Haint Misbehavin'

by Maureen Hardegree

  “I know you’re here, Amy. You might as well show yourself. You’ve had your fun with the ghost hunting expert. Now, help me unlock the case.”

  She didn’t materialize.

  “Come on. I’m doing this for you,” I said.

  “No, you’re doing it for you,” her disembodied voice answered. “You want to get rid of me.”

  “Yes, but not for the reason you think. Amy, we’ve been through this so many times. Your mom and dad miss you like you miss them. Deep down you’re hoping I find proof of their love. Admit it. You wouldn’t be here with me otherwise. You’d be watching TVLand reruns with Claire.”

  When she didn’t respond, I added, “This is it, your last chance to reunite. Because I’m all out of ideas after this.”

  The cylinder inside the lock on the case clicked. I lifted the heavy lid, hinged like a piano, and pulled out the musty-smelling journal. Picking the carrel furthest from the door, I sat down and started reading.

  Periodically, I’d stop and offer some tidbit that I thought would prove to Amy that her parents loved her. The homemade paper dolls her mother made her for her birthday, a chocolate cake at Christmas when eggs were scarce. Some of the things she’d written made me smile. Like the day she found her twin brothers tossing the hens in front of the chicken coop to see them fly.

  All too soon, the door whooshed open, nearly giving me a heart attack. I slumped down over the desk, hiding as best I could and not breathing.

  The footsteps closed in on me. And then, the faint cologne.

  I knew that scent, and it didn’t belong to the Library Dragon. I popped my head up.

  “She’s been back for half an hour,” he said, glancing at the door, checking the closed blinds. “Aren’t you done yet?”

  “Uh, no.” I flipped through the pages filled with Amy’s childish scrawl. “So I’m not a speed reader. It’s like a couple hundred pages.”

  “Well the longer you stay, the more likely it is that Mrs. Turnbull will catch you. And we do close.”

  “Thanks for the added pressure.”

  “Any time.”

  He exited the room, and I had no choice but to skip some of what Amy wrote. I prayed I wasn’t skipping over something that would prove her family’s love and flipped toward the end.

  That’s when how much Xavier had on the line struck me. He must like me an awful lot to do this. Maybe more than I liked Drew. My hands sweated like they had when I was standing near a railing at a scenic overlook in the mountains.

  For a second or two, I wished I could like Xavier back the same way, but then I heard someone walking by the room and I knew the best thing I could do for all concerned was not think about him at all.

  February 3, 1920

  Martha Carrie didn’t meet me at the tree today after school and chores, which shouldn’t be much considering it’s still winter. She said she was feeling poorly and didn’t eat much of the dinner in her pail at school. At supper, I asked Mama if she thought Martha Carrie’d gotten the bad sickness that was going around last year. And the year before when it killed Daddy’s brother. Had it come back? She said she didn’t think so and smiled, but her forehead made deep furrows. I wanted to ask her more, but Daddy told me to quit talking and start eating, so I didn’t get sick, too.

  Queasiness roiled my stomach. I should’ve read that influenza book from cover to cover. Then I would have known. It would have all made sense, the stuff about her killing her family, why she didn’t want her journal to be read, why she’d taken the book.

  “The flu,” I said. “You gave it to your family?”

  She nodded and faded in and out as she tried to choke back the sobs.

  I knew I’d feel badly if I’d brought some illness home and it killed Claire, and Mom and Dad, Grandma. I wasn’t sure, but I might even feel bad if Audrey got it.

  “Look, Amy, there’s no way they blame you. It was an epidemic. I mean, it’s not like you got sick on purpose.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “But I didn’t listen. I gave it to them. They hate me.”

  Dreading what I sensed was coming, I read on. The next day’s entry showed more worry for her best friend. Amy’s mother told her that what she’d feared was true. Martha Carrie’s whole family was lying in bed with this illness. Other people in town had it, too. The influenza had come back. Her mother and father decided they’d stay away from town for a while, and that Amy wouldn’t go back to school until the influenza had passed. Amy kept worrying about her friend. Who would take care of Martha Carrie if her mother was sick? Her parents made Amy promise not to try to see her friend. It was the hardest promise she ever made.

