The Ghost of Poplar Point

by Cynthia DeFelice

  When Ronnie finished and asked for questions, Michael announced loudly that he wanted to “play spears.”

  Mr. Nichols picked Michael up and swung him onto his shoulders, saying, “I think I’ll take this young warrior outside for a while and let these two look around some more. Thank you very much, Ronnie. Allie and Dub, take your time.”

  Alone with Ronnie, Allie glanced at Dub and said, “Well, here goes.”

  Ronnie looked puzzled, and Allie hesitated. In the heady excitement of having the words on tape in the presence of an actual Seneca person, she hadn’t taken the time to consider how she would go about asking to have them translated.

  Dub jumped in. “You speak Seneca, right?” Sheepishly, he added, “Duh. I mean, we heard you. The thing is, we have some words we recorded”—at this, Allie removed the tape player from her sweatshirt pouch—“and we wondered if you could listen to them and tell us if they’re in your language. And, if they are, if you could tell us what they mean.”

  “Who spoke those words on the tape?” Ronnie asked.

  Allie looked into Ronnie’s kind, open face and asked a question of her own. “Do your people believe in … ghosts?”

  Dub looked startled, and Ronnie lifted her eyebrows in evident surprise. After a moment, she answered, “We have a saying: ‘The dimension that divides the living from the dead is as thin as a maple leaf.’”

  Allie contemplated this in silence.

  “It is said that some people’s spirits continue to wander this earth after death,” Ronnie went on. “For some reason, they are unable to follow the path of their journey after life.”

  “What would make them stay?” Allie asked.

  Ronnie was silent. Finally she said, “These are difficult things to talk about.”

  You’re telling me, Allie thought. “I really need to know,” she whispered.

  Ronnie nodded slowly, then spoke. “Some of these unhappy, earthbound spirits mean no harm. But they can’t leave until they are able to settle some matter of earthly business.”

  Allie and Dub exchanged a glance. What Ronnie was saying about her people’s beliefs matched exactly with their own experiences with ghosts.

  Ronnie looked troubled, then added in a low voice, “But it is said that some spirits are malicious, and wander the earth in order to do harm.”

  That, too, Allie and Dub had learned.

  “That’s why we don’t try to summon the spirits of the dead. Who knows what they want or what they will do.”

  Who, indeed? Allie wondered. Ronnie’s words, spoken in hushed tones, brought a sense of foreboding into the shadowy interior of the longhouse.

  “Also,” Ronnie said, “we have been taught to place our dead into the ground so that their bodies can become part of the sacred earth. If this does not happen, or if a burial site is disturbed, the spirits of the dead are unhappy.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. Then Ronnie said, “But, come. You have a tape. Play it for me.”

  At that moment, Allie would have done anything Ronnie asked. It was a relief to talk with an adult who appeared to accept that ghosts were real. She pushed the button and for a while they listened to muffled voices and the rustling of Allie’s movements. She fast-forwarded a bit to the end of Janelle’s opening speech. Then she heard her own voice. When her first speech was over, she stopped the machine.

  Ronnie’s eyes were bright with interest. “She speaks very well, this girl.”

  Allie let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “So it is your language?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “What did she say?” Dub asked eagerly.

  “She says her name is Skayendady. Her clan mother would have given her this name. It means ‘on the other side of the woodpile.’” Ronnie smiled. “There is a story there, perhaps having to do with her birth.”

  “Skayendady,” Allie repeated slowly.

  “She says she is a Seneca of the Wolf Clan,” Ronnie continued.

  “Wow,” said Dub. “So we were right.”

  “Who is this girl?” Ronnie asked. “Do you know her?”

  “Sort of,” Allie said evasively. “Wait, there’s more.”

  Other muffled voices spoke, including that of Miss Lunsford giving directions. Then Janelle began her narration again, and afterward Allie’s voice came on, strong and clear.

  Allie watched as Ronnie’s expression grew troubled. When she no longer heard her own voice, Allie stopped the tape. She and Dub waited for Ronnie to speak.

