“Don’t speak of it,” Eunice whispered. “You’re scaring me.”
“We came here to sled ride,” Lucy said, “not to talk about the dead.”
Jane and I followed them up the hill. “Do you think this is where Elsie is buried?” she whispered.
A cold feeling slid up and down my spine. Grabbing Jane’s hand, I ran after the others. “Come on, Jane, let’s not lag behind.”
Out of breath from climbing through knee-deep snow, we rested at the top for a moment. Below us were the lights of the town. I tried to find my house, but it was hard to pick it out. One roof looked much the same as any other. We found our school and the public schools, the churches, the park, and City Hall. We even glimpsed the river, frozen over now, like a wide white highway to the sea.
“Is everybody ready?” Rosie stood with her sled pressed to her chest, all set to get a flying start.
Down we went again, riding the ruts our runners had left the first time. We went faster and faster. My forehead ached with cold, and spray from the sled’s runners hit my face. It was bouncier too. Lucy almost hit a tombstone but swerved just in time to topple off her sled into the snow. She lay there laughing, then spread her arms and legs to make an angel.
After three or four, maybe five runs down the hill, Rosie said, “I’ve got an idea. Let’s hook our sleds together and go down in a train.”
Rosie was first, of course. Lucy was second, then Eunice, then Jane, and I was last of all, the caboose, the best position to whip back and forth behind the others. Rosie gave the command, and we pushed off, picking up speed as we raced down the hill.
I slid from one side to the other, almost colliding with Rosie more than once. Halfway down, my sled broke away from the others, and I found myself hurtling downhill sideways with no control over speed or direction. My wild ride ended with a jolt that sent me flying through the air. I hit something and everything went black.
When I opened my eyes, I was sprawled on my face, at the feet of an angel. For a moment, I thought I was dead and the angel had brought me to heaven, a cold, snowy place filled with pain, but then Jane’s voice broke through the darkness.
“Annie, Annie, are you all right?” The other girls had gathered around me. It made me dizzy to look at them. Their voices hurt my ears, and my head rang with noise that made it hard to hard to understand what they were saying.
I didn’t know if I was all right or about to die. My head hurt so fiercely I thought it must be broken like Jack’s in the nursery rhyme. I was afraid to move in case I couldn’t.
“You were knocked clean out,” Rosie said. “You hit that angel, and bam!”
“It’s a mercy you weren’t killed,” Jane whispered.
“Look at me,” Lucy said. She held up her hand. “How many fingers can you see?”
I squinted hard, but my head was still spinning, and I could barely see her hand, let alone her fingers.
“What’s your name?”
“You know my name.”
“Say it anyway.”
I said my name and told her my age and where I lived, but I simply could not count those fingers. Or tell her who was president.
“We need to take her to my house,” Lucy said. “Look at all the blood she’s lost. And she might have a concussion. You can die hours after it happens.”
Everyone looked at my blood, including me. It had run across the snow and puddled in a hole it melted. Some of it was red, and some was pink from the melted snow, but it seemed like a huge amount to have come out of me. In fact, I thought I might faint just seeing it there. I touched my face, and my mitten came away red. No wonder I couldn’t see Lucy’s fingers. I had blood in my eyes.
“We’ll get in so much trouble if we take Annie to your house,” Eunice said.
“No, we won’t,” Rosie said. “We’ll tell Dr. Hughes Annie hit the stone wall at the bottom of High Street. We’ll never ever say anything to anyone about the cemetery.”
“Like when we had the fight with Elsie?” Eunice asked. “And we made a solemn oath not to tell?”
“Yes, exactly like that.”
“Do we have to spit on our hands?” Lucy asked.
“Not this time,” Rosie said. “Just swear to say nothing. It’s too cold to take our mittens off.”
My head ached and throbbed and pounded, but with Jane’s help, I managed to stand up. I saw two of everyone. They multiplied into triplets, quintuplets, as distorted as reflections in fun house mirrors. Then the snow and the tombstones began to spin faster and faster. I grabbed Jane’s arm, and she stopped me from falling,
“Can you walk?” Jane asked.
