Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn Read Free Book Online

blankets, and clothes on Heather's bed. Then I picked up Watership Down and went outside to read.
    Stretching out in the shade of one of the maples, I opened my book, but the warmth of summer made it hard to concentrate. In the droning of bees, in the rustling of leaves, in the swaying of wild flowers, I imagined I heard Helen's voice whispering to Heather, calling her, promising her things. Closing my book, I left it under the tree and crossed the lawn to the graveyard. I crept along the outside of the hedge, paused when I reached the oak tree, and peered through the leaves at the little stone, expecting to see Heather sitting there. All I saw was the peanut butter jar, filled with fresh flowers.
    Pushing through the hedge, I forced myself to approach the tombstone. "H.E.H," I read. "March 7, 1879-August 8, 1886." She had been dead for a hundred years, so much longer than she'd been alive. What was left of her now? A tangle of bones? Maybe nothing but dust. I shivered, cold in the shade of the oak, hugging myself to get warm.
    Thinking about the snakes, I backed away from the grave, feeling the warm sunlight strike my back as I moved out of the shade of the oak. With bees droning in the Queen Anne's lace and a butterfly flitting around my head, it was strange to think of death, especially the death of a little girl, younger even than I was. Could she really still be here, haunting this grave? If she did exist, what did she want? A breeze sighed through the leaves of the oak. It was the loneliest sound I'd ever heard, as lonely as a ghost who had been lying alone in the dark for a hundred years.
    Overwhelmed with a terrible feeling of sadness and despair, I turned and ran out of the graveyard, feeling my heart pound. I wanted to go to Mom, but I knew she would laugh at me, or worse, get cross. Knowing it was useless to turn to Dave, I decided to look for Michael. I guessed he was somewhere in the woods and followed the path along the creek, hoping I might find him trying to catch crawfish where the water slowed near the fence.
    At the end of the path, though, all I saw were the cows, standing knee-deep in the creek and staring stupidly at me. As I looked around, wondering where Michael might have gone, I noticed a path on the other side of the creek, angling off into the trees. It looked like the sort of thing Michael would enjoy exploring, so I pulled off my sandals, waded across, and followed the path into the woods.
    After walking for about ten minutes, I found myself beside the creek again. Ahead of me, the woods thinned out, and I saw a large pond. Hurrying toward it, I looked around for Michael, sure he'd be here, but there was no sign of him.
    On the rising ground above the pond were the ruins of an old stone house. Although the wall was two stories high on the side facing the water, the rest of the house was a crumbling heap of rock and charred wood. Long ago it must have burned, I thought. But before that, it must have been beautiful, standing there on the hill looking out across the valley to the mountains.
    While I was gazing at the house, trying to imagine it whole, I saw a flash of color, the red of a tee shirt instantly visible. Thinking it was Michael, I started to call him, then stopped myself. Heather had been wearing a red tee shirt when she ran out of the kitchen this morning. What was she doing here, so far away from home?
    Running across the clearing between the house and the pond, I crept through the underbrush surrounding the ruins, trying hard to make no noise. As I reached the corner of the house, I heard Heather's voice and dropped silently to my knees. Crawling through a thicket of polk berries and honeysuckle, I spotted Heather sitting on what once must have been a terrace.
    "It's lovely here, Helen," she said, turning toward a space in the air, a sort of shimmering emptiness that reminded me of heat waves thrown out by a camp fire on a hot day. I was sure that Heather could see someone or