Eleanor, Alice, and the Roosevelt Ghosts

by Dianne K. Salerni

  She blinks in surprise, and then her expression sours. “I wasn’t, Eleanor.”

  Someone raps on my door. “Miss Eleanor?” Rosie calls. “Your auntie Bye sent a note. Their ghost is a Friendly, and Miss Alice can go home.”

  Alice and I exchange glances. Quickly, I pin up my hair while she gathers her things. I’m going with her. I want to see this Friendly ghost, if it will show itself! Alice gives me Emily Spinach’s box to carry and puts the snake in a pocket to keep it warm. “You have pockets in your skirt?” I have never seen such a thing.

  “I pestered Mother Edith until she told our seamstress to put pockets in all my skirts. Boys get to carry their belongings with them. Why not girls?”

  That is a good question. Now I feel not only unfashionable in the clothing that once belonged to my mother’s sisters, but also downtrodden.

  Alice leads the way, bumping her suitcase down the steps. I follow with the hatbox until our progress is blocked by Grandmother. “Well, Alice, I hope you enjoyed your stay as my guest.”

  I cringe at this obvious invitation for Alice to thank her for her hospitality, which consisted of a bed to share and a sparsely buttered slice of toast.

  Alice puts on a smile that is both hard to find fault with and utterly false. “Thank you, Mrs. Hall. It was very kind of you to take me in last night.”

  “Yes, it was,” Grandmother agrees. “Where are you going, Eleanor? Surely Alice knows the way. There’s no reason for you to accompany her.”

  “I…” I want to see the new ghost. “I have to carry the snake’s box.”

  Grandmother tilts her head, presenting one ear in a way that suggests she must have misheard me. “Whose box?”

  “The snake’s box.” Alice draws the creature out of her pocket and holds it up for Grandmother to see in all its brilliant green, twelve-inch, dangling glory.

  Grandmother staggers backward, like an umbrella caught in a gust of wind. Alice flashes me a grin and charges past her toward the front door.

  “Eleanor!” Grandmother roars, rounding on me. “You allowed that girl to bring a reptile into my home?”

  “I’m taking it away now!” I hurry after my cousin. “Back later!”

  As soon as the door is shut behind us, I look awkwardly at Alice. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  I don’t understand her. A few minutes ago, she was teasing me about our cousin Franklin, and now she’s rescued me from Grandmother for no reason that I can fathom.

  The police and the city diagnosticians are gone when we reach Aunt Bye’s house. Except for the excess trash in the gutters (waxed-paper sandwich wrappers and cigar butts), it’s as if nothing happened here. As soon as we set foot inside, however, that illusion vanishes. Before our eyes, the front hall telescopes out to an impossible length, stretching like taffy until it appears longer than a city block. “Jumpin’ Jehosaphat,” Alice gasps. Her voice echoes, but in a different timbre, as if someone at the other end of the hall is calling her words back to her.

  I take a cautious step forward on the black-and-white parquet floor. My eyes tell me that the tiles are squirming and shifting despite the floor feeling solid beneath my feet. I try to walk in a straight line, but my hip bumps one of Aunt Bye’s hall tables hard enough to bruise. Biting back an exclamation, I plunk down Emily Spinach’s box. Alice can claim it later. I need both hands to navigate.

  “Hello?” Aunt Bye’s voice floats out of the parlor. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me!” Alice calls. “And Eleanor.”

  Uncle Will appears in the doorway to the parlor. At first he seems terribly far away, but when he holds out one hand to me and the other to Alice, he reaches us instantly and pulls us both into the parlor. Two seconds later, Alice and I are sitting on the sofa, trying to regain our equilibrium. I pull off my bonnet and fan my face with it.

  “Horrible, isn’t it?” says Aunt Bye.

  “Is it like this all over the house?” I ask. “Is it going to stay this way?”

  Uncle Will runs a hand over his bald head. “Only in the front hall and a little bit of the second floor. That diagnostician, Mr. Grier, said these eruption effects are normal and will recede in the first day. Then we’ll only have a ‘regular’ haunted house.” He gives us a crooked smile and adds doubtfully, “Hooray?”