“I think so.” But after I took a step, I sat down. Lucy muttered something I couldn’t understand. “What did you say?” I asked her.
“Me?” Lucy shook her head. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Well, somebody’s mumbling.” I looked around. “Can’t you hear it? It’s really loud. It’s making my ears buzz.”
They stood there staring at me. None of them would admit to saying a word or hearing anything.
“You must have a concussion,” Lucy said. “Help me get her on a sled, Rosie. She needs to see my father. And soon!”
Since my sled was damaged, Rosie and Jane made me lie on Rosie’s. It belonged to her brother Mike and was longer than anyone else’s. I didn’t argue. I was too dizzy to walk, everything was still blurry, and my head echoed with mumbles and mutters that sounded like someone talking in foreign languages. I was scared my brain was ruined and I’d be dead by morning. In a few days, I’d be sleeping here in the cemetery.
Rosie and Jane pulled me slowly through the snow, trying not to bounce me around too much or bump any tombstones. I heard Eunice say she was glad we were going home. She was cold, and she really didn’t like the cemetery very much. Lucy said she’d been having a swell time and wished I hadn’t ruined all the fun by crashing into that stupid angel.
All the while, the voice only I heard mumbled and muttered and shrieked until I thought I’d lose my mind.
Eleven
T WAS A LONG, cold sled ride to Lucy’s house. Every bump hurt, but as we left the cemetery behind, the awful mumbling and muttering voices slowly faded away, and I began to feel better. Still weak, still dizzy when I lifted my head, but I believed I might live after all.
Lucy ran up her porch steps and called her father to come outside and carry me into the house. Dr. Hughes took one look at my bloody head and carried me through the warm house, straight to his office. Laying me on an examining table, he cleaned away the blood and examined the cut.
“It’s not a fatal wound,” he said with a smile, “but you’ll need a few stitches. Even superficial scalp cuts bleed excessively, and this one is fairly deep.”
He paused and shone a little light in my eyes. “I’m concerned about the possibility of a concussion. Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
I said I wasn’t sure, so Rosie explained. “We were sled riding on High Street,” she said, “and Annie crashed into the stone wall at the bottom where Henry got killed last year. She knocked herself out, and she was bleeding all over the snow, and we thought she was dead like Henry, and we were so scared—”
I don’t know how long Rosie would have gone on embellishing the story if Lucy hadn’t interrupted.
“She knew her name, but she couldn’t count my fingers and she said she heard voices in her head,” Lucy told her father. “She was so dizzy she couldn’t sit up at first, she just lay in the snow. When she did get up, she couldn’t walk straight.”
Dr. Hughes held his hand up in front of my face and peered into my eyes. “How many fingers do you see?”
His hand was blurry, a blob. I couldn’t focus on it. Unsure, I hesitated and squinted. “Four?” I guessed.
He shook his head. “Try again.” I failed once more, twice more.
“It’s a concussion all right,” he said. “Blurred vision is a symptom.”
He looked at me close
ly. “Are you dizzy?”
I nodded and my head throbbed with pain.
“Nausea?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“How about your ears? Any ringing or buzzing?”
I whispered yes again.
By now I was expecting to be sent to the hospital. My head hurt so bad I could scarcely hold it up. My stomach threatened to empty itself right there and then on Dr. Hughes’s shoes. I struggled not to cry.
Dr. Hughes patted my shoulder. “You’ll need to rest for a few days. By next week, you’ll feel fine.”
Turning toward the door, he said, “I’m going to call your parents now and ask their permission to stitch you up. I’m sure they’ll be here any moment.”
To Jane, Rosie, and Eunice he said, “As soon as I have Annie sorted, I’ll drive you girls home.”
After Dr. Hughes left, Eunice gave me a pitying look. “Oooh, stitches,” she said, “I had my chin sewn up when I was little, and it really hurt. I still have the scar. See?”
