Sylvie and the Christmas Ghost

by Foxglove Lee

  When I looked at what she was writing, my fingers went numb. “Are you making a Ouija board? Those things are evil!”

  Tracing her fingers around the letters of the alphabet, she said, “If the neighbours are correct in thinking this house is haunted, aren’t you the least bit curious who might be lingering here?”

  “It’s not really haunted. All those people outside are nuts.” As I looked over Celeste’s shoulder and out the front window, I felt a chill all over my skin. “Wow, it’s super-cold today. Help me move the table closer to the fire.”

  We dragged the table over, pushing chairs out of the way and spilling cookies off the tray.

  When Celeste grabbed a candlestick off the mantle and lit it in the fireplace, I asked, “What are you doing? The fire isn’t enough for you?”

  “This is a spiritualist method,” she replied.

  “Spiritualist? What’s that, some funky new religion?”

  “No, no. Spiritualism involves conversing with those who have passed over.”

  “With ghosts, you mean?” Another chill ran down my spine, but I shook it off the way dogs shake water out of their coats. “If there were ghosts in this house, I think I’d have seen one by now. Or my dad would have, at least.”

  Celeste set the candle on the table with reverence. She took this really seriously, so I pulled up a chair.

  “How is a candle supposed to tell us if there are ghosts around?” I asked.

  “It is quite the simplest of methods,” Celeste replied as she closed the heavy velvet curtains, depriving the room of outside light. “Very basic, but an excellent starting point for spiritualist activity.”

  “I’ll just have to trust you on that one.”

  She placed both hands on the table. “Do as I do.”

  I followed her lead and set my fingertips but not my palms on the tabletop. “What now?”

  The fire crackled and I jumped, which made Celeste laugh. “Now we watch the candle flame. We observe how neatly the fire burns, how strong and intense and upright it glows. We see the darkness of the wick and the brightness of the flame.”

  As I followed her instructions, I felt a little weird. I felt not quite myself, like my head was floating but very heavy at the same time.

  Celeste made a humming sound, which I would have found weird at any other moment, but I was so mesmerized by the candle I just kept staring. After a moment, she asked, “Is a spirit in the room with us? Move the flame to the right for yes and to the left for no.”

  My heart froze when the flame flickered to the left. “Oh my God, there’s a ghost in the house!” And then I thought about it for a second and asked, “Wait, why did they answer no? Is there a ghost here or not?”

  “A spirit,” Celeste said, correcting me. “And it’s understood that they move the flame to the speaker’s left or right. I am the speaker me. So, to me, that was a yes.”

  “Oh.” What did I know? I’d never done this before.

  “Are there many spirits here with us?” Celeste went on. “Right for yes, left for no.”

  The flame flickered to the right this time—so Celeste’s left. “No?”

  “Only one?” Celeste asked.

  Yes, the flame replied.

  The logs in the fire crackled and I pressed my fingers harder into the tabletop.

  Celeste asked, “Are you known to us, Spirit?”

  The flame burned brighter and then dimmer. It flickered to the left and then the right. It kept going back and forth.

  “Maybe it’s known to me and not you,” I said. “Or you and not me.”

  “Spirit, are you a family member to someone in this room?”

  Yes! A bright orange yes that leaned so hard the flame was practically horizontal.

  “Are you a family member to me?” Celeste asked.

  No.

  I swallowed hard. That could only mean one thing.

  “Are you a family member to Sylvie?”

  Yes. Again, the flame leaned so far to the side liquid wax spilled down the candlestick.

  “Grandma?” I asked.

  The flame didn’t react at all to my question.

  Celeste asked, “Are you a woman?”

  No.

  “A man, then. Did you meet Sylvie prior to your passing?”

  No.

  “You passed before Sylvie was born?”

  Yes. An ardent yes. My skin felt goosebumpy and cold despite the blazing fire.

  “It could be anyone,” I said. “Lots of people died before I was born.”

  “So you have no inkling who this man might be, Sylvie? Not the slightest clue?”

