A Haunting Collection

by Mary Downing Hahn

  Grandmother started to laugh. “I’m sorry,” she told the bad ones who looked not only puzzled but hurt by her giggles. “I just can’t believe I’m actually having this conversation. Sometimes I’m convinced I’ve lost my mind and I’m hallucinating.”

  The bad ones looked at each other as if they were both thinking the same thing. “Maybe you are,” Ira said in that solemn way of his, “. . . hallucinating.”

  Grandmother smiled. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind if I were temporarily insane. At least I’d have a chance of regaining my faith in a rational world where the dead stay dead and don’t swing on chandeliers.” While she spoke, she watched Seth perform acrobatic feats overhead.

  One of the new guests pointed at the chandelier. “Look at that!”

  “What’s making it swing?” another asked.

  As the diners sat staring, their chicken forgotten, Seth imitated the daring young man on the flying trapeze. He was, of course, invisible to them.

  An elderly woman gasped and got to her feet. “It’s going to fall!” she cried.

  As the guests began to hurry out of the room, Caleb and Ira joined Seth and told him to stop. With Seth protesting loudly, all three vanished, and the chandelier slowly came to a stop.

  Grandmother hastened after the guests. “It’s all right,” she assured them. “The chandelier does that sometimes. It’s stopped now. Please come back and have dessert. Martha’s prepared a double chocolate cake with her own special raspberry sauce. It’s absolutely delicious.”

  Murmuring to themselves, the guests returned reluctantly to their tables. Mrs. Brewster hustled about, serving generous slices of dark chocolate cake sitting in pools of raspberry sauce.

  Although the guests eyed the chandelier from time to time, the cake placated them. Soon the room filled again with voices and laughter.

  Grandmother looked at the people at the other tables and sighed. “Just think,” she said slowly, “once I was as ignorant as they are.”

  Corey and I went on eating, savoring each bite of cake as if it might be our last. Grandmother sipped her coffee, her cake untouched.

  Mrs. Brewster passed our table on her way to offer more coffee to the guests. “Isn’t it to your liking?” she asked Grandmother.

  “The cake?” Grandmother touched it with her fork. “Sorry, Martha. I’m sure it’s delicious, but I’m not very hungry tonight.”

  “Nothing affects the children’s appetites,” Mrs. Brewster observed.

  “Are you offering seconds?” I asked.

  “It’s all gone.” With that, Mrs. Brewster bustled across the room to refill coffee cups.

  “Bummer,” I muttered.

  “Here, split mine between you.” Grandmother slid her plate toward us.

  “Are you sure you don’t want it?” Corey asked.

  Grandmother nodded. “Take it, please. We don’t want to hurt Martha’s feelings.”

  Grandmother watched us eat and then excused herself to sit on the porch for a while. By the time we joined her, she was surrounded by the guests. One woman had read Haunted Inns and was full of questions.

  “Have you seen any ghosts?” she asked. “Heard any strange sounds? Felt cold spots?”

  Grandmother shook her head, but she didn’t meet the woman’s eyes.

  “When that chandelier started to swing, I thought it was ghosts, for sure,” the woman said with a nervous laugh.

  The other guests chuckled uneasily. “That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” one said.

  “You say it happens often?” another asked.

  Grandmother pressed her hand against her forehead and got up. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said. “I’m not feeling very well.”

  Leaving the guests to chatter among themselves, Corey and I followed Grandmother inside. She stopped in the kitchen and asked Mrs. Brewster to call Tracy. “These folks will be staying until next week’s group arrives,” she said. “I could really use some help, and I’m sure you could, too.”

  “I’ll do my best to talk her into coming,” Mrs. Brewster said. “Too bad she’s such a nervous nellie.” She looked at Grandmother closely. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Mrs. Donovan, you don’t look too good.”

  “I don’t feel too good, either,” Grandmother admitted. “When your world view changes overnight, it’s bound to leave you a little shaken.”

  “I reckon so.” Mrs. Brewster’s eyes shifted to Corey and me. “See what your pranks have led to? Misery for everybody.”

