Lady in Red

(continued)

by Jessica Cockrell

We reached the playground, and the rest of the children swarmed the equipment, not unlike the way the ants had swarmed us at the comer. I remained with Ben, David, and Emily who chose a spot under a gargantuan oak instead of the swings or the slide.

As we settled under the cool shade of the tree, the three of them realized that they were the unlucky ones who were going to be stuck with me for the next thirty minutes. I say this because I noticed Ben looking at me from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles and then to Emily as if to say, "Come on, Emily. Make the nerd go away." She was not the kindest person in world, but I have a feeling she felt sorry for me. She only shrugged her shoulders at Ben, telling him, "It just for a little while. Let her stay."

And stay I did. Looking back, I wish she would have screamed at me to leave them alone or to get out of their spot. I wish every day that's what she had done.

We sat in a circle, David, Ben, Emily, and me, and they continued bickering over a subject I knew not. Then something totally unexpected happened. Emily turned to me and asked, "What do ya think, Helen? Ya think she's really for real?"

I didn't have the foggiest notion who she meant. My body temperature rose as anxiety crept into my veins; I didn't want to ask her who she meant, but I didn't want to give the wrong answer and get laughed at either. Either way I would have come out looking stupid or uncool. I must have taken a long time to answer, because David added in his squeaky, annoying little-boy voice, "So what do you think? Do you believe in Bloody Mary?"

Great! I thought. Now I knew who they were talking about, but I didn't know who they were talking about. I had never heard of Bloody Mary, and so I opted for a safe response. "I dunno. Maybe. Maybe not."

"I bet she doesn't even know who Bloody Mary is!" Ben cried arrogantly.

"I bet you don't even know, dummy!" Emily rebutted, and rolled her eyes at him. In return, he stuck his tongue out at her. How mature we all were back then!

"I know who she is! My Uncle Steve said she useta be the queen of England, but she's dead and she doesn't come back if you call her name in the mirror like you morons think," David commented matter-of-factly. David was the kind of kid who thought he knew everything about everything, who thought everything had to have a rational explanation, because the world, of course, is a rational place. Or so we're taught to think and do think until something opens our eyes and changes our minds.

Ben argued, "That's stupid! My sister said she was the devil's wife, and if you say her name three times in the mirror she comes and sometimes she kills whoever called her up from H-E-L-L." We were in fourth grade and not permitted to say that word. Spelling worked just fine and dandy.

"You're both stupid!" Emily scolded. "Tina told me she's a ghost who got killed a long time ago in the Indian days, and sometimes she comes back to scare people when they call her name in the mirror three times."

In the midst of all this I sat contentedly quiet with my legs crossed, waiting for the three of them to come to a universal decision and drop the subject. I never liked ghost stories, even though my mother insisted that there were no such things as ghosts, as mothers always do. Even in the safe light of the afternoon sunshine, goose pimples began to rise on my arms and tiny hairs stood straight on the back of my neck.

"So what do you think, Helen? Who do you think she is? Ya think Bloody Mary is real?" It's funny how I usually yearned to be talked to, to be a part of things so badly, yet I did not want to talk about this.

"Well, I-I-I dunno if ghosts are real," I forced myself to answer, as I turned my face away from Emily and the group and suddenly became very interested in my shoelaces. I was being honest. I had never even heard of this Bloody Mary lady five minutes earlier; I didn't know if she was real or fictional. The logical part of me believed my mother. Another part of me sympathized with the goosebumps on my arms.

Ben suddenly taunted obnoxiously, "I bet you're a scaredy cat! Scaredy cat! Scare-"

"Let's do it," Emily interrupted with utter seriousness.

"You're weird. I don't wanna spend my recess callin' some dead lady's name in a mirror. And I don't even got a mirror anyways." That was David exercising his rationalism and skeptical nature.

"But there's one in the portable," Ben said, also serious.

The four of us sat there. We did not move; we did not look at each other; we did not speak. We simply pondered Emily's suggestion and Ben's comment.

"Well, are we gonna sit here or are we gonna do it?" Emily asked, finally breaking the silence.

"Let's do it." I was shocked, because this came from Doubting David's mouth. "1 wanna show you guys you're wrong. Let's go."

They all rose, but I remained seated -- for two reasons: a) I wasn't sure I was invited, and b) I wasn't sure I wanted to go.

Emily looked down at me questioningly. "You comin'?"

"Or are ya too scared?" Ben added. He really was an irksome child.

"I'm comin'," I replied, looking Ben directly in the eyes.

"Great," he mumbled sarcastically.

We strolled along in a loose blob, David at the front, Emily and I in the center, and Ben at the rear. We tried not to draw attention to ourselves; there would surely be trouble if we were caught in the portable building.

For awhile I didn't know what it was that compelled me to go with them to the off-limits portable that day. Trouble was something I avoided as much as possible, and at the start of the school year Mrs. Snell had made the consequences of being caught in that building without permission quite clear. In a similar situation I would have been the one to say, "Hey guys! I don't think we should do that. We might get in trouble." I would like to blame my disobedient misadventure into that building on peer pressure, on the desire to belong, on the desire to be cool. At first, that's what I did blame it on. But I don't blame it on peer pressure anymore. The truth I've always known has surfaced.

Now I blame it on her.

I believe she beckoned us that day, and we went unwittingly to her.


     

 


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