by Paula Morris
“The dance. On Thursday.” Anton scuffed at the steps of the tomb with one shoe.
“Oh.” Rebecca had forgotten all about it. She still hadn’t mentioned it to Ling. She was such an idiot: Neither of them even had anything to wear. “Yeah, sure — I guess.”
“St. Simeon’s is organizing it this year,” Anton said. “So it might be better than usual. And maybe with the four of us going together, we could have some fun.”
Rebecca slid down so she was sitting on the steps of the tomb, her back to the cold marble slab.
“Sure,” she said again, staring at her damp shoes. “I just don’t want to make any problems for you. Remember how bad things were at the Bowmans’ Christmas party when people saw you’d taken me? And after the party, when nobody wanted to talk to you?”
“That was then,” Anton insisted. “Things are different now. People have grown up. They’ve moved on. Marianne and Toby are gone — well, Toby wouldn’t show his face there. And Helena … well. You know. The old group’s all broken up. We don’t hang out in the cemetery at night anymore. Everyone’s thinking about college now. People like Phil don’t know anything about … the past. Does Ling …?”
“No.” Rebecca shook her head.
“Good.” Anton sat down next to Rebecca, so close their arms were almost touching. Almost, but not quite. “Everything having to do with that curse — it’s family business. It shouldn’t involve anyone from the outside.”
Rebecca looked carefully at Anton. “I’m from the outside, really.”
“I don’t think of you that way. I never did.” Anton laid his hand on Rebecca’s and they fell silent. The only sound was a car hissing past on the wet road, and the low cackle of insects. Rebecca’s hand felt as though it were tingling with electricity; she dared not move in case Anton thought she was pushing him away. That was the last thing Rebecca wanted to do. She wished this moment could go on and on, but soon they’d have to be back at the gate to meet Ling and Phil. And Rebecca still had said nothing about Frank.
“I need to … I need to tell you something,” she blurted, desperate to get it all out before she lost her nerve. “I saw another ghost, and I really need your help. His name is Frank and he was murdered in 1873. He dropped this locket under the floorboards of a house in Tremé….”
“Wait, wait, wait. You’ve seen another ghost?”
“Yes. Well, he saw me. It’s a long story, but anyway, he talked to me in New York, and now he’s down here, and I said I’d help him.”
“God, Rebecca, what are you doing?” Anton pulled his hand away. “Didn’t you learn your lesson last time? Ghosts are bad news. They’re trouble! You have to stay away from them.”
“Please, would you just listen for a minute? The locket is in this old house and he needs my help to get it.”
Anton wheezed out an impatient sigh.
“I don’t even know if I believe in ghosts, OK? This Frank guy — he might just be some weirdo spinning you a line.”
Rebecca frowned. “What do you mean you don’t believe in ghosts? What about Lisette?”
“That was different.”
“What, so you think there’s, like, one ghost in the whole world? And now she’s gone, we can all pretend it never happened …”
“Pretty much.”
“… and pretend that it’ll never happen again?”
“I just think that we have more pressing problems right now with the living,” he said. “This thing with Toby — it’s the main issue on my mind.”
“I know that guys aren’t good at multitasking,” Rebecca said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Why was he reacting like this? Why was he being so dismissive?
“We should get going.” Anton stood up, dusting off his hands as though he’d been touching something dirty. “Let’s talk about this some other time, OK?”
“I don’t know when that other time will be.” Rebecca pushed herself up. She was blinking back tears. She’d really believed that Anton would understand and help her. Instead he was treating her like a silly little girl.
“Well, we’ll see each other on Thursday, won’t we?”
Rebecca gazed at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying. She was only here until Sunday. Was Anton really not planning to see her at all until the dance on Thursday night? Was that all she was to him — someone to just bring there so he wouldn’t show up alone?
She was furious with Anton, and furious with herself for thinking she could confide in him. As usual, all he cared about were his friends, and his social life.
“Find someone else to take,” she said, and stalked off toward the Sixth Street gate.