She pointed at a faint white line I’d never even noticed and winced.
Lucy frowned at Eunice. “You can make a bet my father didn’t do that.” To me she said, “Don’t worry, Annie, my father won’t hurt you, and you won’t have a scar. People say he’s the best stitcher in Mount Pleasant.”
Dr. Hughes returned and told Lucy and the others to leave the room. Before I knew it, he had my cut stitched up and my head bandaged.
Like Lucy said, it hadn’t hurt much at all—just prick, prick, and he was done. The worst part was when he shaved a circle on my scalp about the size of a silver dollar. He said my hair would grow back in no time and no one would be the wiser. I hoped he was right, but I was certain I’d have a permanent bald spot. People would point and laugh. The boys would call me Baldy.
Mother and Father arrived just as Dr. Hughes was finishing up. You never saw such a scene, Mother fussing over me and Father asking how it happened until I felt so dizzy I almost fainted. That silenced them.
“Annie needs to rest,” Dr. Hughes told them. “Put her to bed, cover her with warm blankets, and sit beside her. She has a concussion and needs watching all night.”
Mother was all aflutter again. Father seemed torn between comforting her and comforting me and tried to do both, turning to her and then me and then back to her.
“Keep Annie in bed for a few days,” Dr. Hughes said. “Check on her frequently. I’ll visit tomorrow afternoon about four, if that’s convenient.”
While the doctor gave Mother more instructions, Father wrapped me up in the blanket he’d brought and carried me to the car.
As he settled me in the back seat, he asked again how it had happened.
“Father, please,” I whispered, “I don’t remember much, and I’m tired and I want to go home.”
“Yes, yes, of course, Annie.” He went to fetch Mother, and soon the three of us were driving through the snowy streets. Feeling as if I were sinking down, down, down into snow, deep snow, cold snow, I fell into a troubled sleep. Suddenly I was in the cemetery again, flying through the air, crashing into the angel, only she was made of snow and she broke into pieces when I hit her. And a girl as white as snow stood where the angel had been, and she was wearing a flu mask.
Even though the mask hid her face, I knew who she was, but I couldn’t remember her name. She took my hand and held it in hers, a grip as hard and cold as ice. It felt as if our hands had frozen together. I’d never escape, she’d never let me go. And then she pulled me down into the snow, deeper and deeper, and I saw a door, tall and black, and knew she meant to leave me there—at death’s door.
Cold air hit my face, and I woke with a cry. The car door was open. Father leaned over me. “Wake up, Annie. We’re home.”
As he lifted me, I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck, feeling the warmth of his body through his heavy wool coat. Like a child, I pressed my face against his shoulder.
“Were you dreaming?” Mother asked. “You sounded scared.”
Without raising my head, I whispered “Yes,” but I didn’t tell her what had frightened me.
Father carried me up to bed. My lamp glowed with a soft warm light, illuminating a shelf of books, the toys above them, the dollhouse in the corner, the rocking chair, the roses on the wallpaper, the lacy curtains shutting out the night. Never had my room looked so comforting, so safe. My old bear lay on my pillow, waiting to comfort me.
Mother undressed me and helped me into a warm flannel nightgown. Then she covered me with so many blankets I thought I might suffocate. She tucked the bear under the covers and I hugged him.
“Father and I will take turns sitting with you tonight,” Mother said. “If you need anything, just tell us.”
Even though I was exhausted, I slept badly, waking from dreams of the cemetery and the snow angel. The masked girl dragged me down to the black door over and over again, but I always woke up before it opened. If I stayed asleep, I knew the door would open and I would die.
At last the long night passed. Mother brought me breakfast on a tray—a soft-boiled egg in a little yellow cup shaped like a baby chick, toast, and weak tea. She’d cut the toast into little strips we called soldiers. I dipped them into my egg just as I had when I was little.
“How does your head feel?” she asked.
