If Onions Could Spring Leeks

by Paige Shelton

  “Don’t have them at the moment.”

  I realized that the only time Jerome’s woodsmoke scent had been present with his recent visits was when he’d jumped into Paul. I hadn’t smelled anything with Elvis, Reginald, or with Jake. But another scent suddenly filled the air. The distinct smell of onions, pungent and aggressive, rode a small breeze through the field.

  “I think we’re about to see the train station again. It was originally where the barn is, but it materialized back here behind it last night. Do you see it?” It was faint, but definitely coming into view.

  “I do. This is the one that collapsed on you and Jake?”

  “I think so. Yep, there’s the bell.” I squinted toward the porch and saw the bell, its brass glimmering.

  “I see. Stay close by, Isabelle. We’ll get through whatever this is.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  The strong smell was unsettling. I liked the smell of onions, even in their rawest, most powerful form, but there was an extra edge to this smell, something that didn’t make my eyes water, but made the back of my throat burn.

  When the building was completely there though very transparent, a person appeared on the steps that led into the front door. He was a ghost I hadn’t yet met, but the first one I’d known back when they were a live person.

  “Derek?” I said as I hurried toward the station and the man who I’d apparently almost died with.

  “Isabelle, wait,” Jake/Jerome said.

  But I didn’t listen.

  “Derek,” I said as I stood on the platform below and looked up at him, the onion smell even stronger. “Derek?”

  He didn’t seem confused. He seemed angry and bothered, but not at all confused.

  “Betts, Jake, what are you two doing here?”

  I looked around. “I was about to ask you the same question. I was also going to ask if you knew where you were and what happened to you.”

  “Of course. I was killed right over there.” He nodded toward the barn. “I’m a ghost.”

  That was easy. “Yes. You were killed. Who killed you?”

  As Derek looked up quickly, day turned into night, the field stepped back in time. We were there, at the original station, at night. Everything and everyone became solid. I looked at Jake/Jerome who nodded, confirming that he was also seeing the changes.

  “Where’s the train?” Derek asked.

  I turned and looked where it seemed a train would be.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Are you expecting one?”

  “Yes. It was my only option, as far as I could figure. There it is,” Derek said.

  We turned and looked back toward the direction of the barn. It was now gone and a faraway light was beginning to come into view.

  Derek stepped around both Jake and me, off the stairs and onto the platform. He looked toward the train.

  Jerome/Jake and I looked at each other.

  “Derek, please tell me. Do you know who killed you? Do you know what happened?”

  “Of course.”

  “Tell me!”

  “I won’t have to. I’ll show you. When the train arrives. I hope it’s on time.”

  I sighed, but I realized that this was Derek’s show and he was going to reveal what he wanted to reveal in his own time frame. Before I could contemplate what more I could say, the other ghosts came into view.

  Robert, Grace, and Justice appeared on the platform, right in front of us. They looked at us and at one another. For a moment, we all took in what was happening.

  Finally, I said, “Grace, Robert, you two okay? Justice, do you know what’s going on?”

  “I’m fine. Grace is here,” Robert said as the two of them took each other’s hands.

  But if there was about to be a romantic moment, it was thwarted.

  “You killed me!” Justice said as he looked at Robert. “It was right here. You killed me right here.”

  As though the words didn’t quite make sense even to himself, Justice pulled back his anger and put his hands on his hips. “What’s this? What’s going on?”

  Robert nodded at Grace, kissed her on the forehead, and then stepped around her.

  “I did kill you. You killed my Grace. I killed you.”

  Were those answers, or speculation? Jake/Jerome and I shared a hopeful glance.

  For a long moment the only sound was the faraway but approaching train. Derek ignored the rest of us as he looked out toward where it seemed the train was coming from. Grace observed the two men who’d loved her so much that somehow she and one of them had ended up dead. Justice and Robert looked at each other with fierce hatred and surprised confusion. They communicated with their eyes. A stare down. Playing chicken.

  And then Justice spoke. “I did not kill her. I fell in love with her. I would never have killed her.”

  I stepped forward and decided that some clarification might be needed.

  “Justice, I need to explain a little of where you are and why.” I gave him the spiel. He didn’t argue or protest his circumstances, but listened thoughtfully. Then I added, “We think you were angry when Grace left the station to search for Robert. We think it’s possible you became jealous and killed her so Robert couldn’t have her either.”

  “No! That’s not what happened.”

  “Okay. What happened?” I said.

  “I’m not exactly sure,” Justice said after another long moment.

  The train was still very far away, the light not seeming to grow brighter and the sound remaining at a constant low level. We stalled, like the film in the projector was stuck and would break momentarily if someone didn’t do something. I had only one idea.

  “Should we go inside?” I asked Jake/Jerome.

  “It’s probably okay.”

  “Derek, come in, too. I might need your help.” I had no idea how I might need his help, but I wanted him with us, or at least I didn’t want him to disappear when he was out of my sight. He looked at me with disdain but then grudgingly followed the rest of us in.

  The inside was just as real as the outside and like the station had been the night before.