  February 6, 1920

  Mr. Cartwright came by in his wagon before the sun went down. He looked more like a bandit with a kerchief over his mouth than a store owner. I wanted to go out on the porch where Daddy was sharpening the knives and Mama’s good scissors, but she made me stay with her, drying the dishes. I watched from the window as Daddy left his sharpening stone on the porch and walked out to greet the man. They didn’t shake hands. They talked for a while, and he left. When Daddy came back inside the house, he grabbed me by the shoulders. “Little girl, you’d best be listening to me,” he said. “You defy me, and I’m gonna tan your hide good, now.” Mama looked at him like he was out of his mind, but he kept on scolding. “Don’t you leave this farm. You hear me?” “Yes, sir,” I said. He went into the bedroom he and Mama shared. She followed him and shut the door behind her. I listened at the door. “There’s three dead at the Camps,” Daddy told her. “All blue as indigo. The Smiths aren’t doing much better. Martha Carrie’s bad off. According to her granny, she ain’t gonna make it.” I didn’t stay to hear the rest. I just started running, out of the house, into the cold winter air, to the bare oak tree where we’d take turns swinging. Daddy was wrong. Martha Carrie wasn’t going to die.

  February 7, 1920

  I guess I shouldn’t have done what I did, but I had to see her. Soon as I heard Daddy snoring, I climbed out my window. All the way to the Smith’s place, I imagined myself being like that Clara Barton woman we learned about in school who helped all them soldiers during the War Between the States. I’d nurse Martha Carrie back to health. I’d be a genuine heroine.

  When I got to Martha Carrie’s, their old hound dog Blue didn’t even bark. He ran to me and licked my hand. Now, Blue ain’t a friendly type dog, so it made me nervous. His taking a liking to me also told me he was hungry. If’n he was hungry, no one had been feeding him. The dog stayed on the porch as I pushed the door open to a house as cold inside as out. I heard fits of coughing coming from the one bedroom Martha Carrie’s family shared. I lit the oil lamp on the kitchen table and walked toward the coughing and the stench of soiled bodies. I’ll never forget the sight I saw. Martha Carrie was in her bed, piled with quilts, shaking with the chills. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were in the big bed. Martha’s mama was hacking so hard her skin was a pale blue, an even deeper blue were her lips, and there was blood on the coverlet and the pillow by her head. I went to the chest where they keep their linens and just started tearing. I brought the torn sheets to her and wiped the bloody froth.

  I don’t know how long I stood beside the bed helping her, but finally, she stopped and slumped down onto her pillow, wheezing rather than coughing. Mr. Smith wasn’t moving much at all. I wasn’t sure he was even breathing. He was that same color blue and blood was seeping from his ears and the corners of his closed eyes. I watched his chest for some sign of movement and thought he might be dead, but I didn’t want to go any closer to find out. I wanted to run and scrub the sight of them from my mind.

  I didn’t, though. I stayed and washed Mrs. Smith’s face and hands with water I pumped and carried. I opened a can of peas I found in the cupboard and fed it to Blue. I wiped down Martha Carrie’s hot face and hands. She’d twitch and mumble things that made not a lick of sense, but she didn’t have the look of her parents. That gave me hope. And where was her granny, I wondered. Why
wasn’t she here helping? I didn’t want to look for her.

  Long about daybreak, I heard wagon wheels turning, then halting in front of the house. “Amy!” Daddy called. “So help me, if I gotta walk in there and drag you out I will.” I glanced down at Martha Carrie. She was still burning up with fever. I dipped my rag in the bowl of cool water one last time and placed it on her hot brow. “Amy Malcolm, I’m laying down the reins!” Daddy yelled. I didn’t know that she could hear me, but I told her she’d always be my best friend. Not wanting a worse tanning, I walked out onto the porch and met Daddy on the steps. He sat down right there, took me over his knee, and spanked me until tears ran down both our faces. I told him he was hateful. He told me I was damned foolish and he brought me home.

