A Head Full of Ghosts Page 11

  “Need some help, monkey?”

  I screamed, dropped the crackers, and spun around. Marjorie was there, dressed in jeans and a gray sweatshirt. She was barefoot and her toes wiggled and wormed in the cold dirt.

  She smiled and shook her head. “Are you really that afraid of me now?” Her hair was tied back, no loose strands. It felt like I hadn’t seen her without her face obscured by her hair or her hood in forever. Her eyes were bright and focused, her neck long, chin sharpened to a point. She looked older; a glimpse of the adult Marjorie I would never see.

  I said, “No.” I was relieved to no longer be in the basement by myself, and I was happy to see Marjorie dressed and walking about on her own, without Mom or Dad following her around like a pet that wasn’t house-trained. But, yes, I was still a little afraid of her.

  “Good. You shouldn’t be.” Marjorie walked to the shelves and lifted up the boxes resting against the wedged multipack of Cheerios. “Here. Go ahead, push it in.”

  I pushed with all my might and it slid back into place so easily, I lost my balance, stumbled, and bounced my head off the cereal.

  “Ow!” I giggled nervously and rubbed my forehead.

  Marjorie walked into the far corner, where there was no dangling light bulb, to where our parents stored holiday decorations, summer clothes, boxes of unlabeled miscellany, and old furniture. She said, “Look at all this junk.”

  I held my ground near the shelves. “Does Mom know you’re down here?”

  Marjorie picked through some of the open packs and boxes. “Probably not. She fell asleep in my room. Crazy what’s going on upstairs, huh?”

  I imagined Mom facedown on Marjorie’s bed. Maybe there was something terribly wrong with her. I tried not to panic, or at least not let it show in my voice when I said, “Yeah, I don’t like it.”

  “I am sorry about that. Most of this is my fault.”

  “Did you put my cardboard house back in my room?”

  “What do you mean? Hasn’t it always been in your room?”

  “No, Mom helped me move it down here last week.”

  “Really. How come?”

  “I don’t know. I was sick of it, I guess.”

  “Right.” Marjorie made a show of looking around the basement. “It’s not down here, is it? No. They must’ve moved it back.”

  “They?”

  “The TV people. I like calling them that. The TV People. And they have TVs for heads and their faces can change when the channels change. Creepy, right?”

  “I guess. Why would they put the house back in my room?”

  Marjorie looked bored but quickly explained that The TV People had been in our house all day and all night yesterday, with actors pretending to be us, and they were filming what they called the “reenactment scenes.” They’d needed the house back in my room so they could film Actor-Merry finding the cardboard house covered in growing things.

  I took it all in, not quite sure how she could know all that, and said, “So, it wasn’t you, then.”

  “Nope, dope. I didn’t move your house back to your room. I swear.” Marjorie crossed her heart and held up her right hand.

  I didn’t say anything. What she’d said to me about Actor-Merry made sense, but I wasn’t sure if she was telling the full truth. It was possible that Marjorie brought the house up herself and The TV People were happy to find it there and use it.

  “Merry. You have to trust me. I’m still your big sister. I wouldn’t steer you wrong. Right?”

  I looked down and nodded. I picked up my dropped crackers, then pried the plastic straw off the side of one of the juice boxes and stabbed its pointed end through the small tin-foil-covered hole.

  She said, “I’m going to let you in on a big secret, so that you’ll trust me again.”

  “Is it about Mom or Dad?”

  “No. It’s about me. It’s the biggest secret of all so you can’t, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t tell Mom or anyone else. Okay?”

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear such a big secret. It might not fit in my head and then it would spill out everywhere. But at the same time, my skin prickled with wanting to know what it was. “Okay. Tell me.”

  “I am not possessed by a demon or anything like that.”