  Derek brought his onion stink in with him, but I thought Jake/Jerome and I were the only ones to notice it. He took a seat on one of the benches and looked around without curiosity. He’d come in, but he looked like he was going to wait his turn for something, without needing to know what else was going on. I was okay with that—for now.

  Elvis, the ticket salesperson, was in his spot behind the window, ready to exchange money and tickets with customers, but there were no customers, just the mixed up group of ghosts, Jake/Jerome, and me.

  “Okay,” I said as I moved to a bench and pointed. “The night we think everything happened, Justice and Grace were sitting here, on this bench. Sit.”

  They did.

  “Now, do you remember your conversation?”

  They blinked and looked at each other.

  “Yes,” Grace said. “I was going to go search for Robert.”

  “And I made plans to meet her back here if she couldn’t find him. I wanted to take care of her.”

  “That never happened. What happened? Remember,” I said.

  “I left. I left the station,” Grace said.

  “And I watched her go. Watched until she turned a corner,” Justice said.

  “Watched her? You didn’t follow her?” I said.

  “No, I watched her just from the platform out there.” Justice stood up and walked to the doorway. “Right in that spot. I stood there and watched her go.”

  “You met her later?” I said.

  “I don’t think so. No, I know I didn’t! I went to find Robert—I went to find Robert and I found him.” Justice moved back to Robert’s side. “And you killed me.”

  “Whoa, we need some of the other d
etails,” I said. “Why would he just kill you? Did you just kill him, Robert?”

  “I killed him, yes,” he said as his ghostly eyes looked to the past. “But I think I had a good reason.”

  I looked at Grace. “Try extra hard to remember, Grace. What happened to you after you left to search for Robert?”

  Grace stepped away from the crowd and to the door that Justice had explored.

  “I know I didn’t find Robert. I know I came back here, but I was earlier than Justice and I had talked about. I gave up. I become desolate after only a few more dead ends. I began to believe that Robert had abandoned me.”

  “Oh, Grace,” Robert said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “All right.” I sighed and then became distracted by a commotion at the ticket counter. More people from the past had appeared and were upset about something.

  I approached the small crowd.

  “Hang on. No one move,” I said to the ghosts. They all nodded absently.

  “How are we supposed to get our tickets now?” said one of the potential ticket buyers.

  “He just up and left!” said another.

  They were talking about Elvis. The ticket seller’s chair and booth were empty.

  “Where did he go?” I asked them.

  A sour looking old woman turned to me with what looked like a painful neck bend. “He was watching all of you over there, and he suddenly got up and left. What did you do to him?”

  I nodded and then looked back toward the other ghosts. I’d known that Elvis must have had something to do with the answers we were searching for. Why else would he have appeared?

  I walked back to Jake/Jerome. “Still you, Jerome?”

  “Yes, Isabelle.”

  “When you hopped into that Elvis guy—the one selling tickets—did you sense that he knew anything about what was going on here?”

  “No, not really. He was just the easiest to jump into.”

  “Grace, do you remember anything about the ticket seller?” I said.

  She looked up at me, first in confusion and then only a small moment later, with complete understanding.

  “Of course!” she said. “He was angry with me for—what was the word he used? Loitering. There were no other people here. He wanted to lock the doors, or so he said. He told me I needed to buy a ticket or leave.”

  Suddenly, Elvis appeared by her side and grabbed her arm.

  “If you aren’t going to buy a ticket, you need to leave,” he said, his grip on her arm clearly tight and probably painful.

  And his voice was vicious. A thread of fear danced up my spine. I was fully aware that Elvis could do nothing to me—how must Grace have felt when he’d done that to her all those years ago?

  “I’m sorry,” Grace said. “I won’t be long. I really am meeting someone soon. Look, I’ll leave. Just let go of my arm and I’ll leave.”

  Elvis looked around and seemed not to see anyone else. I presumed that we were viewing what had happened, not a revival, but the moments of what really occurred. Grace also seemed to suddenly not notice the rest of us.

  “Grace!” Robert and Justice said as they both moved toward her.

  “Stop,” I said as I grabbed Robert’s arm and the sleeve of Justice’s jacket. “This has to happen. There’s no bringing her back, but you want the truth, right? Then I think we just have to watch.”

  They both looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

  “Isabelle is right,” Jake/Jerome said. “This will give you the answers you were looking for.”

  It was awful. In fact, it might have been one of the worst times of my life, watching what happened to Grace. What Elvis, out of anger, desire, hatred, and loathing, had done to her. Gram’s nightmares would now be mine, too.

  Grace had been extraordinarily beautiful. And she’d had black skin. Elvis had found Grace as beautiful as everyone else had. But he’d been wired wrong. Something had been horribly off about him, something that made him think it was his place to take what he wanted, particularly from someone he deemed “lesser” than himself. No one else had been around. Robert was ill, Justice wasn’t supposed to be there yet. When Grace fought Elvis, he took what he wanted from her, and then became so angry with her obvious disgust and hatred of him that he killed her. What happened to Grace made the loathing I had for prejudice and small minds grow to a vile, choking size. But if I allowed it to truly take a place in my heart, I knew I would have been as awful as those people with small minds had been, and some still were. I couldn’t allow myself to be like them.