  “That’s not fair,” Corey began, but Grandmother silenced her with a shake of her head.

  “Hush, Corey,” she said wearily. “I’m going to my room to read.” She held up Bleak House, a thick novel by Charles Dickens. “The odious Mr. Tulkinghorn has just put poor Lady Dedlock in a terrible position, and I’m anxious about her.”

  Corey and I started to follow Grandmother into her apartment, but Mrs. Brewster stopped us. “Find that account book,” she said, “and get this business done with. It’s hard on your poor grandmother.”

  “It’s hard on us, too,” Corey said.

  “Well, don’t expect any sympathy from me.” Finished with us, Mrs. Brewster picked up a scouring pad and attacked a blackened pot. “I sure wish Tracy was here,” she muttered.

  Before we left the kitchen, I glanced at the clock. Seven thirty-five. Four hours and twenty-five minutes to go until midnight.

  To pass the time, Corey and I tried to play chess, but we couldn’t concentrate. We set up Monopoly, Scrabble, and Clue but were unable to finish a game before our minds wandered to the burial ground. We took turns reading to each other from a collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories we’d found in the library, but considering what lay ahead, they were too scary.

  At ten o’clock we sneaked into the kitchen and ate almost half a gallon of chocolate-chip ice cream. Back in my room, Corey suggested a game of hangman. Deciding that was a bad idea, we started working a crossword together. As we puzzled over a five-letter word, third letter “T,” meaning “beyond the fringe,” the grandfather clock chimed eleven forty-five.

  “Oh, no,” Corey whispered. “It’s time.”

  As silently as our shaking legs could carry us, we sneaked through the kitchen and outside. High in the sky, the man in the moon looked down, his sad face slightly askew, and watched us run across the lawn. Dark on the silver grass, our shadows raced ahead of us.

  We plunged into the bushes and battled our way through the brambles to the burial ground. The bad ones sat in their favorite tree, obviously waiting for us.

  “Land sakes,” Caleb muttered. “I’d forgotten how much noise the living make.”

  “It’s those galumptious big shoes they wear.” Seth swung his feet, bare as usual. “They’re fit for elephants, they are.”

  I looked down at my thick-soled running shoes. They didn’t look galumptious to me. But shoes were hardly the issue tonight.

  Soundlessly, the bad ones dropped from the tree and joined us. “You’re late,” Ira said. “According to my reckoning, it’s one minute past midnight.”

  “We had to find two more shovels,” I said. “We left the others in the grove.”

  “And we almost forgot this.” Corey held up a battery-operated lantern.

  “Well, we’d best get busy.” Caleb led us through the underbrush to Miss Ada’s burial place. Corey switched on the lantern and set it on the ground. She looked surprisingly calm, but my heart was hammering so hard it shook my chest, and my hands were clammy with fear.

  Cautiously, I poked at the dirt with my shovel.

  “You got to work faster than that,” Seth said.

  “Or we’ll be here for a month of Sundays.”

  “Won’t digging wake her up?” Corey whispered.

  “We told you she ain’t here.” Seth kicked at the dirt. “Don’t you never listen?”

  All of us looked at the grove. An owl called, but nothing stirred in the dark trees. What’s to stop her from coming, I wondered.<
br />
  Reluctantly, I put more muscle into my task. The ground was surprisingly soft, and my shovel bit into it easily. Corey started digging, too. Soon we’d dug down at least three feet without coming across anything. Despite the cool night air, we were both sweating.

  “Here, let me try.” Seth grabbed Corey’s shovel and went to work. Caleb took mine, and Ira settled down on his haunches, his eyes fixed on the grove.

  All around us, the shadow children romped and played. “You’re it,” one cried. “Catch me if you can,” another called.

  Suddenly, Seth dropped his shovel and jumped backward. “I hit something.”

  “A tree root, most likely,” Caleb said in a low voice. “Or a rock.”

  Ira grabbed the lantern and held it over the hole. Held fast by roots, the corner of a box protruded from the earth.

  “Her coffin,” Ira whispered.

