Lingering Echoes

by Angie Smibert

  To Anita, my favorite aunt, second mother, and family researcher

  Text copyright © 2019 by Angie Smibert

  All rights reserved. Copying or digitizing the book for storage, display, or distribution in any other medium is strictly prohibited.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, please contact permissions@highlights.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Boyds Mills Press

  An Imprint of Highlights

  815 Church Street

  Honesdale, Pennsylvania 18431

  www.boydsmillspress.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-62979-851-6 (hc)

  978-1-68437-624-7 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962589

  First ebook edition

  H1.0

  Design by T. L. Bonaddio

  The text of this book is set in Adobe Garamond Pro.

  The titles are set in Aviano Sans.

  PROLOGUE

  THE PARSONAGE WAS closed up tighter than a pickle jar. The lace curtains were drawn over every pane of glass. And the single blue star in the little window over the door was the only thing that cried out to the world.

  Aunt Mattie had hung the star after Uncle Henry left for the war. He joined up to be an army chaplain. Yesterday, a uniformed man in a big black sedan had told Aunt Mattie the preacher was never coming back.

  Bone tucked the pounding box under her left arm and knocked on the door. The box was growing heavier by the second. A pound of coffee. A pound of beans. A pound of flour. A pound of this. A pound of that. It was what folks in Big Vein did when someone got hurt in the mines or lost a loved one. Across the top of the box lay Mama’s butter-yellow sweater, newly mended and full of stories that needed airing. It was the heaviest burden Bone carried, and she needed to share it with Aunt Mattie.

  Bone’s fist hung in the air. She could still taste the iron-cold bathwater and feel her aunt’s hand holding her under. She shivered. The blue star stared back at her. All Bone could see was poor Uncle Henry at the bottom of the ocean, under fathoms of icy water. She knocked one more time.

  The lace moved in the window, and the door opened a crack. Bone held her breath.

  Ruby slipped through, closing the door softly behind her. Her cousin wiped her hands on the apron she wore over her store-bought dress. It was one of the old, ugly ones she’d given Bone when Mattie threw out almost all her clothes. Ruby had a smudge of flour on her cheek, and her eyes were puffy.

  Bone let out the breath, frankly relieved. She wasn’t ready to see her aunt. Not really.

  “Mother isn’t receiving visitors.” Ruby’s face was tight, like she was pinching off everything bottled up inside of her.

  Bone felt her own face tighten, too. It hadn’t been easy to knock on that door. The least Aunt Mattie could do was show her face.

  “Sorry,” Ruby whispered. “She should apologize. She nearly killed you.” Then she choked out the next words with a little sob—“It’s Daddy”—before catching herself and pushing all those feelings back down.

  Bone and Ruby had never been that close, not until recently at least, but that little sob about broke Bone’s heart. “I know,” she whispered. She set the box down on the porch and hugged her cousin. Bone knew about losing a parent, even if she’d only been six when Mama died. “Take the pounding box.”

  Ruby wiped her eyes on her apron. As she stooped down to pick up the box, Bone grabbed the sweater off the top. Aunt Mattie wasn’t ready to hear its story, and Bone certainly wasn’t going to part with it. “See you at church,” Bone said quietly.

  Ruby nodded. Uncle Henry’s funeral was tomorrow. She slipped back inside and closed the door.

  Bone hugged her butter-yellow sweater to her chest and breathed in the lavender her mother had always worn. The sweater had been Mama’s, and Bone saw its memories. It was her Gift, her useless Gift. She caught a flash of a younger Mama pounding on a door, calling out Mattie’s name to no avail.

  Some folks never changed.

  Why had Bone bothered?

  She pulled the sweater on and stomped off home.

  An ember of something kindled deep inside her as the leaves crunched under her feet.

  October 1942

  BIG VEIN, VIRGINIA

  1

  THE LEAVES WERE as bright as Jack o’lanterns. The crisp air tasted of ghost stories and candy apples and bonfires. Bone Phillips loved this time of year. And she was determined nothing would spoil it. Not the war. Not her daddy being called up. Not the sugar rationing. Not the Gift. And, least of all, not her Aunt Mattie.

  Bone felt a twinge of guilt for that last thought. Uncle Henry’s funeral had been only last week. But it was Ruby she felt sorry for, mostly.

