Grave Heritage

by Blanche Day Manos

  He leaned toward me and gave me a swift peck on my cheek. “Just get well and stay safe. And stay out of trouble.”

  “Yes, Sir,” I muttered. To my credit, I didn’t salute. But I felt like it. The only complaint I had about Grant was his bossiness. I had known him since we were kids. He was bossy then and he was still bossy.

  Chapter 7

  “There!” I said, rising to my feet with the help of a hoe handle. My burned leg felt stiff and made kneeling a challenge. “That was the last sweet basil to go in the ground. We’ve done a good morning’s work, Mom.”

  My mother straightened a stepping stone and stood up, her hand on her back. “It’s so aggravating when I can’t get down on my knees without my joints complaining. Getting old, I guess.”

  I laughed. “That’ll be the day. You’re as young as springtime! You have planted more herbs this morning than I have. I really like the way you’re arranging this area, with the paving stones going through the whole garden, and the bench by the bird bath.”

  We stood admiring our handiwork. Miss Georgia’s herbs joined those that Mom planted earlier. Mom had plotted out the whole garden last winter before we moved, determined to keep a natural, woodsy look. She had succeeded! A few dogwood trees grew among the herbs and even a couple of sumac bushes.

  She’d defended her choice when I questioned leaving the lowly sumac where we found it, growing among the dogwoods.

  “Those leaves turn a beautiful color in the fall,” she said. “I don’t want to disturb these woods any more than necessary. The trees were here before anybody thought about building a house and I want to keep them. I’ll just plant my herb garden in places that won’t bother anything that’s already growing.”

  She even brought the old mossy rock from the house in town that had been in my grandparents’ barnyard many years ago, just to add to the natural look. It was as if the rock had never left the farm.

  Taller herbs like the bee balm and lavender grew among rosemary and sage. Garlic also found a home in the herb garden. Along and between the stepping stones, Mom had planted creeping phlox and lemon thyme.

  “Walking through your garden is indulging in aromatherapy,” I told her. “It’s beautiful and it smells heavenly.”

  She pushed a strand of hair back from her face and smiled. “Yes, I love it out here. Maybe next year we can set up a small pond with a stream. Someday it’ll be as pretty as Miss Georgia’s.”

  Putting my arm around her, I said. “I think it is prettier right now. I like it!”

  “The Jenkinses’ garden is a lot older, though. It probably has been by their back door for nearly a hundred years, or at least since the older Jenkinses lived there. I imagine herbs were pretty important to serving a tasty meal in the old days.” She broke off a spearmint leaf and popped it into her mouth. “And for home remedies.”

  In truth, we had taken several ideas, in addition to the herbs, from the Jenkins home. Our garage, for instance, which we placed behind our house, was modeled after an old-fashioned carriage house. So was the Jenkinses’ garage. The only difference was we had an automatic door opener and they didn’t. Stairs inside the garage led up to what was once living quarters for servants at the Jenkinses’ home, while our garage upstairs space was empty just now except for a few boxes and odds and ends left over from when we moved.

  My cell phone beeped. I glanced at it and saw a familiar number.

  “Thoughts must be powerful,” I said. “It looks like Miss Georgia or Miss Carolina is calling right now.”

  Punching the “talk” button, I said hello.

  “Darcy?” came the quavery voice of Miss Georgia. “Darcy, honey, do you believe in ghosts?”

  “What is it?” Mom asked, as I stood there with my mouth open. “Is someone sick?”

  Covering the mouthpiece, I said, “I don’t know. Miss Georgia just asked me if I believe in ghosts.”

  Mom caught her breath. “Tell her I’m on my way,” she said.

  Chapter 8

  “I'm beginning to think my sister and I are ready for the old folks’ home,” Miss Carolina said, bringing a tray laden with four cups and saucers, a teapot and a small silver flask into the Jenkins living room. “I baked an apple pie this morning and set it on the cabinet to cool. After that, Georgia and I walked over to the church to see if Gladys Holcutt needed any help readying the church for Sunday. She’s not getting any younger, you know, and running the sweeper over the carpet is a big job for one person. When we came back home, that pie had vanished!”

