Dead of Winter

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Nothing.

  People with black auras can be difficult for even a seasoned medium to read. Maybe emotional anxiety is blocking Spirit. Or the person is just not as open-minded as he or she claims to be.

  Peace . . . Light . . . Breathe.

  In. Out.

  In. Out.

  An image appears in her mind’s eye.

  It’s a bus. A big yellow school bus.

  “A child,” she murmurs, more to herself than to her visitor, whose chair creaks as she sits up a little straighter.

  “What about a child? Is it a ghost child? Who is it?”

  “Shhh . . .”

  Misty silently asks her guides to enlighten her.

  A bus . . .

  A bus.

  That’s all she’s getting. Not a figure, not a voice. Just a bus, likely meant to symbolize a child, just as Spirit sometimes shows her a cradle when bringing forth an infant.

  “I’m seeing a bus. Yellow . . . black letters and numbers painted on the side, but . . . no, I can’t read them.”

  “Wait a minute, are you seeing a school bus, or a ghost child, or both?”

  “Just a bus. Spirit might be using it to represent a school-aged child. But sometimes a bus is just a bus.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “The message might become clear in time,” Misty reminds her, eyes still closed.

  “But a bus isn’t a message unless . . . Is it a talking bus? Is the bus saying something?”

  “No, it isn’t a talking bus.”

  “Are you sure it’s not a little turquoise car?”

  Oh, for the love of . . .

  “It’s a bus. Big. Yellow.”

  “Is it parked or moving? Where is it going? Is a ghost driving it? What does it mean?”

  Misty ignores the rapid-fire questions like a bloodhound tracking a fox amid a tennis ball barrage.

  Peace . . . Light . . . Breathe . . .

  The bus, no longer empty, rolls slowly against a bleak, snow-flurried landscape. Misty picks out silhouettes of passengers and a few of the black letters on the side of the bus. There’s an L and an I . . .

  Snow falls harder. The bus goes faster. Misty is breathless, as though she’s running alongside it.

  Faces press against the windows. They should be blurrier as heavy snow whirls in the wind and the bus picks up speed, yet somehow the features are sharpening into focus.

  There’s Katie Harmon, bedraggled and drenched as always, reddish braids tied with soggy blue ribbons. And towheaded Billy Buell, a neighborhood kid she’d known in Cleveland. And DeQuann Jones, bald and missing eyelashes and brows—she met him while doing volunteer work on the children’s cancer ward.

  Every child on that bus is on the Other Side.

  “Excuse me?” Priscilla’s voice echoes across a yawning chasm. “What are you seeing? Do you have a message for me?”

  Now she can read the words on the side of the bus: LILY DALE SCHOOL DISTRICT.

  Another familiar face appears in the window of the careening bus, and Misty realizes that the message isn’t meant for Priscilla after all.

  It’s for her.

  In the ominous moment before the bus vanishes into the blizzard, she recognizes the fourth child: her own son.

  * * *

  “And you’ve lived here how long?” Lieutenant Grange asks Bella, standing at the curb beside his parked police car. He’s holding a clipboard, writing down her answers to so many questions you’d think she’s guilty of something other than dialing 9-1-1.

  “Six months. We got here at the end of June.”

  “And—”

  At the sound of an approaching vehicle, they both look expectantly at the end of the street.

  Another squad car appears, trailed by the medical examiner’s white van.

  “No sirens,” Bella murmurs, glad her nearest neighbors remain oblivious to the unfolding drama. Odelia is soaking and listening to her monks. At the Ardens’ house, an unfamiliar turquoise Mustang with Pennsylvania plates sits parked in the spot reserved for Misty’s clients. Across the way, Pandora Feeney’s driveway is empty. She, too, must be out.

  Odelia’s granddaughter, Calla Delaney, is probably home at the cottage she’s been renting since Halloween, when she broke up with her longtime live-in boyfriend, Jacy Bly. But she’s a novelist who retreats most days into her fictional world, tuning out the real one so effectively she might as well live on an island.

