Read Online Helens-of-Troy by Janine McCaw - Free Book Online Page A

to my mom?” Ellie
questioned, somewhat wide-eyed.
    “Do you want to be locked up for the
rest of your life?”
    “A plausibility it is,” Ellie
agreed.
    Pushing her granddaughter slightly
ahead, Helena looked down the street. The cur was at the end of the
road, watching them. His eyes had turned to a single shade of red,
the same shade of red Helena’s own eyes, unbeknownst to Ellie, had
turned as she angrily glared back at it.
    She took a moment to compose herself.
“Well, you have to admit it hasn’t been a boring day, Ellie,”
Helena mused as they went back inside the house.
    “It doesn’t even register on the boring
day chart,” Ellie said emphatically.
    “I love you, Ellie,” Helena
smiled.
    “I love you too, Nancy,” Ellie laughed.
She turned to Helena and gave her another hug. “Really, Nan, you
kicked butt out there. Thanks for saving me.”
    “I wish I could always be there for
you,” Helena said wistfully, leading her granddaughter back into
the safety of the house.
    Upstairs, safely tucked in her bed with
Beastie Boy by her side, Ellie grabbed her phone from the
nightstand and checked to see if Dina had called her back. There
were no messages. Saddened, she put the phone back and turned out
the light. She couldn’t believe how tired she suddenly was. Within
minutes she had fallen into a deep slumber.
    Across the room, the door leading to
the balcony opened by itself, bringing a rush of cold air inside.
Ellie subconsciously tried to pull the quilt tight around her, but
her actions were met with an unidentifiable resistance. She woke up
and glanced at the foot of the bed. What her half-awake mind could
only describe as a shadow-man was now standing before her,
beckoning her to follow him outside. She tried to resist, but she
was no longer in control of her own body.
    If she had taken some hallucinating
drug, there might have been an explanation for how she suddenly
found herself transported from the safety of the attic bedroom to
standing alone in the middle of a country side road. But Ellie
didn’t take drugs, which made the situation all the more
baffling.
    “Nan,” she said to herself, “come up
with something plausible for this.”
    The mist rolling on the ground was cold
on Ellie’s feet. “Where the hell am I?” she wondered. She could see
an old wooden bridge over a creek, and beyond that, a three story
brick building that was sadly in need of repair. “You know,” she
whispered breathlessly, “eight hours of sleep is so overrated.
Let’s wake up now, please.”
    Hearing someone whistling in the
distance, she turned towards the sound.
    “Frère Jacques?” Ellie asked. “Is
somebody whistling Frère Jacques? I can’t stand that stupid song.
This nightmare is getting worse and worse by the
minute.”
    She listened intently. The notes were
slow and methodical, more like a funeral march than a lullaby. The
tempo began to lull her into a trance-like state, her body moving
towards the sound under no will of her own. “Oh no, not again,” she
pleaded. She tried to dig her heels into the earth to stop moving,
but she could no longer feel her feet. “I’m floating,” she
discovered. “This is crazy.”
    She could see the outline of a man on
the other side of the bridge. He was tall and lanky and oddly
beguiling. He leaned against the wooden structure with a
devil-may-care slouch. As he turned his profile into the moonlight
she could see that he was handsome in a rugged sort of way. But
there was something unnatural about him just the same. He was
there, but he wasn’t. “You’re the Shadowman,” she said. “You were
just in my bedroom. Did you bring me here?”
    He lifted his black cowboy hat from his
brow and looked long and hard at Ellie.
    “Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques. Dormez
vous? Dormez vous?” he sang. He beckoned for Ellie to come nearer.
“I know you hate that that song. You always did. But maybe we can
sing it in a round. For old time’s sake.”
    “Do I