by Paula Morris
“Can you wait?” Rebecca whispered to him. “I’ll come back out when I can, OK? It may be a while….”
She tried to think of possible excuses for her to wander off alone this afternoon, and not a single one came to mind. Even if she could shake off her father, Ling would want to come out to explore the Quarter.
“I usually haunt the corner,” the boy told her, pointing toward Rampart Street. “I’m there most of the time.”
“The corner.” Rebecca nodded, and the boy smiled at her again.
“My name is Frank O’Connor,” he said.
“Rebecca Brown,” she said in reply, but before the words were out of her mouth, he was gone — just vanished, in that weird abrupt way ghosts had. Rebecca could have sworn that his smile, broad and sweet, was the last thing to disappear.
The house they were renting wasn’t really just one house. Behind the main house lay a secluded courtyard, which led to yet another building, two stories high, its only staircase outside. This building was the old slave quarters, Rebecca’s dad explained. When the main house was built in the 1840s, he said, the kitchen would have taken up much of the ground floor of the slave quarters. Upstairs were rooms for the “help,” as Aunt Claudia put it: slaves before the Civil War, and servants afterward.
These days the kitchen was in the main house, along with the master bedroom, where Rebecca’s dad was sleeping. The slave quarters were a warren of small rooms, the lower story mainly used for storage, as far as Rebecca could tell. Upstairs, opening onto a narrow gallery shaded by banana trees, there were two small bedrooms and a bathroom for Rebecca and Ling.
Right now this was really, really good news, because it made it much easier for Rebecca to slip away.
It was early in the evening, and they’d all spent the last hour or so strolling the still-busy streets of the Quarter — around Jackson Square and down to the river levee, stopping every few steps so Ling could take more pictures. Soon they’d be heading out again to eat, but in the meantime, Rebecca had a chance to go outside unseen. Ling was taking what she called “a nice long shower,” and Rebecca’s dad was lolling inside the main house, with its closed shutters, watching golf on TV and checking his e-mail.
Rebecca crept down the wooden steps, across the courtyard, and along the narrow alley that led to the street. She didn’t have long, but she really had to know what the ghost boy — Frank — was looking for so desperately. Maybe he was like Lisette, trapped in ghostdom by some terrible curse. How did he die — and why did he die so young? Ling was right: She was too nosy about other people’s business.
It was dusk, but still warm and hazy. Rebecca scampered up to the corner of Rampart Street and paced up and down, trying to make herself as obvious as possible. On the far side of Rampart Street a tour group emerged from Armstrong Park and climbed into a waiting minibus, but otherwise the broad street was pretty deserted. Where was Frank? Wasn’t this the place he told her to wait?
“Come on, Frank,” she said aloud, tapping the curb with her foot as though the noise might summon him. “Show yourself!”
“I’m right here,” said a voice behind her, and an icy breeze shivered through Rebecca, cold as winter in New York.
Frank was standing by the doorway of the boarded-up house, looking like a smudge of dirt. Rebecca retreated into the shadows of the house as well, leaning against one of the rough boards. She had to keep an eye out for anyone walking past: They’d think she was crazy, talking to herself. Standing this close to Frank, shaded by the building’s rusted iron galleries, it was all Rebecca could do not to shiver. All the warmth seemed to have been sucked out of the day.
“I can’t stay long,” Rebecca whispered. “Tell me what this is about.”
“A locket,” said Frank, his eyes fixed on hers. “A locket that someone tried to steal from me the day I was murdered.”
“And … when was that?” Rebecca asked, trying not to sound too freaked out.
“It was March of 1873,” Frank told her.
“In New York?”
“Here, in New Orleans. Not far from here.” Frank nodded toward the other side of Rampart Street, where the streets of Tremé began.
“So … why did I see you in New York? I don’t really understand. Are you from New York?”
“I lived there,” Frank explained. “But I’m from Liverpool, originally. Liverpool in England.”
“Like The Beatles!”
