but they didn’t find any bruises that would have indicated it. Well,” he finished, “that’s it. Whatever the truth of it, the whole family has always respected the old lady’s dying wish. Except for my grandfather. If nothing else, it gives us a reason for staying away from a dangerous place. I hope you’ll respect it as much as the rest of us have.”
Elizabeth was very quiet, and when she spoke her voice was low. “Daddy,” she said. “Do you believe it?”
Jack considered the question, and could find no answer. He had lived with the legend for so long that it never entered his mind to question the truth of it. Now, looking at it in the cold light of his daughter’s ice-blue stare, he shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I don’t suppose I do, really. On the other hand, I don’t believe it’s bad luck to walk under a ladder, but I still don’t walk under ladders. So maybe, deep down inside, I do believe the legend.”
Elizabeth seemed to digest this for a minute, and Jack was about to lean over to kiss her when she asked another question.
“What about the little girl?” she said.
“What little girl?” Jack asked blankly.
“I’m not sure,” Elizabeth said. “It seems to me that I’ve heard somewhere that there was a little girl in the legend.”
Jack reviewed the story in his mind, then shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Not that I know of.”
“Well,” Elizabeth said, “there should be. Let’s make one up.” Now Jack could see the glint of mischief in her eyes.
“You do that,” he said. “And tell me about it over dinner. See you downstairs in thirty minutes.”
He kissed her, then left the room. As he descended the stairs, he heard her calling after him.
“I’ll ask the Ouija board about it,” she said.
He heard her laugh as she went back to the playroom.
10
“What exactly did you tell her?”
Rose spoke in the dark, and her voice seemed to bounce off the walls and come back at her more loudly than she desired. Beside her, she felt Jack stir. She was sure he wasn’t sleeping, but it was almost a minute before he answered her. In the silence, she began counting the ticking of the grandfather clock. She had reached forty when Jack finally spoke.
“The whole thing,” he said. “The idea was to keep her away from the embankment, wasn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” Rose said unsurely. “How did she take it?”
She heard Jack chuckle in the darkness. “How would you take a story like that in this day and age? I’m not sure family legends and curses count for much any more.”
“But a lot of it happened,” Rose said.
“Some of it happened,” Jack countered. “Granted that the old lady slept for a couple of days, that someone jumped off the cliff and someone else drowned. It still doesn’t add up to much. And, of course, the old lady’s vision at the end was probably nothing more than senility.” He rolled over. “Still, it makes a good spooky story, and it’s sure kept us all off the embankment for a lot of years.”
“How did she take it?” Rose repeated. “Didn’t she say anything?”
Jack smiled in the darkness. “She wanted to know about the little girl.”
“Little girl?” Rose said. “What little girl? I never heard of a little girl before.”
“Of course not There isn’t any. It just struck Elizabeth that there ought to have been a little girl involved in the legend. She said she thought she heard about one somewhere, but couldn’t remember where. She said she’d consult the Ouija board.”
Rose felt herself begin to shudder, but fought it off. “Ouija board,” she said. “I’m not sure we should let her play with such a thing. Children are too suggestible.”
She rolled over and nestled against her husband. She felt his body stiffen. Sighing, she moved away from him.
In her room, Elizabeth lay in her bed, listening to the murmur of her parent’s voices. As the voices died away, the girl’s eyes closed; then her breathing evened out and grew deeper. As the clock struck, her eyelids began to flicker. A sound struggled from her throat, then died away on her lips. She turned, and the covers fell to the floor. Her knees drew up, and she wrapped her arms around herself.
And then she rose from the bed.
She padded on her bare feet across the floor of her room and out into the hall. She moved, trancelike, to the attic door and stretched upward to take