by Alison Stine
During the class change, I ducked beneath the desk and hid. I saw the shoes of students entering and exiting the library. I heard books slapping on the counter and sliding through the book return.
Then a student stumbled; I saw the sneaker that tripped her. The student landed face down on the floor, scattering her books, and I recognized her. It was the library aide, the frizzy haired girl with braces who seemed to have heard me, who had sensed me. Sensitive, Tom had called her. A sensitive one.
And an unpopular one, it looked like.
There was laughing, and a boy’s voice said, “What’s the matter, spooky?”
“Check out a book on walking,” another voice said. “Freak.”
The sneakers turned and exited. Slowly, the library aide slid up to her knees. She was shaking as she collected her books. Without thinking, I reached out my hand. I only meant to help her, to pick up the books that had fallen under the desk, but she stiffened, eyes wide, as my invisible fingers brushed her elbow. I started to pull back, then I thought I might as well take advantage of my state.
“It’s okay,” I said softly. “It’s going to be okay. One day you’ll leave this town.”
She re-stacked the books, nodding to herself, as she got to her feet. “One day, I’ll leave this town,” she whispered.
There was a booming sound from the hall.
I scrambled out from under the desk in time to see the library door fly open as a student fled inside. I could see the hallway behind him, the long wall of lockers next to the cafeteria. As I watched, red slashed across the lockers, and dripped down the wall.
Blood.
In the flash before the library door closed all the way, I saw students on the ground, and a figure above them: a girl, a girl with blond hair.
“Where’s my locker?” the ghost girl screamed.
“I hate this school,” the sensitive one said.
That night, I didn’t even try to sleep. I was dressed and at the window, waiting, ready to go. Finally, near midnight, I saw a figure leave the house and sneak across the lawn in a spray of moonlight. But it wasn’t Tom.
It was my grandmother.
I heard her car start in the driveway. I saw headlights brighten the side of the house. Then a shadow appeared under my window. She was returning to the house; she had forgotten something, and as she walked up the path, she looked up once, right at my window.
I gasped. I sprang back into the shadows, as if I had been shocked. It was instinct, of course, that made me move. She couldn’t have really seen me.
I crept out of my room as quickly as I could. Downstairs, I heard sounds in the kitchen: my grandmother searching in drawers and cabinets for whatever she was looking for. The front doors of the house had been thrown wide open. I slipped through them, down the steps, and—though it was Tom I had been planning to follow—I snuck into the backseat of my grandmother’s idling car, curling up on the floor.
The driver’s side door opened and my grandmother got in. She fastened her seat belt and drove. I listened to the rumble of the engine, feeling every bump in the road. I could see only a little: the backseat above me, where my grandmother had thrown her bag. A candle poked out and something else did too: a long thin stick, forked on the end.
My grandmother didn’t drive far. Soon, we had stopped again. She opened the back door, then shut it. I heard her footsteps fading, and far off, a doorbell ringing on a house. Only then did I open my eyes. The big black bag was gone. I crawled out of the backseat and left the car.
The car was parked in a driveway before an ordinary two-story house, white with red shutters. The lawn looked neat and bare. There was another car parked in front of my grandmother’s station wagon, a minivan. I approached the front door. I saw lights inside the house, the yellow glow spilling out onto the lawn, but noticed no one in the rooms.
I eased the front door open. The living room looked still and empty. I heard voices in another room, speaking together, reciting something in unison.
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle;
be our protection against the wickedness and snares …
I entered the house and followed the voices. In the kitchen, a circle of people stood in front of the fridge. Their eyes were closed, and they were holding hands: a man, a woman with a baby in a harness on her chest, and my grandmother. My grandmother’s voice sounded the strongest, sure and loud, leading the couple in words I had never heard before.
… by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
It was a prayer. But when it was done, I shuddered.
My grandmother opened her eyes. “I think the baby should go,” she said, and the group dropped hands.
“No,” the woman said. “It targets her. It comes for her.”
“The baby will be fine,” my grandmother said.
“No. I’m not leaving her in her crib so that… that thing can get her.”
“No one is going to get her,” my grandmother said. She looked at the man.
He shrugged. “This was Cindy’s idea.”
“Well, are you with us or not? Do you believe or not?”
There was a pause.
“Frank,” the woman said, an edge to her voice.
“Okay, okay, I’m in,” he said. “I’m in, okay? I believe.”
My grandmother nodded. Her big black bag sat open on the kitchen table, and she went to it, taking out a white candle and lighting it with a match.
I stood in the doorway, confused. Was this why my grandmother had left in the middle of the night? What did I really know about my grandmother? I had been surprised to hear her voice leading the chant in the kitchen, so strong and clear. I was surprised, and a little proud, by how she ordered the couple around. She was in charge. She knew what she was doing.
Whatever that was.
She took something out of the bag.
“Are you going to take pictures?” the man—Frank—said.
“No,” my grandmother said.
“Because I saw on television, these guys on a show—they took pictures. And things showed up in the pictures.”
“Things?”
“Orb things. You know.”