Frank looked mystified.
“I came to New York with my family when I was twelve,” he said. “I took whatever work I could on the docks there, and sometimes I’d get work on a ship sailing down here. Spring was high season for cotton.”
“So you worked loading ships?”
Frank shook his head. “The colored men, they unloaded cotton from the steamboats. Lads like me, sometimes we’d be paid to guard the bales on the levees. People were always thieving from them, pulling cotton from a bale and running off. Times were hard after the war — that’s what everyone said. Too many people of all colors looking for work. So I went back and forth to New York and worked up there as well. That’s why he remembered me.”
“Your murderer?”
“No, the artist. The artist who gave me the locket. I carried his bags for him and his brother in New York, and then he saw me again down here, a few months later. I was running messages to one of the cotton offices on Carondelet Street, and when he saw me there he remembered me.”
“What’s a cotton office?” Rebecca didn’t want to seem stupid, but she really had no idea.
“Where cotton is bought and sold,” Frank said, frowning. She guessed that this was a stupid question as far as he was concerned. She must have still looked uncertain, because he explained some more: Men in these cotton offices would buy picked, raw cotton from planters all over Louisiana and Mississippi, and then sell it, so it could be shipped to the big mills in England and woven into material.
“I get it,” said Rebecca. She’d never thought once, in her whole life, how her cotton T-shirts made it from fluffy stuff on a plant to an item of clothing sold on Broadway. “So, this man — the artist — he gave you the locket in this cotton office place?”
“No, no. Sometime later — a month, maybe. He was boarding a ship to Havana. I was down on the docks that day, looking for work. I saw him say good-bye to his brother and the old man from the cotton office, and then they left. Not long after, he came walking down the gangplank. That’s when he saw me.”
“And you said he remembered you?”
“Yes. He handed me the locket and told me to take it straight away to his uncle’s house on Esplanade Avenue. He said he wished his cousin to have it. I promised I would do as he asked.”
“What was this man’s name?”
“I don’t know. He never told me.”
Rebecca bit her lip, feeling increasingly intrigued and confused at the same time. “And how do you know he was an artist?”
“I remembered his brother joking when I carried their bags in New York. There was one bag I was to be extra careful with, because there were paints and brushes in it, and a sketchbook. His brother said the gentleman was a Grande Artiste. They were foreign, you see.”
Frank was foreign, as far as Rebecca was concerned, but she didn’t point this out.
“And I looked inside,” he continued. “Just a little peek, you know.”
“Inside what?”
“The locket. There was a little picture, a tiny painting. It was a lady, and I thought it might be his cousin.”
“And what was this cousin’s name?” she asked.
“Desirée,” Frank said.
“Sounds French,” said Rebecca, and Frank nodded. “What was her last name?’
“It sounded like moo-son,” Frank said. “I think her father was one of the partners at the cotton office. The old man I saw at the dock here. I’d heard that name before.”
Rebecca thought for a second. “If he was one of the partners, his name would be on the s
ign outside the office, right?”
“Yes,” Frank agreed. “But I never learned my letters.”
“Oh.” Rebecca felt herself blushing, though Frank didn’t seem embarrassed.
“And even if I could read,” he went on, “that particular cotton office had closed. Places were always going out of business then. One day you’d carry a message somewhere, the next day the place would be empty.”
“How did you know where to deliver things, if you couldn’t read names or the numbers on buildings?” Rebecca asked, hoping this wasn’t too rude a question. “And how would you know which house on Esplanade you were looking for? How would you even know which street you were on?”
This question seemed to surprise Frank.
“All of us lads who took messages, we had to learn which was Canal Street, and which was Rampart, and so on,” he said. “It wouldn’t take long if you had half a mind to learn it, and we never had to venture far from the river. To find a house or an office, you would ask people. Servants, porters, laundresses, oyster-sellers. The men sweeping the road. Once you’d run an errand somewhere, you remembered it.” He paused a beat, studying her, and Rebecca willed herself not to blush again. “So you can read, then?” Frank asked her.
