Ghost Letters (4 page)

“Come and help me,” Savita Khanna said as Nargis entered the kitchen.

“I've got homework, Mom!” said Nargis, though she knew the excuse wouldn't work.

“Then why were you cycling around, when you should have been studying instead?” her mother asked.

Catching sight of a pile of okra on the kitchen counter, Nargis was glad to see that her mother was cooking her favorite vegetable. She was still unsettled by what had happened at Trash Hill—discovering the skeletal hand, then having it disappear. The whole thing just didn't make sense. Nargis had decided not to say anything about what she'd seen. She knew her parents didn't like her bicycling alone around the town dump.

“Wash your hands,” said her mother. “Then you can cut the bhindi for me.”

Though Nargis was born in Carville and had lived here all her life, her parents had emigrated to the United States from India, almost twenty years ago.

“Mom, why can't you call it okra instead of bhindi?” said Nargis as she rinsed her hands in the sink. The dark green vegetables were about three inches long, a tapered pod with ridges on the sides and a furry skin.

“A bhindi is a bhindi,” her mother said patiently as she peeled ginger and garlic.

“But it's also okra,” said Nargis. Picking up a knife, she cut off the end of one of the pods. It was sticky and clung to the blade. Inside, she could see the glutinous white seeds. Raw okra didn't look very appetizing, but when it was fried up with onions and spices, there wasn't anything Nargis liked better. She was already starving.

“You can call it what you want, but hurry and finish cutting—quickly now,” her mother said. After Nargis had chopped most of
the bhindi into segments, her mother added, “You know, some people also call it ‘lady fingers.'”

Looking down at the vegetables, Nargis shuddered. “That's disgusting,” she said.

As she sliced the last few bhindi, she remembered the bare bones and knuckles in the mailbox and the flowery stench. Imagining five green fingers on a dead woman's hand, Nargis almost dropped the knife. Suddenly her appetite was gone.

“By the way, there was a letter for you,” her mother said. “It's on the table in the hall, next to the phone.”

Nargis was puzzled. She had no idea who would be writing to her. Most of her friends sent e-mails or instant messages. After wiping her hands, she picked up the letter and took it to her room.

Tearing the envelope open, Nargis took out the letter. It had been photocopied; only her name was written by hand in blue ink.

Dear
Nargis
:

This is a chain letter that was started in 1936 and hasn't been broken since. Within three days you must make six copies of this letter and send it to the names and addresses below. Remove the first name from the list and add your name and address at the bottom. It's very important that you mail this letter within three days. Make sure you also copy the poem below:

Send off this letter and join the chain,

Words linked together for better or worse,

Pass on good luck, again and again,

But if you break this chain, beware the curse!

By sending this letter on, you will bring yourself good luck. The day after she mailed this letter, Tillie Markham of Elkhart, Indiana, won $100,000 in the state lottery. Ebenezer Cole, of Sheffield, England, had been suffering from arthritis for ten years and could barely stand up. Soon after mailing this letter, he was able to walk five miles without a cane.

Warning: If you don't send this letter, it could bring bad luck. Melody Service of Portland, Oregon, forgot to send it and after the third day, she lost her job. Even worse, Xavier Salinas of San Juan, Puerto Rico, failed to send the letter and had a fatal heart attack. Don't forget to copy and mail this letter immediately.

Sincerely yours,
Rachel Reichel

“That's so dumb!” said Nargis out loud. “Who would ever believe something like this?”

Rachel Reichel was a girl who had been in her class in third grade. She had moved from Carville to St. Louis and Nargis hadn't heard from her again, until now. It annoyed her to think
that anyone would be superstitious enough to send on a chain letter. She certainly didn't believe it brought good luck or bad. Nargis had got several messages like this as e-mails, and whenever they appeared on the screen, she always hit the delete button. Tearing the letter into pieces, she tossed it into the wastebasket.

