Celeste Read online

  "Catch up," I cried. "I don't want to take all day to get to the creek."

  He had said that, so many times before, he had said that.

  I walked on and found the spot from which Daddy and Mr. Kotes had shown us how to fish. I set down the lunch box and reached into the can of worms. A small pool of revulsion started at the base of my stomach and then quickly disappeared. I had a thick nightcrawler between my fingers. It squirmed slightly, nearly dead already.

  Carefully, with more expertise than I imagined I had. I threaded the hook through it until it was perfectly secure, and then I tossed the fish line into the creek and sat on a rock. Celeste was bored quickly, of course, and drove me mad until I chased her downstream. She was happy to go,

  "Ill call you when I'm hungry," I shouted.

  Across the way a crow stared at me and moved very slightly on a thick oak tree branch. I could see its beak open and close as if it was talking to itself.

  "Yaaa." I shouted at it the way Noble used to, and it lifted and flew downstream, screaming a complaint. I laughed, sat back, and grew mesmerized by the sound of the water rushing by, the breeze fanning the leaves and small branches, and the distant roar of a jet plane.

  Maybe I dozed off. I don't know, but I realized that I was hungry. Nothing had taken my hook and worm yet. The string remained limp. I reeled it back and then looked at the hook. Something had nibbled on the worm. It was gone nearly to the edge of the hook.

  Smart fish. I thought, and then I did something that surprised me.

  I shouted for Celeste just the way Mommy told me I did. I shouted and shouted. Disgusted with no response. I threw down my pole and walked downstream, shouting. Something caught my attention across the way. Was it the movement of branches, the sound of someone running, and then, was that a scream?

  I walked a little farther and then I stopped, true waves of shock and fear rushing at and over me.

  There before me near the edge of the water was a shoe. A girl's pink and white shoe. Mommy. I thought. Mommy!

  I turned and ran through the woods, pushing bushes and branches out of my way until I broke out to the meadow. where I shouted louder and harder. Mommy was squatting by her tomato plants. She rose and looked out at me.

  "What is it. Noble?" she cried.

  I ran toward her. and I told her. As if she had planned it, the postman came and saw me screaming and running. He got out of his vehicle and walked toward us.

  "What's wrong. Mrs. Atwell?" he asked.

  "MY little girl." she shouted back. "She's missing!"

  He walked faster, and then he stood and listened to me.

  "That doesn't sound so good," he muttered. He looked at his watch. "Is that creek far?"

  "Not too far," Mommy said and started toward the woods.

  "I'll be with you in a moment," he said. "I'm calling in to let them know back at the post office."

  "Celeste!" Mommy screamed, and we ran toward the woods.

  The postman came after us, but we stayed ahead of him until we reached the creek. There. I led Mommy to where I had seen the shoe. The postman followed and stood by, looking at the shoe.

  "That's hers?"

  "Yes," Mommy said. "Where is she?" She screamed and screamed for Celeste. The postman ran downstream and then ran back.

  "We better get some help," he said. "I don't like what he's telling us." he added, nodding at me.

  "Where's my daughter?" Mommy shouted at him, as if it was his fault.

  He shook his head.

  "Take it easy. Mrs. Atwell. Let's get help. Don't panic. Maybe its nothing."

  He ran back through the woods.

  Mommy plucked the pink and white shoe off the sand and then put her arm around my shoulder.

  "I fear she's gone, Noble," she said. "but you must not blame yourself. You must never blame yourself."

  It didn't take the local policeman long to get to our home, but a little more than a half hour later, he was followed by the fire thick and a half dozen volunteer firemen. After that came two state policemen.

  Just as Mommy had predicted, they questioned me repeatedly about the events. I led them back to where I had been and then where I had found Celeste's shoe, The firemen fanned out and searched both sides of the creek until one of them shouted and we all converged on the discovery of the fishing pole. It was stuck on shore, caught in some tree roots.

