Five Days of the Ghost (8 page)

“Doesn't mean anything to me,” John said.

“Dad probably did it and forgot to clean up.”

“As if he would,” I shot back.

Noah scrunched up the paper again. “Let's go to the library,” he said to John. “That doesn't mean anything.” As the two boys stood up to go he added, “I don't think.”

After John and Noah left for the library I cleaned up the kitchen and climbed the stairs to my room. I locked the door once I was inside. Warm morning sunlight poured through the window, spilling gold across the floor. I unhooked the lock on my closet, drew a breath, and pulled the door open fast.

Nothing. I locked it again.

I fell onto the waterbed, pulling the covers over me, and fell asleep.

Monday Afternoon

Someone was pounding at my bedroom door! The doorknob rattled and the door rumbled in its frame.

I rolled over and faced the wall, pulling the blankets over my head.

I won't listen to that anymore! I won't!
I thought.

The pounding kept up.

“Karen, wake up!” It was John's voice.

I stuck my head out from under the covers.

Blinding sunlight shot through the window, stabbing into my eyes. I rolled over again and faced the door. I felt hot and my mouth was sticky. I still had my clothes on.

I dragged my body out of bed and unlocked the door. “Come on in,” I croaked.

John and Noah tumbled into the room like two kindergarten kids, practically knocking me down.

Noah's eyes flashed. “I was right! I think.” For once he didn't sound like a forty-year-old.

“Sure you were right. We found it. For sure.” John was breathless. He was chewing bubble gum and after he said that he pumped out a huge bubble, big as his face. I could never understand why the gum didn't stick to his braces. Above the big pink bubble his blue eyes sparkled. He sucked the air back into his mouth so the bubble collapsed slowly and drooped on his chin.

“What's the big deal?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know. Then I said, “What time is it?”

John ignored me and started to talk. “We spent half the day in the—”

“About three o'clock,” Noah cut in.

“—library reading until our eyeballs were ready to fall—”

“—I never read so much at one time in my life! This brother of yours is a—”

“—out and our nostrils were full of dust from old books and—”

“—microfilm! Wow, that stuff is like reading fuzzy words through binoculars! Talk about—”

“Stop!”

I had my hands clapped over my ears and my eyes shut. I was sitting on the bed. John and Noah were still standing at the open door. John's hand gripped the knob as if he wanted to tear it off. Both of them looked like puppies who just stumbled on a spilled bag of Milkbone. Their mouths hung open. I guessed I had shocked them.

“Sorry,” John said in a low voice. “Do you have one of your headaches?”

“Yeah.”

“Why don't you take a pill?” Noah suggested, almost whispering.

“It won't help her,” John answered for me, a little of his Lecturing tone creeping in. “She gets these migraines. Pills don't help. Nothing helps. She started getting them after our brother—”

I shot him a look and he shut up. Noah looked embarrassed.

“Anyway,” he said, “want to hear what we found out, Karen?”

I was still boiling hot from my sleep under the covers. My head felt like it was full of taffy.

“Let's take a swim first,” I said.

 

The three of us were lying side by side on the dock. The late-afternoon sun was sinking behind the house and our shore of the lake was shaded and cool. But Chiefs' Island was still brightly lit and over the calm water I could see the flat rock where we had landed on our trips to the graveyard. There was a light breeze whispering in the weeping willow.

“Well,” Noah was saying, “we made progress at the library.”

“Yeah, after we got that old twig of a librarian to let us into the so-called historical archives we started checking local histories.”

“And they led us to the microfilms of old newspapers.”

“How about skipping all the dramatics and getting to the point,” I said. I guess I sounded mean, cutting into their big moment, but I didn't really feel like waiting till doomsday.

“Okay, okay,” John said, sounding a little hurt. “Here's the straight stuff.”

He cleared his throat as he sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees and started in with his Lecturing Voice.

“Our house was built around a century and a half ago by a rich bachelor named Bond who got his money from the lumber and sawmill business, lawyering, and some inheritance.”

“Not what you'd call poor,” Noah added. He had sat up, too. His wet hair was slicked straight back and the two studs and cross in his ear winked in the light.

“No, and from what we could gather, he wasn't Mister Nice Guy either. He turned up in the newspapers once in a while.”

“Like when he built his house—your house—on the shore of the lake on property he cheated away from an old lady whose financial affairs he was handling.”

“Right,” John said. “Anyway, he was loaded, and he had three servants who lived in the attic. An old manservant named Oliver, a cook named McCullough, and her eighteen-year-old daughter, who did the housecleaning.”

“You forgot the drinking,” Noah said.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Bond was a drinker. Famous for it. A real prize winner. Anyway, he got in trouble for beating up the manservant one time. Broke the poor old guy's nose. According to the paper, the old guy refused to press charges, plus he kept working for Bond.

“But the juicy gossip was that he got engaged to the young woman. We read the wedding announcement in the paper.”

“Sounds romantic, right?” Noah held up his hand and moved it across in front of his face. Writing on the air with his finger. “Rich snobby lawyer marries servant. Nice headline.”