  February 9, 1920

  Mama’s been watching me like a hawk, and I’m not sick. I even taught the boys how to play Jacks today. They can’t do more than twosies. I wonder about Martha Carrie and whether her granny ever came back. Every time I ask Mama, she tells me no news is good news.

  February 10, 1920

  I was a little slow getting out of the bed this morning and I have a sore throat. I didn’t tell Mama. I did all my chores, too.

  February 11, 1920

  I woke to Mama screaming. She came in to wake us and the twins were hot with fever. She kept saying over and over that it didn’t make no sense. How could they be sick if I wasn’t? Daddy yelled at me, “You brought it here!” Mama yelled back at him, “Amy couldn’t have brought it. She ain’t sick!” I wanted to believe the boys took sick some other way, but I knew in my heart Daddy was right. I went to make breakfast while she cared for Robert and Andrew. I was feeling very poorly myself, but I wasn’t going to admit it. It was bad enough that Daddy hated me. I didn’t want to lose Mama’s love, too.

  The girlish scrawl grew wobbly.

  February 12 or 13, 1920

  I ain’t exactly sure what day it is. I’m feeling bad, but better than last night. I wanted to write what happened the rest of the day the boys got sick. Mama and Daddy kept arguing about it. I helped with the boys. During one of the fusses, Mama pulled me to her and felt my brow. Her hand felt so cool against my hot skin. She sobbed that I was burning up and something about all her babies being sick, and I couldn’t stand up any longer. It was like my bones were melting. I told them both I was sorry. And I don’t know that Daddy said it, but I could feel him thinking it—Sorry don’t cut it.

  The next passage was much shorter. Ink blotches marred the even weaker handwriting. No date.

  The twins died today. Mama’s sick now, too, worse than me. It’s all my fault. I wish I could die.

  Then blank pages. The journal was another dead end. “Amy?”

  How I wished I could make it all better for her. “Amy?”

  I felt her coolness near me before she made herself visible. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really thought I’d find something to help you.”

  She whipped around the room, keening. “I told you. I told you the journal wouldn’t make a difference. I told you I killed them.”

  She levitated the book off the desk and slammed it against the wall. It landed with a thud, backside up. “Do you see now why I don’t want people to read it?”

  “Yes.” I walked over to the spot where the journal landed and leaned over to grab it by the back cover that tore off in my hand. Great. Now I’d destroyed library property. I flipped it over to see if I could somehow tape it back together and noticed handwriting far different from Amy’s advancing across the expanse of paper-covered cardboard in neat, bold block letters.

  Oh, my, God. The entry was dated February 15, the day before she died.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  My voice shook as I read the words aloud.

  “Dearest Amy, I hope one day you’ll forgive me for reading your intimate thoughts, but I needed to feel close to you, what with losing your Mama and the twins. You’re ailing so bad now I can scarce hope you’ll make it. I can’t believe you’re truly leaving me, but I know good and well your brothers and your Mama looked about as bad off as you right before they passed. I’m gonna miss you, my stubborn girl. I guess you get it from me. If only I’d been able to say I was sorry when you could hear me. This influenza ain’t your fault. You had a big heart, that’s what made you go to Martha Carrie. She’s still hanging on and getting better every day. Her granny says that’s because of you coming that night and helping. I don’t know no way other than through this book you was always writing in to tell you. Now you listen to me, baby. No one blames you, least of all me.

  I love you, Daddy.”

  My cheeks were wet with tears. I didn’t care if the Library Dragon herself saw me in here and heard me talking.

  “Amy, see? He might not have let you see it, but he loved you, and your mom and Robert and Andrew love you, too. How are they going to get past twosies without you?”

  My little haint started to shine.

  “But listen, if you still don’t want to go to them, I don’t mind you sticking around. After all, you’ve never seen the ocean.”

  Smiling now, Amy shimmered as if she’d been coated in the fine glitter dust Mom uses for her crafts. “No ocean for me. I have a family reunion to get to.”