  I took a drink of tea to hide my smile and shook my head when Miss Carolina waved the flask in my direction. She added a few drops of sherry to her herbal tea and to Miss Georgia’s. A vanishing pie was the big mystery? Since it was impossible for something to disappear into thin air, maybe Miss Carolina had forgotten where she put it.

  These two ladies poured their lives into the Methodist Church in Levi and I was sure their real reason for going to the church today was to be certain it had been cleaned to their satisfaction. The thought of the three elderly women—Miss Georgia, Miss Carolina and Miss Gladys—spiffying up the Methodist sanctuary struck me as funny. I could imagine them rising from their death beds to clean that church simply because nobody else would do it right.

  So far as I knew, these three women were among Levi’s oldest citizens. Their memories of the town’s early days were priceless. Somehow, I needed to find time to talk with them about some of those memories. They would be a wonderful addition to the book I was writing.

  Miss Kitty, the beautiful and very old white Persian cat that belonged to these maiden ladies, floated into the room. I say floated because she moved as softly as a shadow and, with her long, white fur, reminded me of an unearthly spirit. Miss Kitty could not hear and neither did she speak. She opened her mouth and looked as if she were meowing but never made a sound. I loved that cat!

  Gently, I lifted her to the sofa beside me.

  “Miss Kitty,” I said, playfully shaking my finger at her nose, “did you eat a whole pie all by yourself?”

  Miss Georgia sniffed and shook her head.

  “By the way, did you rent your house here in town to your new preacher?” Miss Carolina asked.

  Mom nodded. “Yes, he’s all moved in and ready for church services Sunday.”

  It would have been nice if Miss Georgia and Miss Carolina attended church with us but our home church had always been Baptist.

  Miss Georgia shook her head. “I think we’re getting off the track here. What my sister is trying to say, and taking a mighty long time to say it, is that when we came back home from visiting with Gladys at the church, that pie was gone slick as a whistle and we can’t find it anywhere.”

  Miss Carolina’s eyes grew round and she spoke in a loud whisper. “In place of the pie was a dollar bill. Somebody had left a dollar on the cabinet.”

  Mom shook her head. “And I don’t suppose you locked your doors as you left the house?”

  “Why, of course not,” Miss Carolina said. “We’ve never done that. Nobody dares come into the judge’s house uninvited.”

  “Until now,” I said, stroking Miss Kitty, who snuggled against my hand. The way these two women, who must have been nearing ninety, talked about their father as if the grouchy old man still lived with them, was irritating. I doubted that many people in Levi remembered the stern judge who meted out his idea of unbending justice, and they wouldn’t fear his ghost if they did remember.

  “You can’t keep out spirits, Darcy, honey,” Miss Georgia said, her forehead creased with worry. “Of course, we’re used to the occasional whiff of tobacco smoke or the sound of a door closing, but we figure that’s just Papa. He sort of inhabits the house now and then, you know. But Papa would never steal a pie. This may be an actual ghost.”

  “I can't imagine what sort of ghost would steal a pie and then leave a dollar,” Miss Carolina interrupted.

  I grinned. “A hungry but honest one?” Mom frowned at me.

/>   Miss Georgia continued. “Last night when it was raining, I got out of bed because the lightning and thunder woke me. I glanced out the window and I saw something white flit through our herb bed. In the rain! Now, Carolina, don’t look at me like that. I know I saw it.”

  “Well, that sure wasn't the judge,” I muttered. “And it wouldn’t have been Miss Kitty. She has never been out of the house.”

  “Never,” Miss Georgia agreed.

  If Judge Jenkins still came around to check on his spinster daughters and make sure they were behaving, he wouldn’t swipe an apple pie. Not the austere old stickler for the law I had heard about. And he wouldn’t have been flitting through the yard dressed in white. If he were a ghost, he’d be more the slamming-doors-and-stomping-down-hallways kind.

  “Have there been other unexplained happenings besides the pie and the ghostly figure?” Mom asked.

