing my letter and the fingerprints. I hadn’t told a soul the second part of what I had done, not even Bitty. I had fingerprints from the tractor, but also from the milking pail I’d seen only Gaysie handle with all nine fingers. They had to be a match.

  “Could you please get this to Georgia Piehl?”

  “The Georgia Piehl?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s a matter of life and death.” Which was totally true.

  “Well, when you put it that way,” Lolly said. She looked at me closely. “What are you chasing, Gwyn? Your father told me about a missing man you seem pretty intent on finding.”

  “Please, Lolly? It’s real important.”

  “Ms. Piehl’s office is only a few blocks over from me,” she mused. “I think I can manage that.”

  I nodded, abruptly wistful for the walks we used to take in the loud and busy city, the large screens advertising the latest musicals, and the sound of a cabbie laying on a horn in the middle of Manhattan. Oh, and the hot dogs. Man, I missed those hot dogs.

  Meanwhile, Nana came down the walkway with enough packed food for a small village: apples, pot roast sandwiches, crackers and cheese, and individually wrapped slices of pumpkin pie.

  My father accompanied a gum-chomping Vienna.

  “Hungry,” Vienna mumbled. “I’m hungry.” We had just eaten, so she wasn’t really hungry, but her brain didn’t register that. Gum helped. I unwrapped another piece for her and let her spit her old piece into my hand. It was warm and smelled like bad breath. Vienna grasped my hand tightly, smashing the gum into my palm.

  “A successful visit,” Lolly said, smiling at Vienna. “You remembered me. I’m excited to report back to your neuro doctors in New York. You even remembered Moose and Tomato.” What Lolly didn’t say was that Vienna had failed most every other memory test that involved recalling any events past the age of thirteen. “I’m thinking Crow is going to work some magic for all of you,” Lolly said.

  My father smiled. “Not magic, Lolly . . .”

  “I know, I know”—she waved at him—“it’s all about the brain and neuro this and all that. You make me proud, Jed St. Clair. As persistent as a hound dog—and Gwyn.” I smiled proudly at the resemblance between Dad, Gwyn, and hound.

  Lolly knelt in front of Bitty and me, her eyes wet and shiny.

  “You be good girls,” she said. “You’ve got such a good nana, and this is a sweet little town to grow up in, much better than the city. If I had half a mind, I’d move here myself.”

  “Please, Lolly!” Bitty said.

  “Please, Lolly,” Vienna echoed, blowing a small gum bubble.

  I looked at her hopefully, even as I thought how disappointed Annabelle Ziers might be.

  “Oh, Guinevere,” Lolly said, smiling. “You keep reading your books. It’s made you the smartest snapper I know.” I threw my arms around her, smelling her warm, vanilla scent, already missing her. “I love this girl,” she said, putting both arms on my shoulders, looking at me like she wanted to say something more.

  Instead, she picked up Bitty. “You’re getting so big—I won’t be able to pick you up next time! You keep using your words and standing up for yourself.”

  Lolly hugged Vienna, who smiled amiably, not realizing Lolly was about to drive a thousand miles away from us.

  She honked twice and drove away, with Bitty and me running after the car. She stopped at the one stop sign on the street. I ran to the open window.

  “Don’t forget,” I said, “to deliver my package—and be careful. Reveal this information to no one.”

  “I’ll deliver your package, Guinevere. But listen to what I’m saying. Whatever you’re hung up on . . .”

  “It’s a mystery,” I said. “And I’m helping.”

  “Listen, honey,” she said sternly, “you and your father are both looking for someone you might never find.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “My father isn’t helping me at all. I’m doing it alone.”

  Lolly smiled, her eyes growing dark and troubled.

  “Honey,” she said more gently, “some people just never come home.”

  CHAPTER 22

  I TRIED WAITING PATIENTLY FOR MY fingerprint analysis. It was excruciatingly difficult, as patience was a particular weakness of mine. I valiantly bit my nails down to the roots. In the meantime, I completed more puzzles with Vienna, walked to and from school, and tried to keep close tabs on the comings and goings of Gaysie Cutter. Each time I passed the clementine house, I saw Ms. Myrtle’s, whose home I hadn’t visited since before Halloween. She was very sick, Nana said, and would likely not last through the winter.

  But just before Thanksgiving she rallied, and I climbed the stairs for a piano lesson. I was anxious, hoping to finally ask her about her son, Myron. But when I saw Ms. Myrtle, I noticed her wrinkled face looked like dried fruit leather. She seemed to have shrive
led since the month before.

