If Onions Could Spring Leeks

by Paige Shelton

  “All right. Go on,” Jake said.

  “They say that he met her here, at our station. Right here. She was on her way somewhere and her beauty put him under a spell. Well, it was as good a reason as any for him to up and leave. Justice took the next train behind her, hoping to find her.”

  “Do you know if he did?” I said.

  Mariah looked around the otherwise empty station. “Here’s my secret, Jake, my family’s secret. It can’t be told to anyone outside this room.”

  “Of course,” Jake said. I nodded when they both looked at me.

  “He never came home.”

  “What? No, that’s not correct, Mariah. Justice was killed by a runaway horse here in Frankland. He fell off.”

  “The family had to have a better excuse than that he left them to follow a beautiful woman of color that he claimed he couldn’t stop thinking about even though he’d just met her. A woman of color named Grace.” Mariah sat back in the chair and sighed heavily. “They had to come up with a story when they received word that he was never coming back only a few short days after he left.”

  “A letter?” I asked.

  “A letter,” Mariah said.

  “Who from?”

  “They say it was from Justice himself, but that part’s a mystery too.”

  “You don’t still have the letter?” Jake said.

  “Wouldn’t that be a treasure? No, Jake, the letter, according to the legend, was burned the same night it was received, the same night the story about Justice being thrown from the horse was concocted.”

  “That must have been some letter,” I said. “I mean, your ancestors must not have needed much convincing if they acted that quickly.”

  “Perhaps the tale has transformed over time, but that is correct. Whatever the letter said, it was a convincing story.”

  We were all silent a moment, deep in thought, but I couldn’t help myself. “Who’s buried in his casket? He—well, someone—was interred, right?”

  “No one. There was a funeral and a big show of him dying, but even the town doctor thought it was important that people think more highly of Justice than him running off with a woman, never to return to his loved ones again.”

  “Good grief, Mariah, that’s a huge story and one that it might be time to tell,” Jake said.

  Mariah shrugged. “We’ll see. I’d like for the world to know. Justice leaving his family was not an honorable way to behave, but it was for love, or so we all like to think. The family would be upset if they knew I’d told the truth, but you’re a true friend, Jake.”

  Love or murder, or both? Jake and I looked at each other. Had Justice made it to Broken Rope, killed Grace when she didn’t return his love, and then run away to avoid prosecution? Had they run off together, leaving Robert behind to visit the train station the rest of his life? Why had Grace visited me in a scene that included the Frankland station, and not the Broken Rope station?

  With a great effort, Mariah rose from the rocking chair. Jake offered her his arm, which she took as she led us out to the other part of the building, the place that now held card tables but probably had been filled with hard, uncomfortable benches at one time.

  “Let’s look at some pictures,” Mariah said.

  Even before we’d made it all the way to the wall with the pictures, I could see that the man in most of them was the same jowly man that Paul had sketched based upon Gram’s description.

  “Here, there’s Justice when he was a young man, just starting out in the world.” Mariah pointed to a picture of a person standing straight and tall, looking directly at the camera and, if I wasn’t mistaken, trying not to smile. No one smiled in pictures back then.

  “He was handsome,” I said.

  “Yes, for a while. Here he is with his first wife.”

  Justice’s first wife was as pretty as he was handsome.

  “He was still young when he got married the first time,” I said. “He doesn’t look much different from the first picture.”

  “Here he is with some of his friends,” Mariah said.

  Justice stood in the middle of a group of men. All but Justice had soot-covered faces; probably miners. None of the men in the picture seemed happy to be having the photograph taken, and Justice’s expression was just as dower as everyone else’s. He was older now, not old, but close to middle age, and closer in appearance to the man in the sketch.

  “His second wife.” Mariah pointed.

  Justice had gained weight, exaggerating the already obvious jowls. His second wife was pretty, too, but just as unhappy as everyone else in the pictures. I’d often wondered when someone first smiled for a photograph. Someone must have said “Say cheese,” causing the subject to laugh and everyone realized that happy expressions made for better memories.

  She moved to the next picture that was of Justice only. “They told everyone that this picture was taken the day before he was thrown from the horse, but look closely. You’ll see that he was actually a little younger than he was in the picture with his second wife.” Mariah laughed. “They tried to think of everything, even faking the time a picture was taken. I don’t understand it.”

  I wondered how anyone had believed this picture was taken some time after the one with his second wife. The differences were obvious. People believed what they wanted to, though, and Justice had been a hero to so many. I didn’t understand the lies his family had told to protect him and the truth, but I hadn’t been there. Things were different then.

  “It’s all over and done now. Doesn’t matter, I suppose to anyone. We don’t get many visitors here anymore. Justice’s memory is faint but still glorious. That’s what the family wants, to keep it glorious, and I’m happy to oblige because he did do a lot of good for a lot of people.”

  It mattered, but she was right: Nothing from the past could really be changed.

  Jake bit his bottom lip and then pulled his attention away from the wall of pictures. “Mariah, are you familiar with an old train station up the highway about halfway between here and Broken Rope?”