  Stepping off the back porch of the boardinghouse and onto the gravel road that led to school, Bone caught sight of two of the Little Jewels—Pearl and Opal—leaving the parsonage yard. Alone. The boys had started calling them the Little Jewels at the beginning of the school year. And it had stuck. Pearl, Opal, and Ruby went everywhere together. Until now. Pearl and Opal cast a glance back toward the parsonage before trudging toward school.

  The first bell rang.

  Bone took off running. She skidded to a stop in front of the parsonage, outside the perfect white picket fence. It was supposed to be Ruby’s first day back to school after the funeral. The curtains were still pulled tight, but now a little banner with a single gold star outlined in blue hung in the window. For Uncle Henry. It was like autumn had come for the star, turning it golden. Would it change to fire and rust and fall to the ground come winter? Would others fall, too? Almost every house in Big Vein had a blue star, including the boardinghouse. Uncle Henry had gone down with his ship in the North Atlantic. Daddy might be heading across soon, too. She hadn’t heard from him in nine days. Mamaw said it was to be expected, but Bone still had nightmares about him being lost somewhere. Not in the ocean, like Uncle Henry. In her dreams, Daddy was wandering through deep, dark foreign woods at night with not even a lantern to light his way home.

  Bone shook off the dream. Ruby was going to school, whether she liked it or not. Flinging open the gate, Bone marched right up to the front door of the parsonage. Raising her hand to knock, she hesitated. The gold star stared back at her. Without thinking, Bone touched the glass between her and the star—and immediately snatched her hand back. The star was nearly as scalding as a canning jar straight out of the pot, even through the windowpane. She saw a flash of Aunt Mattie crumpling as the army man handed her a folded flag and the gold star. It called to Bone. She took a deep breath and gingerly touched the glass again. This time, she saw Ruby carefully pressing the gold star over the blue one on the banner. The new star was smaller, and Ruby gritted her teeth as she eyeballed placing it exactly in the center.

  “Don’t bother with that,” Aunt Mattie yelled at Ruby.

  “Daddy was a hero,” Ruby replied quietly.

  “He left us to save strangers.” Mattie threw the words at Ruby like daggers. Uncle Henry, an army chaplain, had given his life preserver to a sailor when their ship was sunk by a Nazi U-boat. Uncle Henry went down with the ship.

  Ruby closed her eyes and took it as Aunt Mattie kept hollering at her. She drew in a deep breath and finished pressing down the edges of the star. The blue border was perfectly even all the way around the gold. Ruby hung up the star dry-eyed before spinning on her heel, stomping across the floor, and slamming her bedroom door. On the outside, Ruby was like the
icy water of the Atlantic, but on the inside, she was boiling like a kettle. Bone traced the perfect edges of the star with her finger.

  Aunt Mattie was making it real hard to forgive her.

  The lace moved a little in the window, startling Bone. Ruby shot out the front door. “Is that what you’re wearing?” Ruby looked Bone up and down with a scowl. Ruby, of course, was wearing one of her spotless store-bought dresses. This one was a pretty blue-checked one with a tiny red belt. The outfit reminded Bone of Dorothy’s in The Wizard of Oz. The only thing missing were the ruby slippers.

  “Yes, I am.” Bone was wearing her dungarees to school. She also had on a white shirt, boots, and her mother’s yellow sweater. These and a pair of corduroy trousers were about all she had left. Aunt Mattie had given away the feedsack dresses Mrs. Price had made for Bone plus the rest of her old clothes when Bone had briefly moved in with the Alberts. Bone wasn’t about to wear Ruby’s castoffs if she didn’t have to. And nobody said she had to anymore. “Hurry up, slowpoke,” she hollered as she took off up the road.

  Before long, Bone heard the sound of Ruby’s shoes running behind her. Together they sped past the church and all the graying clapboard houses huddled along the gravel road up to the mine. It was less than a quarter mile from one end of the coal camp to the school. But it felt good to run like they were still little kids. Soon they caught up with the Little Jewels. Bone half expected Ruby to fall in beside her best friends since first grade, but she raced around them. Bone scrambled to keep up with her.

  Ruby was laughing as they collapsed onto one of the picnic tables outside the little two-room schoolhouse.