  My face must’ve performed some impressive contortions because Marjorie doubled over laughing. “What, didn’t Dad tell you why this is all happening with the show and the priests? Didn’t he tell you that they believe Satan or one of his demon peeps lives deep inside me and makes me do terrible, bad-girl things?” When she said “Satan” she crouched down low, widened her eyes, and spread her arms out wide. It made the word extra scary.

  I was embarrassed, and meekly explained that Mom and Dad hadn’t mentioned Satan or any demons to me, and they hadn’t told me what exactly was wrong with her, only that everyone was just trying to help her get through a rough time.

  “Jesus, that’s messed up. And I’m the one they sent away for two weeks.” Marjorie crossed her arms and walked in a tight circle, as though deciding which one of a million possible directions to go in. “Actually, I am possessed, only I’m possessed by something so much older and cooler than Satan.”

  I stood still and stared at her. When she said I am possessed I pictured a giant green hand closing over her, hiding her from me forever.

  “Ideas. I’m possessed by ideas. Ideas that are as old as humanity, maybe older, right? Maybe those ideas were out there just floating around before us, just waiting to be thought up. Maybe we don’t think them, we pluck them out from another dimension, or another mind.” Marjorie seemed so pleased with herself, and I wondered if this was something new she just thought up or something she’d told someone before.

  I asked, “Is that what the voices in your head tell you?”

  “Hey, how do you know about the voices?”

  “You’ve talked about the voices before. Waking up at night, and at the kitchen table.”

  “Oh right, I guess I have. Hard to keep track of everything, you know. The voices, yeah, I don’t know.” Marjorie’s bright, triumphant tone faded. “I think I’m just imagining them, you know?” She paused, wrapped her arms around her chest, and hesitantly started talking again. “They’re not there most of the time but if I start thinking about them or obsessing about them, they happen, almost like I make them happen, like I’m inside my own head only I don’t know it’s me in there. So I’m trying not to think about them, and now when the voices come back I listen to my iPod on level a billion and drown them out. Seems to work. I can handle them now. No biggie.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hey, look, Merry.” Marjorie let her arms fall down to her sides, laughed, and shook her head. “Don’t you worry about me. I know I’ve done some weird shit while I’ve been figuring things out, and the voices are real, but the truth is, I’m fine. And I’ve been pretending. I’ve been faking it.”

  “Faking what?”

  “Faking that I’ve been possessed by something that’s making me do terrible things.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean why? Isn’t it obvious yet?” Marjorie looked around the basement and at me like she was genuinely confused, like she didn’t know where she was. “Mom and Dad were totally stressed about money and the house, I hated being in stupid high school, and then I started hearing the voices, stress induced probably, yeah, but still it sort of freaked me out. Then I got super pissed when they started sending me to Dr. Hamilton and his fastest prescription pad in the east, when they were the ones who should’ve been getting help, not me. They’re a mess, you’ve had to notice that they’re a total mess, right? And then Dad added to the mess with his new finding God BS, so I decided I’d just keep pushing it, see how far I could go, and I was going to leave you out of it, but I got mad at you for telling Mom about my stories, and by the time that super creepy Father Wanderly got involved, it was easy to keep pushing, keep pretending, keep it all going, and now I don’t have to take Dr. Hamilton’
s pills anymore and we have the show, right? You guys should be thanking me. I saved the house. I saved us, all of us, and I’m going to make us famous.”

  Even as an earnest and gullible eight-year-old and without the gifts and hindrances of hindsight, I saw the gaping holes in her story, and I knew that Marjorie didn’t really believe in what she was saying. She was trying to convince herself that she was okay and in control of what was happening to her and to us. In that moment, I was afraid for her instead of being afraid of her. And I wanted to help the house and family too.

  I asked, “So, wait, where do your ideas really come from?”

  “Everywhere. The Internet, mostly.” Marjorie laughed with a hand over her mouth.

  “You mean the song and the molasses story—”

  “Internet. Internet.”

  “—the growing things?”

