Will O Wisp (13 page)

“
Sure and they are. What
about it?”

“
That's a honey tree. This
fall when the bees have that tree full of honey Thad should come
here and rob the tree. Help me remember where this tree is located
so we can show him,” Gracie said.

“
All right,” Shana said and
kept walking.

An animal made a barking sound over
Shana's head. Startled, she jumped and looked at the tree above
her. “What was that noise?”

“
A squirrel warning his
friends and the other animals that strangers are in their
territory,” Gracie explained.

Suddenly, there was rustling of leaves
and creaking limbs. The squirrel sprang from one flimsy tree branch
to another. When he reached the end of a long branch, the red furry
animal sprang out into mid air and landed in the next
tree.

“
He's meaning to get out of
sight before we get him,” Gracie said, smiling. “Only that ole
squirrel don't know I ain't after him. At least not today, because
I didn't bring my gun.”

Shana gave her a disbelieving stare.
“You shoot squirrels?”

“
Sure do. They're good to
eat,” Gracie declared.

Shana's look turned to scrutiny of
Gracie's face. “Do you eat ever livin', breathin' animal there
is?”

“
Probably not every one,
but back in my young days, Papa was a hunter. When I was old
enough, I hunted with him. That's how we had meat for the table. I
grew up used to the taste of wild game,” Gracie explained. “Now do
you know the difference in wild flowers when you see
them?”

“
No, I don't.”

“
Well when you see a flower
let me know. I'll tell you what it is. Most wild flowers are small
and delicate compared to house yard flowers,” Gracie said, moving
on.

They went back to searching around
their feet, not looking very far ahead.

Shana squealed shrilly.

“
What's the matter? You see
another squirrel?” Gracie asked. Shana didn't answer. Gracie
hustled over to her. She shook the pale faced girl's shoulder.
“Answer me. Did you step on a snake?”

“
They only come out at
night. The American ones must have even more audacity than Irish
ones.” Shana looked confounded as she pointed a shaky finger ahead
of them.

“
What are you mumbling
about?” Gracie looked in that direction, blinked and looked again.
Off in the distance, she barely had time to get a quick glance at a
small, white dressed figure. The child like form, in the shadows,
seemed to rearrange its shape in the cool timber air. “Someone's
out there,” she said in a hushed tone. “Did you get a good look?
Let's go see if we can catch up to her.”

“
I got n
o better than you tis to be sure, but I don't want to catch up
to her,” Shana whispered.

“
Why not? We should find
out who it is roaming around in here.”

“
To be sure, you don't want
to run into that during the day,” Shana said admittedly.

“
That what?” Gracie
asked.

“
That will o wisp,” Shana
said seriously.

“
What did you say?” Gracie
asked.

“
A will o wisp. The spirit
of a dead person. Usually, they only come out at night. They hide
behind trees and float through the air. The size of that one makes
me think it was the spirit of a child,” Shana said
hoarsely.

“
That's nonsense,” Gracie
gasped.

Shana shook her head slowly no. “Don't
you believe in the spirit world?”

“
There are enough things in
this world to disturb us without seeing ghosts in the shadows of
the night or day. You ever personally see a will o wisp?” Gracie
asked, doubtfully.

“
Nope, but I have heard
about them. People in Ireland see them all the time. Only it was
always at night,” Shana said. “Me mother's brother, Patrick, saw
one when he was comin' home late one night. A bright light floated
before him. On a closer look, he saw the light was a lantern held
by a glowin' little figure. Uncle Patrick followed for several
miles. Curious he was, until he suddenly found himself standin' on
the edge of a great chasm with a roaring torrent of water rushin'
below him.

Shana's voice became quieter as she
kept her eyes glued to the trees ahead of them. “At that very
moment, the lantern carrier leaped across the fissure, raised the
light over its head and let out a malicious laugh. After which ,
the will o wisp blew out the light, leavin' the unfortunate man far
from home. He was standin' in pitch darkness at the edge of a
precipice. It took him most of the night to get up the courage to
back away from the precipice and find his way home. Are we done
mushroom huntin' now?”

“
We still got some time.
Let's go look around. Maybe we can pick up the tracks of whoever
that was,” Gracie said.

“
You can't be serious. I
will not have anything to do with a will o wisp,” Shana
cried.

“
Listen, what we saw was
probably a live person. You're getting worked up over nothing, but
we don't have to go after whoever it was. We can walk over a ways
and turn back to the house if that makes you feel better,” Gracie
said.

Shana shook her head yes. “As long as
we're headed in the opposite direction from the will o wisp.” She
stopped walking. “Aunt Gracie, I just found a patch of wild
flowers. You want to tell me about them.”

Gracie inspected the small rectangle
shaped area of droopy, wild flowers by Shana's feet. “That's right
strange. Who makes a wild flower bed out here on
purpose?”

“
How do you know someone
did?”

“
Cause all the flowers are
different kinds. Each of these wild flowers grow in a patch by
themselves. That means someone dug these up from somewhere else and
planted them all together here,” Gracie said. “Not too long ago,
either. See how wilted they are. The plants haven't had time to
take root yet.”

“
What kind be
these?”

“
The smaller soft pink
flowers are Dutchmen britches. Some say the flowers look like
bloomers hung on a clothes line.”

Shana squatted to study the flowers.
“Sure and I do see that.”

Gracie pointed to another flower.
“This little purple and white one with the wide leaves is an
orchid. They are rare. The taller ones in orange are lady slippers.
Also, they are called jewel weed, because they sparkle when the dew
is on them. They can be boiled, and the juice spread on poison ivy
rash to stop the itch.” She lifted one of the wilted plants and
looked under it at the darkened earth. The ground was wet. Gracie
looked all around her and tilted an ear, listening.