As Sikander hurries through the maze of streets that lead to his house in the heart of Ajeebgarh, the sun has turned a buttery gold and is already melting into the horizon. Hearing the call to prayer, he dashes into his room and hides the blue bottle under the pillow on his bed, then runs to join his father at the neighborhood mosque.

After their evening prayers, Sikander walks back home with his father, who is one of the maharajah's royal bodyguards. Mehboob Khan has a thick black beard, parted in the middle. He wears a khaki uniform and a green turban with a flared coxcomb. There are rumors in the town that British troops are advancing on Ajeebgarh and threatening to attack. When Sikander nervously asks his father if this is true, Mehboob Khan nods.

“Is there really going to be a war?” Sikander asks.

“Unlikely,” his father says. “It's a political game. But you never know where that might lead.”

“Why are the British sending their army?” asks Sikander.

His father laughs as they reach their home. “Because of a four-anna stamp.”

Sikander is puzzled by his father's answer but afraid to ask any more. Instead of going indoors, the two of them climb to the roof of the house. The sky is darkening as father and son open the pigeon coop and begin to feed their pet birds. These pigeons are bred for competitions and trained to carry messages. Some are already perched and waiting while others come circling home, tumbling out of the air with a flurry of wings. Calling to the birds in a gentle murmur, Sikander's father holds out a handful of millet seeds and the birds descend upon him. Four pigeons settle on Sikander's arm, another on his shoulder and one on his head. As he feeds them, they coo and gurgle with excitement.

Only after the birds have been fed is Sikander able to steal away for a few minutes and retrieve the bottle. As much as anything, the color intrigues him. It is a deep blue, almost the same tint as the stones of lapis lazuli in his mother's favorite necklace. Held up to the lamplight, the glass seems to glow. Though Sikander removes the cork without difficulty, he has trouble taking out the paper, which sticks in the neck of the bottle. Finally, after shaking it hard, the scrolled message falls into his lap. Sikander unrolls it slowly and reads the words:

Help! I'm stranded on a desert island. Save me!

                           
Gil Mendelson-Finch

Turning the paper over, he sees something printed on the other side:

McCauley Preparatory School
Library Overdue Notice
October 6, 2007
Dickens, Charles
Great Expectations
Checked out by Gil Mendelson-Finch 9/6/2007
If this book isn't returned immediately you will be
charged 25 cents per day.

Before he can figure out what it means, Sikander hears his mother calling him for dinner. Hurriedly, he corks the bottle and hides it under his pillow again, along with the scribbled note.

• • •

The next day is the maharajah of Ajeebgarh's birthday, which is celebrated as a state holiday, with a flag raising on the parade ground, a twelve-gun salute and speeches by government officials and other dignitaries. Sikander's father wears his dress uniform with a freshly starched turban. All of the schools and shops are closed. As part of the ceremonies, a new four-anna postage stamp is released, with a portrait of Maharajah Lajawab Singh II. Remembering what his father had told him, Sikander wonders how something as insignificant as a four-anna stamp could lead to war with the British.

After watching the bands and soldiers marching in formation, Sikander meets his friend Lawrence on the steps leading down to the Magor River. The two of them often go fishing in the slow green waters, but today Lawrence has come armed with a new catapult. He is taking target practice at things that
go floating past on the sluggish current—a stick that looks like a snake, a turtle that disappears as soon as he shoots in its direction, a wicker basket bobbing on the current. Occasionally there are crocodiles in the water and river dolphins, as well as a fish called a goonch, which is also known as a freshwater shark. When Sikander arrives, Lawrence shows him the slingshot.

“I made it myself,” he says.

Sikander admires the catapult with the smooth polished Y of wood. He pulls the rubber thongs and snaps it once.

“I've got something to show you too,” he says, reaching into the cloth bag slung over his shoulder.

Lawrence shrugs when he takes the bottle from Sikander, unimpressed. “So? It's an empty gripe-water bottle … So what?”

“I found it floating near the railway bridge,” says Sikander, taking the scroll of paper from his pocket. “This was in it.”