  “No, love.” She inspected him. “The only train stations that used to exist on that route are this one and Broken Rope’s. There were no others between the two places.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “I’m positive. I know my train stations and I know all the stops through Missouri, at least those that were along the same route as Frankland. It’s part of what people want to know about when they ask questions about Justice. Trains and their stops were very important to what he did.”

  Jake thought a moment and then said, “Two stories, decorative outside, dentist’s office on the second floor?”

  “I don’t know, Jake. Doesn’t sound familiar, but I know without a doubt that there has never been a station in the location you mentioned.”

  What had Jake and I come upon, and why? There had to be a reason, and the reason had to have something to do with the ghosts. Didn’t it?

  But which ghost? Grace, Robert, Jerome—or maybe even Justice or Derek, I supposed.

  Mariah suddenly wilted a little, her small body hunching a bit more.

  “We’ve taken up way too much of your day,” Jake said. “Let me help you back to the chair.”

  Jake guided her toward the ticket booth. I followed behind, but I allowed my eyes to skim the pictures as we moved slowly through the lobby.

  As I sauntered, my eyes grazed over something that seemed familiar. I had to stop and find what I thought I’d seen. I stepped closer to one picture in particular. It was Justice sitting on a high-backed chair. There was still no hint of a smile, but he was young, probably in between his two marriages.

  Above a spire on the back of the chair was a whiteish pattern in the film. A swirl. A couple of swirls, that when put together looked like a cowboy hat. The pattern was something I’d seen in some picture
s of Gram when she was younger. She and I had suspected the swirls had something to do with Jerome, but no one, including Jerome, could confirm or deny.

  “No way,” I said quietly to myself. But no matter how many times I pulled my eyes away and then looked back at the picture, the pattern didn’t go away. “Why?”

  But no one answered. The distinct voice I’d heard in my head earlier was silent.

  Justice had lived long before Jerome had lived. But was there a connection? The last time Jerome had visited, he’d had memories that made him think he’d been haunted when he was alive. Was it possible? And was it possible that he was haunted by more than one ghost? It happened, to me and Gram at least. Were the ghosts all connected to each other? It was a big notion to ponder and one I didn’t begin to have an answer to.

  “She’s asleep, out the second after she sat down,” Jake said as he appeared behind my shoulder. “We should just let her rest.”

  “We know there was a connection between Justice and Grace,” I said. I silently debated pointing out the swirl on the picture, but I didn’t think I needed to pull Jake even further into the ghosts’ grasp.

  “True,” he said, then sighed heavily. “I don’t think we uncovered anything that will keep you safe, but I don’t know what we should do next. Jerome proved he can still come to your rescue, even if it’s by sending another ghost to help. Perhaps you’re being watched over close enough. Let’s go home, Betts. It’s been a long day.”

  “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

  Chapter 16

  “Wow, Sis, you’re either upset or you need to think super hard about something,” Teddy said.

  I’d been cooking. After Jake and I got back to Broken Rope, I headed straight to the school, called Teddy, and then got to work. He was right, but I was both: upset and needing to work through something. So far, I’d made spaghetti sauce, seasoned and roasted Brussels sprouts, and fried onion rings. Both the spaghetti sauce and the sprouts included onions. Yes, I needed to cook, and onions were what I’d first seen when I opened the pantry, so onions were a part of every dish I was creating.

  “Want some onion rings?” I said as I slid a plate toward my brother.

  “I can’t think of a time I would say no to them,” Teddy said as he grabbed a few and bit into them. With a full mouth he continued, “What up, Betts?”

  “I have a question for you. It’s a serious one, but you’re going to think I’m crazy for asking.”

  “I think you’re crazy anyway, so what difference does that make?”

  Teddy and I had always gotten along, but we were, and had always been, very different. Teddy lived life like it was a party. I didn’t really like to party, and according to him, I over-thought everything. Still, we liked each other and were, for the most part, willing to put up with each other’s faults.

  I cut into another onion with the plan to dice it into very small pieces. Corn, tomato, and onion salad would be my next creation.

  Dicing was good and gave the pungent aroma a chance to water our eyes. Teddy saw what I was doing so he moved to a stool a little farther away, taking the plate of onion rings with him.

  “Remember when I was shot?” I said.

  “You didn’t really get shot. It was just a flesh wound. Not that bad. You were fine.”

  “Right. But you do remember it, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you remember telling me that shortly before all that happened a cowboy told you to tell me to meet him in the basement of the pool hall?”

  “Oh. Kind of. Yes, actually I remember that. He was some actor that I hadn’t seen before and he smelled like a campfire.” Teddy looked perplexed for a moment. “I don’t think I ever asked. Did you meet him? What did he want?”

  I wasn’t as good a cook as Gram was, but I diced like a pro. Even I was impressed by my ninja skills. More than that, the activity was giving me something to do so I wouldn’t over-think what I was about to tell my brother.

  “Have you seen him since then?” I said.

  “I’m not sure, Betts. All the cowboys look alike around here in the summer. The hats make it hard to tell one from another.”