  “That one’s mine. That one is—real. You still can’t ever forget that story, Miss Merry. Hey, isn’t this basement just like the basement in the growing-things story? Remember the part where you were in the basement and the growing things came out and up from the dirt, Mom’s poisoned and buried body dangling off the vines? So creepy, right? You can almost see it happening right now. You can almost feel the growing things worming up between our toes.”

  Marjorie bent down and tickled my ankles.

  “Stop it!” I slapped her hands away.

  “Ow! Merry-slaps are the worst. I have no idea how someone so little can hit so hard.”

  I laughed, then bared my teeth and raised my free hand, threatening her with more Merry-slaps. Marjorie mock-screamed and I chased her around the basement. I whiffed on trying to slap her butt as she ran by and dashed into and up the bulkhead stairwell. Then the lights went out.

  I gasped, losing all my air. Marjorie screamed, but then started laughing. She said, “Come sit with me in here, Merry. I’ll hold your hand.”

  I stood in the middle of the basement. It was dark, but not pitch-black as rectangles of weak light filtered down from the two basement windows. Still, I could see only shadows and outlines, and I couldn’t see Marjorie.

  I said, “What did you do? Turn the lights back on!”

  “That wasn’t me. Why do you always blame me for everything? Stay where you are, monkey. I’ll come to you.”

  I heard her bare feet slowly sliding and shuffling on the cement bulkhead stairs and it sounded like she had many more than two feet. Was she walking on all fours down the stairs because it was too dark to see? I didn’t want to wait for her or stay where I was. I wanted to sprint back up to the first floor and leave her down here, let her wait, watch, and see if any growing things would finally sprout from the dirt floor. It was her idea anyway.

  “Is someone down here?” Dad’s voice echoed, followed shortly by heavy pounding on the basement stairs. He and a crew member I didn’t know were at the bottom of the stairs and turned the corner before I could announce myself. The crewman had a flashlight.

  “Merry, what the hell are you doing? You didn’t mess around with the breakers, did you?”

  “What? Dad. No. I just came down to get a snack.” I held up my spent juice box and unopened pack of crackers. And I also looked to the foundation wall on my right and the bulkhead stairs. Marjorie hadn’t come out yet nor had she announced herself.

  He said, “Did Mom say you could do that? I guess that’s fine, right?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was asking me if this was fine or the crewman, or if he knew Marjorie was down here and was trying to trick her out. Either way, Dad didn’t wait for an answer. He walked past me toward the circuit breaker panel that was on the wall between the bulkhead stairs and the washer/dryer.

  “What do you think, turning on our coffee maker from 1975 fried it?” The crewman laughed politely. Dad opened the panel, flipped the breaker, and the lights came back on. Marjorie must’ve been up at the top of the stairs, pressed right up against the bulkhead doors because I still couldn’t see her. She wasn’t coming down.

  Dad said, “Come on, Merry. You’ve got your snack. I don’t want you playing down here.”

  “Okay.”

  Dad put a hand on my back and gently nudged me. His hand was warm and a little sweaty. He and the crewman followed me back up to the first floor. They shut the basement door. I scurried under the dining room table and watched the door. I thought about opening the door for Marjorie, not that it was locked or she needed it opened for her. It just felt like something I should do, but I didn’t. When I was munching on my last peanut butter cracker, I heard our front door open slowly, even with all of the commotion and conversations around me. I heard the whisper of the outside coming in, and I heard her quiet but hurried footsteps pattering up the stairs in the front foyer, and again, it sounded like she had more than two feet.

  Later, when the crew was done with setup, Barry the director and Dad took me upstairs and told me that the sunroom was now the “confessional room.” We would and could go in there by ourselves and talk to the camera about what had happened, or talk about anything that was on our minds. For my first confessional, I went in with the intention of saying only “I want my sunroom back” and then I would fold my arms obstinately and glare at the camera, or maybe I’d scuttle behind the camera and actually tear down the terrible black cloth covering the bay window and explain myself by saying the room couldn’t breathe with the window being covered and it could die.