  I got a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach and I said the first thing that came to mind. “I never met my grandfather. My father’s father, I mean. My dad never met him either, never knew who he was.”

  Celeste didn’t look as surprised as I thought she’d be, but she did say, “How exciting.” Then, focusing on the candle, she asked, “Spirit, are you Sylvie’s grandfather? Are you the man whose identity her father never knew?”

  For a moment, the flame held perfectly still. And then it flickered gently. Yes.

  “Why did your son never know you?” Celeste asked.

  “Celeste!” Even though I hadn’t met him, I felt like I should defend my grandfather. “How’s he supposed to answer a question like that? Maybe he didn’t even know he had a son.”

  Celeste chewed her lip, like she was trying to think what to ask next. “Spirit, did you die of old age?”

  “Don’t ask that!”

  But the question was out and answered: No.

  “Was your death an accident?”

  “Celeste! You’re being rude.”

  No.

  “Not an accident,” Celeste mused. And then she asked, “Did you die close to home?”

  No.

  “Why are you asking these questions, Celeste? Why are you asking how he died? Wouldn’t you rather know who he was and how he lived?”

  Raising her brow, Celeste moved her fingers to a cookie in the shape of a Christmas tree, which had fallen from the tray when we’d moved the table. “Spirit,” she said. “Tell us your name.”

  The cookie started moving in quick, jerky lines. The Christmas tree shape acted as a pointer, which landed first on the P Celeste had drawn on the table. It went next to R, then I, then V.

  “You’re doing that yourself,” I said.

  “I can assure you I am not,” Celeste replied.

  The cookie moved to A, then shot quickly to the T, then back toward the beginning of the alphabet where it landed on E.

  “Private,” Celeste said.

  “He doesn’t want us to know who he was. Leave him alone.” My plan was to brush the cookie away from her, but the moment I set my fingers on it, that little sugar cookie took off.

  “Are you moving it?” Celeste asked.

  “No. You are!”

  “I am not!”

  The cookie moved around the table, taking our fingers with it. We called out each letter it landed on.

  A shot like lightning ran through my arms and I pulled my hands away. “What was that?”

  Celeste hadn’t felt it, apparently. She picked up the blue chalk and wrote what the spirit had spelled out for us: PRIVATE GERALD RAWLEY.

  The moment she’d finished writing it, the letters glowed a ghostly shade of blue. Celeste jumped away from the table, letting out a gasp. I couldn’t move. My feet were planted to the floor, but my knees grew so weak I had to lean against the table.

  Then, all at once, the table began to vibrate.

  “Sylvie,” Celeste said. “The table… it’s lifting itself off the floor!”

  “No.” I shook my head, but she was right. I could feel it trembling under my hands, rising into the air, levitating!

  Celeste scrambled toward the front window and tore open the velvet curtains. As quickly as the strangeness had started, it came to a halt. The letters stopped glowing, the candle stopped flickering, a
nd the table fell to the floor with a terrible bang.

  The air in the room felt different. It felt normal again. I could breathe. I didn’t feel tingly. No goosebumps. No chills. If anything, I felt uncomfortably hot from being so close to the fire.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Celeste.

  She licked her fingers and used them to put out the candle flame. “No harm done. And yourself?”

  “I don’t know. That was so weird, like something you’d see in a movie.” I couldn’t stop staring at the words scrawled across my father’s kitchen table. “PRIVATE GERALD RAWLEY.”

  “Rather exciting,” Celeste said. “Today you met your grandfather for the first time. Just imagine what spirits you might encounter in the days and nights ahead...”

  Chapter Eight

  I’d written my grandfather’s name on a scrap of paper and put it in my coat pocket. As we wandered the woods on Christmas Eve, I kept taking off my mitten and checking that it was still there. I’d told my father what had happened (and why his table was covered in chalk) as soon as he got back from visiting Great-Aunt Esther. He dismissed the information as the result of childish games.