“No,” my grandmother said. “I’m sure I don’t know.” It was a tape recorder she had pulled from her bag, an old handheld one with a cassette tape. She pressed the red record button.
“What are you doing?” Frank said.
“Shh,” my grandmother said. “Listen.” She held the tape recorder out and slowly paced the kitchen, holding the device before her as she circled the stove and sink, running it under the cabinets.
It was like she was listening to the appliances. I would have felt uncomfortable, embarrassed at the ridiculousness of what she was doing, except my grandmother was so commanding, I couldn’t look away from her. Neither could Frank and Cindy. Even the baby watched.
A new voice whispered, “I never know what to say.”
A woman stood in the living room behind me.
I flattened myself against the doorway in case the woman was going to enter the kitchen, in case she was going to try and get by me—or through me. I had to remember: even invisible, I took up space.
But the woman didn’t move. “Do you?” she asked. “Do you have any memorable words?”
I waited. My grandmother didn’t seem to have heard the woman, instead continuing to circle the kitchen as the couple watched. I glanced back at the woman.
She was looking right at me.
“Me?” I whispered. “Me?”
She made a face. “Well, that’s not very memorable.”
She was speaking to me. She had seen me. I flinched so hard I hit the pot rack, skillets and saucepans crashing to the floor.
Frank shouted, and Cindy clutched her baby. “I told you,” Cindy said. “I told you.”
“Impressive,” the new woman said.
“Kate,” the woman said, crossing her arms. “And I was here first.”
“What do you mean? Can you see me?”
“I mean, shove off,” Kate said. She uncrossed her arms and pushed me.
I failed and hit the wall, the last pot slamming to the ground.
My grandmother’s eyes were searching the air. “Who’s there?” she asked.
“Can you hear us?” Cindy shouted.
“Idiot,” Kate said.
I turned at the sound of Kate’s voice, confused. She had somehow moved to the other side of the kitchen, and stood on the stairs now. She looked at me pointedly, making sure I had seen her, then stomped up the steps.
My grandmother had turned too. “What’s upstairs?” she asked.
“Nursery,” Frank said.
“Oh no,” Cindy said.
“Stay here,” my grandmother said, but they didn’t listen.
My grandmother reached the nursery first, and I was not far behind. Kate was already there, standing by the crib. “That woman,” she said. “That woman is a terrible mother.”
“Her?” I said, pointing to Cindy, who was crying softly and jiggling the baby in the harness. “She seems a little high strung, but I’m sure she’s all right.”
“All right?” Kate said. “All right?”
There was a mobile above the crib, dangling and bobbing as a tinkling sound played. Kate swept out her arm and tore it from the ceiling, flinging it across the room. The mobile hit the wall and broke into a dozen tinkling pieces. Cindy screamed, but my grandmother stayed calm, holding out the forked stick from her bag.
“It’s all right to leave the baby alone,” Kate mocked. “Even for a minute. It’s all right to put the baby’s favorite blanket over the lamp, to dim the lights when she’s sleeping.”
I looked at the lamp on a table by the crib. Cindy had in fact done just that, covered the lampshade with a baby blanket, pink and ratty on the ends.
“Well, that seems like a fire hazard,” I said. “But the light’s off now, so I’m sure it’s fine. Who are you, anyway? The babysitter?”
“Idiot!” Kate said again. She had moved up to Cindy, and was shouting it in her face. Cindy wouldn’t stop sobbing. The baby began to cry.
My grandmother addressed the air, holding the stick out. The long branch made a handle, the ends forming a y. “Spirit,” my grandmother said. “Can you tell us your name?”
Kate shoved the changing table.
“How did you die?” my grandmother said.
Kate tore a blanket in two.
“How did you die?” I said.
The ends of the blanket fluttered to the ground. Kate opened the closet. I thought she was going to throw something, to destroy another baby thing, but she only looked at me, showing me the inside of the closet door. The wood there looked black and seared.
I smelled it then, smelled the smoke and ash, heard the crackling, smelled the hair burning. “Fire,” I whispered. “You weren’t the babysitter. You were the mother. Years ago, here in this house. A fire killed you. And your baby.”
Kate looked at me. Our eyes met. She nodded once, satisfied, then stepped through the closet door, disappearing into the scorched wood.
The baby stopped crying. Cindy stopped sobbing, and my grandmother put down her stick. “It’s finished,” she said. She ushered Frank and Cindy into the hall. On her way out, she whipped the blanket from the light. “Don’t leave that there again,” she said. “It’s a fire hazard.”
I waited until they had gone downstairs, and I heard the sounds of plates and cups clattering and a kettle being filled. I heard my grandmother in the kitchen, talking about payment, and Frank trying to haggle. I sank onto my knees in the nursery. All around me lay Kate’s destruction: wood splinters, string and wire from the mobile, cotton batting from the blankets.
But the room felt silent and empty. I was alone. The closet door had closed, and I knew without knowing why that my grandmother was right—that the spirit of Kate was gone. Gone for good. She had done what she needed to do, and moved on.