“Yes.” Rebecca tried to imagine what it would be like if she couldn’t read, if street signs and house numbers were mysterious marks that made no sense. It would be like living in a foreign country, one with a different alphabet, for your entire life.
“You’re lucky,” said Frank, and Rebecca realized that this was true.
“So what happened after he gave you the locket?” she asked, and glanced nervously over her shoulder. Time was racing by; Ling might have wandered over to the main house, looking for her. “Someone stole it from you, right?”
“It wasn’t stolen,” Frank said quickly. “Someone tried to steal it. He beat me, and dragged me into a house. Then he robbed me of my money. The artist had given me a dollar as payment for delivering the locket to his cousin.”
A dollar in 1873 was probably a lot of money, Rebecca thought, especially for someone who earned money carrying bags and running errands.
“He took the dollar, and he would have taken the locket as well, if he’d managed to find it. He killed me before he could find it.”
“So it’s in your pocket?” Rebecca didn’t understand. Frank shook his head.
“I hid it,” he said. “I dropped it between the floorboards of a house — the house where he murdered me. It’s still there now. I swear to you, it’s still there now.”
“But wouldn’t it fall right through to the ground?” Rebecca knew that a lot of the old houses in New Orleans sat on piles, so air could flow underneath.
“Not in this house,” Frank said. “It’s lying on a plank of wood, two inches below the floor.”
“You’re sure nobody has found it in all these years?” she asked. Frank shook his head.
“It’s still there,” Frank assured her. “I go over there to check it all the time. The house is empty — half falling over, to tell you the truth of it.”
“Why can’t you just go and get it?”
“We can’t pick things up and carry them around.” Frank sounded sad, defeated. “Believe me, if we could, I would have done it a century ago. We need someone from the world of the living to help.”
Rebecca thought about how long the locket was hidden in that house. The building might be empty now, but for years it must have been someone’s home. “Couldn’t someone living there at some point have helped you?”
Frank frowned. “Most people don’t want to have anything to do with ghosts. They scream, or call in exorcists, or move out because the house is haunted. That’s why, when I first saw you — you know, with Lisette — I thought you might be different. You might not be a person who was terrified of ghosts.”
Rebecca thought back to that day a year ago when she’d seen all the ghosts of New Orleans. And Frank had been among them, somewhere. “How did you know I wasn’t a ghost myself?” she asked.
Frank smiled, as though this was the silliest question he’d ever heard.
“You were holding Lisette’s hand. You never see two ghosts doing that. You only see it when we’re escorting someone from the world of the living. And that is very unusual.”
“You can say that again,” Rebecca muttered. She couldn’t help noticing that he had a beautiful smile, though.
“I looked for you the November just gone, but Lisette didn’t make her walk then, and the other ghosts were saying she was no longer with us. So when I saw you in New York, down where the docks used to be, I knew it was a sign.”
“I’m not sure I believe in signs,” Rebecca said. She glanced over her shoulder once more, worried that her dad and Ling were looking for her out the window. “Look, I really have to go back now.”
“Back to New York? But you just arrived!”
“Back to my house,” she told him. “The place I’m staying. I snuck out, and my Dad’ll freak if he realizes I’m not there.”
“Freak?” Frank asked.
“Get all upset.”
“Rebecca,” Frank said. Her name sounded unfamiliar in his soft accent — as entrancing and seductive as his deep blue eyes. “Please. You have to help me. I’ve been waiting for a hundred and forty years. I may never have this chance again.”
“But you haven’t told me why you need to get this locket,” Rebecca whispered. “Or what I’m supposed to do with it.”
“Please,” said Frank, his gaze practically splitting her in two. “I thought you’d understand. I broke my promise. I should have taken the locket straight to the house on Esplanade Avenue, but I didn’t. Lying under those floorboards, the locket is as good as stolen. Until it’s given to its rightful owners, I’ll be stuck here in the afterlife, condemned to be a ghost for all eternity. Please — you have to help me!”
