The Time of the Fireflies

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

  Quickly stepping behind a coatrack to hide, my foot caught around the leg of a side table. A painted ceramic bowl filled with pink dahlias trembled precariously, and without thinking I grabbed the edge of the hall table to keep the bowl of flowers from crashing to the floor.

  My stomach dropped. I’d touched something in the past! But nothing happened. I frowned, confused. Maybe I was only thrown back into the future when I touched a living person.

  A second later, three fireflies came buzzing down the hall, heading straight for me. “What are you doing here?” I whispered. “How did you get into the house?” There must have been a window open somewhere. Before I could figure it out, the lightning bugs danced and whirled around my head. Instantly, the house turned dark, just as the sound of brisk footsteps headed straight for me.

  “What was that?” Miz Beatrice’s voice came out of the fuzzy blackness. “Must be the missus. Hurry, now, Dulcie! Skedaddle!”

  Their voices faded, and the world fell away.

  The next moment I was plummeting wildly, tumbling through space, crashing past a set of stairs. But that was strange because I wasn’t near a staircase.

  I landed with a sharp thump, but I wasn’t hurt, just dazed. Slowly, I moved my arms and legs. They seemed to work fine, not even a sprained ankle. I swung my neck back and forth. No bumps. No headache.

  Studying my surroundings, I realized that I’d landed in the upstairs hall. How did that happen? I’d fallen down, not up.

  More hall tables and gilt mirrors floated past my eyes. Several closed doors led to bedrooms, I assumed, but there was one thing I noticed right away. The furniture was more worn, like the house had suddenly aged. Or I’d been flung forward in time. Chills ran down my arms. “What happened to 1912?” I whispered.

  At least I was alone in the hallway. But somewhere I could hear a woman crying horribly, wailing. Then the sobs turned to forlorn weeping, like the woman’s heart had broken.

  I knew I should run away, but instead I crawled toward the sound. It was coming from the last bedroom at the end of the hall.

  The door swung open, and a man emerged wearing a doctor’s coat and stethoscope. His face was grim and he was obviously distracted by the weeping female voices — more than one now, I’d realized — giving me a split second to crawl into the next room, which was thankfully empty.

  This room was a nursery, all done up with a freshly painted crib and stuffed animals and painted giraffes on the wall. Sunlight streamed through the window, past white-and-pink gingham curtains.

  The crib was empty. So was the rocking chair. And there was a doctor in the house who seemed very disturbed. I swallowed hard, dreading what would happen next.

  From behind the nursery door, I watched the doctor give orders to a nurse. She pressed her lips together, her eyes bloodshot. “I’ll send for the coroner from the downstairs telephone,” he told her. “Stay here, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  His footsteps sounded on the stairs, and the nurse returned to the very last bedroom down the hall. I crept forward, my mind full of questions. Who had died? Miz Julianna Normand? Miss Anna’s father? Why was the house so quiet?

  From the doorjamb I peered inside the master bedroom. A sitting area was first and then a large bed on the far end near a bank of windows. A man stood at the bed holding an infant wrapped in pink blankets in his arms. It only took a moment to realize that he was weeping silent, dreadful tears.

  Another woman, someone about my grandmother’s age, immaculately dressed, lifted her face to the crying man. Her gray hair was pinned into a sweeping hairstyle and sprayed in place like a helmet. “Let me have the child, Hank,” she said to him.

  “Are you sure, Miz Anna?” he choked out.

  She nodded, her face strained. “My wailing is done for now. See to my daughter — your wife. Take care of Daphne.”

  It hit me that the young woman lying in the big bed was dead. Her face was chalky white and quickly turning gray. She lay there so very, very still, but her blond curls were damp from childbirth. The bedclothes were stained, and the nurse was about to strip the soiled sheets and blankets.

  Instead, she took a step back, averting her eyes as the man named Hank dropped to his knees beside the dead woman and pressed his face into her side. He clutched her hands with his own and his shoulders shook in silent sobs.

  A second nurse appeared from the bathroom area. She plastered a stiff smile on her face and held out plump arms. “Let me see the babe and check her and weigh her, Miz Prevost,” she said in a thick Cajun accent.