That was what ghosts needed, that was what kept them here after death. They had to get what they wanted. They had a task or a message or a job unfulfilled. It seemed so simple: to warn another mother, to ensure that no one else made Kate’s own terrible mistake. That was what made Kate a ghost, an angry frustrated ghost. That was what kept her hanging around, haunting the room where she and her baby had died.
Was Tom trying to warn someone too? And if so, who? Why was he a ghost?
And what was my grandmother doing in the middle of the night, at what appeared to be the home of strangers, with sticks and candles and prayers?
That question I knew the answer to, even if I didn’t want to believe it, even if I couldn’t believe it. I knew. I think I had known all along. I think I had always suspected … something: every time she paused, every time she listened, every time she cocked her head and looked off in the distance. It was not the distance she was seeing.
But watching her do it in person, witnessing what she was capable of, who she was—I shuddered. I made myself rise, pain beating in my back from the Stationmaster’s burn and the bruising Kate had given me. Ghosts could hurt me, hurt me badly.
I slumped down the stairs, past the kitchen. They were sitting around the table now, talking, laughing, sipping tea. My grandmother bounced the baby on her lap. I made my way outside, into the car, and lay on the floor of the backseat and cried.
My grandmother was a medium. My grandmother could see ghosts.
But my grandmother couldn’t see me.
CHAPTER 9:
What Do You Want?
I fell asleep in the car. When I woke up, sunlight streamed in through the windows, and someone was knocking on the glass. I sat up, my back and neck aching. Stiffly, I pulled myself up from the floor onto the backseat.
“It’s unlocked,” I said through the window.
Tom opened the door. I moved over to make room for him, and we sat side by side.
I thought of how many times I had sat next to Acid at school. We had sat this close. Closer. I had wanted Acid to kiss me, waited for it, though it never came. It seemed like another lifetime ago.
And I had thought I knew him, thought we might know each other better, thought he wanted to know me better too. But you didn’t ever know anyone truly. You couldn’t know anyone other than yourself, not really, not at all. People could leave. They could disappear without telling you. They could die.
They could die again.
What did I know about Tom, other than the fact that he was dead? What did he like? We wouldn’t have movies in common or TV. Had we read the same books? Did we have anything in common across a century?
“I read about you yesterday,” I said. “I researched the orphan trains. Were you an orphan?”
“Not exactly,” Tom said. “But it didn’t make a lot of difference.”
“Where did you come from?”
“New York. Like you.” He brightened a bit. “It was better out here in the country. It seemed to be, anyway, at first. It was sunny and the air was sweet. I could breathe. There was space to run around, and they gave us good food on the train.”
I wanted to ask him more about the train, about his life before and after, but he looked distant in the way I was learning meant he might drift in a moment; he might vanish in air. “I have to tell you something about my grandmother,” I said. “She can see ghosts. That’s where she went last night, to some house with some ghost. She makes a living from it, apparently.”
“She can’t see ghosts,” Tom said. I started to protest, but then he said, “She can hear us, only hear us. And only sometimes, we think. Not all of us. She only hears Clara and Martha, we think. Only the girls.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think she’s listening to me too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“It comes and goes. She’s never tried to talk with us, not really. It just seems like she knows we’re here. It feels like she’s tolerating it. So, she doesn’t bother us. We don’t bother her.” He paused. “Except for Clara.”
I thought of Kate. I thought of the stick and the candle and the tape recorder and the strange chanting in the kitchen, the prayer. I remembered how my grandmother had known about the fire, known to take the blanket off the lamp.
“It’s only sometimes that she seems to hear us, anyway. Seems to. And I don’t think she makes much money for it, Ez, not enough to make a living. Not a lot of call for it. When she leaves at night, she only takes the black bag with the dowsing rod every now and then. Other times, she does go and nurse the sick.” He paused again. “I’ve had many years to observe your grandmother.”
I thought of the house: the candles cluttering the hallway, the dried herbs hanging from the rafters, the stray cats lounging around. If I looked at the spines of the books in the sitting room, would they all be about demons? Were there jars of rats’ tails and eye of newt and snails in the cupboard?
“My grandmother hasn’t helped you?” I asked. “All these years—she hears the dead—and she hasn’t been able to help you?”
“I don’t need help,” Tom said. “Not from her—and not from you. You can get hurt by ghosts. I can’t let it happen again.”
“You should have thought of that before dying.”
“I wish I had met you before dying.”
This was the moment. I wanted him to kiss me. I willed him too. I knew if I stayed still, if I stayed quiet, if we didn’t spook each other, he might. But I had to ask him something. “Tom,” I said, “What do you want?”
He blinked at me. “What do you mean?”
I couldn’t look away from his eyes, blue as a pond I dreamed, blue as a pond I had never actually seen. “I met a ghost last night. A woman. Her baby had died, and she just wanted to warn another mother whose baby was in danger. And once she did it—that was it. That was all she needed, to tell me that, to tell me and my grandmother so that we could save the baby. She got what she wanted, and then she went away. So tell me, Tom. What do you want?”
