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“I’m sure.”
“Well, okay, then.” She padded toward the door. When she was a few feet from it, she stopped and turned. She stared toward the window. Even in the darkness, I could see her face changing shape, tightening, narrowing. Suddenly, she stepped back toward me, wringing the front of her bathrobe. Her eyes were diamonds in the room’s faint light. “Oh, Martha,” she wailed, “there’s so much evil in the world, so much evil.” She came quickly and knelt beside the bed. “That’s what nightmares are—evil thoughts bubbling out.” She grabbed the sheet and pulled it up to her mouth. “I lied to you before. I told you that Sissy had nightmares when she was little. She had them when she was older, too. She had them a lot. The week before she died, she had them almost every night. Ugly, evil nightmares, so she’d wake up screaming, and I’d have to come and lie with her. Sissy. Sissy.”
She covered her face with her hands and started to sob. Suddenly, she reached out and grabbed the top of my nightgown, pulling me close to her face. “It’s the serpent,” she hissed. “That’s where the evil comes from. The serpent. They tried to blame Eve, but it was the serpent. I know, I know, I know.” She buried her head in my chest, rubbing her face back and forth. “Oh, Martha,” she moaned. “I know, I know, I know.” The words had a kind of rhythm to them, almost as if she were singing.
Reaching out slowly, I put my arm around her shoulder. It seemed strange and unnatural to be comforting her, but I stroked her back softly. After a few minutes, her sobbing slowed and then stopped. She lifted her head and used a corner of the sheet to wipe her eyes. She stood up, bracing herself on the bed. She sighed. “I hope you’re over your nightmare,” she said. Her voice was limp. “I’ll leave you alone, if you think you’ll be all right.” She backed away, toward the door.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Then, good night, dear. Sweet dreams.” She slipped into the hall and closed the door gently.
I couldn’t hear her walk away, so I lay in
bed for a long time. Finally, I climbed out and went to the door. The hall was dark and empty. The house was quiet. I turned and faced the window. The ghostly silhouette of a man was unmistakably shadowed on the curtain. I climbed back on the bed and put my face close to the screen. “Go away,” I whispered.
“That lady’s nuts,” said Elro. “She’s gumballs.”
“Please, please, she’ll be back. Go away.”
Elro climbed a few rungs down the ladder. His chin was just at the level of the sill, and, through the curtain, his head seemed to sit there by itself, like a flowerpot.
“This is a bad place,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”
“Please, Elro.”
“I hate it. I’m gonna run away.”
“Please.”
His head disappeared below the sill. I pulled the curtain back and watched him climb down. At the bottom, he picked up the ladder and tucked it under his arm, then he ran silently across the lawn and around the corner of the house. A few seconds later, I heard his truck start up.
TWENTY-ONE
“What a glorious day!” trilled Mrs. Vernon the next morning when she appeared at the door, a little later than usual but with an otherwise unchanged routine. She flung back the curtains that had hidden Elro just a few hours before. Outside, past the leaves of the oak, I thought I saw a dark, gray cloud curling around the sky. “Sissy always loved these warm summer mornings,” she said. She folded her hands in her apron and asked if I’d slept well. Nothing in her face gave away anything about nightmares or serpents. I told her I’d slept just fine.
She chattered on through breakfast, talking about her friend Mrs. Carmel, who kept getting terrible backaches until the doctors found a tumor the size of a lemon in the back of her neck. They took the tumor out and that helped for a while, but now the backaches were coming again, and Mrs. Carmel wouldn’t tell the doctors because she was afraid they would think she was only imagining the pain.
The phone rang. Mrs. Vernon had her hands in the sink with the morning’s dishes, so she asked me to answer.
“Martha? I didn’t expect you to pick up,” said Reverend Vaughn. Confined to the telephone, his voice sounded smaller and slightly unreal, though hearing it immediately put me in a playful mood.
“Only in emergencies,” I said.
“An emergency?”
“No, no, I’m only kidding. Mrs. Vernon’s hands were wet.”
“Oh, I see. Well, how are you?”
“I’m okay. How are you?”
“Good, good. I’m great. No more visits from Attila, I hope. After the Dairy Queen, that is.”
I sensed uneasily that he was pushing on to something. “No,” I said.
“Good. I think that was just an isolated incident. It won’t happen again.”
“I hope not.”