“Except he didn't,” John cut in.

“Nope. But he
did
get her pregnant, from what we can figure. The paper just hinted about that. Anyway, she hanged herself.”

I sat up quickly. “In
our
house?” Pain shot through my head.

“No, no, her mother and her quit and moved out. She hanged herself in a boardinghouse.”

“The mother left town soon after,” John continued.

I wondered when they were going to get to the point. All that stuff sounded like a soap opera. I mean, it was a terrible tragedy for the woman and her mother and I was sure the rich lawyer-drunk was a creep, but it had happened about a hundred and fifty years ago and right then I had other things on my mind.

“Then,” Noah said, “the lawyer beat up the manservant again. Real bad. But he still didn't press charges.”

“Oh?” I said when Noah paused. I knew I was supposed to say something. “Why not?”

“Because,” John announced, “a few days later, the lawyer was found dead.”

“By a neighbor,” Noah said. “In your house.”

“In the hall outside your bedroom,” John added.

“In a big pool of blood.”

“With a long knife in his chest.”

“He had been dead for days,” John added, “so he—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get the point,” I cut in.

I twisted my body and looked at our house. The back wall was shadowed and the windows reflected the sky so I couldn't see in. The windows looked like cold blank eyes. Behind me I heard the wind sighing in the willow and the wavelets lapping the shore and the crib of the dock.

It wasn't exactly good news to find out that somebody had murdered a nasty rich creep in the house I lived in. I imagined the dead lawyer dressed in one of those long black coats with a high white stiff collar and a diamond pin in his tie, lying in the hall upstairs with a knife handle sticking out of his chest, thick red blood leaking onto the hardwood, staining it. I suddenly felt chilly.

I looked at John. He was hooked. The sparkle in his blue eyes told me that. And Noah kept sweeping his wet hair back, trying to look calm.

“So what do we do now?” I asked. “How can we keep living in a house where a dead guy is marching up and down the hall all night and making strange noises and pounding on doors? Should we phone Vancouver and tell Mom and Dad and ask them to come home? They won't believe us, will they?”

“Nope,” John answered. “Remember a couple of years ago when you went kind of nutty and—”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“There's one thing you guys haven't thought about,” Noah cut in.

I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest to keep warm. I turned to face the weeping willow. The long branches trailed in the water and the long thin leaves moved gently in the breeze. I didn't want to look at our house anymore. And no way did I want to look out over the lake.

“What's that?” John asked.

“Well, we've been assuming the ghost is the lawyer. It could be the young woman he got in trouble, the one who hanged herself. Or it's even possible it's the old manservant.”

I barely listened to Noah. I was staring at the willow, remembering the times Kenny and I played in it, climbing up, scraping our hands and arms on the rough bark. We built a tree house there once. And whenever one of us felt bad or got into trouble, we'd go there and the other one would know where to look.

“Yeah, right!” John exclaimed. “It could be. Or maybe all three of them! Maybe—Karen! What's the matter?”

I was crying. I tried to stop it, tried to dam up the tears, but I couldn't. They flowed harder and harder and I began to sob. I felt my face get hot and twisted. The willow tree blurred and sank away.

“Why can't it be the way it used to be?” I sobbed. “Why did everything have to change?”

Then I lost control and cried and spluttered and sniffed. I tried to hide my hot face with my hands.

I stood up. My brother and Noah watched me silently. It was one of those times nobody could say anything and they knew that.

I walked to where the dock met the grassy shore, then stepped into the water. I waded crying into the lake.

Late Monday
Afternoon

Our family didn't go to church. Both my parents were good people, with very strong morals. I mean, they knew what was right and wrong and when John or I even
looked
like we might do something wrong, they got on our case fast. And they were kind—always doing things for our neighbors or other members of the family. They even had a foster kid in the Dominican Republic or somewhere. But church was no part of my growing up. My dad told me one time a church was just like a club and he didn't want to be a member.

I was thinking about that as I walked up Neywash Street. I was thinking, maybe if we
did
belong to a religion like a lot of kids in my class, maybe I wouldn't be so mixed up. Maybe all this horrible stuff wouldn't be happening to me.

It was about five o'clock and the bells in the tower of the big Presbyterian church were playing some kind of hymn. The loud heavy notes rolled out of the tower like waves.

I wasn't sure when I had decided to try to talk with Noah's father. I guess it was when I was standing up to my neck in the lake with Noah and John watching me like hawks from the dock and I realized no matter where I looked I couldn't escape the bad feelings that seemed to own my mind. If I looked toward our house I thought of a horrible puffed-up corpse in the hall outside my room. If I looked out over the lake I saw Chiefs' Island and thought about the ghost of Chief Copegog stuck in that depressing graveyard when he could have been … wherever ghosts are
supposed
to be. He didn't look too happy the two times I saw him. I felt sorry for him now—when I wasn't scared to death by him. And if Noah was right, it had been his medicine bag that had started all that poltergeist stuff.