  We drew back. There was no sound but the wind in the trees, yet we felt Miss Ada’s presence out there in the dark.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Ira whispered. “Don’t say a word, just finish digging.”

  Seth thrust his shovel at me. “I done my part.”

  Caleb and I bent to our task. Cautiously, we cleaned the dirt from the coffin’s top. The lantern’s light illuminated a tarnished metal plate: HERE LIE THE MORTAL REMAINS OF MISS ADA JAGGS.

  My knees turned to water. It was all I could do to stand there and watch Caleb push the side of his shovel under the lid.

  Corey grabbed Caleb’s arm to stop him from prying the lid off. “Suppose the book’s not in there?”

  “It has to be,” he muttered.

  As Caleb leaned back on the shovel’s handle, Corey covered her face with her hands. “I don’t want to see her,” she whispered.

  Neither did I, but I couldn’t turn my eyes away. Hypnotized with dread, I watched Caleb lever the lid up with a hideous screeching sound of nails pulling out of wood. In the coffin’s darkness, I saw a skull, tangles of hair, and rags of clothing. Cradled in the bones of Miss Ada’s hands was a rusty iron box.

  Caleb reached down, grabbed the box, and handed it to me. “Take this back to the inn. Write down the names and numbers of the dead, so you can make proper tombstones for us all.”

  Seth and Ira closed the coffin lid, picked up the shovels, and began tossing dirt back into the grave. I wanted to help, but Caleb looked at the grove fearfully and shook his head. “Get out of here,” he whispered. “Before she comes.”

  Leaving the bad ones to refill Miss Ada’s grave, Corey and I ran across the lawn. The box was heavy and smelled of damp earth. It was slippery and awkward to hold. At any moment, I expected to hear Miss Ada’s voice or feel her bony hand clutch my arm, my shoulder, my shirt. The harder I ran, the slower I seemed to move.

  But, at last, Corey and I were at the inn’s back door, fumbling with the knob, trying to be quiet but desperate to get inside. Fortunately, Grandmother was a sound sleeper, and we managed to get back to my room without waking her. I put the box on the floor. With a twist of my wrist, I broke the rusty padlock and lifted the lid.

  The account book’s leather cover was damp and stained with mold. I picked it up, hating the rotten feel of it in my hands, and opened it.

  Miss Ada had recorded the names of sixty-seven people, their ages, the dates they died, and the number assigned to them. Her old-fashioned handwriting slanted neatly to the right, and each letter was perfectly formed.

  I opened my notebook and picked up a pen. Slowly and carefully, I copied the sixty-seven names, their ages, death dates, and burial numbers.

  By the time I was finished, it was after three A.M., and Corey had fallen asleep on my bed. Too tired to worry about Miss Ada or anything else, I lay down on the rug and fell fast asleep.

  18

  In the morning, Corey and I carried the account book to the dining room. Grandmother was already seated at the table, drinking coffee and reading the morning paper. Mrs. Brewster was putting fresh flowers in little vases. The sun slanted in through the open French doors, bringing with it the sound of Mr. Brewster’s riding mower and the sweet smell of cut grass.

  It was hard to believe, but in this very room, Miss Ada and her brother had once eaten their fancy meals while the poor starved. The lawn Mr. Brewster mowed had been fields where men labored from dawn to dusk. People had died in what was now the carriage house.

  I laid the account book in front of Grandmother. She set down her cup and stared at the soiled leather cover. “Where did you find this?”

  “The bad ones told us where to look,” I said, unwilling to tell her exactly where it had been hidden. “It has all the names and numbers, so we can make proper stones for the graves.”

  “Sixty-seven people are buried here,” Corey put in.

  “That many?” Grandmother opened the book and ran her finger down the list of names. “How awful.”

  “Miss Ada recorded the money they got from the county and how they spent it,” Corey said. “Hardly any of it went to the poor people. They used it for themselves.”

  Grandmother looked at the accounts and shook her head. “Shameful, absolutely shameful.”

  Mrs. Brewster hovered at Grandmother’s shoulder, scowling at the book. “The worst of it is, nothing’s changed. All you have to do is look around at the rich people getting fat on the poor. Even the government ain’t above it.”