  “This is very strange,” Ronnie said finally. “Disturbing, really. She says it’s a lie, what the speaker before her said. She says she was there, and she knows. There was fire. Many people were killed. Her mother, her father, her little brother, too—she says they all died. Everything was burned.” Ronnie stopped, and her dark eyes looked worried.

  Allie had the sense that Ronnie was holding something back, and asked quietly, “Is there more?”

  “She said skennon,” Ronnie said, “which means peace or well-being. It is what I wished for you when I first spoke to you in my language. But this girl says there is no well-being. There is no peace.”

  Allie and Dub stared at each other in wonder. They’d been right. This was truly the ghost of a Seneca girl. And like the other ghosts they had encountered, she could not rest in peace.

  After a long silence, Ronnie spoke again. “I have answered your questions. Now it’s time for you to answer mine.”

  Thirteen

  “Who is the girl on the tape?” Ronnie asked softly.

  Allie and Dub exchanged a glance; his expression told her it was up to her how much she wanted to reveal to Ronnie.

  Ronnie hadn’t laughed when Allie brought up the subject of ghosts. On the contrary, she had considered Allie’s questions seriously. She came from a culture that took for granted the interaction between the spirit world and the earthly world. Allie’s questions about ghosts hadn’t made Ronnie suggest she see a shrink.

  Allie had never told anyone but Dub about her attraction for ghosts, not even her own loving and understanding parents. But telling Ronnie felt different, somehow. Allie looked into Ronnie’s eyes and said, “It’s my voice on the tape.”

  Ronnie seemed puzzled. “But—”

  “I don’t speak Seneca,” Allie finished for her. “That’s true. This is going to sound very strange, but I promise I’m telling you the truth. What you heard is the voice of a ghost or a spirit, speaking through me.”

  Ronnie’s eyes widened, and she waited for Allie to continue. So Allie explained everything that had happened during the past several months. She watched Ronnie’s face for signs of disbelief or scorn, but she saw only interest.

  “Anyway, we don’t know much about this ghost or what she’s like, really, except that we began to think she might be Seneca, which is why we’re here,” Allie finished.

  “There were clues,” Dub added. “Like, we’re doing this pageant about the history of the Senecas and the settlers in our town, and the ghost showed up the first day of tryouts. And any time someone talked about Indians, this ghost would speak up through Allie. And now we know she’s a girl because Allie can see her sometimes, and she sends Allie dreams.”

  Ronnie nodded. “We believe that dreams come for a reason, to bring messages. Also, I have heard of people who can see spirits.” To Dub she said, “Are you one of those people, too?”

  Dub grinned. “Nope. I just come along to help—and get scared out of my wits.”

  “Thank goodness,” Allie said.

  “Yes,” Ronnie said. “This would be a heavy burden to carry alone.”

  Allie was surprised to feel tears smart at the corners of her eyes. They were tears of gratitude, both for Dub’s friendship and for Ronnie’s understanding. Allie had been right to trust her.

  “But my last dream was confusing,” said Allie. “It made me wonder if maybe the girl wasn’t Seneca, after all.”

  “Why?”

 
Allie described the girl’s clothing and the wooden cabins, and Ronnie smiled. “Your brother saw my clothes and thought I wasn’t Seneca,” she said. “People expect us to look like Indians in the movies. This girl’s manner of dress and where and how she lived would depend on when she lived. Remember I said that my people adapted to new conditions? They learned to use the tools and materials of the Europeans. They traded for cloth and wool and many other things. So because your dream girl didn’t live in a longhouse and wear buckskins doesn’t mean she’s not Seneca.”

  Of course, Allie thought, feeling embarrassed by her ignorance.

  Allie and Dub were quiet for a moment, as Ronnie appeared to be thinking something over. Finally she said, “Tell me more about this pageant you’re doing.”

  Dub explained that they lived in the town of Seneca, and that this year a pageant had been added to the annual summer festival. “It tells all about the friendship between the first settlers and the Senecas who lived at Poplar Point,” he said. “How they shared food and helped each other and stuff like that. The narrator is a girl named Laughs-like-a-waterfall.”

  Ronnie rolled her eyes. “No Seneca girl would have that name,” she said. “It’s a name Hollywood would use for an Indian girl in a movie. But it isn’t a Seneca name.”