Aunt Claudia’s windows were steamed up because of the rice boiling away on the old stove. The kitchen was still cluttered and eclectic to say the least, with its mismatched chairs and purple-painted cupboard doors that never seemed to close properly. But all the ripped calendar pages once stuck on the walls were gone, and the old teapot with the chipped spout was now a flower pot on the windowsill. Maybe because it was a special occasion, Aunt Claudia’s tarot deck — usually in pride of place on the table, wedged between a salt shaker and a bottle of hot sauce — had been hidden away somewhere.
Rebecca was grateful for the clamor and visual distractions of the house, because it meant she could avoid Ling’s meaningful looks. Of course she knew something was up with Anton and Rebecca — she wasn’t blind. But Rebecca didn’t feel like talking about it, and luckily there was the distraction of a house tour by Aurelia, hugging an unwilling Marilyn the cat in her arms.
“This is the parlor,” she told Ling, gesturing with one of Marilyn’s paws at the array of horse-hair sofas, dusty statuettes, and — a new addition — bronze miniature elephants arranged on top of the TV. “We don’t use this room much.”
“Does it have bad energy?” Ling whispered, clearly trying to enter into the spirit of the place. Aurelia looked puzzled.
“Stuff sticks out of the sofa and the television doesn’t work,” she replied, before bouncing off down the hallway.
Rebecca’s old room hadn’t changed much, though a lot of the freaky items she’d moved to the attic — like the monkey skull that served as a bookend, and the flaking carnival mask from Haiti — were back in position.
“I used to call this the voodoo room, but now we call it Rebecca’s room,” said Aurelia solemnly. “See?”
She pointed to a framed picture on the bedside table. It was a photograph of Rebecca sitting at the kitchen table and trying to read a magazine — impossible because Marilyn had leapt onto the table and settled herself on the left-hand page.
When Ling was in the bathroom, Aurelia cornered Rebecca in the hallway.
“You know, I saw you,” Aurelia whispered, and Rebecca’s blood ran cold. “Going into the cemetery when it was all locked up.”
“Keep it to yourself, OK?” Rebecca whispered back. This was the last thing she needed: a public announcement.
“Of course!” Aurelia was indignant, and speaking so loudly that Rebecca pulled her back into the bedroom. Marilyn took the opportunity to scamper away.
“It’s just you know how crazy my dad and your mother get about breaking rules and stuff,” Rebecca explained.
“And about going into the cemetery when nobody’s supposed to be in there,” Aurelia replied. “You could have let me in, too, you know.”
“But you can go in anytime — when it’s open, I mean.”
“Not with you and Ling.” Aurelia looked hurt. “You said we’d spend time together, but you don’t even let me walk around with you when you’re right here on this street.”
“I’m sorry,” Rebecca told her. She hadn’t even thought about asking Aurelia to hang out with them that afternoon. “But look — we only arrived on Saturday. We have lots of time to hang out together, OK?”
“When?”
“After school tomorrow. Um, I think. We may be doing … something.”
“Like what?” Aurelia’
s eyes watered with tears. “Why is everyone always trying to keep things secret from me? I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m thirteen.”
“I know,” Rebecca sighed. “But that’s still … I mean …”
“What?” Aurelia was instantly offended. “Like you’re so grown up.”
“Hey, you two!” Ling poked her head around the door. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” they both said, a little too quickly, at the same time.
“Secrets, secrets, secrets,” said Ling, narrowing her eyes.
Rebecca glared over at the monkey skull, directing all her — what was it Ling had called it? Bad energy? — at the stupid thing. But when Aurelia flounced off in search of Marilyn, Ling stepped into the room and closed the door.
“Is everything OK?” she asked. “With you and Anton, I mean.”
“Sure. Don’t worry.”
“Well, I am worried ’cause you seem pretty upset.”
Rebecca took a deep breath.
“It’s … it’s nothing. He’s just an idiot sometimes.”
“Oh.” Ling frowned. “So — well, Phil mentioned something about a dance on Thursday.”
