The Blue Ghost (4 page)

The baby in Liz’s arms began to cry. His voice was deep and hoarse. When the crying stopped, it was only to be replaced by a brassy cough. He had a fever, too. He might have been a tiny stove the way heat poured off of him.

If only she could talk to Gran. Gran knew about sick babies.

But if she gave Matthew to Elizabeth and went back to her own time, she might
not be able to get here again. She hadn’t had very good luck returning when she had tried before. And the baby’s lips were turning blue!

Matthew sat heavily in Liz’s arms. He coughed and wheezed and sobbed. Liz hugged him to her and looked around the small cabin. She had to find something that would help. There were bunks at one side where the other boys were sleeping. A table sat at the other side, a cast-iron stove in the middle. And … Liz gasped.

Here was the woman again, the woman made of blue light.

“Look!” Liz cried, pointing.

Elizabeth turned to look, but her face remained blank.

“Don’t you see?” Liz asked.

Elizabeth looked at Liz again. She shook her head. Clearly she saw nothing. “Please,” she begged. “You must help our Matthew. Whether you be an angel or no, you must. I fear we have little hope except for you.”

Little hope except for me?
Liz wanted to drop the baby and run. Instead, she turned back to the woman on the other side of the room. The blue figure hovered over a wooden trunk with a rounded lid. It was the same as the trunk in Liz’s bedroom!

“That trunk!” Liz pointed. “Tell me what’s in it.”

Elizabeth stared at the trunk, then at Liz. “My mama’s belongings,” she said. “But—”

“Let’s open it,” Liz replied. “I think there is something in there that will help!” She handed the baby back to Elizabeth and hurried to the trunk. But, as before, the brass hasp was locked.

“Where’s the key?” she cried.

Elizabeth took a large key down from a nail set in the wood frame of the window. The nail and the key were hidden by burlap curtains. “Here it is,” she said. “But I do not know what you will find to help in there. It is just Mama’s dresses and such.”

Liz took the key. She had to find something in the trunk. Otherwise there was no hope. Certainly
she
didn’t know anything about babies with the croup.

Her hands trembled as she fitted the key to the lock. She turned it until it clicked. Then she lifted the lid and began to sort quickly through the contents. She didn’t
know what she was looking for. She knew only that this was where Elizabeth’s mother wanted her to look. Under a silk dress were sheets, a pair of silver candlesticks, a Bible, a black lace shawl. And when she gently lifted the shawl, she found a small handwritten booklet.

“What’s this?” she asked. She held it up for Elizabeth to see.

“I think it be my mother’s book of remedies,” she said. “I had quite forgotten it.”

“Remedies? Like for making people well?”

“People and cattle and all manner of creatures,” Elizabeth replied. “Mama knew much of medicine. People came from far—”

“That’s it!” Liz broke in. “Don’t you see? The book will tell you what to do about the baby’s croup!”

For an instant, Elizabeth’s face glowed. But when Liz thrust the small hand-lettered book toward her, she didn’t lift a
hand to take it. She just stood there, shaking her head.

“What’s the matter?” Liz pleaded. “Your mother wanted you to have this. I know she did.”

Elizabeth only lowered her head. In a small voice that Liz strained to hear over the baby’s wheezing, she said, “I cannot read.”

Liz was amazed. “Why not?” she asked. “Everyone knows how to read!”

Elizabeth’s head came up. “We have had no school here. We will not have school until a master comes next winter. Mama was going to teach me, but there be so
many babies. She never had time. And Pa does not know himself.”

“Ah,” Liz said. Only that. So that was why she was here. Maybe she was, indeed, Elizabeth’s angel. An angel who could read.

Liz flipped through the small book. When she came upon “The Croup,” she read the page eagerly.

“Quick! A wet cloth,” she told Elizabeth. “A wet cloth to put over his face. And build up the fire in the stove. We have to boil water and make a tent to fill with steam!”

The two girls started the tasks. The
baby seemed to sense that help was at hand. He watched everything they did with enormous eyes. The blue woman hovered in the corner of the room as the girls worked. Strangely, Liz found the ghost comforting.

At last, they settled beneath a blanket tent with baby Matthew. When the kettle began boiling, the steam quickly filled the tent. Matthew rested his cheek against Elizabeth’s shoulder. After a time, his breathing grew quieter.

They sat side by side under the blanket tent. The candle glowed at their feet. Liz tried to think of something to say.

“It will be good when you can go to school,” she said at last.

“I do not expect to go,” Elizabeth told her. “A big girl like me who has not learned to read—”

“Could learn very quickly,” Liz broke in.

Elizabeth’s chin came up sharply. She stared at Liz in disbelief. Then slowly a smile began to bloom across her face. “Do you think?” she asked.

“You could,” Liz told her. “You must believe me. I’m your angel.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I could learn,” she repeated. “Surely.”

Matthew’s eyelids fluttered toward sleep.

“Be you truly an angel?” Elizabeth asked after another silence. She looked deeply into Liz’s eyes.