  “What made them decide it was a Friendly ghost?” Alice unpins her hat.

  “The diagnosticians stayed all night, waiting for the ghost to reveal itself,” Uncle Will explains. “At dawn they heard a whistling noise from the kitchen, which turned out to be the teakettle. The ghost made them tea.”

  “How do they know it wasn’t an Unaware, making tea for itself?”

  “There were five investigators, and they found five teacups set out on the table, with five teaspoons and a sugar bowl.”

  My skin prickles. The image is both disturbing and charming. I wonder if that’s usual for a Friendly ghost: attempting to behave like a human. “Have you seen it?”

  Aunt Bye shakes her head. “We haven’t seen or heard a thing except for the wobbly front hallway. It hasn’t made me a cup of tea either, more’s the pity.”

  Uncle Will chuckles. “I’ll fetch you tea. I’m not sure I trust refreshments offered by a supernatural phantasm.”

  Alice jumps to her feet. “Can we go upstairs? I want to look at the place where I saw the ghost.”

  “I suppose you can.” Aunt Bye turns up her palm. “The diagnosticians declared the house Safe for Habitation.”

  “C’mon!” Alice drags me to my feet.

  “Be careful, girls!” Aunt Bye calls after us.

  The hallway looks normal again, but I don’t trust it and walk gingerly. Alice pulls on my arm, hurrying as always, although in this instance being taller helps. I slow her down.

  Climbing the staircase isn’t a problem until I realize there are more stairs than there should be. Alice stumbles at the top, trying to put her foot down on a step that doesn’t exist. Learning from her example, I close my eyes, grip the banister, and feel with my feet until I find the landing. Only when I’m firmly established on the second floor do I open my eyes.

  “Smart of you,” Alice says, rubbing her knee. Then she points. “That’s the ghost lamp.”

  My eyes follow her finger. It isn’t lighted now. Edison Lamps detect eruptions, not the ghost that remains afterward.

  Alice’s finger shifts. “I was in my room. I came out, saw the light, and started walking toward it. Then I saw his face over there.” She points at the farthest corner of the hallway.

  “His? Last night you said you couldn’t tell if it was male or female.”

  Alice turns to me, her eyes wide. “I couldn’t! So why do I say his now? I’m not sure. Was it a silly slip? Or something else?”

  I stare at her. If she doesn’t know, who does?

  Alice stalks down the hall, focused on that corner near the enclosed back stairs the servants use. “Eleanor, come see this!” She points out a white, sticky residue on the wall.

  “Is that…”

  “Ectoplasm.” Alice sticks out a finger.

  “Don’t touch it!”

  She puts her index finger into the center of it, then looks at the tip of her finger, sniffs it, and holds it out to me. “Smell that.”

  “No, thank you!”

  Alice wipes her finger on her expensive-looking skirt. “Well, thank you for carrying Emily’s box. I suppose I should say goodbye and unpack now.”

  I take a step backward, feeling pushed away.

  Is it because I wouldn’t smell the ectoplasm? Or had she tired of me before that?

  This is exactly what I expected from Alice. I should have known that spending one night at my house wouldn’t change anything between us. To Alice, I have always been one of those tedious tasks that, as a matter of courtesy, you c
an’t put aside—like writing a thank-you note—although you wish you could and, as a result, spend as little time with it as possible.

  “Goodbye, then, Alice.” Whirling away from her, I hurry downstairs, my cheeks aflame. I almost go straight out the front door, but it would hurt Aunt Bye’s feelings if I left without saying goodbye. The hallway doesn’t play tricks on me this time, and I pause outside the parlor door to give my blush time to fade.

  On the other side of the door, Uncle Will is speaking. “I think we should sell the house.”

  “We’ll never get back the money we put into renovations,” Aunt Bye objects. “Not with a new haunting, even if it is a Friendly.”

  “The money is not important. You and the baby are.”

  “I don’t want to sell this house. I’ve had it since Alice was born.”

  Uncle Will sighs. “To be honest, having Alice here is part of what worries me.”