“Yeah. I meant to tell you about it, but — well, I’m not going, anyway. You can go if you want.”
“I’m not going if you’re not,” said Ling. “Is this about those girls from Temple Mead? Phil said something about stories he’d heard at school, about Anton being a pariah when he used to hang out with you. Something about a Christmas party? I never realized it was so bad for you here.”
Rebecca could barely swallow. Part of her wanted to burst into tears and tell Ling everything — everything about Lisette, everything about Frank. But part of her, the outraged part, wanted to smack each and every boy at St. Simeon’s and tell them to shut their big mouths.
“Rebecca! Ling!” Her father was calling them, and Rebecca practically sprinted to the kitchen.
“I don’t know why we never make this,” he was telling Aunt Claudia when Rebecca walked in, Ling trailing behind. He held plates aloft while Aunt Claudia ladled out a brownish stew of beans and spicy sausage onto steaming mounds of rice. “Those red beans smell so good.”
“Red beans and rice, every Monday night,” Aunt Claudia told Ling. “This is what people all over the city are eating right now. Nothing changes in New Orleans.”
Nothing changes. Rebecca sat down at the kitchen table, her aunt’s words echoing in her head. A year was a short time in a city as old as this. Nothing had changed. Rebecca had been deluding herself if she’d thought anything else.
Aunt Claudia insisted on driving them home, and Aurelia insisted on coming along for the ride, so Rebecca was pressed up against a window, her nose almost touching the glass.
It was dark now, and the squat palm trees planted down the narrow median strip — which New Orleanians called the “neutral ground” — looked dense and mysterious. The only other cars driving along Rampart Street seemed to be taxis, but the lack of traffic didn’t deter Aunt Claudia from her favorite habits: driving the most circuitous route, driving as slowly as possible, and missing the turn.
“I think that was where we have to turn, back there,” said her father, in the front seat. “But we can turn — oh!”
Rather than just take the next right into the Quarter, and wend through the one-way grid of streets, Aunt Claudia pulled one of Miss Viola’s maneuvers and performed an abrupt U-turn on Rampart. Aurelia, who was squashed in the middle, lurched into Rebecca, and Rebecca banged her forehead on the window.
“Ouch,” she said, staring ruefully over at the other side of Rampart Street, where they should have been driving. There was their corner, with the four grand town houses in a row. Well, three grand town houses and one unloved, derelict one at the end, screaming out for paint and tenants and new window shutters.
Except tonight the top-floor gallery was illuminated by an eerie, silvery glow, stronger than candlelight but not bright enough to be electricity. Rebecca looked closer. It was almost like a mist, or maybe like smoke — but neither of those things made sense, because Rebecca associated mist and smoke with darkness, and this was a soft, wispy light.
She craned her neck, trying to see where it was coming from. Had someone found their way inside? She’d heard about vagrants and squatters colonizing empty houses, but it seemed strange they would head for the very top floor.
Then a girl appeared — practically wafted to the gallery’s railings — and leaned out. Rebecca gasped.
“What is it?” Aurelia wanted to know.
“Up there — look.” Rebecca pointed to the town house. The girl was dark-haired and wore a white dress of some kind, maybe a nightgown. She gripped the railings, looking up and down the street.
“That old house.” Aurelia seemed disappointed. “Is it falling down?”
Aunt Claudia made another one of her wide U-turns, and Rebecca couldn’t see anything anymore.
“Aunt Claudia!” she called. “Would it be OK if you let us out on the corner of Orleans?”
“That’s a good idea,” her father said, probably worried they’d spend all evening driving up and down Rampart.
When all the good-byes were said, and they were standing on Rampart waving as Aunt Claudia’s car made its dramatic swing into yet another U-turn, Rebecca inched her way to the curb. From here, looking upward, she could still see the silvery light, but to see the girl on the gallery she’d need to walk into the road.
“What is it?” Ling walked over.
“I think there’s someone up there. You know, in the empty house. I saw lights up on the gallery.”
