by Foxglove Lee
Two parts of me argued as I watched her. One part wanted Celeste to live in my father’s house forever, even if no one could see her but me. That way, she’d be mine. She’d be my secret.
But the other part of me knew I was being selfish. Celeste had been hanging around Erinville since long before I was born. She’d already mentioned how hard it was to materialize so I could see her. Maybe she’d wear herself out if she kept trying for my sake. Maybe she’d make herself sick. Could ghosts get sick?
Squeezing her hand, I said, “I really care about you, Celeste. I want you to be at peace, even if it makes me sad to see you go.”
She opened her eyes and gazed at me hopefully.
Tears came out of nowhere, filling my eyes as I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tight. “I’ll miss you so much.”
“I apologize,” she said, and her voice cracked with every syllable. “It was quite wrong of me to appear before you. It was quite wrong of me to kiss you the day we first met.”
“No,” I said, pulling back so I could look at her. “I’m glad you did. Really. Maybe I wasn’t happy about it at the time, but now, I can’t explain it. I feel like I know myself better than I did before, and all because of you.”
Brushing a tear away, she asked, “You’re not upset with me?”
“I’m sad you have to go,” I said. “But I’m not mad at you. I like you too much to be angry.”
She clutched my hand and I gripped hers so hard it probably would have hurt if she hadn’t been a ghost. I knew what would happen if I kissed her. I knew I’d have to say goodbye forever, but I also knew it would set her free.
And so, as we sat together on her tombstone, I leaned in and tilted my head. The last thing I saw before closing my eyes was the blonde of her curls bouncing against red velvet as she tilted her head too. When her lips met mine, I felt warm all over. Peace and light seemed to pour from her ghost body, filling me with wonder and excitement.
In my mind’s eye, I saw the sun rise high in the sky. It was the brightest sun I’d ever seen. I tried not to look directly at it, but I couldn’t help myself. It hypnotized me with its sheer beauty. And then the sun opened up and became pure white light, and my heart opened with it and all I felt was bliss. No pain, no sorrow, no tears.
I knew, in that moment, Celeste would be leaving for that place. I knew she would never again feel the pain of this world. She would live in light forever.
The tighter I clung to her hands, the less I could feel her gloves against my fingers. In my mind, I heard her say, “You need to let go, Sylvie.”
“I can’t,” I replied, all in my mind. “I don’t want you to leave me.”
I held her hands tighter and again she whispered, “Let go.”
The sun in my mind’s eye grew so bright it illuminated every shadow. When I looked around, I saw two smiles I recognized: my grandmother’s, but she looked different—young, like she wasn’t much more than my age. Beside her was the man I’d seen in the book at the library, my grandfather. He was standing next to her and smiling radiantly. They’d found each other.
And then I heard Celeste gleefully cry out: “Harriet! Nettie! Flora! You all are here!”
I turned in time to catch Celeste running toward an older woman, a younger woman and a girl my own age. In that moment, jealousy didn’t exist. I felt nothing but her joy at being reunited with the people she’d loved in life. I felt happy for her. Truly happy. I didn’t feel the cold. I couldn’t even feel the gravestone under my bum. I couldn’t feel anything but the pure joy of love and reunion.
But I did feel one thing: I felt my body go limp and collapse in the snow. I wouldn’t call it a blackout, because the world around me turned into a glittering winter wonderland. In fact, fainting face-down in the snow on a cold Christmas morning felt a lot like love. When it happens, you have no idea how close you are to never waking up again. Or maybe you do know and you just don’t care.
Chapter Eleven
“Jonathan, I think she blinked.”
Waking up was like walking down an endless tunnel. It took forever, and it was uphill all the way.
“Her eyes just twitched.”
“Did she open them?”
“No, but I see them moving under her eyelids.”
I could feel something wrapped tightly around me—a blanket maybe? Somebody’s legs were under my back, and someone’s arms held me almost as tightly as the blanket.
