by Jon Scieszka
Luke’s father touches the ghost boy on the shoulder—and pulls his hand back quickly with a pained grunt.
“What?” Luke asks in alarm.
His father is moving his lips and tongue around like he has a terrible taste in his mouth. He pulls a tissue from his pocket and spits into it. “It’s like having aluminum foil crammed into your mouth!”
“Are you serious?”
“Told you,” Mr. Klack says.
“It’s not real,” Luke blurts out, a little scared now. “Dad?”
“So how did you come into possession of a ghost?” Luke’s father asks, ignoring his son.
Luke can’t tell if his father’s just having a joke with Mr. Klack. He wants to bolt from the room, but he’s transfixed by Mr. Klack’s voice.
“He was in my great-grandfather’s collection. From the circus days. Uriah had all sorts of freaks and oddities in his show, and he was very proud of his ghost boy. Exhibited him across the country. You see that handbill there?”
He points to a small framed poster on the wall, advertising the Klack Bros. Circus. There’s so much text on the poster, it takes Luke a moment to find it: “The Ghost Boy of Peking!”
“There’s no end to the things he collected,” Mr. Klack continues. “I’m still digging it all out from the attics and barns, labeling it real careful.” He nods at the ghost boy. “He was just a jar of ash. I was about to throw it out when I saw him. He comes with the ashes, you see.”
Mr. Klack nods at a slim jar atop the chest of drawers.
“His actual ashes are in there?” Luke asks.
“Can’t go far from it,” says Mr. Klack.
“Why’s it tied to the wall?” Luke’s father wants to know.
“He tries to shake it off the shelf sometimes,” Mr. Klack remarks.
“I see,” Luke’s father says solemnly.
“Why’re you talking like you believe this?” Luke demands.
When his father looks at him, Luke knows he’s not joking. Luke can’t stand it a second longer. He steps forward and puts his hand on the ghost boy’s shoulder. Cold numbs his fingers. He sees a mountain, feels its ice-cold breath. Workers with tools step toward a hole in the rock face, and a terrible sensation of dread wells from it—and that’s all, because Luke pulls back, terrified.
“He was talking to you, wasn’t he?” says Mr. Klack, his eyes shining with expectation. “I heard him talking!”
“Luke, what happened?” His father has a hand on his back.
“I . . . saw some pictures. People on a mountain.” He wants a drink, something to wash the taste of soot and desolation from his mouth.
“He’s never done that with anyone before,” says Mr. Klack. “I’ve been worried about him lately. I think he gets lonely.”
“He is lonely,” Luke murmurs. How else to explain that dreadful windswept cold that passed through him?
“But he seems to like you,” says Mr. Klack. “What I’m saying is he could use some company. A boy his own age.”
“What?” Luke says, shaking his head. He has a swimmy feeling of unreality.
“He’s getting faint. I don’t want him fading away altogether. I’ll give you a good price,” Mr. Klack says to Dad.
Dad looks confused for a moment and then laughs. “Hell, I’ll let you have him for free.” He claps a hand on Luke’s shoulder. Luke shrugs it off.
“No, sir, that won’t do. It’s got to be a fair price. I’m a fair dealer. How about a hundred dollars?”
Again his father chuckles, though more guardedly. “I think I’ll hold on to him a little while longer.”
“I’m joking,” says Mr. Klack. When he smiles all the hollows and peaks of his face are exaggerated into a puppet mask.
Luke still hasn’t adjusted to a world in which there are ghosts—and isn’t sure he wants to. He needs to get out of this room, to forget everything that’s happened. He pushes past his father and leaves. Mr. Klack comes after him.
“You sure you don’t want to talk to him some more?”
“I wasn’t talking to him.” Where’s his father? He wants this creepy Klack person away from him.
“But he showed you something. He was showing you things.”
“I didn’t like it,” Luke murmurs.
“There’s probably other things he’d show you.”
“I didn’t like it!” Luke says more loudly. “Dad!”
His father emerges from the room. “We should get going.”