Liz smiled at her. “Whoever I am,” she answered, “your mother sent me.”

Liz woke in her own bed. Or rather, she woke in her bed in Gran’s old house. The morning was cool, but strands of hair clung damply to her face. She remembered steaming beneath the blanket and smiled.

She didn’t know when or how she had returned to her own time, but she was glad to be back.

Gran poked her head into the room. “You’re a sleepyhead today,” she said.

“Sorry,” Liz replied. She sat up, and Gran came to sit on the side of her bed.

“Tell me more about Elizabeth, would you?” Liz asked. “The first Elizabeth, I mean. What did she do when she grew up?”

“The first Elizabeth?” Gran folded her hands in her lap. “Why … let me think. She became a doctor. She married and had four children, too.”

“She became a
what?”

Gran smiled. “Yes. It was unusual for that time, but she became a doctor. The man she married owned the stable in the small town where she lived. He used to drive the carriage when she went to see her
patients. I guess that’s when they fell in love.”

Liz leaned back against the headboard of the bed. So Elizabeth had gone to school. And she had learned more than reading, too. Could it be that Liz had made a difference in Elizabeth’s life? It didn’t seem possible. Still … she couldn’t help wondering.

“What about her brother Matthew? The baby. Did he grow up all right?”

“Matthew? Oh … he became—” Gran stopped. She stared at Liz. “How did you know Matthew’s name?”

Liz laughed. “You must have told me.
When we were talking about the little boys yesterday. You must have said his name then. Didn’t you?”

Gran shrugged. “Well, anyway, he became a college professor. He taught mathematics.”

Liz tried to imagine that round-faced baby standing in front of a class droning on about math. She couldn’t, but the idea made her laugh again.

“Oh …” She stopped suddenly and jumped off the bed. “I just remembered.”

“What is it?” Gran asked.

But Liz was already looking behind the curtain. And there it was, the nail in the
window frame with the brass key hanging on it.

“Here,” she said. She turned and held it up for Gran to see. “It’s the key for the trunk.”

“How did you know to look there?” Gran asked. She took the key and fit it into the trunk’s lock. When the trunk was open, she bent eagerly over it. She seemed to have forgotten her own question.

Liz peered into the open trunk, too.

The contents had changed since she had looked in it on the other side of the wall. She could see that at a glance. The trunk was filled with yellowed sheets, a torn quilt, some limp towels. Gran took them all out and piled them on the floor.

“They’re pretty ragged,” she said. “I don’t think there is anything here worth saving.”

And then, to Liz’s surprise, Gran burst into tears.

“Oh, Gran,” Liz cried. She threw her arms around her grandmother’s neck. “What’s wrong? Tell me. Please!”

Gran hugged Liz. Then she sat back, wiping her tears with the backs of her hands. “It’s nothing … really,” she sniffed. “I guess I’d been sure I had something special in the trunk. Photos, maybe. Something to remind me of the old house when I can’t see it anymore.”

“Well,” Liz said. She picked up the moth-eaten quilt. “You could put this on your bed.”

They both laughed.

“Anyway,” Gran said, “tears are probably the best cure for a touch of sadness. Or the second best, anyway.”

“What’s the best?” Liz asked.

“Don’t you know?”

Liz shook her head. She didn’t know. She didn’t have any idea.

Gran took a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose. “Then I’ll tell you,” she said. “It’s sharing your bit of sadness with another Elizabeth.”

Liz felt warm all over. She lifted the last blanket from the trunk and looked beneath it. And that was when she saw it!

A handwritten booklet lay on the very bottom of the trunk. On the front it said, “Booke of Remedys.”

“Oh, Gran. Look!” Liz cried. She picked it up and handed it to her grandmother.

Gran stared at the booklet. “I wonder who this belonged to. I can’t remember ever seeing it before.” Her voice was filled with wonder.

“Open it,” Liz begged. “Read what it says about croup.”

Gran looked at her strangely, but she leafed through the booklet until she found the place. “The Croup,” she read. “A wet cloth over the face sometimes helps. But
the best remedy is to boil a kettle or pots of water. Make a tent over the boiling pots so the sufferer can breathe in the steam.”

Liz nodded. “It works,” she said.

Gran studied the page closely. Then she studied Liz. “When I was a girl,” she began at last. She paused, then started again. “When I was a girl, sometimes I used to think I heard voices in this room. Voices calling ‘Elizabeth.’ Once I even thought I saw a—” She stopped, as though the word were too hard to say.

“A ghost?” Liz supplied.

Gran nodded. “How did you know? I never told anyone.”

Liz took her grandmother’s hand. “You tell me about your ghost,” she said. “And I’ll tell you about mine.”

Her grandmother wiped away the last of the tears. Then she smiled and leaned back against the trunk. “A good story might be
the very best cure of all,” she said. “Why don’t you start?”

And so Liz did. “It all began,” she said, “with a blue ghost.”