the sharp sound that filled the room. His daughters jumped a little, and Elizabeth opened her eyes.
“Daddy! Did you come up to play with us?”
“I came up to talk to you. Alone.” His eyes shifted to Sarah on the last word, and Elizabeth picked up on the message. She stood up, then leaned over to whisper into her sister’s ear. Sarah, to Jack’s eye, did not respond, but Elizabeth seemed to be satisfied that Sarah would be all right by herself. She followed him as he led her out of the playroom and into her own room. When she was inside he closed the door, and Elizabeth knew that she had done something wrong. She sat on the edge of her bed and regarded her father respectfully.
“It’s the woods, isn’t it?” she said.
Her father looked at her sternly. “Yes,” he said, “it is. Unless I’m badly mistaken, it was only yesterday that we had a talk about that. Now I understand you were in the woods today. With Sarah.”
Elizabeth looked straight into his eyes, and he tried to find a clue in her own as to her mood. He wondered if she would be defiant, or angry, or stubborn. But he saw only curiosity.
“I know,” she said. “I don’t really know why I took Sarah to the woods today. We were in the field, playing, and then we were in the woods. I must have been thinking about something else, because I honestly don’t remember going into the woods. The only thing I remember is suddenly realizing we were in the woods, and leading Sarah back out to the field.”
Jack listened to his daughter silently, trying to decide if she was being truthful. He remembered his own youth, and all the times he had become so engrossed in something that he had lost track of his surroundings. He supposed it could have happened.
“Well,” he said, “I expect you not to let it happen again. You’re a big girl now, and you should be able to keep your mind on what you’re doing. Or at least where you are, particularly when Sarah is with you.”
“I take good care of her,” Elizabeth said, and Jack thought he heard a defensive note in her voice.
“Of course you do,” he said soothingly. “But please take good care of her only on this side of those woods.” Now he definitely saw anger in Elizabeth’s face. The beautiful features hardened slightly, and he realized he was going to have to amplify. While she posed the question, he tried to figure out where to begin his answer.
“I want to know why,” she was saying. “I think it’s getting absolutely silly. I’m old enough to go where I want to go, at least on our own property. When I was little, it was one thing. But I’m not little any more. You said so yourself,” she finished.
“You’re going to think we’re all crazy,” Jack said.
“Are we?” Elizabeth asked, but there was no twinkle in her eye.
“Who knows?” Jack replied, keeping his tone light.
“Okay, I’ll tell you the story. There’s an old family legend.”
“I know,” Elizabeth said.
“You know?” Now Jack couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. “How?”
Elizabeth widened her eyes and tried to look spooky. “The Ouija board,” she intoned. “It knows all and it tells all.” Then she burst into laughter at the expression on her father’s face. It was a mixture of awe, surprise, and fright. “I’m kidding, Dad,” she said. “I don’t know what it’s all about.” She thought carefully, then went on. “In fact, I don’t really know what I know and what I don’t know, or where I found out. But I know there’s some kind of story and it goes back a long way. What is it?”
Jack felt a strange sense of relief that she did not know the legend, and he began to tell it to her.
“It does go back a long way, he said.” Your mother and I were just figuring it out, and it’s four generations, counting you and Sarah. It has to do with your great-great-grandmother. It all happened somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred years ago, and she was already an old, old lady then. I don’t know how many of the details I can remember, since I don’t think anybody ever wrote the story down, but here’s what is supposed to have happened:
“The old woman—I think her name was Bernice or Bertha, something like that—was in the habit of taking a nap every day