“Well, it’s a shame we can’t let these two have more time together,” says Mr. Klack, his brow furrowed. “I’d like to know what that boy’s story is.”
“Good-bye,” Luke’s father says to Mr. Klack.
As he moves down the hallway, Luke’s aware of Mr. Klack watching them, just standing there staring. He wants to run, but his father is beside him, walking steady, though there’s a tense expression on his face. In movies, men like Mr. Klack unexpectedly produce deboning knives, or needles filled with lethal drugs.
When they emerge from the manor house, Luke sees the pickup that had brought them turning down the gravel drive toward the highway. His father gives a yell and waves his arm, running after it a few steps, but he’s too late, and the truck disappears around the corner. Luke’s heart starts to pound. His father never does stuff like this. He hates making a scene.
“We’ll call a taxi,” his father says, dragging out his cell phone.
“There’s no reception,” Luke says dully, wondering if there’s even a taxi in a place like this.
His father persists, holding his phone out every which way.
“There’s a payphone by the snack shop,” Luke says. He remembers because you hardly ever see them now. “Dad, are we okay?”
His father’s jogging toward the snack shop, Luke hurrying after. “Of course. I just don’t want to miss the train.”
“That wasn’t a real ghost,” Luke says, wanting his father to agree, to explain, but he doesn’t say anything. They reach the pay phone, and his father snatches up the receiver.
“Do you have coins?” he asks Luke. “It doesn’t take credit cards.” Luke notices his father glance back at the manor house. There’s no one there.
Luke gives him a couple of quarters. His father’s hand shakes slightly as he puts them into the slot.
“That guy was creepy,” Luke says. “Wanting to buy me!”
“It was a joke,” says his father.
The quarters come right out the bottom. His father tries again, and then with assorted nickels and dimes. They all come out.
“Maybe the operator will connect you, since the machine’s broken,” he tells his father.
His father presses zero and frowns. “It’s very staticky . . . hello? Hello? Can you . . . hello?” Eventually, after a bit more shouting, he hangs up. “They can’t hear me.”
“What’re we going to do?” Luke asks.
He imagines them running down the gravel drive, out onto the road, trying to flag down traffic. There are only two cars in the parking lot, and Luke’s willing to bet the ancient farm truck belongs to Mr. Klack.
“Hello!” comes a distant voice, and Luke looks up to see Mr. Klack calling out from a second-story window of the manor house. “I need to talk to you!”
“I don’t want to talk to him,” Luke whispers.
“Me neither,” says his father.
From one of the barns comes the family Luke saw earlier. They’re walking toward the parking lot, in the direction of an SUV with North Dakota plates. That must be them. His father’s already walking toward them.
“Excuse me,” he says, smiling. “My son and I missed our ride back to the train station. We’re passengers on the Canadian. Are you heading through Meadows by any chance?”
Luke notices the man look at his wife, uncertain. She hesitates. They both glance at him. Luke tries to look as harmless as possible.
“Um, okay,” says the man.
“Thank you so much,” says Luke’s dad. “M
y name’s Paul Morrow, and this is my son, Luke. We’re from Toronto.”
His father strikes up an amiable chatter, to prove they’re not criminals or psychopaths. Luke keeps an eye on the manor house, watching the empty window where Mr. Klack’s head appeared. They reach the car, and Luke climbs into the backseat with his father and the girl, who doesn’t look very happy to be sharing her domain. They’ve just slammed their doors when Mr. Klack emerges from the manor house. He’s walking with a stiff, quick-legged gait, arms waving.
The car engine muffles his words, but Luke thinks he hears, “Hold up! Hold up there!”
The driver slows down. “Does he want to talk to you?” he asks Luke’s father.
“I think he’s just waving good-bye,” Luke’s father says, waving enthusiastically. “He’s a bit eccentric. Did you talk to him?”
The man looks uncertainly but keeps going. Mr. Klack is still hobbling down the drive, waving and shouting. All Luke’s muscles are clenched, and he’s holding his breath. He doesn’t exhale until they’re through the gate and turning onto the highway back to Meadows.