  “But aren’t you even a little bit curious?” I asked him in front of Amy. I was still really mad at her for stealing my dad away from my mom (even if he said they didn’t meet until after the separation), but I knew I could get Amy on my side. She was obviously eager to impress me. “Dad, this ghost said he’s your father. You don’t want to find out more about him?”

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts, Sylvie.” My dad trudged through the snow with an ax in one hand and a mug of hot chocolate in the other. “Your friend was playing a trick on you, that’s all.”

  “But then how do you explain the name? You think she made it up?”

  “Most likely,” my father replied.

  “What about his rank?” I shot back. “You think Celeste randomly made up a soldier’s name and the fact that he was a private in the army?”

  “I was born at the tail end of World War II, Sylvie. Lots of men were Privates in the army back then.” My father stopped trudging for a moment and said, “Your friend might have spotted that name on a gravestone. You told me she runs around these woods a lot. Well, I came across a small cemetery a ways over that hill. She could have seen it there. She could have seen it anywhere, really.”

  Amy the Architect hadn’t said much all day, probably because I glared at her every time she opened her mouth, but she spoke up now. “I don’t know, Jonathan. This is kind of spooky, if you ask me. Sylvie, you’re saying the table actually levitated?”

  “I’m sure it didn’t lift up off the ground,” my father scoffed.

  “It did!” I told him. “Why won’t you believe me?”

  “Well, there’s one way to find out,” Amy said.

  “What, have security cameras installed?” My dad laughed. “It’s a little too late for that now.”

  “No, not about the table,” Amy replied. “About the man—the soldier. If he’s a real person, Ken Dempsey will have a record of him.”

  “Why would Ken have a record?” my father asked.

  Amy shook her head. “Haven’t you been to the library lately? Ken’s had all those army records on display since Remembrance Day.”

  “Can we go, Dad? Please?” Who’d have guessed I would be begging my dad to take me to the library on Christmas Eve?

  “I don’t know, Sylvie. It might not even be open.”

  “It is,” Amy jumped in. “I saw Ken at Darla’s this morning. He was just heading over to open up, but for shortened holiday hours, so if we’re going we’d better get there before noon.”

  I still wanted to be mad at Amy, but she was definitely on my side so I tried to be nice. “Let’s go. Let’s just pick a tree and get this over with.”

  “Get this over with?” My dad looked really hurt. “Sylvie, you begged me to chop down a Christmas tree and now that we’re out here you’re changing your tune?”

  “She only means let’s speed up the process,” Amy cut in. “Here, how about this one? It’s a perfect size.”

  “It’s a little small.” My dad walked to the tree Amy was petting. “It’s barely taller than Sylvie.”

  “It’s perfect,” I said. “Chop, chop! And I mean that literally. Here, I’ll hold your mug.”

  “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” my dad grumbled.

  In the back of my mind, I’d been looking forward to this ever since I’d decided to spend Christmas with my father. Now that it was happening, all I could think about was his father, the grandpa I’d never met.

  The tree wasn’t heavy or big, so it didn’t take long to drag it back to my dad’s house. We hadn’t even set it upright and already I was begging my dad to take me to the library.

  “I can drive you,” Amy said.

  “No, my dad has to come too.” I tugged at the sleeve of his coat. “This is your father we’re talking about. Don’t you want to know who he was?”

  The look in his eyes confused me. It was like he wasn’t sure. But finally he relented and Amy drove us so we’d get there in time. She also came in with us, which I didn’t want her to at first, but when she gave the old man there a hug I was glad to have her as a buffer.

  “Merry Christmas Eve, Ken.” Moving out of the way, Amy said, “This is Jonathan’s daughter, Sylvie. She’s got a bit of research you might be able to help with.”

  “Hi-ho, Sylvie.” Mr. Dempsey bent forward and talked to me like I was a kid. “What can I do you for?”

  I took the slip of paper from my jacket pocket and handed it to him without a word.

  “Sylvie wants to find out a little more about this man,” Amy said, without explaining why.