  I sat on the bench. In front of me was a piano book I hadn’t seen before. Inside was the name Vienna, the handwriting loopy, feminine, and written in a faded green ink. Next to her name was a smiley face and a Hi, Vivi voo voo! in different ink and handwriting, signed with the initials M.M.

  “M.M.,” I said. “Myron Myrtle.”

  “They were good friends,” Ms. Myrtle said weakly.

  “Vivi voo voo!” I said, stifling a laugh.

  “Vivi voo voo,” Ms. Myrtle whispered. “Yes, sometimes he called her that.” My arm hair stood up with goose bumps, just like the hair on Mr. Thompson’s scaredy cat. The pages had notes throughout, holding the ghost of a young girl I had never known. I let myself fall into the trance of Vienna’s hands sliding over the pages, learning how to play the same songs as me. And then a funny thing happened. Perhaps it was the proximity to crazy Gaysie next door, but all at once I was in a different time and place, a place where I did know a Vivi voo voo. It was as if she were sitting next to me on the piano bench, grinning, whispering a secret in my ear, giggling as she waved from a high tree branch, running fast down Lanark Lane, shrieking at the sight of a cow, being scolded by Nana for coming home so dirty.

  My heart seemed to explode as I realized something: I would have liked this girl. And somewhere in that narrative was Jed St. Clair as a kid, waving his arms for her to come out and play with . . . Gaysie Cutter. I shuddered, my daydream screeching to a halt.

  My heart shrank back to normal, maybe even a bit smaller. I felt cold and dark as I began my scales and arpeggios, wondering how to bring up the subject of a drowned boy.

  After a torturous lesson involving the metronome and Ms. Myrtle waving her hand close to my face, I played my one memorized piece, “The Playful Pony.”

  After three rousing renditions, I turned around to see her slumped over in her chair.

  “Ms. Myrtle?”

  I was struck with the terrible thought that my bad piano playing had actually killed her.

  “Ms. Myrtle?”

  I arose from the piano bench and walked a wide circle, slowly approaching her. My mind reviewed my CPR training. Tentatively, I put my fingers on her neck.

  She gave a giant croak and raised her head. I jumped back.

  “Sorry . . . I thought you were . . .”

  “Dead?” she spat out. “Out of luck!” She pointed to the piano. “Play!”

  I played my one song yet again, vowing to never pump her chest or administer breaths even if she needed it. After the last chord, I touched Vienna’s music one more time, wondering if the old witch would let me have it. I turned around slowly, gulping and sitting up straight.

  “Ms. Myrtle?”

  She wasn’t looking at me or even listening to my piano lesson. She was gazing out the window, a faraway look in her eyes.

  “I’m . . . sorry about your son,” I began. “I didn’t know.”

  “I haven’t always done right by her,” Ms. Myrtle said.

  “Who do you mean? Vienna?”

  Ms. Myrtle slowly shook her head.

  “Tell her . . . tell Gaysie.” Her voice was crackly and tired when she looked at me with her old, sagging, yellow eyes. “That I forgive her.”

  My eyes widened.

  “For what?”

  But Ms. Myrtle closed her eyes and said no more.

  I walked down Lanark Lane deep in thought, not even racing the cows that trotted behind the fences all the way home. What had Gaysie done to Ms. Myrtle that would need forgiving? My hunch was Myron. It had to be what had happened to Myron.

  CHAPTER 23

  FOR VIENNA’S BIRTHDAY WE GAVE her Micah’s story as a play. I was Queen Guinevere, Bitty my loyal subject. Micah wore his purple cape as King Arthur, and Jimmy rode through her doorway on his skateboard, dressed in a knight costume made of tinfoil and wearing a black eye patch. I wondered if he’d snatched it from his pirate father.

  “Happy birthday, Vienna!” we shouted.

  Vienna was lying on her bed in the care center, dressed in soft, stretchy pants and a blue sweater. Her eyes lit up as she touched my long white cape made from a white bedsheet.

  “I’m Guinevere, the queen,” I whispered conspiratorially.

  “Ohhhh!” she said in a soft whisper voice. “Guinevere.”

  “You love Queen Guinevere,” I reminded her. She nodded enthusiastically.

  “This is Jimmy and Micah,” I said. “And remember Bitty?” Vienna gazed at Bitty’s short blond curls before fingering her own. I noticed her darker roots, wondering if she would go gray like Nana.

  Then I noticed her bare left hand.

  “Where’s your ring?”

  “Ring?”

  “Oh no,” I said, turning to Jimmy and Micah. “She’s lost her ring again.”

  “Oh no,” Vienna mimicked.

  “Where is it?” I demanded.

  “Be nicer,” Micah whispered to me.

  “Be nicer,” Vienna said.