Amy the Architect. It was Amy. I tried to push her away, but my arms were swaddled tight against my body. Finding my voice, I groggily said, “Get off me. I don’t need your help.”
“Jonathan, her eyes are open!” Amy shouted gleefully across the front room. “How’s that tea coming?”
“Just stirring some sugar into it,” my father replied. “Sugar is good for shock.”
Amy and I were bundled together in front of the fireplace, I now realized. I also realized the blanket she’d wrapped around my body covered my mouth. She hadn’t heard the unkind thing I’d said, which was just as well because I didn’t really mean it. It actually felt kind of nice, being bundled up like a big baby.
Then my father arrived at my side, pressing a mug of tea to my lips. “Here,” he said. “Drink this down.”
Since I couldn’t take the mug from his hands, Amy held me up higher off the ground until I was in a sitting position. My father tilted the mug to give me small sips. Amy glanced at the Christmas tree and said, “I brought cinnamon buns—homemade. I baked them last night. I didn’t know…”
When she trailed off, my father set the mug down by the fire and asked, “Sylvie, what on earth were you doing in the woods at three in the morning? You owe Mr. Santana a debt of gratitude. If he hadn’t been out front to see you scamper off… well, I don’t want to think what might have happened.”
“Jonathan,” Amy chided. “Let the girl catch her breath. She only just regained consciousness.”
“I know, I just…” My dad pulled me into a hug so stifling I could feel his heart racing in his chest. “When Bob showed up at the door holding my beautiful daughter in his arms, I thought… oh, it was too terrible, what I thought. You were so pale, Sylvie. Your lips were blue.”
I felt bad that my father had been worried about me. But I just kept staring at the Christmas tree. There were presents under it now. They hadn’t been there when I went to bed. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me again, but then I spotted Amy’s baking tray and I knew what I was seeing was real.
“Can I have a cinnamon bun?” I asked.
“Of course you can.” Amy the Architect kissed my forehead, then wiped her lip mark with her sleeve and apologized.
“It’s okay,” I said.
As she started unravelling the blanket, my dad said, “Honestly, Sylvie, what were you doing in the woods? Did it have something to do with this friend Celeste I keep hearing about? You weren’t chasing ghosts around the graveyard, I hope.”
Amy held perfectly still, but looked away, like she was trying not to be in the room. I didn’t say anything. I guess my father could see the answer by the look on my face, because he said, “I knew that girl was a bad influence. I don’t want you hanging out with her anymore.”
My eyes filled with tears when I remembered everything I’d seen and felt with Celeste. “You don’t have to worry about that. She had to go away. She went away forever.”
My dad looked at Amy with a confused furrow of his brow, but Amy only shrugged as if to say, “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Can I have more tea?” I asked before my father could pose any more questions.
We all had tea and cinnamon buns in front of the fire. It must have been very early in the morning still, but I wasn’t tired. Amy and my dad seemed too shocked to be sleepy. When we’d finished eating, my father asked me to take a bun out to Mr. Santana, aka barbeque beard man, and thank him for saving me from the cold.
He was still out front in his lawn chair, and I felt a little
embarrassed as I approached him. “My dad says you followed me into the woods and brought me home. I just wanted to say thanks. Here’s a cinnamon bun.”
“That’s very kind of you.” He accepted the bun on a paper plate, then asked, “What were you thinking, running into the woods in the dead of winter?”
“I thought I saw something,” I said without meeting his gaze.
“You did too, eh?”
Then I looked at him. “You saw it? What did you see?”
“You’re gonna think I’m right off my rocker, but I seen a great sweeping mist come out the front door right before you did. The mist goes off into the woods and, sure enough, you go chasing after it. I followed a ways, but I lost you. Had to come back, get my flashlight, and set off again. Found ya fainted in front of a tombstone in the old cemetery out there.”
I wished I had something better to say, but all I could think of was, “Thank you.”
As I turned back to the house, Mr. Santana asked, “Did you see the ghost out there?”