  “A couple of days ago, I put Delsie back into the garage and closed the door tight like I always do. A few minutes later I looked out and that door was open, swinging on its hinges, making the most awful squeaking sound.” Miss Georgia shuddered and added a few more drops from the flask to her cup.

  “You really should lock that garage as well as your house,” I said. “That old car of your father’s is a valuable antique and there are lots of people who’d like to own it or sell it.”

  Neither sister drove. Stores were within walking distance for them, but every so often they would back their father’s 1940 black Chevrolet out of the garage and wipe it down. My mouth watered just thinking about it. If I should be so lucky as to inherit it someday, I would probably be just as particular with Delsie as were the twins.

  Miss Carolina’s eyes opened wide. “You’re right, Darcy. Always so sensible. Maybe we should put a padlock on that door.”

  The roar of a small engine cut into our conversation. Looking out, I saw a man pushing a lawn mower around the house.

  “I thought Burke Hopkins was mowing your grass,” I said. “That doesn’t look like Burke.”

  “Burke is kind of getting up in years and we’ve had so much rain this summer, the grass has grown like everything. We need to have it cut often and I think all that mowing was too much for Burke. He’s busy with his own yard and that dog and those chickens of his,” Miss Georgia said. “This man is Tim Johnson. He’s new in town and said he needed to work.”

  Miss Carolina nodded. “He does a good job. Maybe you should talk to him about mowing your yard, Darcy. It’s such a wilderness out there that it’s really too hard for you to mow.”

  “I’ll try to catch him before we leave,” I agreed. “Now let’s go look the place over and see if we can find a sign of an intruder,” I said. “I don’t believe in ghosts, Miss Georgia, but I’d prefer a spirit to a real, live person who is lurking around.”

  Moving slowly, so as not to disturb Miss Kitty, I got up and set my cup on the tray.

  We looked all over the rambling old house, upstairs, downstairs, and in the attic.

  “Be careful of that loose hand rail,” Miss Georgia said as we went out the front door.

  Going across the wide porch and down the steep front steps, we walked around the house, trying to peer in clouded basement windows until we got to the back yard.

  “I’ve never been in your basement,” I said. “Should we take a look in there?”

  “Goodness, no,” Miss Carolina said. “There’s only one way in and that’s by the kitchen pantry. We locked that door years ago. Nobody could get down there from out in the yard unless they went through a window or the coal chute. Why, Georgia and I haven’t been down there for an age.”

  We looked at the herb bed but if there had been footprints, the rain had washed them away. Going into the garage, I made sure Delsie was all right and I even climbed to the garage loft. Sticking my head into that small room, I took a look around.

  “I see absolutely nothing alarming,” I told the three women who watched me with anxious eyes. “I have no idea what you saw but maybe it was a one-time occurrence, some vagrant passing through who was hungry. And honest.”

  They sighed in unison. “Well, if you say so, Darcy,” Miss Carolina said.

  Mom turned back to the house. “I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day. We’ll let you know if anything unusual is happening anywhere else in town. Maybe there have been other break-ins. However, a pie is kind of an odd thing to steal, seems to me.”

  Mom and I were both quiet as we climbed into my car and started back home. What could be happening at the Jenkins house? Surely they were not both getting senile at the same time.

  Shaking her head, Mom said, “You know, that’s a mighty big old house for two defenseless and frail ladies to try and take care of. I wish they would come and live with us but I know they won’t.”

  I snapped my fingers. “I forgot to talk to their lawn person. I’ll ask Miss Georgia to tell him to call me. She’s right. Our yard is kind of a challenge to mow.”

  I dodged a small limb in the road. “Maybe they just have a case of nerves. Miss Georgia probably imagined she saw somebody in the herb garden. And she may have thought she locked the garage door, but didn’t.”

  “And what about the pie?” Mom asked. “Did it disappear by itself?”

  I shrugged. “Sad to say, Miss Carolina could have put it someplace besides the cabinet top and forgot where she put it.”

  “Did she forget she put the dollar bill in its place? Somehow, Darcy, I don’t think they are that forgetful. I’d like for it to be just their imagination, but I think there’s more to it.”

  As it turned out, there was a whole lot more to it.