  Allie smiled, remembering Michael saying the name was “dumb.” He’d been right. “To tell you the truth, the whole script is pretty boring,” she confided.

  “Boring is one thing,” Ronnie said quietly. “This script may be something else altogether.”

  Allie and Dub both looked at her questioningly.

  “You heard what Skayendady said. It is a lie.”

  “A lie?” Allie repeated. “I don’t understand.”

  Ronnie sighed. “Well, perhaps the happy friendship you’ve described between your people and mine did once exist. But if the pageant ends there, it doesn’t tell all of what happened at Poplar Point. By leaving out important parts of the story, the pageant doesn’t tell the truth.”

  “What’s left out?” Allie asked.

  Ronnie’s face looked suddenly tired, and sad. “Have you ever heard of General John Sullivan?” she asked.

  Dub and Allie glanced at each other. “The name sounds familiar,” Allie said vaguely.

  Dub snapped his fingers. “Wait! Isn’t he the guy—There’s a monument with his name on it. Remember, Al, Mr. Henry showed it to us on our field trip to Fossil Glen?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Allie. “It’s a big rock with a metal sign on it, and a map.”

  “He’s some kind of hero, right?” Dub asked Ronnie.

  Ronnie smiled gently. “I suppose that depends on your point of view.”

  “What did he do?” asked Allie. “I can’t remember.”

  “Come,” said Ronnie, settling herself so that she sat cross-legged on one of the lower sleeping platforms. She patted a deerskin on her left and a woolen blanket on her right. “Sit. I will tell you the story. I believe Skayendady wishes you to know it.”

  Eagerly Dub and Allie crawled onto the platform with Ronnie and made themselves comfortable. Outside, the sun must have disappeared behind a cloud, as the dim, shadowy interior of the longhouse grew even darker.

  “Imagine, if you can, the fright and confusion of my people when the pale-skinned ones from Europe first came—and kept coming.”

  Allie and Dub nodded.

  “Perhaps you can imagine how strange the ways of these Europeans were to us. They not only warred against us at times, but were continually fighting among themselves as well. My people were caught up in these wars between the white people and forced to take sides, even though they couldn’t possibly understand what was at stake.

  “When your Revolutionary War came along, the Senecas and most of the other tribes in the Iroquois Confederacy sided with the British, not the colonists. Did you know that?”

  Dub shook his head, and so did Allie. If she had learned it, she’d forgotten.

  “In 1779, the commander of the colonists, George Washington, ordered his general, John Sullivan, to punish the tribes who were friends with the British.”

  Allie knew that the next part of the story was not going to be good, and she began to get a churning feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was suddenly aware, too, of the spirit of Skayendady hovering nearby, drawn perhaps by the telling of a tale she undoubtedly knew too well.

  “How did he punish them?” Allie asked quietly.

  “Sullivan’s orders were to eliminate any possible threat that might come from the Iroquois—or ‘the hostiles,’ as he called them. So he and his troops marched westward across New York State, doing everything they could to wipe out the Iroquois forever.”

  Allie remembered now. The map on the plaque showed Sullivan’s route on this journey.

  “They killed the people whenever they could, and laid waste to their villages, homes, crops, and orchards so that they could never rise up and prosper again,” Ronnie continued in a sad, soft voice.

  Allie shivered, although the longhouse held the warmth of summer. “But why did they build him a monument for doing that?”

  Ronnie shrugged. “It’s part of your history. It was meant to be the end of our history”—she gave the ghost of a smile—“but, as you see, some of us survived.”

  But not Skayendady, Allie thought. Vivid images from her dreadful nightmares came back to her, and she was sure that she knew the meaning of the dreams. “Sullivan’s men went to Poplar Point, didn’t they?” she asked.

  Dub looked startled, then turned to Ronnie for her answer.

  Ronnie nodded. “They spotted the village at Poplar Point from the other side of the lake, and they went to destroy it. They burned the homes. They set fire to the fields of corn and beans, squash and melons, and to the orchards filled with peaches and apples. Horses, chickens, pigs, men, women, and children—all were wiped out. They never knew it was coming.”