  “I — I — wait,” the older woman said, straining to sit up in the armchair. “The baby — my granddaughter — is fine for another two minutes, Nurse. Hank!” she said, speaking loudly to get his attention. He finally lifted his head from his dead wife’s cold, lifeless hands. “Hank, what did you and Daphne —” She paused to take a breath, as if grasping for composure. “What did you and Daphne decide to call the baby? You had a name chosen, correct?”

  Hank looked bewildered. “A name? Oh, yes. Yes. Daphne and I — Daphne especially wanted to call her Katherine. Katherine Prevost Moret. We planned to call her Kat.”

  “A darlin’, lively name,” the nurse said soothingly, picking up the pink bundle from the older woman’s arms and cuddling her. “You’ll have a fine life here, Kat, with your daddy and your grandma Anna, won’t you, sweet baby?” She carried the newborn to a table where a tub of warm water was ready to wash her. Stacks of cloth diapers sat in rows, as well as several baby nightgowns and knitted booties.

  My throat was tight like I was going to cry, too. A funny pain hurt inside my chest and my eyes burned. Daphne Prevost Moret had died only moments ago, while giving birth to her daughter.

  Her husband, Hank, jerked his head up, glancing toward his mother-in-law, the older woman with pretty silver hair, all dressed up, as though that was her usual daily wardrobe. Miss Anna Normand, now Miz Anna Prevost, in later years.

  Miz Anna gave Hank a grim look, and then buried her face in her hands, crying with a sudden fierceness, “No, no, no. Not my Daphne. She can’t be gone. This can’t be happening. Not after Charles —” She broke off and quickly wiped at her face, as though ill at ease to show such strong emotion. She pointed to the green marble mantle where a porcelain doll sat prettily in her pink silks and ribbons. “Get me my doll, Hank,” she demanded. Then softer. “Please.”

  Pressing his lips together, Hank rose, crossing the room slowly. He retrieved the doll and handed it to her, stumbling into the footrest of a wooden wheelchair sitting close by. How strange. Where did that come from? I wondered.

  The older woman stroked the doll’s lacy dress, and then placed it in her arms, rocking the doll with a peculiar expression on her face. So Miss Anna — now Miz Anna Prevost — still owned the doll. She never gave it back to Dulcie. My uncomfortable suspicions had been right all along.

  Footsteps thumped back up the staircase. The doctor was returning! And I had no time to scramble back to the nursery and hide.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I boldly, or foolishly, placed both palms flat against the flowery papered walls and sucked in my breath, as though bracing myself for the impact of a car crash.

  Nothing happened, and my stomach dropped, knowing I was about to be caught. Darting this way and that down the hall, I tried to figure out the best escape route when a small swarm of fireflies suddenly surrounded me. Before I could react, I was whirling again. The sounds of weeping echoed in my ears until silence and darkness overtook me again.

  When I opened my eyes again, I was still in the house. Disappointment crushed me. This time the mansion house was darker, shadowy. No crisp gingham curtains. No sunshine. It smelled funny, too. Like sour milk and mold.

  The furniture was not the antique Edwardian-age pieces any longer. Much more modern, but shabbier with frayed edges. Any afternoon sunlight was closed off by heavy drapes in the downstairs living room.

  For a minute I worried that I’d fallen
through time into a different house altogether, but I recognized the staircase. The same scrolled wood, scratched and badly in need of sanding and varnishing. Since I sometimes helped Daddy refinish a table he’d bought at an estate sale I recognized the signs of age and dark patina.

  The rest of the house was completely different. Smaller, more homely, without any of the grand ceilings and moldings and furnishings. A prickle ran up my neck as I wondered what year it was, and what had happened to the original mansion. The doctor was gone, as well as the baby and Hank and his dead wife. But once more, I heard the sound of weeping.

  Quickly, I backed myself into a corner under the staircase. The only light came from two table lamps on the opposite side of the room. Two small couches and a fraying armchair had been shoved against the walls. A faded carpet lay in the middle of the wood floor.

  Then it occurred to me that the furniture had been moved and the room cleared because a table was in the center of the room with an open coffin lying on its surface. On the white satin pillows lay a girl about twelve years old. Her blond hair rested in waves against the pristine satin.

  Her spirit was clearly gone, her eyes closed, the lids an unsettling gray.

  I desperately wanted to know who she was, but I didn’t dare move from the safety of my corner. The parlor was stuffy and hot. Drops of sweat formed on my neck and under my arms.