Rebecca thought of Lisette, desperate to escape the relentless loneliness of the world of ghosts. All Lisette wanted was to see her mother again, to rest in peace. Lisette had been trapped by a complicated curse, but all Frank needed was the rescue of this locket — a locket that lay undisturbed, he said, in an abandoned house just a few streets from here. It seemed like such a small thing to do. How could she say no?
“I’ll find you again,” Rebecca told him, backing up a few paces. “I don’t know when, but I’ll come looking for you. Then you can show me the house.”
The next day was beautiful, sunny, and much warmer than in New York. Not a day to be thinking about ghosts and buried lockets, but the conversation with Frank was still on Rebecca’s mind. She hadn’t been able to shake him from her thoughts all through dinner last night.
Now, she stood on a grassy bank looking out at Lake Pontchartrain, its water metallic blue, ruffled with white by the breeze. In the distance, the long bridge called the Causeway stretched toward the North Shore. Seagulls cried overhead and a pelican soared past, plunging into the water to scoop up a fish. Sailboats lurched by, puffed with wind.
Really, it would have been an idyllic scene if Rebecca weren’t practically knee-deep in garbage, pulling bottles and cans out of a ditch clogged with mud and sand.
“Hey, look!” Ling shouted from farther down the shorefront. Like Rebecca, she was wearing shorts, a red T-shirt that read FRENCH QUARTER TRADERS ASSOCIATION, and a pair of oversized gardening gloves. “Another one!”
Ling was heaving a rusted shopping cart — her second of the day — out of the water, to the cheers of the workers around her. Rebecca raised an empty soda can as a mock toast to Ling’s efforts, and then crammed the can into the trash bag tied to one wrist. She couldn’t believe how much garbage people threw into the lake, or hurled into one of the storm drains. In addition to the hundreds of squashed cans and broken bottles, they’d pulled out plastic bags, cell phones, a decomposing baby stroller, assorted shoes, an LSU flag, and a crumpled car bumper.
Almost two thousand people were taking part in the Big Sw
eep today, they’d been told, working in teams on both sides of the lake. Anton was here, somewhere, with his soccer team, but Rebecca didn’t know how he’d ever find her.
Ling clambered up the bank and together she and Rebecca stood watching one of the women in their team pull a barbecue grill out of the water: It was ensnared with weeds, twisted plastic bags, and — unbelievably — a broken string of silver Mardi Gras beads.
“Hang on to that grill, baby!” The overenthusiastic zone captain walked up, his gloves stuffed into one pocket. He was bald, chubby, and any age between forty and maybe sixty. He owned a restaurant on Bourbon Street. This guy had organized the group, handed out the red T-shirts they all wore, and had insisted that everyone call him Z-Cap. “We might need to cook us some lunch on it. Right? Right?”
“Man, we really got to do this in New York when we get back,” Ling said, tugging on her gloves again. Fearlessly, she reached into the storm drain and pulled out a dripping, empty cigarette packet. “Maybe we could adopt a stretch of highway, like Bette Midler did.”
“Rebecca!”
Rebecca heard a familiar girl’s voice and blinked into the sunlight.
Her cousin, Aurelia, was thundering toward them along the bank. “Rebecca!” she called.
Rebecca reached out her arms, which was just as well: Aurelia tripped on an exposed concrete pipe, staggered the last few steps, and almost fell on top of her.
“Oh my god I can’t believe I found you,” Aurelia said in one breathless rush, turning her fall into a crushing hug. “We’re way, way down there, and Miss Shaw is so mean — she wouldn’t let me come look for you even though I said you were my cousin and all. But then we fished out a body, and she got sick and had to lie down in the back of her car. So I ran off to look for you.”
Rebecca felt a chill. “You fished out a body?”
“We thought it was, but it was just a nappy old wig and a tire with a coat hanger sticking out of it.”