  “How ’bout the woodsmoke? Have you smelled it in the presence of a cowboy again?”

  “Yeah, but not like that time. It was strange how strong it was, but nice, too.”

  “Right.”

  “Betts, what’s up? Who was he?”

  I stopped dicing a moment and looked at my brother. On the way back to Broken Rope, I’d had a silent discussion with myself. What had happened at the mystery train station (which, by the way, hadn’t been there when we’d driven by again) was scary, perhaps even wrong in some sort of spiritual way, though I didn’t want to give the traumatic event that much thought. I decided I was going to let Teddy in on the ghostly secrets. I thought there might be a small chance that he had some of the paranormal juju like Gram and I, and probably my dad to some extent. The thing I’d debated with myself was whether telling Teddy was a selfish or a smart thing to do.

  I didn’t want to talk to my dad about it. Evidently his small taste of the otherworldly had scared him. Cliff currently didn’t want to know more about it, even though he had a good sense of what was going on. And I was completely certain that Cliff had zero paranormal juju, which put him in second place when it came to choosing a new confidant. I didn’t have to talk about it with someone else, but I thought I should. As Jake had driven us back to Broken Rope I thought about Justice and what would happen if someday I or Gram or Jake, for that matter, just disappeared. One day we were there, but the next day something or someone from that weird ghostly realm pulled us into their world, without giving us the chance to escape.

  I didn’t want it to go that way, but if it did I certainly didn’t want my world of living loved ones to think I’d just up and left them. I wanted someone to understand what might have happened and then tell the others I hadn’t intentionally abandoned anyone.

  As Jake had steered his Bug down the highway and past what was now only a hole in the ground with a school of small fish swimming in it, I realized that if we had truly been killed, crushed by the collapsing building, our bodies might never have been found. Or, if they were—if someone passing by noticed the Bug after it had become overgrown with vapid Missouri weeds and vines, what would they think happened when they found our remains? It wouldn’t make any sense.

  I didn’t want Cliff to ever wonder. I didn’t want my parents to wonder. I didn’t want Teddy to wonder. I needed someone, and Teddy was the person I’d chosen. But I still hoped it wasn’t a selfish move. I didn’t want my telling him to significantly alter his life. I doubted it would. He wasn’t one to think too deeply about anything, or let anything really bother him.

  “Teddy, I need to tell someone something and you’re the person for the job. However, you can’t say a word to Opie about it.”

  “Uh, well, okay, you know I can keep secrets, Betts, but I’d just like to know why I can’t tell Opie—not that I tell her everything anyway, but I’d just like to know.”

  “Because she’d dump you for me, Teddy. She’d leave your side and stick beside me all the time, and I just can’t bear the thought.” My eyes watered profusely now.

  Teddy laughed. “I doubt she’d dump me for you, Sis, but whatever you say. Okay, it’s a deal. I won’t tell her a thing about what you’re going to tell me.”

  “You can’t tell anyone at all, unless something happens to me. If I disappear or something really crazy happens, something that seems to defy explanation, then you can tell Mom, Dad, and Cliff. Opie, if you’re still together and you feel like you really need to.”

  “Betts, this is beginning to sit funny with me. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I wiped my hands on my apron and used the back of them to brush away a couple tears from my cheeks.

&
nbsp; “Okay, then what’s going on?”

  “Teddy, Gram and I have a connection to Broken Rope’s past.”

  “What do you mean, like Jake tells you a bunch of stuff?”

  “No, I mean like we can communicate with it, talk to it.”

  “Okay. What are you talking about, Betts?”

  “Come on.” I stepped around the butcher block and grabbed his arm. I hadn’t planned this part, but Teddy learned better with pictures. I pulled him out of the school and to the cemetery, stopping at Jerome’s grave.

  “This was the cowboy who told you to tell me to meet him, Teddy.”

  “You mean an actor who was portraying him.”

  “No, I mean him. Jerome himself. I know him.”

  “Oh yeah?” He didn’t sound doubtful, exactly. He just sounded like he needed a minute to process the information.

  “I know him, Teddy. I know this Jerome.”

  Teddy’s eyebrows came together and he rubbed his chin as he looked hard at Jerome’s tombstone.

  The humidity had been low for most of the day but it felt like it was now rising. Missouri summers could be wonderful and they could be miserable. So far this year, we’d had a little of both. Today had started off well, but the perspiration on the back of my neck made me think we were headed for some miserable.

  There wasn’t a cloud in the bright blue sky. I looked up, shading my eyes with my hand, and I saw a robin dart from a tree on one side of the cemetery to the other side. I glanced around the grounds. There were no ghosts that I could see, but I wondered if any were watching us, wondering, like I was, how Teddy was going to react to this news.

  “Like as a ghost?” Teddy finally said.

  “Exactly like a ghost. He is a ghost—as I know him. He really did die when he was shot by the sheriff, but his—spirit, or something, can come back as a ghost. There are other ghosts from our town’s past too.”

  “Betts,” he said.

  It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t quite a simple statement, but I knew him well enough to know what he meant.