  I put my hand over my mouth, surprised to hear this from my good-natured uncle.

  “Will! I could never turn her away!”

  “No, of course not. But I wish she had come after the baby was born. I’m afraid her presence here is going to remind you of what happened all those years ago. And now this ghost…” Uncle Will breaks off and then continues. “There are too many parallels for my peace of mind. Will you consider renting another house until after the baby is born? We can close this one up and hope the ghost fades quickly.”

  There’s a long pause while Aunt Bye thinks it over. “I suppose that’s a possibility.”

  “Good. I’ll write our solicitor and have him inquire about a suitable place.”

  After that, there is silence, and deciding that the conversation is over, I open the door. At the precise moment I walk in, Aunt Bye says to her husband, “Poor, poor Alice. You have no idea what it was like.”

  Uncle Will takes her hand. “I can’t even imagine.”

  Then they both look up and see me. “Eleanor!” my aunt gasps.

  I’m not sure if poor, poor Alice refers to the baby who lost her mother or to the mother who died. But what puzzles me more is why my aunt and uncle look so stricken. Aunt Bye pales at the sight of me, as if terrified that I overheard what she said.

  But why?

  I know what happened when Alice was born. Her mother died shortly afterward from kidney disease, and a few days later our grandmother, Martha Roosevelt, died of an unrelated case of typhoid fever.

  At least, that’s what I was told happened.

  6

  ALICE MEETS A CELEBRATED WOMAN

  WHEN the doorbell rings in the midafternoon, Alice rushes past Maisie to answer it. The ghost has not made an appearance all day, and Alice wishes something interesting would happen. To her gratification, the woman on the other side of the door looks as though she might serve the purpose.

  She’s not a young woman—in her thirties, probably—attractive, with bright brown eyes and dark hair tucked under an extremely fashionable hat. “Good afternoon. Are your parents at home?”

  “My aunt and uncle are in. They’re the ones who live here.” Stepping back, Alice invites the woman to enter. “Who shall I say is calling?”

  The woman strips off a glove and offers Alice her hand to shake. “Mrs. Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman. I represent the New York City Supernatural Registry.”

  Maisie hovers nearby, consternated by Alice’s usurping her duties, and then disappears to announce the visitor, leaving Alice to wait with Mrs. Seaman in the foyer. Alice tries (and fails) not to stare. The woman’s face is familiar, although Alice is fairly certain they have never met. “May I take your coat and hat?”

  The visitor unpins her hat, hands it to Alice, and is just removing her coat when the floor undulates beneath them. Alice grabs the coatrack for balance, but Mrs. Seaman plants her feet and stands firm. “Well!” she exclaims when the phenomenon ends. “You certainly do have a powerful eruption here! Don’t worry. These effects won’t last long.”

  Maisie reappears. “This way, Mrs. Seaman.”

  Alice hangs up the hat and coat and scurries after them, arriving in the parlor just after Mrs. Seaman finishes introducing herself again.

  Uncle Will shakes her hand. “I’m Lieutenant Commander William Cowles, and this is my wife, Anna Roosevelt Cowles.”

  “But everyone calls me Bye.” The visitor raises one arched eyebrow, and Aunt Bye explains. “When I was younger, my sister and brothers claimed that I was so busy, coming and going, that the only thing they were able to say to me was Bye, Anna! Bye!”

  Everyone chuckles at the story and chooses a place to sit. Uncle Will opens the conversation by saying what Alice is thinking. “You look very familiar, Mrs. Seaman. Have we met?”

  “I don’t think so, Commander Cowles. But it is probable that you know me under my pen name. I used to write for the New York World.”

  “Nellie Bly!” Alice and her uncle cry out at the same time.

  Nellie Bly, the famed investigative reporter, smiles demurely and snaps open her reticule to remove a small leather-bound journal.

  Of course! Alice should have known—would have known, if she hadn’t been thrown by the name Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman. Sitting in this parlor is the most famous female journalist in the world! And she is here to…what? “You gave up being a reporter to work for the Supernatural Registry?” Alice blurts out. “You collect data for the city now? Instead of setting world records and uncovering corruption in our industries?”