  Word spread back to the village, and more volunteers arrived to help search for some sign of Celeste. Someone found a piece of cloth on a thorny bush. and Mommy confirmed it came from Celeste's skirt. Later, the county sheriff brought in some bloodhounds, and they went barking and chasing in small circles.

  Mommy and I returned to the house, where we waited in the living room. Mommy lying on the sofa, a cold, wet cloth over her forehead. Outside, groups of men and some women conferred. The postman was questioned repeatedly and quickly became the most popular person. I watched and listened to him. He seemed to enjoy retelling the events.

  "Some sick person must have been watching those kids, just waiting for an opportunity like this,- I heard a sheriff s deputy tell another.

  Night fell, and with the darkness came retreat and a promise to continue the search in the morning. Mommy was asked to produce as recent a picture of Celeste as she could and had to admit that she had nothing more recent than two years previous. She gave a full description.

  The sheriff brought a detective to question me. and I told him how I thought I had heard noise across the creek and then a scream. I told him why we had separated. and I cried. He thanked me and told me to do what I could to help my mother.

  "She'll need you to be strong," he advised and left.

  When I went to sleep that night. I felt terrible for so many reasons, most of which I couldn't understand. I had never seen so many people on our farm. The lights, the police cars, the dogs, were overwhelming.

  Mommy came up the stairs slowly, her footsteps slow and heavy. She appeared in my doorway, silhouetted by the hall

  "Are you all right. Noble?" she asked.

  "Yes." I said in a small voice, more Celeste's voice, which was something that was happening less and less. Mommy had been teaching me how to think before I spoke and bring my voice up from a deeper place. She said it would soon come natural to me.

  She walked into the bedroom and sat on my bed. Then she reached out and stroked my hair and my cheek.

  "You did very well today,' she said. "I know they will be proud of vou. We can expect them to return."

  "Who?" I thought she might mean the firemen and the

  "You know who, and Daddy, too. I am sure. Just a little longer, and those people from town will leave us alone forever, my darling.''

  She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.

  "Get some sleep. We will have to be strong to deal with them tomorrow."

  She stood up.

  "But soon, soon, it will be over, and then there'll just be the two of us and our loving spirits. Sleep tight," she said and walked out, closing the door softly.

  I listened to the wind outside my window for a while, and then I sighed and turned toward Celeste's empty bed.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered before I fell asleep. I had no idea why.

  Mommy was right about the police and the volunteers. They came in bier numbers the next day. The local newspaper sent a reporter as well, and Mommy gave him a detailed description of Celeste. He was the first one to look at me and comment. "So they are twins?"

  "Yes. yes." Mommy said and gave him the twoyear-old picture. At least there would be something. The following day the story ran and more people came to our farm, many just to gape, some supposedly to help search the woods. Dozens of people traipsed through the property and crossed over to our nearest neighbor, an elderly man named Gerson Baer who lived alone. He had nothing to offer, but because he was a loner and a neighbor, he fell under some suspicion for a while. He was wise enough to permit a full search of his house and property, and eventually the polic
e left him alone, but Mommy predicted nasty, stupid people would always suspect him. She sounded like she really did feel sorry for him, but she also mentioned that it helped us.

  A week went by, and the story stopped being published in the paper. Occasionally one of the sheriff s patrolmen appeared. The detective returned and went back over the story. Mommy looked terrible. She didn't eat. She didn't do anything to make herself attractive. Some people, old friends of Daddy, and his former partner. Mr. Calhoun, sent over flowers and candy with good wishes. The detective offered to contact any family to assist us. but Mommy thanked him and told him we would be all right. He promised to keep us up to date on any new developments.

  "Something will turn up," he promised. "We really searched that forest. Nothing bad happened to her there. I feel certain of that," he said to be encouraging. He told Mommy to call him any time she wanted.

  From time to time she did. When I heard her speaking on the phone. I actually felt sorry for her. She sounded so desperate about it.