  “Why didn’t you want to walk with Pearl and Opal?” Bone asked, panting.

  The smile slid off Ruby’s face. She shrugged. “I get tired of them being so nice and sweet all the time, telling me to smile like I got nothing to be mad at.” Ruby’s fingers dug into the splintery wood plank of the table. “I get the same from folks at church. Smile, your daddy wouldn’t want you sad.” Ruby imitated one of the elders. “Don’t frown, young lady. Your daddy was a hero.”

  Bone nodded. Folks were always telling her how young ladies were supposed to act or feel. Usually, it was Aunt Mattie doing the telling. “You got every right to be mad,” Bone told Ruby. Bone was mad, too. At Aunt Mattie. Uncle Henry, though, was a hero. Bone wasn’t quite sure why Ruby was mad at him.

  Opal and Pearl walked by without looking at Ruby or Bone.

  “That was an interesting turn of events,” a voice said from behind them. It was Jake Lilly, and beside him, as usual, was Clay Whitaker. The boys, as Bone thought of them, always together.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Bone asked. The two of them had left school not long ago for the mine. They worked outside with Jake’s daddy sorting coal and running the mantrip. Clay’s father worked down below with Uncle Junior and Bone’s best friend, Will. The boys were not wearing their bank clothes—the coveralls all miners wore. Instead, they were dressed in dungarees and sweaters. Each had a sack lunch in one hand and a composition book in the other.

  “Mama put her foot down,” Clay answered. Jake nodded. “Plus, I think they got some money from the government on account of Carmen and Cliff.”

  Clay’s older brothers had died in the war. Two gold stars hung in the Whitakers’ front window.

  “Daddy says we can still help out on Saturdays, if we want,” Jake added. He didn’t look too keen on the idea, though.

  Clay shook his head. “Naw, I seen enough coal.” Not one month ago Clay had been desperate to help out his family. Now he looked positively relieved to be back at school.

  “Me, too.” Jake punched Clay in the arm.

  Miss Austin rang the bell again. She taught the younger children in the other room of the schoolhouse. The little kids followed her into their room. The older kids filed into Miss Johnson’s room, fifth graders sitting in the front, seventh in back.

  Bone felt like hugging those boys. They were more fun to have around than the Jewels. The boys dashed to their old spots along the back row. Bone sank into her usual desk, right in front of Jake and Clay. Ruby wavered between sitting next to Bone or the Little Jewels and Robbie Matthews, the mine superintendent’s son. Opal had set her bag in Ruby’s seat. Ruby had done the same thing to prevent Bone from sitting with them at the beginning of the school year. Opal relented, though, and moved her bag. Ruby smiled wanly at Bone. “I better make nice,” she mouthed before she sat next to her friends.

  Bone felt the familiar jab of pencil lead between her shoulder blades.

  “We sure have missed your stories, Bone,” Jake said.

  “Yeah, we need a good ghost story,” Clay agreed. “At lunch.”

  Bone smiled. Things were getting back to normal, even if Will was still down in the mines. “Did I ever tell you the one about Stingy Jack?” she whispered. “It’s the tale about the Jack o’lanterns.”

  “No!” Clay leaned in, clearly hungry for more.

  “Granddaddy calls them Jack ma lanterns,” Jake said.

  “So does Mamaw!” Bone knew he wasn’t talking about the carved pumpkins that sat out on folks’ porches on Halloween. Jack ma lanterns were what a lot of the older folks called ghost lights. They were the tiny lights that floated around in the woods on a dark and scary night. But the Jack o’lanterns and ghost lights all came from the same story about Stingy Jack.

  Miss Johnson cleared her throat and glared in their direction.

  “I love Halloween,” Jake threw in one last poke.

  “Me, too,” Bone whispered. She really did. This year Bone wanted to be a witch like the bad one in The Wizard of Oz. Mrs. Price was going to make her a hat and cape for the carnival. She was a whiz with her Singer sewing machine. Maybe the boys could be her flying monkeys. Or Will could be the Tin Man.

  “We’re so glad to have Miss Albert back with us,” Miss Johnson said, motioning everyone to settle down.

  Ruby slunk low in her seat.

  “And Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Lilly,” Miss Johnson added.