  Ken the Librarian nodded slowly. “I know this name. Why do I know this name?”

  “We think he might have been a soldier,” Amy added.

  “Well sure, sure.” Mr. Dempsey rubbed his head. “Where have I seen this name?”

  We all waited and watched him in silence. The man kept rubbing his forehead like he expected a magic genie to pop out.

  “Of course!” Mr. Dempsey pointed to one of the glass cases containing a number of old books. On the wall above it, there were black and white pictures of soldiers—entire battalions of them. “Now I know why I remember the name. Oh, this is a fascinating story.”

  Amy, my dad and I all crowded around the glass case as the librarian slipped a key into the lock and slid the front open.

  “I’ll ask you not to touch these volumes. The oils on your skin can ruin the paper.” Mr Dempsey pulled a pair of white cotton gloves from his pocket and turned the pages carefully. “Gerald Rawley didn’t start out as a private in the army. Well, I suppose he did, but he moved up the ranks rather quickly. Soon after joining up, he was transferred to the training camp just outside Erinville. He wasn’t happy about it, though. Gerald Rawley didn’t join up for the accolades. This was wartime, you know. He wanted to defend his country overseas, not spend the war training new recruits.”

  “Why didn’t he just go?” I asked.

  “How much research have you done into the great wars of the twentieth century?” Mr. Dempsey replied.

  I looked at my dad. “Umm… none?”

  “Well, then I’ll give you a bit of history.” Mr. Dempsey cleared his throat like he was about to sing a showstopper. Then he said, “In the Great War, WWI, as we know it today, plenty of black men joined the army. In those days the troops were segregated. That means there were black troops and there were white troops.”

  Amy looked from me to my dad, like she was trying to figure out if either of us knew what the librarian was talking about. I sure didn’t.

  Mr. Dempsey stopped flipping pages at a chapter called Coloured Infantrymen. “In WWII, what happened? At the start of the war, men were turned away because of the colour of their skin. That soon changed as more soldiers were needed. Here in our country, battalions were integrated. Black soldiers and white
soldiers fought sought side by side. That didn’t mean everything was fair and equitable, though. Not by a long shot.”

  Amy must have been as confused as I was, because she said, “Sorry, Ken, maybe you’re confused. We’re asking about this guy called Gerald Rawley.”

  “And I’m trying to tell you about this guy called Gerald Rawley,” Mr. Dempsey replied. “You see, the first three times he tried joining up, he was turned away. When the army finally took him in, he shot right up in the ranks.”

  “That’s so weird,” I said, still trying to wrap my head around all this. “First the army won’t let the guy in, and then when they finally do they just keep promoting him?”

  “He must have been an exceptional soldier,” Amy said.

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Mr. Dempsey replied. “But the army kept him here on our soil, training new recruits. Gerald Rawley was so desperate to see action that he told his commanding officer he’d go AWOL if they didn’t send him overseas. His CO said, ‘No can do.’ Told Rawley he was too important to operations here on the home front. So, bold as brass, Rawley tore off his insignia and demoted himself down to Private. He said, ‘No man in this army is any more or less important than another. We’re in this together, Sir, and when these new recruits I’m training head over there, I’ll be standing shoulder to shoulder with every last one of them.”

  “And they let him go?” I asked the librarian. “Did he go to war and fight the Nazis?”

  Mr. Dempsey nodded. “He certainly did. Gerald Rawley was desperate to see action on the front lines, and he made the ultimate sacrifice in doing so.”

  My father spoke up for the first time since we’d stepped into the library. “You mean he died in battle?”

  “That he did.” Mr. Dempsey flipped the page in his book and pointed to a picture of a smiling young man in a military cap. “And there’s the man himself. Only twenty-three years old. A life cut short in battle.”

  The name Private Gerald Rawley was printed beneath the sepia photograph. It was difficult to tell his precise skin tone, but if he was listed in the “coloured infantrymen” section of this old book, that obviously said something: my grandfather was black. That meant my dad was part black. That meant I was too.