  A female police officer steps out of the car, greets Grange, and nods at Bella. He doesn’t introduce her. A pleasant-looking man in a suitcoat steps out of the van and flashes Bella a brief, professional smile.

  “Wait right here,” Grange tells her and disappears into the yard with the others. All in a day’s work for them.

  Not so for Bella, left alone to ponder the situation. Better than sharing the curb with gossipy gawkers. Not that there are many of those around the Dale at this time of year.

  Still, a corpse in the lake behind Valley View isn’t good for business, especially . . .

  Especially one that didn’t wrap itself in a tarp.

  The thought that she’s been trying hard to ignore roars in like a blizzard gust, chased by the realization that whoever disposed of the body might be nearby.

  She scrutinizes the dense shrubbery along Odelia’s property line and sees nothing unusual. Yet a chill permeates from within the fleece hoodie zipped over her silk blouse. She can almost feel someone lurking there, watching her.

  Gossipy gawkers might be better than standing here alone, even in broad daylight with armed officers within shouting distance.

  As if summoned by the thought, someone emerges from the Arden cottage two doors down. Bella turns to see a young brunette descending the porch steps. The woman starts toward the Mustang parked at the curb, then spots the police cars, and Bella.

  “Um . . . is everything okay over there?”

  When Bella hesitates, uncertain how to answer that, the woman approaches.

  “Ma’am? Are you all right?”

  Ma’am? Bella’s only thirty. But she feels frumpy and world-weary as she takes in the woman’s heeled black leather boots and chic white wool winter coat, decidedly dressy for Lily Dale on a weekday morning. She has a sleek short haircut that accentuates her big brown eyes and could only be flattering on someone with such finely sculpted facial features.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Isn’t that the medical examiner’s van?”

  “Oh. Yes, it is. There’s, um . . . there’s something out back in the lake.”

  “Something . . . ?”

  “Someone,” she admits, and the woman raises her perfectly arched, pencil-darkened brows.

  “Who is it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Did they drown?”

  “I’m . . .” Thinking of the tarp, she can only shrug.

  “Guess it wouldn’t be the first time, hmm?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Didn’t the woman who used to own this place drown last summer?”

  “That happened before my time.” Bella isn’t in the mood to discuss Leona Gatto’s death—hardly an accidental drowning—with a stranger.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wasn’t living here when it happened. I took over Valley View after Leona . . . passed.”

  “Then you’re Bella.”

  “I am.” She tilts her head, taken aback. “How do you know that?”

  “Oh, I . . . Misty must have mentioned it.”

  Really? Sometimes Bella wonders if Jiffy’s mother even knows her name. She can’t imagine why she might bring it up to a visitor.

  “Are you a friend of Misty’s?”

  “I just had a reading with her. I mean, she tried to read me, but she was having some trouble today, she said.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I don’t know. She said her concentration was off, and she kept getting some weird message about a school bus.”
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  “What about a school bus?”

  “I don’t know. She said it was probably for someone else. She wouldn’t let me pay her. She told me to come back tomorrow, and she’ll try again.”

  Bella nods uneasily, worried anew about Max.

  “Do you think whatever happened back there”—the woman gestures at the lake—“is the reason Misty was blocked today?”

  “I don’t really know much about it.”

  What if the message was for her? What if Max didn’t make it to school? What if the bus—?

  “Do you do readings?”

  “Me? No! I’m not . . . I don’t . . . I’m—I just run Valley View. That’s it.”

  “You’re a regular person then?” The woman smiles faintly. “I didn’t know there were any around here.”

  Bella knows what she means, having come to the same conclusion herself as a newcomer to the Dale. But now that she’s lived here for six months and considers the locals friends—even family—she bristles at the comment.

  “Everyone I’ve met around here is a regular person.”

  The smile fades, and the woman fishes for a set of car keys in her oversized black leather bag. “Well, I hope everything works out all right with . . .” She nods toward the squad cars and van and heads toward the Mustang with an incongruous, “Have a good day.”

  Bella doesn’t reply or watch her go. She hurries into the house, looks up the phone number for the elementary school, and dials it with a jittery hand.

  Surely they’d have called by now if anything went wrong with the bus.