  The boys straightened up, actually beaming at everyone. It was an interesting turn of events. They hadn’t ever exactly loved school.

  “Before we get started, though, I’ve got an unfortunate announcement to make.”

  All eyes snapped to the front, and the room fell silent.

  Was it Daddy? If it were, an army man would’ve come to the boardinghouse—just like they’d come to the parsonage and to the Whitakers’. Bone glanced around. No one seemed to be missing. It could be the father or brother of one of the little ones in the other room, though.

  “This year’s Halloween carnival has been canceled.” Miss Johnson folded her hands in front of her and waited for a reaction.

  Bone (and everyone around her) let out their breath. No one had died. But then again, no Halloween carnival? It was always at the church hall on Halloween. Everyone dressed up in costumes, bobbed for apples, ate themselves sick on candy, and told ghost stories.

  “No!” several fifth graders exclaimed.

  “Why?” Bone let out a whine.

  “Sugar!” Jake exclaimed. He meant it as a swear. Bone felt like saying worse.

  “Yes, Mr. Lilly, sugar,” Miss Johnson answered. She did not mean it as a swear. “The carnival is canceled because of sugar rationing—and because a certain community member doesn’t think it’s appropriate to celebrate this holiday.” Miss Johnson did not look at Ruby as she said this, but everyone else did.

  Ruby slunk down in her seat as far as she could go.

  Aunt Mattie was notorious for thinking things were not appropriate. Not Bone’s clothes. Not her running around with Will or Jake and Clay. Not the Gift. Now not Halloween. The preacher’s wife had often remarked on Halloween being the devil’s night or a heathen holiday. She wants everyone to be as miserable as she is. Bone could still hear fabric ripping as Aunt Mattie jerked the sweater clean off Bone’s back. She could still feel her aunt’s bony grip as she dragg
ed her down the hall. She could still taste the iron-cold water as Aunt Mattie plunged her head under. Bone’s insides smoldered.

  Bone closed her eyes so that all she could see was that darn gold star. Uncle Henry, she told herself. Aunt Mattie was grieving Uncle Henry. Bone tamped down her anger.

  Miss Johnson let the clamor go on for a few seconds before she motioned for everyone to settle down. “I know everyone will find a safe and fun way to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve.”

  The boys groaned.

  Miss Johnson turned to pick up the books that were on her desk. “But now we’re going to talk about …”

  Jake poked Bone again. “Oh, we’ll find a safe and fun way to celebrate. I got us an idea for a prank.”

  Clay nodded sagely. “If there ain’t no treats, we’ll put the tricks back into Halloween all right.” He had a devilish gleam in his eye.

  Bone turned back to the front and crossed her arms. Halloween used to be all about the tricks. Her Uncle Ash had told her about pranks he and Junior and Mama played when they were kids. Usually, they involved removing someone’s gate or stealing a mailbox. Some of the pranks were even on Aunt Mattie, like the time Ash and Junior locked her in the outhouse. No wonder she doesn’t like Halloween. Bone suppressed a grin as Miss Johnson handed a miserable Ruby a book.

  “Seventh graders, I’m handing out books for you to write reports on.” She gave Opal, Pearl, and Robbie books. Each one looked different.

  Jake and Clay groaned again, but Bone sat up. She loved book reports, especially if she hadn’t read the story before. Even if she had. Miss Johnson was always talking about the Brontë sisters. Was it maybe Wuthering Heights? Bone had seen the movie last summer when the mine showed it outside. A servant boy falls in love with a rich girl on the dark moors of England. It was spooky and thrilling yet a bit sappy. Bone strained to look at the cover of the book Miss Johnson was about to hand her. As she took it eagerly, Miss Johnson winked at her. “This one is my favorite.”

  A thrill went through Bone, part anticipation, part something else. Touching the book Miss Johnson lovingly placed in her hands, Bone could feel the warm crackle of a fire and smell woodsmoke. Bone closed her eyes. Bathed in orange firelight, a young Miss Johnson curled up next to the hearth reading this book. The hunger in her to be like the person described in these pages still radiated off its cover. Bone felt that same feeling when she read a good book. She’d so wanted to be Dorothy or Alice living in a magical land. Bone opened her eyes and read the title. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Bone felt the thrill go right out of her.