  With a sigh, Grandmother closed the book and pushed it aside. “The county historical society will be interested in this.”

  Mrs. Brewster took our breakfast order. “When will you see to the headstones?” she asked Grandmother.

  “The sooner the better.” Grandmother turned to us. “I suggest we visit a stone mason in Barre today.”

  A few hours later, Grandmother led us into the office of Daniel Greene and Sons, Ltd. After a brief conversation with Mr. Greene Jr., Grandmother practically went into shock at the cost of purchasing sixty-seven gravestones.

  “There’s a less expensive option,” Mr. Greene told us. “We could chisel all the names and numbers on one large stone at a savings of . . .”

  He did some quick figuring on his calculator and came up with a price Grandmother could afford. “I’m willing to reduce my profit,” he said, “because of the historical significance of what you’re doing. There’s many a name on this list whose descendants live here still. They deserve to know where their ancestors are buried.”

  Leading us outside, Mr. Greene showed us a number of precut stones and we chose a big pale pink marble slab. After more discussion, he promised the memorial would be ready as soon as possible.

  Before we went back to the inn, we stopped at the historical society and asked to see Mrs. Bernice Leonard, the head archivist. She accepted Miss Ada’s account book with gratitude.

  “My great-great grandfather died at that farm,” she said softly. “And so did his wife and some of his children. Their surname was Perkins. Are they among those in your book?”

  Corey and I stared at the woman, gray haired and small, rosy faced, her hands clasping the unopened book. She had eyes as blue as Caleb’s. And that dimple in her left cheek. It was as if something of Caleb lived still, his eyes and his dimple passing down and down and down from one Perkins to another.

  “Abraham and Sarah Perkins.” Grandmother opened the book and pointed to their names. “And their children, Matty and Caleb.”

  Mrs. Leonard touched the names. “I’m descended from their oldest son, Jonathon. He wasn’t sent to the poor farm because he was indentured to a blacksmith.” With a smile, she shook Grandmother’s hand. “Thank you for bringing this to me.”

  “Thank Corey and Travis,” Grandmother said. “They’re the ones who found the book.”

  We left Mrs. Leonard turning the pages of the book and got into the truck, hot inside from sitting in the summer sun.

  “I wish we could tell Mrs. Leonard about Caleb,” Corey said.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Grandmother
said.

  “Why not?”

  Grandmother eased out of her parking space and headed south on Route 12. “I’d rather keep the ghosts secret,” she said. “If word gets out, we’ll have people like Chester Coakley banging on the door. Believe me, I don’t want any more ghost hunters at the inn—no matter how many rooms they take.”

  That evening after dinner, the shadow children drifted through my window and filled the room with their familiar whispers and giggles. A few moments later, Corey arrived with Seth, Caleb, and Ira trailing behind her.

  “Did Granny order the stones?” Seth asked me.

  “Separate headstones turned out to be really expensive,” Corey said in a low voice, looking ashamed.

  “So there’s going to one big pink stone with all the names and dates and numbers on it,” I finished for her.

  Surrounded by the shadow children, they whispered together for moment.

  “That will do,” Caleb said, “though we would have liked to have our own stones.”

  “I was hoping for a lamb,” Seth said. “Or an angel.”

  “What of the account book?” Ira asked. “Did you put it somewhere safe?”

  “We gave it to Mrs. Leonard at the county historical society,” I said.

  “She says she’ll see it gets published, so everybody can read the truth about the poor farm.”

  “A fact simily,” Corey added.

  “Facsimile,” I corrected her. “An exact copy of the original.”

  “Whatever.” Corey shrugged.

  “Mrs. Leonard is descended from your brother Jonathon,” I told Caleb.

  “And she’s got your dimple,” Corey added.

  Caleb touched his cheek in wonder. “So Jonathon lived and got married and had a family? That’s grand, that is.”

  “How about me?” Seth asked. “Is she kin to me, too?”

  “The Brewsters are your kin,” Ira reminded Seth.

  Seth shrugged. “Yes, but the society lady sounds more highfalutin than my grumpy old auntie.”