  “So you’re leaving? Just like that?” I asked. A little hole tore in my heart. Why wasn’t I elated? Her business in this world was finished. I would soon be free of her mischievous ways.

  “Yup, I’m moving on.”

  “This is it,” I said, still trying to convince myself it was really happening, still trying to swallow the lump in my throat. “I get to be normal now.” Well, as normal as a hypersensitive girl can be.

  Amy giggled. “You’re silly, Heather.”

  She faded to a spot of light that danced around the special collections room like a firefly. I placed the torn cover and the book on the desk of the carrel I’d been sitting in and followed my spot of light out of the special collections room and into the lobby where Mrs. Turnbull was helping another patron at the information island.

  She asked the man with the beer gut to excuse her for a moment and headed straight for me. “You. What were you doing in that room?”

  Amy illuminated to full figure again, so bright the glare hurt my eyes. “They’re waiting for me. Much obliged, Heather. You’re a good friend. Better even than Martha Carrie.”

  I’d done something that weird Aunt Geneva couldn’t or hadn’t been able to do for her friend; I’d helped my ghost find her way out of this world. Maybe being me wasn’t so bad.

  “How did you get in there?” the librarian asked, tugging on my arm.

  Xavier walked over to us from the bank of computer terminals, but I wasn’t going to let him take the fall for me.

  “It was open, and it looked like a good place to take a nap, so I did. Napping isn’t against the rules is it?” I spun around for her. “No backpack. No place to carry anything.” I pulled my pockets out of my soda-splotched shorts for good measure.

  Amy laughed, then minimized herself into a spot that looked like sunlight reflecting. As she flitted around the ceiling, Xavier’s gaze followed her. A slow smile broke on his face as the reflection sped out through the doors which opened for Amy as if she were a physical presence the sensor could register.

  The librarian turned to Xavier. “Has the door been malfunctioning all day?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, faking a wide-eyed look of innocence.

  Mrs. Turnbull walked off to test the doors.

  “You did it, didn’t you?” Xavier asked.

  “Yeah, I did.” A flush rose on my skin, warming and tingling me. I didn’t itch. “Thanks for letting me in.”

  “No, thank you,” Xavier said, bowing slightly. “The way I see it, you owe me at least two dates now.”

  I wasn’t going to argue, not that I had any intention of going out with him. My guilt would find another outlet, maybe of the souvenir variety. I wanted to check my e-mail and started walking toward the comput
er terminals.

  Xavier stopped me. “Um, there’s no point in looking.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You left your e-mail open. Nothing from Suzanne. But you shouldn’t let it bother you. She has no idea how cool you are, Princess.”

  “You did not call me that.”

  He just smiled at me like we were some couple, which we weren’t.

  “I gotta go,” I said. “Oh, and you’d better get the journal back in the case. I think I left it sitting out.”

  Xavier started walking at a fast clip toward the special collections room, but halted. “I didn’t open the case. How did you—”

  “I didn’t,” I said, then slowly pivoted on my heel and headed out of the library, past the sensors, which for once didn’t beep. Yay, me!

  When I got outside into the early evening air filled with the sound of wasps buzzing around the shrubbery, wasps that would soon be attracted to my shorts, I called out, “I’ll miss you, Amy.”

  I didn’t care if anyone thought I was weird, and I don’t know if she heard me, but I’d like to think she did.

  As I strolled along the brick-stamped concrete toward the sidewalk, a Prius the same silver gray as my dad’s pulled into the parking lot. The driver slowed to a stop; the engine stilled as hybrids do, and the compact tinted window lowered. It was Dad.

  “Hey, you want a ride?” he asked, then adjusted his brown polarized sunglasses.

  Like I was going to say no. I walked around to the passenger side, settled into the leather seat, and buckled the belt. Then I realized something must be wrong.

  I became aware of the skin surrounding my earrings in a way I’d never been aware of it before. My earlobes were on fire, and I knew these babies were nickel free.