  And then, one day, we felt it. People weren't coming by any longer. Cars still slowed down at the property line, and people gaped out at our home and at us if we were outside, but for the most part the phone stopped ringing. The days drifted on. Occasionally the newspaper did an update, but even the size of the stories grew smaller and smaller and they occurred less and less. Statistics on children who went missing and were never found were impressive. When Mommy read it aloud to me, it was like someone pounding a door shut forever.

  She folded the newspaper and went outside. For a few moments she just stood there, looking over our property. It was a warm day. Summer was just over the horizon.

  "Well," she said when I stepped up to her. "That's it. We have done all they have told us to do."

  She turned and went back to her garden, back to our life.

  When I went up to my room that night. I found it to be quite different. Celestes bed had been stripped down to its mattress, and the pillow was gone. The closet door was open. and I could see the empty hangers where her clothing had once been. All her shoes were gone as well. The shelves above and to the side of my bed were empty. Every doll on the shelves in the room had been taken away. There was no longer a trace of her, not a ribbon, not a hairbrush. nothing. Where was it all?

  Excited, Mommy came upstairs quickly after me to tell me she had just seen her grandfather walking quietly through the meadow with her grandmother. They were arm in arm, she said, and they looked very happy.

  "The curtain has been lifted." she told me. "And its largely thanks to you."

  She insisted on tucking me in and singing one of her grandmother's old folk songs. Her voice was melodic and full of so much nostalgia. I saw her eyes tear. When she was finished, she kissed me good night and left my room.

  It took me longer than usual to fall asleep. I lay awake for a very long time, occasionally turning to look at the naked mattress on the bed beside mine.

  Celeste was truly cone.

  I didn't realize I was crying until I felt the dampness on my pillow.

  10

  A Fine Young Lad

  .

  There was nothing that frightened me more

  than failing Mommy and therefore failing Daddy. I must be who they want me to be. I thought. Even though Noble couldn't read as well as I could read or do as well on tests, or see Daddy's spirit when I believed I had seen him. Mommy always seemed to have some reason to like Noble more, and what I feared the most was whatever that reason was, I wouldn't ever know it and everything would go wrong.

  Still. I had to try and do the best I could. I quickly realized that Mommy's happiness depended on it, but more important, perhaps, her ability to see and communicate with her spiritual family was directly related to it. The more like Noble I became, it seemed, the clearer were her visions and the more frequent.

  And then I thought, the same surely will be true for me. When I do well, Daddy will return to me. So whenever I would think of Noble being gone. I would stop myself and recite, "Noble is not gone. Celeste is gone. My sister. Celeste, is gone and buried."

  With everything feminine being removed from my room and with Mommy giving me harder and heavier chores to do daily, I was able to reinforce the assumption of Noble's identity. I worked as hard as I could at every task she gave me. I didn't care about my hands or my hair. I never looked for a doll or a teacup, and I tried to avoid housework with the same dislike for it that Noble always had.

  I could feel Mommy watching me, studying me, ready to point out the smallest mistakes. If I didn't do something Noble used to do, like track in mud occasionally. Mommy behaved as though I had done it anyway, chastising me for not wiping my shoes or taking them off, for staining my clothing or touching her clean walls with my muddy hands. Sometimes there really were stains on my clothing and mud on the walls. and I wondered, had I done that?

  She raged about another pair of pants I had torn, a pair I had supposedly left lying on the floor by my bed. Then she pulled me aside the way she always pulled Noble and softly lectured me about being more careful outside.

  "You're too involved with your play and your imagination. Noble," she said. "You have to think about consequences."

  One evening when I was doing my schoolwork, she appeared in the doorway with a jar of dead spiders and told me I had left it in the pantry next to jars of jam. I remembered when Noble had done that, but I hadn't done anything like that recently or otherwise. However, I dared not deny anything.

  And then, one day. when I was peeing and I had left the bathroom door open, Mommy came by and looked in at inc. I heard her scream. and I quickly finished.