  Instead when I went in there and pressed the record button like they’d shown me I thought about Marjorie in the basement and how she had lied about faking everything and saving the house.

  I could pretend, I could fake it, I could lie, and help save the house too. So I did.

  I told the camera a story about Marjorie sneaking up on me in the basement, her saying weird stuff to me like she had before, her eyes being all white, her eating dirt, making her tongue into a black worm, and how she made the lights go out. I told the camera that Marjorie was being really scary and that something evil was now living inside her.

  CHAPTER 17

  WE’D BEEN LIVING with the crew for two weeks. It was a Sunday morning, the same day of the show’s premiere. Dad woke me up and tried to make me go to church. There were no mounted cameras in any of our bedrooms so he brought Jenn the camerawoman up with him, which totally backfired. I’m sure he was thinking that as the good daughter I wouldn’t be able to say no to church with Jenn and her camera watching. I knew that not only could I say no, but that he couldn’t get mad and start yelling at me. So I said no, and I told him that church was creepy. I smiled lazily, reached out to hug him around the neck when I said it, and I meant the creepy part as our little joke. When I was in kindergarten I’d gone through a phase where I’d described everything I didn’t like as creepy. Mom had been annoyed by it but Dad had loved it and had quizzed me on what was or wasn’t creepy: Milk, mud, and airplanes were good; pickles, shoelaces, and purple were creepy. Dad didn’t think my “church is creepy” joke was funny though. He dodged my hug, let out a sigh, and said, “You shouldn’t say that, Merry. It isn’t right.” He did an awkward little dance trying to get around Jenn and then stormed off down the hallway. Jenn followed. I felt bad enough that I tiptoed to the sunroom, peeled back a corner of the drop cloth, and watched him and Jenn drive off to church.

  When I got downstairs, Mom was at the table with the writer, Ken Fletcher, and Tony the cameraman. Ken had a little black notebook on the table in front of him and he jotted down some notes. He was my parents’ age but he looked younger. He wore black Chuck Taylor sneakers, jeans, and dark, logo-less T-shirts. He would talk with me whenever he could, and he actually listened to what I had to say. Not like when other crew members would ask how I was doing; they were only asking to be polite, asking for the sake of asking. Tony the cameraman had oversized earphones looped around his giraffe neck. I didn’t like Tony. He wasn’t friendly. His beard was too curly and his fingernails were too long and clicky. He was creepy.

  The three of th
em were eating breakfast sandwiches. Mom had saved one for me. I quickly pulled mine apart and ate just the cheese and egg part. I told Mom that I had a lot of energy and she had to help me get rid of it with a timed obstacle course. Ken laughed, closed his notebook, and wrapped it with a red rubber band. Tony left the kitchen with his camera perched on his shoulder, announcing he was taking a break.

  Mom said, “Really, Merry? But you just ate.”

  I grabbed Mom’s arm and pulled her down, her face almost touching mine. “Yes!”

  “Merry, stop it. Okay.” Mom turned to Ken and said, “We do this sometimes. She has lots of energy.”

  Ken laughed. It was a loud and bright sound. He said, “I love it.”

  Mom said, “Okay, listen carefully. Run out to the living room, sit on the couch, then go into the dining room, do two laps around the table, then upstairs to your bedroom, lie down, feet all the way off the floor, then come back down and shake Ken’s hand.”

  I was so pleased that I had to shake hands with Ken. I wanted to show off for him, Mom knew this, and indulged. I said, “Got it. Where’s your phone? You have to time me on your phone.” I jumped up and down and tugged on Mom’s shirtsleeve.

  “Relax, I’ll just count.”

  Ken said, “My watch has a second hand, I’ll time you. Ready—”

  “Wait a minute!” I yelled in a Muppet voice and scrambled out of my chair and into imaginary starter blocks. “Okay.”

  “Ready. Set.” Ken paused long enough for me to turn, look at him, and give him a scary monster face. “Go!”