After he reads the message, Lawrence begins to laugh. “It can't be true. Somebody's pulling your leg.”

“How do you know?” says Sikander.

“If you found it in this river, then it must have floated downstream. It couldn't come from the sea,” says Lawrence, picking up a stone and firing his catapult again. “As far as I know there aren't any desert islands upriver from here.”

“Look on the other side. It's some kind of notice, but the dates are in the future, a hundred years from now.”

Lawrence studies it carefully, then shakes his head.

“I've read
Great Expectations,
” he says, “but this doesn't make any sense …”

Sikander takes the bottle back and holds it up to the sunlight. The brilliant blue color of the glass seems magical. Though he has no explanation for the message, the bottle emits a mysterious aura that makes him want to believe in the message he has found.

“I've already written a reply and put it in the bottle. Let's see what happens if I throw it back in the river,” Sikander suggests. “Eventually, it should float out to sea.”

Lawrence gives another skeptical laugh.

“Go ahead,” he says, “but you're wasting your time. It will probably take a hundred years to get a reply, and who knows if the bottle will ever reach this person Gil. Even if he is a castaway, you're not going be able to help him.”

“But I can't just ignore it,” says Sikander with a shrug. “And there's no harm in writing back, is there?”

The letter he has composed is in English, just as Ghulam Rusool, the calligrapher, taught him:

Sikander Khan

Masala Bazaar

Ajeebgarh—India

5 Nov. 1896

Dear Gil Mendelson-Finch,

If you are actually stranded on a desert island, send us some proof and I will try to
help you. Please also explain the dates on the paper you sent. How can it be 2007?

I am, sincerely yours,

Sikander

Making sure the cork is tightly in place, Sikander hurls the bottle out into the river. With a splash, it goes under briefly, then bobs to the surface. Lawrence immediately picks up a stone and takes aim with his catapult.

“Hey, don't do that!” Sikander blurts out, shoving his friend's shoulder so the stone misses its target. Before Lawrence can respond, the strangest thing happens. The bottle is surrounded by a dazzling purple halo, like a peacock's feather of light. The intensity increases for several seconds before it disappears completely, as if swallowed by an invisible crocodile.

“What was that!?” says Lawrence, staring at Sikander in alarm.

“I don't know, but it wasn't just gripe water,” says Sikander, his eyes scanning the muddy current as it flows downstream.

With one hand, Gil pressed a blank sheet of paper against the wall. In his other hand, he clutched a piece of charcoal. His grandfather held the opposite corner of the paper and shone a flashlight. It was dark and damp inside the cellar, more like a cave or dungeon than the basement of a house. Sections of the floor were dirt. At other places slate flagstones had been arranged in a loose pattern. The only light from outside filtered through two narrow windows at ground level that were coated with grime and cobwebs. The basement smelled of wet earth and mold.

Prescott had insisted that Gil see the basement of the Yankee Mahal, to prove that the stones out of which it was built had come from India. Following his grandfather down a narrow staircase, Gil edged past a stack of wooden crates and boxes, as well as a wine rack full of empty bottles. In one corner stood an oil furnace and boiler. Whenever the furnace ignited, there was a roaring noise and the pipes hissed.

Against one wall lay an old bicycle covered in dust, with flat tires and a wicker basket on the front.

“You're welcome to use this if you'd like,” Prescott had said, brushing off the seat. “It's a perfectly good bike. I used it for thirty years until my knees gave out.”

Along the ceiling were all kinds of pipes and electric cables. Cans of paint and brushes as well as an antique barbecue cluttered up one corner of the cellar. Prescott had cleared away a couple of broken chairs, then run his hand over the rough foundation of the Yankee Mahal.

“All of these were ballast stones from Ezekiel's ships,” he said.

Gil could barely see the walls, except where the flashlight caught the rough edges. Some rocks were smooth and others looked as if they had been chipped and chiseled into shape.

“Here you go,” said Prescott, his fingers finding something on the surface of the basement wall. They had positioned the sheet of paper over the stone, which was about a foot square.