  “Good morning, this is—”

  “Christine, this is Bella Jordan,” she interrupts the secretary’s pleasant greeting. “I’m just checking to make sure Max is there today.”

  “That he’s here today?”

  “Yes, you know . . . that he isn’t absent. Jiffy Arden, too.”

  Through the window, she sees Lieutenant Grange and the others stooped over the object in the shallows. She quickly turns away as Christine informs her that Jiffy happens to be in with the principal, Mr. Comanda, at this very moment.

  “He is? Why?”

  “Oh, Mrs. Schmidt sent him down first thing for something or other. He’s what we call a frequent flier,” she adds with a chuckle.

  Hardly surprised that Jiffy is no stranger to the principal’s office, Bella asks again about Max.

  “Let me check attendance.” A pause. “He’s here.”

  She exhales in relief. “Oh, good.”

  “Is everything all right, Mrs. Jordan?”

  “Yes, I just wanted to make sure the boys didn’t . . .”

  “Wander off?” Christine supplies with a chuckle.

  “Exactly.”

  “No worries. Ed Johansen, the bus driver, always takes attendance and gives us the list. If Max was absent and you hadn’t called him in sick, our policy is to contact you right away.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  She thanks the woman and hangs up with another glance at the unsettling scene beyond the window, not entirely reassured.

  Then again, secondhand information from a stranger about a psychic’s vision involving a school bus isn’t exactly cause for alarm, is it?

  Earlier, she’d been preparing to paint the parlor, with or without Drew Bailey’s help. Might as well proceed with that plan, she decides and heads for the cellar stairs to collect her supplies.

  * * *

  “Welcome back,” Mrs. Schmidt says as Jiffy walks back into the classroom. “Did you bring your listening ears with you this time?”

  “I think I forgot them in the principal’s office.” He pats the sides of his head and grins when everyone laughs.

  Everyone but Mrs. Schmidt. She tells him to take his seat.

  He does, disappointed to see that they’re doing social studies. He was hoping he missed it while he was down in Mr. Comanda’s office, explaining why he was saying something other than the Pledge of Allegiance this morning.

  “I was saying the pledge,” he’d explained, “but then my friend was talking to me, and I had to tell him to be quiet and leave me alone because it was pledge time.”

  “Mrs. Schmidt said you were the only one talking. She said all your friends were saying the pledge.”

  That’s because Mrs. Schmidt couldn’t see the friend who wasn’t. Only Jiffy could see him. He didn’t bother to explain that to Mr. Comanda, who can’t even see Pete, the boy who hangs around his office. Pete was Mr. Comanda’s big brother when he was a baby, but he’d made Jiffy promise not to tell him because it might scare him.

  Jiffy said he was sorry about the pledge and that he would try harder, and Mr. Comanda said, “All right, Michael. You can go back to class now. Just try to behave for the rest of the day.”

  He, like Mrs. Schmidt, always calls Jiffy by his real first name instead of the nickname he got a long time ago because he used to eat only peanut butter.

  Now that he’s almost seven, he eats some other stuff, too. Like hot dogs, ice cream, and spaghetti and curly French fries with cheese. Not mixed together.

  “Please open your text to page forty-five, Michael,” Mrs. Schmidt tells him.

  “Is it about pilgrims? Because I saw a real live one yesterday at Mitch’s Hardware Store.”

  “There’s no such thing as pilgrims!” Kevin Beamer says.

  “Yes there are! Right, Mrs. Schmidt? We read about them. They came on the Mayflower.”

  “Yes, but does anyone remember when that happened?”

  “1620!” Jiffy speaks up before someone can steal his spotlight. “And this guy at Mitch’s was wearing a black pilgrim suit and black pilgrim hat, and he had a big bushy pilgrim beard, and he parked a horse and buggy out front.”

  “So?” Kevin says.

  “So everyone knows pilgrims don’t drive cars. And Mrs. Schmidt said some of the Mayflower people had crazy names, like Remember and Humility and Oceanus, and this guy had the crazy name of Joe Yo, so—”

  “So that doesn’t mean he’s a pilgrim! He’s—”

  “Boys!” Mrs. Schmidt cuts in. “Let’s settle down. We can revisit this if we have time at the end of the lesson.”