When I looked toward the willow tree or the boathouse, all I could think about was Kenny and the good times we used to have, playing there. The big hole inside me that had been there since Kenny went away, the big empty space filled with pain—that was worse than the scary stuff. And I didn't know how to get rid of the hurt. I felt trapped.

So I was walking up Neywash, going to see a minister. Maybe he could help. Maybe Mom and Dad wouldn't like it, but I didn't know what else to do. Besides, they were in Vancouver.

I rang the doorbell of the big brick house. No answer. I rang it again. Nothing.

Then I heard music. There was a flagstone walk that went around the side of the house. I followed it and found myself in a big back yard. It was mostly grass but there was a huge flower garden with a riot of colours and odours from dozens of kinds of flowers I didn't know the names of. The drone of slow dull hymns came from a portable radio on top of a picnic table.

In the middle of the garden, on his hands and knees, was Noah's father. He was wearing a black short-sleeved shirt with the collar open and long tan coloured pants. He had on those black rubber boots with the red band around the top that your mother makes you wear on rainy days. He was scratching at the dirt around some yellow flowers with one of those claw tools. His hands were dirty. I waited and after a moment he looked up and saw me.

His forehead wrinkled and his thick dark eyebrows jumped toward each other.

“Good afternoon, dear.” He raised himself to his knees. “You're Noah's friend, aren't you?”

“Yes, sir, sort of. We just met.”

“Ah.”

I looked at the toes of my shoes, thinking, maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all. He waited.

“Um, could I talk to you for a second, sir? If you're not too busy,” I added.

“Not at all, dear, not at all.” He smiled again. “If you don't mind my working while we talk. That'll be all right, won't it? I don't get much chance to keep the weeds at bay.”

“Sure, sure. That's fine.”

He dropped to all fours and started scratching again.

The sinking sun shone on his bald head. The head was beaded with sweat and it bobbed up and down as he worked.

“How can I help you, dear?” he said to the ground.

It was hard to talk to the top of his head. “Um, I wanted to ask you, sir—”

“People call me Reverend Webster, dear, not Sir.”

“Oh, sorry, sir—I mean Reverend Webster.”

He kept digging and scratching, moving slowly from one bunch of flowers to another. He moved to some white ones with lots of blooms on them.

“Um,” I started again. “Do you … are there … ”

He raised himself to his knees again. “Yes, dear, go ahead.”

“Ghosts?”

His brow wrinkled. “I beg your pardon. Ghosts? What do you mean?”

“Are there ghosts? Do they exist?”

His eyebrows jumped again. “Of course not.”

He dropped down and scratched furiously. Maybe I got him mad, I thought.

He started talking to the freshly dug earth. “The Bible speaks of an afterlife, of course, and all Godfearing people believe in Heaven and Hell. When we die, our sins are weighed in the balance, and if we have lived by the precepts of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and if we have accepted Him as our Saviour, we will live for eternity in the presence of Almighty God.”

He grunted and crushed a clod of black earth.

“If we follow the ways of the Devil, we will live forever alienated from God's presence. That's what hell
is
—not being with God. But ghosts—that's just nonsense, dear.”

He looked up at me. There was a smudge of dirt on his forehead.

“And it's dangerously sacrilegious.”

I took a deep breath and said to the top of his head, “Do we … in heaven, do we meet our family? See, I had this brother—”

“Yes, in a way. They are there, if they have lived as I just described. But our souls belong to God, not our family, and it is to Him that we give our attention.”

“But, I mean, will I ever see him again, that's what I want to know.”

He looked up. “I'm sure you will, dear.” But he didn't sound like he meant it.

I tried again. “What if … what if you think you've seen a ghost? Aren't there lots of people who have?”

“Now you're sounding like Noah. Those stories are the record of poor, ignorant, misguided people. They're not true.”

“But, if there's an afterlife, how come there can't be ghosts? Isn't it possible—”

He rose to his knees again and pointed the claw tool at me.

“My dear girl, you must stop this. Ghosts are folklore. Entertaining, perhaps, at parties and in books. You must not confuse them with the living reality of the revealed word of God. What church do you attend?”

“Well, my family doesn't go to church.”

“Ah.” He said that little word as if it explained everything. “Perhaps if your parents brought you to our church … Yes, you ask them to do that, dear. This Sunday. Then we can talk further.”

He dropped down and started in on the plants.

“Well, um, thanks, Reverend.”

“You're welcome, dear. Come back any time.”

On my way home I felt stupid and embarrassed and mad. I was mad at myself because I had probably sounded like a winkie, blabbering on about ghosts and heaven in one sentence and about Kenny in the next. My face burned, I felt so stupid.

Then I got really mad at
him
—Noah's father. What
good
was he, anyway? And how come it was okay to believe in a place where you sat around on a cloud all day and plucked a harp but it was wrong and
dangerous
to believe in Chief Copegog—who I had seen with my own eyes?

And that was when I decided who I had to talk to. The only one who could help. Who do you talk to if you want to know about ghosts?

A ghost, that's who.