In the dining car, Luke eats hungrily. His father seems distracted. They haven’t really said much about the Klack Bros. Museum, like they can barely believe it happened. Already it seems far away, disappearing over the horizon like the train station they left an hour ago.
He eats some more mashed potatoes and looks out the window. Fields roll past in the last light of day. He stops chewing. In the reflection he sees someone sitting beside him. He turns and looks at the empty seat. His forearms course with electricity.
“Dad?” he whispers.
“I see him too.”
Luke stares straight ahead and sees the faint ghost boy in his peripheral vision, looking at him. His foot taps noiselessly against the leg of his chair.
“Why is he here?”
Luke looks around the dining car. No one else has noticed the ghost boy. He’s just a pale smudge in the brightly lit car, easily dismissed.
“There’s something he wants to tell you maybe,” Dad says quietly.
Luke can’t believe they’re talking like this. Like it’s all true and this is really happening. He feels the presence of the ghost like a cold weight in his stomach. He puts down his fork.
“I don’t get it. How’s he here? Mr. Klack said he stays with his ashes, and his ashes are in the museum.”
His father says nothing. He reaches into his jacket pocket and lifts out the slim jar.
Luke stares, horrified. “Mr. Klack put it in your pocket?”
“I took it.”
Luke’s not hungry anymore. As they walk back to their cabin, his head feels like it’s filled with TV static. Inside, his father locks the door.
“Why?” Luke asks.
His reply is simple. “He’s got a story.”
“You stole the ghost!”
“No one else’ll ever have a story like this.”
“You stole—”
“How can you steal a ghost?” his father says impatiently. “It doesn’t belong to anybody. You can’t own a ghost. All I want is his story.”
“He can’t tell his story!”
“He’ll tell you. You had a rapport with him.”
From the corner of his eye, Luke can see the ghost boy sitting at the edge of his bunk, staring at him forlornly.
“He wants to tell you something,” his father says. “It’s you he keeps looking at.”
“You get his story,” Luke says.
“He doesn’t talk to me. I tried again.” He winces, remembering.
“I don’t want to touch him,” Luke says. “It doesn’t feel good. It scares me.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of. . . .”
Luke laughs. “How would you know? You know all about ghosts?”
“Aren’t you even curious?” His father sniffs dismissively. “Or maybe you’re not interested in anything.”
“It’s not my fault you’re blocked,” Luke says angrily. “Think up your own stories.”
He grabs the pillow off his bunk, and his winter coat.
“What are you doing?” his father demands.
“I’m not sleeping in the same cabin as him,” Luke says. Or you, he thinks. “I’d rather sleep in the dome car.”
It’s late and the train is quiet. It’s off season and there aren’t many passengers aboard—and most of them are so old they’re probably already asleep. On his way to the rear of the train, he passes lots of empty berths. Who would want to take the train anyway?
He climbs the stairs to the empty dome car. The lights are off and he has an amazing view of the stars. In the distance he can see the darker shadow of the approaching Rockies. He’s glad he’s brought his coat. He tries to get comfortable in his seat, but it doesn’t even recline. He half expects his father to come after him, but he doesn’t.
Luke is desperate to lie down and sleep. He leaves the dome car and starts walking forward to his cabin. He passes one of the porters having a cigarette, blowing his smoke out a little window between the cars. He nods to Luke as Luke passes. Luke doesn’t want to go back to the cabin, and when he passes yet another empty berth, he wonders if anyone would know if he took one. He checks for the porter then slips inside. He zips up the thick curtain, stretches out, and is soon asleep.
But he’s aware of not sleeping well, and being cold. He wakes in darkness, shivering. Beyond the window, a moon hangs over the hills. In the splash of silver light he sees the ghost boy hunched at the end of his berth, knees drawn up to his chin.