  "Boys don't sit on the toilet to pee. Noble. You want people to laugh at you? Boys stand," she said.

  I was shocked enough at the criticism to simply stare at her with my mouth slightly opened. I didn't know what to say or do. It wasn't something I had ever considered.

  "Just remember to lift the toilet seat," she warned. "Sometimes your father would forget. Men and boys," she said as if she was spitting out something bitter, and shook her head.

  I didn't know what to do, but next time, I straddled the toilet with the seat lifted. It was uncomfortable. but I was able to do it. When she saw me a few days later, she was very pleased, and that day, she claimed she had a nice talk with her greataunt Sophie, who had lost her little girl because she had a heart defect. According to Mommy, it had happened before the improvements in heart surgery.

  "She gave me comfort," Mommy said. "I feel much better about my own loss after having spoken with her. I'm so lucky to be able to do it."

  Despite all that I was doing and the satisfaction I saw in Mommy's face, the world of spirituality that Mommy visited was still not opened to me as I thought it was going to be, especially with the intensity and frequency Mommy experienced. I was afraid to question why not, afraid to say anything, afraid she would blame it on something I was doing or had forgotten to do. Or worse vet, something I had done.

  Just be patient, I told myself, and do what Mommy says. It won't be too much longer now. Daddy will return to me. and Mommy's wonderful spiritual ancestry will become mine as well. We'll truly be a happy family again.

  One afternoon, however, while Mommy was walking someplace on the farm and talking with her spirits. I grew bored and wandered up to the little tower room. where I discovered all of my things had been stored. I was overcome with the strangest, yet warmest feeling of nostalgia. For a while, at the start at least, it was as if Noble had truly visited his sister's old things and realized how much he missed her.

  I stood there with my hands on my hips, the way he often stood, and surveyed the room. This is a good opportunity to be Noble, I told myself. Think as Noble would think. See everything as Noble would see it.

  It came easier than I had imagined it would.

  How I wish I could tease her now. I thought. I'd even been nicer to her. My happiest days were surely the days when we played together, pretended together, create
d the magical world outside. And she did help me so often with my schoolwork. I need her. I need Celeste.

  I was doing fine just wading in Noble's pool of thoughts and gazing at everything until I squatted beside a carton and opened it to see all the dolls crushed together. A rush of overwhelming warmth and excitement passed over me.

  Daddy had bought me two antique rag dolls when I was sick with the chicken pox. He said they were authentic Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls, and when he brought them to me, he told me they were created in 1915 by an artist and storyteller named Johnny Gnielle whose stories helped his little girl when she was very sick. Daddy was very excited about the dolls. He had been redoing an old house, and they were discovered in the basement. The owner wasn't interested in them, and when he heard that Daddy had a little girl, he said Daddy could have them.

  "I didn't hesitate to take them," he told inc. "The man had no idea what he was giving away. These dolls are very valuable. Celeste. They are real antiques. Take good care of them," he advised.

  No matter how valuable they were. Noble thought they were uninteresting because the eyes didn't move and they didn't have any strings to pull to make them say anything. I tried to feel that way about them now, but I just couldn't. The memories of playing with them. Daddy's smile, sleeping with them beside me, all came rushing back as if the floodgates I had locked were broken. I couldn't help but hug them to me. They were so precious.

  I guess I had made noise pulling things apart and looking at everything. Mommy had come into the house. heard me, and hurried upstairs to discover me sitting on the floor, clutching the dolls in my arms and rocking gently with my eyes closed. Her scream shattered my recollections. They crumbled in my mind like thin china. and I gasped at the sight of her standing in the doorway, her eyes wide with fear and rage.

  "What are you doing up here? What are you doing with those dolls?"

  I wasn't sure what to say, so I replied. "I can't help it. Mommy. I miss Celeste,"

  It calmed her for a moment, but not enough. A light seemed to come into her face. She nodded at her own thoughts and charged into the room to rip Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy from my arms.