  Chapter 9

  I awoke Sunday morning with a feeling of anticipation. This was to be the first day for our new preacher, Trace Hughes, to fill the pulpit. I could hardly wait to hear him. And, to add to that excitement, our housewarming was scheduled for four o’clock that afternoon, giving people time to rest after church. The housewarming would also serve as sort of a get-acquainted party for our new minister.

  The day promised to be beautiful and sunny, with only a few lumpy thunderheads along the horizon, a common sight during the summer months. This was a perfect day for worshiping the Lord then getting together with our friends and neighbors later.

  Mom had wanted to have a sit-down country supper with brown beans, fried potatoes, cornbread and peach cobbler but I had talked her into keeping it simple. Just cookies and tea would do fine for a housewarming, I assured her.

  The only extra activity was a brainchild of my friend Amy Miller. She wanted to introduce everyone not only to the house but to the surrounding countryside. She came up with the idea for a sunset stroll.

  “Darcy,” she said, “everybody is going to be interested in your mother’s herb garden, Lee Creek, the old orchard and that deserted cemetery. Why don’t we have a ghost walk?”

  I bit my tongue to keep from yelling, “Are you crazy?” Instead, I exhibited amazing self-control, and my voice rose only a little when I said, “I don’t want anybody to think our home is spooky. It’s a wonderful, warm place. Sure, we can walk around outside and see what there is to see, but I’m not going to say anything about ghosts, for goodness sake!”

  Amy, who was never one to give up easily, answered that at least we could wait until nearly dark, provide everyone with a flashlight and a map with places of interest marked on it, and the darkness would lend some atmosphere. I finally agreed. I didn’t want the inclusion of a sunset stroll to take away from the warm, friendly get-together atmosphere.

  Mom was just as eager to hear the new preacher as I. She was ready to go to church with time to spare. To me, my mother was always an attractive woman, but today she had taken special care, actually wearing a smidgen of lipstick. Her dark hair framed her face, and the lavender dress she chose to wear set off her olive skin.

  I had heeded Dr. McCauley’s advice about wearing pants that would not rub the burn on my leg, but I hesitated to wear capris
to church. Yes, churches were much less formal than years past, and I liked the idea that we went to worship, not to show off our clothes; however, First Baptist of Levi, Oklahoma, had an old-fashioned congregation. We sang from hymnals, all the good old songs of the church; the women wore dresses, and the men wore long pants, mostly blue jeans.

  So, I chose a full, blue, swirly skirt that came past the bandage on my leg, paired with a solid blue over blouse. I stuck my feet into a pair of black flats, piled my hair on top of my head, added lipstick and blusher and I was ready. In record time.

  Pat Harris was our pianist. Each Sunday, she played a soothing prelude while people found their favorite pews, then the piano accompanied us as we sang. We may have been a bit off-key at times, but our hearts were in tune even if our voices were not.

  Hiram Schuster had been our song leader since I could remember. He was not as robust as he once had been, and his voice sometimes quavered, but he waved his right arm vigorously, his left hand holding the song book, and sang lustily, a beatific smile on his wrinkled face.

  The church parking lot was full of cars when we arrived and, as Mom and I entered the sanctuary, we felt lucky to see two empty spaces in our pew, second from the front, right side of the building. To my surprise, Grant was already seated there. Usually, he worked Sundays. He was not a regular churchgoer, although he was a Christian.

  Pat was not at her usual place at the piano. Was she sick? And where was Trace Hughes?

  The crowd stirred restlessly, probably wondering the same things Mom and I whispered about. Then, a hush descended as our minister walked up the aisle and stood in front of the podium.

  I gasped. He wore faded blue jeans, a short-sleeved shirt which hung over his jeans, and brown cowboy boots, and he had a guitar slung over his shoulder.

  “Good morning, dear flock,” he drawled, grinning the wide smile that showed off his dimples. “We may do things a little differently this morning, but that’s all right, isn’t it? I don’t believe the Lord always stuck to protocol, did He? I’ve asked Miss Pat and Hiram to take a well-deserved break this morning and I’m going to lead you in a few songs.”