Luke backs up against the wall, his hand knocking against something hard. The jar of ashes. His father must have put it there. He looks at the curtain of his berth and sees it’s slightly unzipped. His father put it in here with him—like locking him in a cage with a wild animal! What was he hoping? That Luke would get the ghost’s story? He starts to fumble his way out of the berth, but he catches sight of the ghost boy, eyes wide with grief—and hope. Luke hesitates.
“What do you want?” he whispers.
Urgently, the boy says something that Luke can’t hear.
“I can’t hear you—”
But the ghost boy just keeps talking.
“Stop, stop,” Luke says in frustration and pity. “It’s not working.” He chews his lip. He looks out the window.
Then he reaches out and puts his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
The cold pulls him in. There is a mountain and a work camp cut into the cliff. An old-fashioned locomotive steams impatiently at the end of the line while men—white, Chinese—unload steel rails. Luke feels himself moving toward a gash blasted into the side of the cliff, and then he’s inside, descending with a group of men. Darkness squeezes him. At the end of the tunnel men drill holes, inserting wads of explosives. Then the men all rush back, crouch behind barriers. There is a terrible sound, and smoke and grit boil past. The ground stops shaking. The smoke begins to clear. Men are standing. Without warning, a second explosion bowls them over, and a thunderclap comes from the ceiling before it collapses.
Luke pulls his hand back and shakes it to get the circulation going. His heart is racing.
“You worked on the railway,” he whispers to the ghost boy. He studied it last year in school. They had to blast through the mountains to lay the tracks. Thousands of Chinese worked the most dangerous jobs, for half what the white men made. “Is that how you died? In a blast?”
The Chinese boy looks at him solemnly, expectantly. Luke reaches out again.
Broken bodies are laid on the ground. Even though the boy’s body has been burned and crushed, Luke recognizes it. It’s nighttime. A man steps among the corpses, examining them quickly, then lifts the boy’s limp body over his shoulder. Luke floats after him into the woods. A second man meets the first. Money changes hands. The second man sews the body into a sack, loads it onto the back of a cart, and drives off down a rutted mountain road.
“That doesn’t look right,” Luke mutters, pulling back his
hand and blowing warm breath onto it. “Why’d they take your body?”
He knows the only way to get the answer. He touches the boy’s shoulder again.
A big bonfire burns. The sack is added to the flames. A man watches from the fire’s edge. His wide-brimmed hat hides his face. He’s reading from a large book. The sack burns away and the body is reduced to coarse gray ash. The man bends down and collects the ash into a jar. Luke feels like he himself is being squished into that jar, shoulders jammed in, head pushed roughly down, his body no longer his own, his will broken. The moment the stopper is sealed on top, blackness wraps itself around him—
—and is ripped away to give a view of bars, and people staring in at him: men laughing, women holding hands over their mouths in fear, a child crying and tugging at a father’s hand. Luke feels utterly defeated and hopeless.
On the wall, high out of reach, is the jar of ashes.
Luke drags his numb hand away, panting. “They burned your body and . . . made you a ghost.”
The ghost boy points excitedly out the window. Luke cups his hands against the glass and peers out at the mountains spiking the sky. Close beside the tracks, a dark river runs between snowy banks. He looks wonderingly back at the ghost boy.
With great effort, the boy raises his arm and mimes throwing something to the floor.
“You want me to break the jar?” Luke says.
The boy does it again, more emphatically, then points out the window.
To Luke it can only mean one thing. The ghost boy wants to be released, outside, in the mountains where he died.
“Yes,” Luke says, “I will.”
He pulls his shoes on and unzips his berth. He needs to find a window he can open. The ones in the cabin don’t, not in the dome car either. Then he remembers the porter, smoking. He grabs the jar and heads for the back of the car.
From the berth, a big-knuckled hand darts out and grabs his wrist. Luke gives a strangled cry as Uriah Klack’s bony head protrudes from the curtains.
“I need my boy back.”
Luke tries to pull free, but the old man’s grip is like a metal claw.
“Let me go or I’ll yell!” Luke croaks.
“Shhhh,” Mr. Klack hisses. “Now then. You give me the jar back. You’ve stolen from me.”