  “Let’s find your ring before Jed gets here,” I said, using my coaxing baby voice. “Then we’ll give you a play.”

  “Jed?” she yelled, struggling to sit up. “Jed!”

  “Think very carefully, Vienna. Where is your ring?” I took off my cape and put it on the end of her bed.

  “Not telling.” Her sky blue eyes danced. She reached down and fingered my cape before suddenly throwing it up on the ceiling fan. “Ha ha ha!” she laughed.

  I leaped up, grabbed my cape, and stupidly put it back on her bed. “Vienna.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Vienna watched with wonder as we began to tear the room apart. I crawled on the floor, lifted books and magazines she didn’t read, and rifled through all her drawers. We looked in corners, on slightly dusty windowsills, and under her mattress.

  Vienna waited until I turned to look at her before she threw my cape back up on the ceiling fan. She clapped her hands and fell back on her pillow, laughing.

  I refused to even look up. “Vienna. Focus. Where is the ring you wear on your hand?” She lifted my hand to her mouth, kissed it, and bit it, hard.

  “Ow!” I yelled, pulling away my hand. “Where’s the ring!” Impatiently, I picked up the fork on the tray beside her hospital bed and pushed around cold scrambled eggs that sat next to a half-eaten slice of toast. No ring.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “Eat your eggs, then,” I said, pushing them toward her. She opened her mouth and I put a bite of eggs in.

  “Cold,” she said, letting them dribble out onto her chin.

  “That’s disgusting. Stop acting like a baby.”

  Micah put his hand on Vienna’s shoulder. She tilted her head to rest on his hand and stuck her tongue out at me.

  I looked under the crumpled napkin on her tray, in the empty juice cup, in her socks, pockets, and the red JanSport backpack she had used in middle school.

  “We need the ring!” I said, picking up her pink Care Bear. “And you can’t have Love-a-Lot until you tell me where it is!”

  Vienna kicked her legs and screamed at me.

  Suddenly, the door opened and in walked Gaysie Cutter. She wore a large flannel shirt, jeans, and big, black, men’s work boots like Wilbur used to wear. I gulped.

  “Hello, Vienna!” she said, putting down a large bouquet of leaves, sticks, and holly, before beginning to sing “Happy Birthday” in a loud, operatic voice. Vienna smiled and clapped her hands. “Is it my birthday?”

  I stood between Vienna and Gaysie. What was she doing here?

  “What’s wrong with you?” Gaysie demanded, coming close to my face. “Why is your cape on the ceiling fan? Preperformance ritual?”

  “No! I’m looking for her wedding ring,” I burst out. “She hides it or throws it away a lot, even though I keep telling Daddy to stop putting it on her hand! And it makes him really sad when she does it.” I suddenly wondered if someone had come in and stolen it. Vienna could be easily bribed with c
andy.

  “I always hated wearing my ring too,” Gaysie mused. “I took it off two weeks after my wedding and never put it back on.”

  “She loved her ring,” I said hotly.

  “I’m hungry,” Vienna said.

  “No, you’re not,” I said crossly. “You just ate breakfast! You only think you’re hungry because your brain is messed up!”

  Her face contorted into a great pout as she yelled, “I hate you! I hate you so much, jerk face!” She picked up her food tray and tipped it onto the floor just as Annabelle came into the room. Vienna began screaming her bad words at me, but I set my face into stone and continued to dig through the trash, the pink Care Bear under my arm as punishment. Gaysie stood still, watching me.

  Annabelle hustled over to Vienna and tried to calm her down, but Gaysie physically moved her out of the way.

  “Here, honey,” Gaysie said briskly. She began to brush Vienna’s hair and talk in a soothing voice. “Vivi voo voo, let down your hair.”

  I snapped to attention. “Vivi voo voo,” I said. “That’s what Myron used to call her.”

  “Myron,” Vienna whispered.

  Gaysie looked at me, surprised. “Yes, we all did. Kind of a funny pet name.”

  “Myron!” Vienna said, beginning to look upset.

  “There now, Vienna,” Gaysie said. “Let me tell you the story of a girl, young and bright, adventurous and smart, sometimes a bit of a know-it-all.”

  I paused.

  “Who?” Vienna said, calming down.

  “Why, you know who! Her name was Vienna.”

  I exhaled.

  “Have you looked in the bathroom?” Gaysie asked without looking at me, still brushing Vienna’s hair.

  “Why are you so ugly?” I heard Vienna ask as I went into the bathroom. “I’ve never seen anyone as ugly as you.”

  “I seem to have gotten the short end of the stick in the beauty department. Plus, crashing through the ice and into the river didn’t help, did it?”