Maud had expected more loyalty from Caroline’s mother. “Vain?” she echoed.
“A little,” Mrs. Lambert said judiciously. “She loved pretty clothes — dainty, frilly things — and she was vain of her hair. She wasn’t patient — she hated standing still — but she let me comb out her ringlets every morning, because she loved having such beautiful curls.” Mrs. Lambert smiled at Maud’s shocked face. “I try to remember her exactly as she was. If I were to forget, that would be like losing her again, don’t you see?”
Maud thought about this. It went against what Hyacinth had told her. It seemed that Caroline Lambert had not been an angel child after all.
“Rory Hugelick used to say —” Mrs. Lambert paused. “You’ve met him, he’s the man who takes tickets at the carousel. . . . Rory used to say that Caroline was as vain as a peacock and as brave as a lion.” Her smile faded. “Only that was the trouble, you see. Caroline was never afraid of anything. She never believed that anything bad could happen to her. She wasn’t allowed to go bathing by herself — I was strict about that — but she disobeyed me and she drowned.” Her voice was suddenly harsh. “We must take care that doesn’t happen to you. You mustn’t go bathing alone.”
“I won’t,” said Maud.
But Mrs. Lambert was not convinced. “Perhaps I could walk home with you and speak to your father? I don’t want to get you in trouble, Mary, dear, but it does seem to me bathing alone is too dangerous. Perhaps I could meet you here and keep an eye —”
Maud scrambled to her feet. “I have to go now,” she said. “I mean I have to go now, right this minute.” She pointed to the sky. “It’s dark.”
Mrs. Lambert was gathering up her parasol. She had one glove and was groping for the other. Maud had no mercy. She had stayed too long, and now Mrs. Lambert meant to follow her home. She snatched the second glove and threw it as hard as she could. Then she turned her back to the painted sky and fled, leaving the woman stranded and bewildered on the shore.
Maud dreamed. She was walking on the jetty, and the rocks were smooth as glass, slicked with a coat of bright green seaweed. Her toes curled at the touch of slime underfoot. She tilted from side to side like a tightrope walker, arms outstretched.
Someone was calling her name. Maud twisted, looking over her shoulder. The shore behind her had disappeared. She was in the center of the ocean, with the jetty rising from the water like the fin of a shark. Her head spun. In a moment or two, the rocks would lurch beneath her, and she would be lost forever.
Her name again. She looked down and saw without surprise that it was Caroline who called it — Caroline, who clung to the rocks of the jetty. Caroline’s hair fanned out, floating on the surface of the water. One webbed hand pried itself loose from the rock, groping toward Maud.
Maud understood what Caroline wanted. She wanted Maud to draw her to safety, to pull her from the deep before she drowned. But the webbed hand repelled Maud; it was mucilaginous, transparent, sticky. Maud knew that once she touched that hand, it would adhere to her skin, cling and pinch, and she would lose her balance. Caroline would drag her to her death.
So she stepped back and let Caroline drown. The glistening fingers opened and shut, and the dark streaming hair crowned the waves like seaweed. Maud seemed to hear Hyacinth’s voice chanting —
“O is it weed, or fish, or floating hair —
A tress of golden hair,
A drownèd maiden’s hair,
Above the nets at sea?” —
She woke. Her eyes darted from corner to corner of the dark room, trying to recover her sense of what was real and what was nightmare. Then heat lightning illumined the room with a blue flash. Maud saw her dresses hanging like ghosts from their hooks. She glimpsed the slanting ceiling and the flattened doughnuts of the bedknobs. She was in the attic, safe in her own bed.
She sat up. Little by little, her heartbeat slowed. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The terror of the dream left her, but her waking thoughts were no less frightening. A letter from Hyacinth had arrived that day, apologizing for her ten-day absence and promising her swift return. The Hawthorne sisters were coming back to hold the séance for Mrs. Lambert.
Maud swallowed. She dreaded the séance with all her heart. There was so much that could go wrong now that she knew Mrs. Lambert. If Mrs. Lambert recognized Maud’s voice, all would be lost. The Hawthorne sisters would lose the money they were counting on. Hyacinth would find out that Maud had disobeyed her and escaped from the house by night. And Mrs. Lambert . . . the lump in Maud’s throat swelled until she almost choked. Mrs. Lambert would see that once again she had been deceived. She would be bitterly hurt. Maud grimaced in the darkness. She wished she could stop thinking about Mrs. Lambert.
There was another flash of lightning. Maud stiffened, waiting for the thunder to frighten her.
But there was none. Maud let out her breath, grabbed the sheet, and lay back down. The creak of the bedstead frightened her. She spread out the sheet until it covered her whole body, in case Caroline was under the bed, reaching up with those sticky hands. The images from the nightmare returned. Maud was poised on the jetty and Caroline was reaching out to her. . . . Maud frowned, trying to remember. She thought she had dreamed of the jetty before. She wondered why the jetty should haunt her dreams. She had tried to walk it only once. Since the night when she made the sand crocodile, she had not left the house. She couldn’t risk seeing Mrs. Lambert again. Mrs. Lambert, Maud knew, would be searching the beach and the Amusement Park, looking for the child she believed to be homeless.
Maud was thinking of Mrs. Lambert again. She shifted irritably, curling herself in a knot. For one brief moment Maud entertained the idea of betraying Hyacinth and confessing everything to the rich woman. She shook her head. Nothing would be worse than that. Hyacinth would find out and send her back to the Barbary Asylum.
It was stifling hot under the sheet. Maud kicked it off and sat up. She could not stand being alone a minute longer. She would go to Muffet’s room.
She stuck her feet over the edge of the bed and lunged forward quickly, so that Caroline couldn’t grab her ankles. Then she tiptoed into the box room. By day, the room was cluttered and ugly; by night, it was a storehouse of terrors. The bulky oblongs of trunks looked like coffins; the shadows in the corners loomed and smoked. Maud tried not to see them. Almost running, she passed into the next room.
Muffet was snoring. Maud crept to the rag rug and sank down beside the bed. She clutched two fistfuls of sheet and felt a little better. It struck her as queer that someone who was mute could make so much noise snoring. The hired woman lay on her back — in the dark her face was unfamiliar — and the sounds that came from her were as homely as a dishpan. There was a sort of snuffle, which sometimes erupted into a snort, followed by a drawn-out wheeze. No ghost could tolerate a sound like that. The specter of Caroline fled.
Listening to Muffet snore, Maud grew calmer. Perhaps the séance would go as planned. Then everything would be all right. The Hawthorne sisters would get the money they needed. Hyacinth would be overjoyed. Even Mrs. Lambert would be better off — in a way — because she would get what she wanted most. It was Mrs. Lambert, after all, who had offered five thousand dollars to anyone who would help her contact her dead child. Mrs. Lambert wanted to see Caroline more that she wanted anything else in the world. Maud set her chin. She would see to it that Mrs. Lambert got her money’s worth. She would play the role to the hilt. She would make Caroline speak loving words to her grieving mother; she wouldn’t omit a single “dear Mama.” Her mind made up, Maud lowered herself to the floor. She braced one arm under her head and tried to go to sleep.