  Allie had seen this happening in her nightmare. Now, once again, she could see Skayendady’s tear-and-dirt-streaked face, and the terror in her eyes. She could hear the screams of the people and of the horses. She could feel their panic at finding themselves under murderous attack.

  No wonder Skayendady’s spirit can’t rest in peace, she thought.

  From outside the longhouse they heard Michael shriek with laughter. The sun came back out, and beams of light streamed once again through the openings at the roof. Allie, Dub, and Ronnie, still under the spell of the past, were jolted back to the present. They looked at one another for a moment without speaking.

  Then Dub sat up straighter and said, “Al, remember when we were at your mom’s shop and Mr. Kavanaugh was talking about building his ‘Indiantheme’ hotel at Poplar Point?”

  “Yes,” said Allie. She thought, but didn’t say, that the discussion had made Skayendady very angry.

  “Tell me more about this,” Ronnie said with interest.

  Allie and Dub told her about Mr. Kavanaugh’s plan and about his request for Indian artifacts to decorate the lobby and restaurant.

  Ronnie said, “He wants to build a hotel at Poplar Point, where my ancestors were slaughtered?”

  Allie felt a shock of horror at the question. She and Dub both nodded unhappily.

  “He wants to build this hotel with an ‘Indian theme’ on the site of an Indian massacre?” Ronnie asked incredulously.

  The terrible word hung in the silence of the longhouse.

  Fourteen

  Allie and Dub’s time with Ronnie was cut short when other visitors arrived. Michael was hungry and ready to go, anyway. As they were leaving, Ronnie quickly slipped Allie a business card, saying, “If I can help you further, just call.”

  Allie pocketed the card gratefully. “Thank you so much.”

  Back at the Nicholses’ house, Dub and Allie sat in the family room talking. “I sure didn’t expect you to tell Ronnie … you know, about seeing ghosts and all,” said Dub. “But I’m glad you did.”

  “Me too,�
�� said Allie. “She was so nice. And such a big help. I mean, we understand much more now than we did before.” After a pause she added, “What I can’t understand is if Skayendady died in 1779 in the raid at Poplar Point, why did she wait until now to appear?”

  Dub looked thoughtful. “This all began with the pageant,” he ventured. “Maybe Skayendady is, well, kind of riled up now because the story is being told wrong.”

  Allie nodded. It made sense that Skayendady’s spirit could have drifted in misery for over two hundred years, then been driven to act by the pageant.

  Dub went on. “Ronnie said that the Senecas believe in returning their dead to the earth. But I doubt Sullivan’s men bothered to bury the people they killed at Poplar Point.”

  “I wonder what happened to their bodies,” Allie said.

  “They probably just rotted where they lay,” Dub answered. “Animals would come and spread the bones around. Slowly, any bones left behind would sink into the soil, and be covered by leaves and stuff.” Dub made a face and added, “Not exactly a proper burial.”

  They were both silent for a moment. “Skayendady showed up when the pageant rehearsals began—a pageant that was Mr. Kavanaugh’s idea, and that Skayendady says is a lie,” Allie said finally. “Right at the same time, Mr. Kavanaugh was getting permission to build his hotel at Poplar Point.”

  “It all points to him,” Dub said. “He’s the reason Skayendady showed up now.”

  “He must not know what happened at Poplar Point,” Allie mused aloud. But then, thinking about Mr. Kavanaugh, she wasn’t sure about that. “If he doesn’t know, somebody needs to tell him.”

  Dub looked at her and smiled. “Good idea. Go for it.”

  “Oh, sure,” Allie said with a laugh. “Since he’s shown himself to be such a pleasant, reasonable person.”

  “Or—I know! How about if we talk to Janelle?” Dub suggested. “We’ll tell her what we found out—”

  Allie broke in sarcastically, “And our dear friend Janelle will do all she can to help. Where’s the phone book? Let’s call her right now.”

  They sat for a minute, quiet and discouraged. Then Dub said, “Okay, we know there’s, like, zero chance Mr. Kavanaugh’s going to listen to us about this. He probably wouldn’t even talk to us. But we might have a shot at Janelle. And if we convince her, maybe she’ll be able to talk to her father.”