  “But—”

  “Listening ears, please, Michael. Page forty-five.”

  Jiffy mouths, “It was a pilgrim” at Kevin, who sticks out his tongue.

  Mrs. Schmidt goes on talking about a guy named William Penn. From the sounds of it, he invented Pennsylvania.

  “I’ve been there!” Jiffy informs her to prove that his listening ears are working just fine. “I ate curly French Fries with cheese in Pennsylvania with my mom last summer when we were—”

  “Michael, did you forget something?”

  No, but Mrs. Schmidt has forgotten her manners. Max’s mom, Bella, says it isn’t polite to interrupt.

  “I never forget stuff,” Jiffy tells the teacher. “I remember everything. The name of the restaurant was called the Couch Potato, and they had a couch and a lot of potatoes and no fish pretending to be roller skates, and I was glad about that because this one time when I was—”

  “Michael.” Mrs. Schmidt looks and sounds like she’s really, really tired, but then she remembers her manners and says, “Please.”

  Jiffy waits for her to say what she wants, so that he can give it to her and politely say, “Thank You,” but she just goes back to talking about William Penn.

  He leafs through his social studies textbook, looking for page forty-five. When he finds it, he sees a familiar face looking back at him. He starts to shout out but remembers to raise his hand.

  Mrs. Schmidt, reading from the text, doesn’t see him.

  He waves it harder, trying to contain his excitement. “Oh, oh, oh, Mrs. Schmidt!”

  She looks up and seems even more tired than last time. “Yes, Michael?”

  “Is this guy in the picture William Penn?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Guess what? He didn’t just invent Pennsylvania! He inven
ted oatmeal, too. We have a round box at home in the cupboard, and I saw this same picture on it. My mom likes oatmeal, but I don’t. I don’t like kale either because that’s a disgusting vegetable. So is crudité, even though it sounds like a delicious French dessert with whipped cream and chocolate sauce and sprink—”

  “Michael! Do you want to visit Mr. Comanda again so soon?”

  He considers that.

  There were a lot of papers on Mr. Comanda’s desk today, and his phone kept ringing. “I think he’s pro’lly too busy for more company right now.”

  “So do I. Please hold your thought until later and listen to the lesson.”

  Jiffy tries, but instead he finds himself thinking about how much he hates vegetables.

  He hates them almost as much as he hates poached skate with braised daikon and charred scallion jam in a lemon confit-kimchi broth. He’d never heard of any of that until last May, when he and Mom drove cross country to New York City. Dad flew there on leave, and they all had dinner at a dark, tiny restaurant full of candles and disappointment.

  Mom had told Dad that they were spending the summer in Lily Dale. “I need to get away from the heat, and Jiffy needs a change of scenery.”

  “Jiffy is fine with heat. He likes heat. Right, Jiff?” Dad had asked.

  “Yep, and I like scenery, too. Me and Mom saw a lot when we were driving, right, Mom?”

  Mom hadn’t said, Right, Jiff.

  She’d said, “I don’t want him to waste his childhood in those cookie-cutter houses on the base. He needs to spend a summer in a lakeside gingerbread cottage, like I did.”

  Intrigued, Jiffy tried to ask Mom whether base houses were made with a gigantic cookie cutter and whether he would be allowed to take bites of the gingerbread cottage whenever he wanted dessert.

  But she hadn’t been talking to him, and when he used his outdoor voice so she’d hear him, the fancy people at the next table got mad and shushed him, and then the waiter showed up with their food.

  Having ordered the “skate special,” Jiffy had been looking forward to eating a blade or wheels and then bragging about it to people later. But his skate hadn’t been an ice skate or a roller skate. When he’d seen that it was just a stupid piece of fish, he’d accidentally shouted a little bit. That time, the shushy strangers talked to the restaurant guy in the bowtie. He came over and told Dad that he would appreciate it if the young gentleman would remain silent for the rest of the meal.