Shana asked in a shaky voice, “Wha'd
you hear?”

“
Nothing but timber sounds
right now. I have the feeling someone is watching us. Girl, those
flowers have been watered recently. That wispy person we saw was
doing that when we surprised her. She just might be standing close
by watching us yet,” Gracie whispered.

“
That would be the will o
wisp. I want to go back to the house now,” Shana said
nervously.

“
I reckon that might be a
good idea. You know it seems strange to me if the Indians have been
here a while that we haven't run into them. I haven't even seen
them along the timber edge since we've been here,” Gracie mused as
she led the way back through the timber. “Wonder where they got off
to.”

“
The will o wisp is enough
to see for one day. I don't want to see Indians right now,”
complained Shana. “I just want to go home.”

Chapter Ten

Gracie shaded her eyes to see where
the sun was in the sky. If she was right about the time, she'd have
time to help Melinda clean the mushrooms for lunch. It sure didn't
take long to fry morels.

They passed the pond and trudged over
the pasture hill. Gracie noted the wild strawberry patch on the
hill slope. She pointed the patch out to Shana. “See those ripe
strawberries in that patch. This afternoon, we can pick them. I bet
Melinda knows how to make a strawberry shortcake.”

“
For certain, that sounds
purely good to me,” Shana agreed, brightening up.

They came around the barn and found a
horse tied to the hitching ring on the barn.

Shana said, “We have
company.”

“
More like Melinda has
company,” grumbled Gracie.

Shana gave her a serious look. “What
does that mean?

“
That horse belongs to the
man who pulled the deer's head out of the buggy when we first came
here,” Gracie said.

“
Oh, yer boyfriend,” Shana
said nonchalantly.

Gracie blustered, “He isn't any such
thing. Who told you that?”

“
Aunt Melinda told me you
two were sweethearts years ago,” Shana said.

“
That woman talks entirely
too much about things that aren't any of her business,” Gracie
groused.

To change the subject, Shana pointed
to the clothes line. “Look, Aunt Melinda, washed clothes this
morning.”

“
I see that,” Gracie said
with disinterest. Her whole day was ruined now that she was going
to have to put up with Millard at lunch time.

When they walked into the kitchen,
Millard was at the table, having a cup of coffee and talking to
Melinda. She turned from the stove and asked, “Have any
luck?”

Gracie held up her pillow case to show
them the bulge in it.

“
That looks like a good
mess of mushrooms. Dump them in the dish pan. They will go well
with lunch,” Melinda said. “Help yourself to the coffee and sit
down. You must be tired from all that walking to find the
morels.”

“”
Hello, Mr. Sokal,” Shana
greeted as she plopped down beside him.

“
Howdy, youngun,” Millard
returned.

“
Shana, you want a cup of
hot cocoa?” Melinda asked.

“
Yes, ma'am.”

“
Bring me the cocoa and
that pitcher of milk from the pantry. I'll fix it for you,” Melinda
said.

Gracie could feel Millard watching her
all the way to the stove. When she turned back to the table with
her cup of coffee, he smiled at her.

“
Morning, Millard,” she
said flatly.

“
Morning, Gracie. Miss
Melinda invited me to stay for lunch. Hope that's all right?”
Millard didn't look as though her opinion would bother him one way
or the other.

“
I figured she might,”
Gracie said, sitting down on the opposite end of the
table.

When Shana returned again, she sat by
Millard and waited for Melinda to heat her cocoa.

“
How you enjoying your stay
on the farm?” Millard asked the girl.

“
We had fun fishing. I have
never been fishing before. Gracie's barn yard has the biggest,
juiciest worms I've ever seen. The fish we caught really like
eating them,” Shana said enthusiastically.

“
Do tell,” Millard
exclaimed.

“
Some of the fattest worms
were that long,” Shana said, holding her hands about six inches
apart.

“
Dear, we really shouldn't
talk about such things at the table,” Melinda cautioned.

“
Sorry I am.” Shana paused
then added, “
It's been fun here until we
saw the will o wisp this morning,” Shana blurted out. “That for
sure scared me.”

Millard said, “The what?”

“
Shana, you might not ought
to talk about that right now,” Gracie cautioned.

“
Go on, Shana. I'd like to
hear about what you saw,” Millard encouraged.

The way he grinned at Gracie, she was
pretty sure he was egging Shana on, because Gracie tried to silence
the child.

“
Spirit of dead people that
roam in the woods are called will o wisps. We saw one this mornin'.
They usually don't come out until after dark like the one in the
storm.” Shana sounded frightened at the thought.

Gracie set her cup down. “What did you
see in the rainstorm?”

Shana ducked her head to stare at her
hot cocoa. “I hadn't meant to mention that will o wisp.”

“
Now that you have, you
best be telling us about it,” Gracie ordered.

“
I got out of bed to look
out the window at the storm. A will o wisp was standing by a tree
at the beginning of the lane. She ran across the lane into the
timber. It was raining too hard to make out much,” Shana
said.

Melinda stopped what she was doing and
came to the table. Her face was pale. “Are these will o wisps
transparent?”

Shana paused to think about
that.

Melinda persisted, “I mean could you
see through them?”

“
It was kind of hard to
tell from where we were this morning. The one we saw kept dodgin'
behind the trees to hide, but I think it was see through. They are
supposed to be I know,” Shana answered.

Gracie eyed Melinda. “You sound like
you've seen a will o wisp in person.”