  “Alice!” Aunt Bye exclaims.

  Miss Bly doesn’t seem to mind the impertinence. “I’m a volunteer with the board. I retired from the New York World because my husband is an invalid and I need to stay close to home. Public service keeps me busy.” She winks at Alice. “I might also be working on a groundbreaking book about ghost eruptions.”

  Alice brightens. Now that sounds more like Nellie Bly!

  Miss Bly asks for basic facts about the eruption: date, time, location, physical manifestations, and supernatural phenomena. “I saw the front hallway,” she says wryly.

  Alice repeats her experience at the time of the eruption, and Uncle Will explains the incident that caused the diagnosticians to label the ghost a Friendly. Miss Bly nods, making notes in shorthand. “Has the ghost done anything else?”

  Aunt Bye starts to say no—but cuts off the word prematurely as the temperature in the room plummets. Her breath fogs in the air. Alice sits up attentively.

  The drapes in the front window shuffle apart, slowly, jerkily, casting a patch of sunlight onto Nellie Bly’s journal. Cocking her head, Miss Bly gazes at the drapes. “Why, hello there. It’s nice of you to join us.”

  Instantly, the room’s temperature returns to normal. Alice glances at her aunt and uncle. They look at each other and then at her. Uncle Will gives an exaggerated shudder. Aunt Bye laughs nervously.

  Miss Bly turns back to her notes as if she encounters these manifestations every day. “Do you know who the progenitor of the ghost is?”

  Aunt Bye shakes her head. “We don’t. Alice thinks it might be a child, based on the glimpse she had. But we aren’t certain.”

  “Do you know the history of the house? Any child deaths?”

  “I know the people I bought the house from. All their children lived to adulthood.”

  “A servant’s child, perhaps? You said the eruption occurred near the servants’ staircase.”

  “That I wouldn’t know.”

  Miss Bly inserts her pencil into the journal and closes it. “If you can identify the progenitor, you might be able to encourage the ghost to fade. Learn what anchors the ghost to this house—be it an object, a room, even a scent—and eradicate it.”

  Alice flinches at the word eradicate. It sounds so vicious.

  “The house has recently been modernized,” Uncle Will says. “We extended the plumbing to the second
floor and installed electric wiring throughout. That involved tearing into the walls and repapering every room. Then we bought new draperies”—he glances fondly at Bye—“and some new furniture. To go with the new color scheme, I was told. Even the furniture that we didn’t change—well, I wasn’t around when Bye bought the house, but I can’t imagine she kept the furniture of past residents.”

  “No.” Aunt Bye holds up a finger. “But it occurs to me that there are many items in the attic left by previous occupants.”

  “I’d start there if I were you.” Miss Bly opens her reticule again, inserts the journal, and removes a calling card. “If you discover anything more about your ghost, please contact me at my office. I will update our records so that we have an accurate registry of this haunting.”

  “Thank you,” Uncle Will says. “Perhaps I should mention that we will soon be vacating the premises. For a few months, at least. Until my wife delivers our child.”

  Alice blinks. What?

  “Understandable,” Miss Bly replies. “New ghosts can be disturbing in their intensity, even if they are Friendly. Friendly is a bit of a misnomer anyway, as a category name. All it means is that the ghost is aware enough to interact with the living, but not in a dangerous way. They aren’t always friendly. Some are mischievous, some are shy, and some can be downright cantankerous. You and your wife should do what makes you comfortable.”

  And will I go with them, or back to Washington? Alice’s eyes dart around the room. She didn’t like Miss Bly’s use of the word eradicate, but if it comes to her needs versus the ghost’s existence…

  She jumps to her feet. “I will investigate this haunting!” Aunt Bye and Uncle Will exchange a glance, like amused parents, which irks Alice. So she addresses Nellie Bly. “I can research past occupants of the house and look through the attic for the ghost’s belongings.” Well, she’ll search the attic, anyway. She has someone else in mind for the tedious research part.

  “There is no guarantee it will fade the haunting any faster, but in my experience, it never hurts to try.” Miss Bly rises from her chair.