“It hurts,” I said.
She went downstairs and returned with a spoonful of aspirin she’d mashed into grape jelly to hide its bitter taste.
Father came in to give me a hug and then left for work. I heard the car engine start with a sputter then a putt-putt-putting as he drove away.
Mother sat in the rocker, dividing her time between knitting and reading to me. She’d finished the blue sweater and was working on a beret to go with it. The click of the needles was relaxing, and the sound of her voice comforted me. I’d never read The Swiss Family Robinson. The story of a family marooned on an island took my mind off my bad dreams and stilled the mumble and mutter of voices in my aching head.
Dr. Hughes looked in on me as he’d promised. He pronounced me in good health and coming along as well as could be expected. Since my head still ached fiercely and I was dizzy, forgetful, and weak, he told Mother to keep me in bed for at least a few more days, maybe longer.
That night I slept better, waking only twice from the dream. In the afternoon Jane came to see me. We played a few games of old maid and a round of checkers, but I couldn’t keep my mind on my kings, so we put the board aside.
She told me another classmate, Hester Grimes, had come down with the flu but was already on the mend.
“No one has died in Baltimore for three whole days,” Jane said. “I read it in the paper.”
“That’s good. I hope it’s soon gone forever.”
We talked for a while about school. The girls had begun rehearsing for the spring program, and Miss Harrison had chosen Jane to recite Longfellow’s poem “The Wreck of the Hesperus.”
“It’s very sad,” she said.
“It’s also very long,” I said.
“Well, Miss Harrison said I needn’t memorize the whole poem. She wants me to tell what it’s about and recite what she calls ‘selected stanzas.’”
“In other words, just the saddest parts.”
“Yes, the ones about the captain’s little daughter and the shipwreck and how she freezes to death in the ocean and a fisherman finds her lashed to the mast. I already know the end by heart.” Jane cleared her throat and recited:
The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman’s Woe!
Jane had a perfect face for the poem, sorrowful and pale, and she got teary eyed as she spoke.
“I hop
e I don’t cry at the recital,” Jane said. “But it’s just so sad, especially after the flu and the people we know who died, not at sea of course, but right here in Mount Pleasant. The man and woman across my street; Arthur Livingston, the boy on my corner; and I don’t know how many others.” She paused. “Oh, and poor Elsie. I’ll feel bad about her my whole life.”
An image of the masked girl in the snowy cemetery arose in my mind, and I closed my eyes for a moment. I longed to tell Jane about my dream. Maybe she’d understand what it meant. But talking about it might make it stronger.
Jane looked at me as if she were worried about me. “Miss Harrison wants to know if I should bring your assignments so you can keep up with the class.”
“Not yet.” I slid down in bed. “It hurts my head my head to think. And I get so tired. All I want to do is sleep.”
Jane stood up. “Oh dear, Annie, you need to rest, and here I am keeping you awake with idle chatter.”
“Can you come back tomorrow?”
“Yes, of course. Should I bring Rosie or—”
“No, not yet. Just you.” Truthfully, I didn’t have enough energy to cope with Rosie, who’d no doubt bounce on the bed and tell jokes and talk too loud.
At the end of seven long days, Dr. Hughes came to remove the stitches in my head. After checking me over, he told Mother I needed to build up my strength. He recommended fresh air and limited exercise. A good walk, for instance, would do me a world of good.
When Mother asked about school, he suggested waiting until next week. “Let’s get Annie back on her feet and worry about school later.”
That was fine with me. I was in no hurry to sit in a desk all day and listen to Miss Harrison. I tired easily, my mind still drifted, my head still hurt (though not nearly as badly), and the voices still muttered.
After I’d been up and about for a few days, Mother asked if I’d be all right on my own. “It’s bridge day at the women’s club,” she said, “and Irene Hughes is begging me to come. Last week she had a terrible partner and did very poorly.” Mother stroked my forehead. “Irene says Lucy misses you and hopes you feel better soon.”