“You can see lights?” Rebecca’s father stood with them now, squinting up. “Really? It looks dark to me.”
“And me,” agreed Ling. “Maybe we could go stand …”
“In the neutral ground — I mean, the median — OK.” Rebecca checked for oncoming cars and then bounded toward the neutral ground, before her father could say no.
“Just be careful!” he called, looking up and down the street before he crossed with Ling. “It’s getting kind of late to be running around on Rampart.”
Rebecca’s eyes weren’t tricking her: The top gallery was lit in some way, and the girl with dark hair — long curls, Rebecca could see now — was still leaning over the railings. When she noticed Rebecca gazing up at her, she smiled, raising one bare arm in a slow wave.
“Nope,” Rebecca’s father said. He was standing right next to her on the grassy verge, looking straight at the building. “I can’t see any lights on, honey.”
“Neither can I,” said Ling. “Maybe it was a reflection from car lights or something? It’s a shame that building is so messed up. It looks like it’s about to fall down at any minute.”
“Just as well there’s nobody there,” said her dad. “If we really did see lights on, I’d have to call the police.”
Rebecca stared up at the girl nobody else could see. Her heart was pounding. She opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again. There was a girl up there, waving at them, and there were lights probably visible from the other side of Armstrong Park. But Ling couldn’t see anything and neither could Rebecca’s dad. All they could see was a beaten-up town house with dangling rusted galleries and broken shutters. That’s why the girl wasn’t really waving at them. She was waving at Rebecca.
Rebecca’s dad urged Rebecca and Ling to come along and head back to the compound. Rebecca complied, but her thoughts were racing. Whatever Anton said, whatever he might choose to believe, ghosts were everywhere in New Orleans. Yet another one was trying to get Rebecca’s attention. What was her story? Was she going to ask for Rebecca’s help, too?
On Tuesday afternoon, Rebecca stood outside the house on St. Philip Street where Lisette used to live, wishing she could go inside to take a look. But that wasn’t possible, because it was private property.
“Someone from North Carolina owns it now,” her father was saying. He’d been investigating the house throu
gh one of his contacts at City Hall. “I guess they only visit during the holidays.”
“At least it wasn’t demolished,” Ling pointed out. All she knew about this house was that it was one Rebecca had worked on. She didn’t know about the personal connection. She also didn’t know that Rebecca kept looking up and down the street waiting for Frank to show up, so he could point out the house where the locket lay hidden.
There were too many ghosts around here, Rebecca thought. Too many secrets.
The first time Rebecca ever saw Lisette’s house, it was in a terrible state. It looked as though it had been painted with dirty water, and the roof had buckled. Weeds as big as bushes grew up through cracks in the foundation. It was one of the oldest houses in Tremé, and years of neglect had left it on the verge of collapse.
Eventually she’d been able to go back, with Anton, and help one of the rebuilding crews turn the crumbling, moldy, bug-bitten shell into a house again. Now it looked as fresh and neat as it must have to Lisette and her mother, back before the Civil War, when they lived there.
The stuccoed brick was painted pale blue, the way Lisette had described it, and the shutters were bright yellow. Every slate on the steep roof was new and firmly fixed in place, and the guttering and sawtooth detail across the façade were white. New concrete steps, low and broad, led to the front door.
“It’s a genuine Creole cottage,” Rebecca’s father told Ling. “Built back when this was a brand-new neighborhood, and many of the people living here were the community known as free people of color.”
People like Lisette’s mother, Rebecca thought. She’d come to New Orleans during the revolution in Haiti, and built her own little business as a seamstress, making beautiful clothes for the rich Creole families in the Quarter and on Esplanade Avenue. This neighborhood must have looked so bright and promising then.
Now some of the houses on St. Philip Street looked on the verge of collapse. Three houses in particular were in a terrible state, overgrown with vines, their windows either boarded up or smashed. One was leaning sideways and looked as though one push would topple it completely. Parched boards hung loose from the frame, and the collapsing house had been tagged with black paint. It was amazing those three houses were still standing at all.