I took a deep breath and the cold winter air sliced my lungs. “Yup, I sure did. But the ghost is gone now, so I think it’s time for the town to stop hanging around my dad’s house.”
Barbeque beard man looked hurt and said, “Oh. I see. Well, I guess I’ll just pack up my stuff and go.”
“I didn’t mean to be rude,” I told him pleadingly. “I only meant there’s no sense hanging around. You’re not going to see anything.”
He still looked hurt, and I didn’t know what else I could say. He answered, “Only, there ain’t nothing for me to go home to. Ain’t nobody there to barbeque for.”
That’s when I had a brilliant idea, probably the best idea I’d had since I first set foot in Erinville…
Chapter Twelve
Mr. Santana sat up front with Amy while my dad scrunched into the back seat with me. The car had so little leg room his knees were up around his ears, but he kept saying it wasn’t a problem—just like I kept saying it wouldn’t be a problem to walk to Great-Aunt Esther’s old age home. My dad and Amy were too afraid the cold would do me in, or my legs would give out beneath me.
“I think the retirement residence has a barbeque,” Amy said. “Isn’t that right, Jonathan? I thought I spotted one on the patio out back. It obviously doesn’t see much use in the wintertime.”
Before my dad could answer, Mr. Santana said, “I can do more than just barbeque. I been cooking all my life. My first memory is sitting at the kitchen table watching my ma get dinner ready. She’d always give me this or that to do.”
Amy asked Mr. Santana what his mother used to cook for Christmas dinner, and as he reflected back on Christmases past it became clear that he’d nursed his mother until her death. That made me think of Celeste, how she’d spent her teenaged years caring for an elderly woman. She said she’d learned so much from Harriet, and I think that’s why I changed my tune about visiting my great-aunt.
For me, family always meant my parents and my siblings. For some people who get kicked out, like Celeste, family isn’t necessarily blood relatives. When she was my age, her family was Harriet. If the people who are supposed to care about you don’t care, someone else in the world will. Or if the person you care about the most in the world dies, like with Mr. Santana and his mother, then other people can fill in that gap.
I could see how lonely Mr. Santana was, and how much he wanted to be part of something. That made me think about my dad visiting Great-Aunt Esther every day, and how lonely a lot of the old people must be. That’s why I asked if he’d ever thought about volunteering at the retirement residence. His eyes lit up. I’d never seen anyone so excited at the prospect of spending Christmas with the elderly.
“Here we are,” my dad said as Amy turned into the parking lot. “Do you remember coming here before, Sylvie?”
I wasn’t sure. I only remembered the old people and their skin and their hands. I didn’t remember the building itself.
“Bob, why don’t you come with me?” Amy said. “We’ll find Ms. Hoover and see if she needs a hand with anything.”
They went on ahead while my dad and I stood before Amy’s car, gazing up at the place. “It looks like a gingerbread house from a fairy tale,” I said.
“Yeah, it kind of does,” my dad agree.
“You know who lives in gingerbread houses,” I said. “Witches.”
My dad rolled his eyes, then put an arm around my shoulder and gave me a shake. “Remind me when we’re inside: Ms. Hoover, the manager here, she lets me make long-distance calls from her office. So before we leave, we’ll phone your brothers and sisters and wish them a Merry Christmas. I bet they miss you a lot.”
“I miss them too. And Mom.” Without looking at my father, I asked, “Don’t you ever miss Mom?”
He sighed. “Yeah, I do. Sure I do. But that’s why it’s good that we separated, Sylvie. Now we can be friendly. That’s what’s best for you kids. You know you’re our top priority.”
“But how can we be your top priority if you live so far away from us?”
The words were out before I could keep them in, and right away I felt rotten for saying them. It was Christmas. I shouldn’t make my father feel bad, especially when I knew he didn’t even have enough money to even call long distance. But instead of saying I was sorry, I just walked away. I walked toward the front entrance of the gingerbread house, bracing myself for the smell of old people.