  When it was done, we learned that Justice had found Robert and brought him back to a darkened, empty station, and they’d found Grace’s body behind the station. Robert had made an illness-induced and horror-filled assumption. He’d thought Justice had killed Grace. He was so sick, dangerously fevered and teetering on the brink of death. His muddled mind couldn’t grasp that Justice was innocent of everything except falling in love with Grace. And no matter his love for Grace, Justice had been trying to help her and Robert. He believed in doing the right thing. Robert had killed Justice and made his way back to his sickbed, waking up only the next day, realizing what he’d done. He hid their bodies in the Missouri woods, and sent a letter to Justice’s family in Frankland. Then he proceeded to enact his own punishment.

  Answers. Did they help?

  Actually, they did. After the dreadfulness, Elvis disappeared, and so did the others who’d been in line to purchase tickets.

  But Grace, Robert, Justice, Jake/Jerome, and I remained. So did Derek, but he didn’t count at the moment.

  “How does a man apologize for murdering another man, particularly a good one?” Robert said as he looked at Justice.

  “How does a man apologize for leaving a beautiful woman to a killer?” Justice said.

  “Gentlemen, apologies are no longer necessary,” Grace said. “We have the truth.”

  In fact, Grace was practically giddy, the weight of the past gone from her pretty shoulders.

  “What happens now?” I said.

  It seemed they were about to tell me, but Jake/Jerome jumped in. “No matter. Friends, I think you can be on your way now.”

  Grace, Robert, and Justice looked at Jake/Jerome and smiled and nodded.

  “Thank you, Betts,” Grace said as she moved toward me and hugged me tightly. She said into my ear, “Love is strange and doesn’t understand time. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I’m working on it.” I looked at Jake/Jerome. I loved them both, and in such different ways. And I loved Cliff.

  “Thank you, Betts,” Robert said with a smile and a nod. “This was all terribly exhausting, but it has ended well.”

  “Thank you, miss. Thank you,” Justice said.

  “You’re all very welcome. Is this good-bye?”

  But they didn’t answer. They disappeared, back to wherever. I hoped it was a good place.

  I turned to Jake/Jerome. As he reached for my arm, perhaps to guide me someplace, a wind rushed through the station, and blew the building away. I had a sense again that I should be falling to the ground, so I braced myself, but there was no fall, just a transition from the station to the field. It was still a nighttime version so I knew we weren’t home yet.

  “The bad thing that happened here, the thing I sensed was dangerous to you?” Jake/Jerome said above the wind and as he looked over my shoulder.

  “Yeah?”

  “It had nothing to do with Grace, Robert, Elvis, or Justice. It was about Derek. I know that now. The viciousness of his murder made him strong, Isabelle, almost too strong. His anger is overwhelming and partially directed at you because you didn’t die too.”

  I nodded even though I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant and then turned. Derek was standing and looking down at the train tracks—at a body on the train tracks.

  “Oh no,
” I said. “Who is that?” I stepped toward Derek and the body as Jake/Jerome followed close behind.

  The body on the tracks was Lynn. In fact, she was still alive and tied to the tracks just like Nell Fenwick of the Dudley Do-Right cartoon that had been a favorite of my dad’s. She’d played a damsel in distress in a Broken Rope skit when she was younger. Now she really was one.

  I pushed past Derek and crouched next to Lynn.

  “Oh, Betts, thank heavens you’re here. Untie me, please!”

  “Of course,” I said as I reached for the knots on the ropes around her arms. “What’s going on?”

  I didn’t know if she could see her son as he hovered above us, the tips of his shoes at the edge of my peripheral vision.

  “He,” she looked up at Derek, “tied me here.”

  I paused and looked at Jake/Jerome.

  “Derek is dead,” he said to Lynn.

  “Oh, I know he’s dead. He’s haunting me, and trying to kill me.”

  Derek laughed and said, “Because she killed me.”

  “What? Lynn?” I said.

  “I had no choice,” she said. “Please untie me.”

  It wasn’t necessary to let her know right away that all of this was a ghostly illusion, that the train whistle we just heard wasn’t real. I thought she was in a pretty good spot to answer some questions.

  “Why did you kill your own son?” I said, my heart hurting at the question, the idea of it.

  “He was going to expose me, expose us, and I didn’t want to face it. Everyone in Broken Rope would have been appalled. We would have had to leave.”

  “I wouldn’t have left. I would have stayed and hoped you left. You paid them, Mom. You paid them to marry me. Why didn’t you just tell me?” Derek said.

  Why didn’t you just tell me? Just as Gram and I had suspected, it had been Derek inside Grace that day at Lynn’s. Way too much crossover for my tastes.

  “Technically, I was just trying to have a grandchild or two. You were pathetic, Derek. You were never going to get a wife on your own. I had to do something. I wanted more family. I deserved to have more family.”

  Derek’s fists balled and anger pulled at his features. I couldn’t imagine how awful it was to hear your parent call you pathetic. These two were a mess, a horrible, scary mess.