When I opened the door, the smell that struck me wasn’t at all what I’d expected. The air smelled like just you’d expect in a gingerbread house: gingerbread! And it wasn’t awkwardly quiet, the way I remembered it. No, there was music playing. Christmas music.
With my father at my back, I followed the clang of piano keys into the main gathering room. It was full of people who were having way too much fun. I felt like I’d walked into one of those cola wars commercials where the old people are acting like young people. Some were dancing, some were smooching—which was gross but also kind of nice—and pretty much everyone was singing along with the lady by the piano.
Her hair was spikey. Some of the spikes were green and others were red, like she’d dyed it especially for Christmas. Her skin was wrinkly, but she wore a huge smile as she belted out “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.” I wanted to meet her, for sure. She was an amazing performer.
When the song was over, my dad waved across the crowd and said, “Esther! Look who I brought.”
The woman with the green and red hair looked at me and her eyes lit up. “Is that my Sylvie?”
“Is that Great-Aunt Esther?” I asked my dad.
“Sure is.”
I hadn’t noticed my great-aunt was in a wheelchair until she sped across the room. She zipped toward us so fast I thought she was going to crash into my legs, but she stopped just in time and said, “None of this ‘great-aunt’ stuff. Life’s too short for all the extra words. Just call me Esther. And give me a hug!”
Throwing my arms around her shoulders, I caught a familiar scent on her hair. “Is that Manic Panic?”
“Of course,” Esther said, toying with her spikes. “You don’t think I’d dye my hair with Kool Aid. That is sooo 1992.”
I laughed as the man at the piano started playing Jingle Bell Rock. “My dad never told me you could sing. I love singing! My friend Zachary and I want to open our own theatre company one day.”
“Well, if you ever need a leading lady, you know who to ask.” Esther winked and said, “Just kidding! But you should see the look on your face.”
A woman in a snowman sweater took over the sing-song, and Esther led my father and me toward a somewhat quieter corner of the room. There was an elderly couple making out in the seating area, but my great-aunt told them to get a room and I guess they did, because they sheepishly left the vinyl bench.
“I was so scared to come here,” I admitted, because I felt instantly comfortable with my great-aunt. “The last time I was here it was so… different. And you were different too.”
“You must have just had your stroke,” my father said to his aunt.
She nodded. “Doctors thought I was good as gone, and I believed them. That’s what we do, we believe doctors, don’t we? I couldn’t speak. Well, I still can’t move this side of my body. You win some, you lose some. Anyway, a volunteer came around, this young man who could play the piano. He’d play the old songs I remembered from when I was your age, and suddenly I could sing. I couldn’t string a sentence together, but I could sing a whole song and get every word right.”
“Wow,” I said. Hard to imagine there was a time when this talkative woman couldn’t talk at all.
“Music is magic, Sylvie. It gets inside you like nothing else.”
“I know,” I told her, and for some reason I remembered singing with Celeste and being harassed by that Erinville girl gang. “I love music too.”
“I have music to thank for my recovery. If it wasn’t for music, I wouldn’t be the fine feisty woman you see before you.”
My dad chuckled and said to me, “Do you understand now why I moved into a falling-down house just to be closer to this lady?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You need to hurry up and get that place fixed up, complete with ramps, so I can check out your new digs.”
I don’t know why, but suddenly I was saying, “I guess music isn’t magic enough to get you walking again.”
My father’s eyes blazed. “Sylvie!”
But Esther waved her hand like it was no biggie. “Why stand when you can sit?” Then she changed the subject and said, “Your father tells me you’re quite the sleuth. You dragged your grandfather’s name out of a ghost!”
I knew now that was only half true. Still, I said, “Yeah, I guess I did. So you really never knew who dad’s father was?”
Esther shook her head. “Nope.”
“Your own sister never told you?”
“She never did. She never told our parents, never told anyone. She took that secret to her grave. It’s a shame she didn’t feel she could tell her own mother. Flora Jefferies Janssen might not have been the warmest woman in the world, but she was never one to judge.”