  Down a short hallway, light spilled from a doorway, including the sound of clattering dishes, water running, and women’s voices. The scent of food wafted through the house: casseroles, steeping tea, fried shrimp.

  Neighbors who brought food for the wake. Because that’s what this was. A wake with a dead body smack-dab in the living room. A dead girl. It was so wrong, so horribly sad.

  A woman in shorts and a pink blouse, wearing white sandals on her feet, came down the hallway. I shrank behind the chair’s stuffing trying to squeeze myself smaller.

  “Here we are,” the woman murmured, carrying a steaming cup of tea. She set it down on the table next to another woman I hadn’t noticed because she’d been sitting like a statue in a corner of the couch. She must have been the one I heard crying when I crashed into this new time period. “Oh, Kat, you gotta drink something.”

  I slapped a hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t make a sound. Kat was short for Katherine. Katherine Moret DuMonde — my grandmother. I recognized her, and it was like a knife in my own heart.

  “Can’t,” she choked out. “Not when Gwen will never —”

  “Ssh, ssh,” the woman in the pink blouse whispered, putting her arms around her friend. “You can’t think like that. Sweet Gwen is with our Lord. You gotta keep that in your mind else you’ll go crazy.”

  Gwen was my mamma’s dead sister. I started to sweat even more, and I felt like I had razors for eyelids.

  “Now take a sip,” my grandmother’s friend ordered. “It’s hot, so be careful.”

  “Where’s Maddie?” Kat whispered, and I knew she was talking about my mamma.

  “She’s with my daughter, Jenny. They’re upstairs playing quietly. Don’t you worry, Kat, she’ll be fine. Kids are resilient.”

  Kat shook her head. “They said it was lightning — they said —” She broke off, and I saw her red-rimmed eyes, balled-up tissues and handkerchiefs littering the couch beside her.

  My Grandma Kat’s hairstyle was different so many years ago, longer, blonder, without any gray. No crow’s-feet wrinkles around her eyes, although her arms and hands were wrinkled, just the way I’d always seen them my whole life. That was strange because Kat had to be young in this time period. She couldn’t be much more than thirty-five. I recognized her sharp green eyes, the way her head tilted when she listened to her friend. And I recognized her voice, even though she’d been crying so hard she had gone hoarse from the grief.

  My grandmother took a sip of the tea and set it back down. She squinted at the light from the lamp, clearly exhausted. “Where’s my husband?”

  “On the bayou with my Zachary checking out the bridge. Making sure folks can get out to the island with all the planks broken up like they are. The weatherman was saying on television that it was the worst storm of the decade.” She stopped, flustered, like she’d said too much. Gently, she added, “People will be showing up soon. Can I get you anything else? Got so much good food in the kitchen.”

  My grandmother rubbed her palms down her slacks, shaking her head. My eyes traveled along the floor and I saw that she was barefoot. Grandma Kat always kicked off her shoes when she came into the house. Hardly ever saw her wear shoes. But she didn’t respond to her friend’s questions, just stared at the casket in a daze.

  “Just sip on that tea and I’ll be back again in a minute. Got something for you.” The woman peeked through the front drapes, clucked her tongue, and returned to the kitchen.

  My grandmother’s weeping tore at my throat, paralyzing me in my hiding place, but I needed to get out of there. It was time to leave my safe corner. I worried about crossing the bridge in the dark and the lightning bugs deserting me. Alligators and bobcats hunting me down.

  Before I could move, my grandmother’s friend came down the hall carrying a shoe box. She perched on the couch, biting her lip, as though she was nervous to speak.

  “What is it, Marla?” Grandma Kat asked.

  “I hate to show this to you. Knowing what it means to your family and all, I mean.”

  My grandmother snatched the shoe box and flipped off the lid. She gasped as fresh tears rolled down her face. “Oh, no!” she cried out. “I promised Miss Anna I’d take care of her for the rest of my life.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off them as Kat lifted the doll, Anna Marie, from the box. She was bedraggled and dirty, her ringlets tangled. The fancy mauve dress was sodden, the black shoes muddy. “What happened to her?” my grandmother asked sharply.

  Her friend Marla reached out a hand toward the doll, and then folded it back into her lap. “They found her washed up on the bayou bank. Near the bridge. With —” She stopped and closed her eyes for a moment.

  Grandma Kat clutched Anna Marie to her chest, rocking her like a baby. “She’s ruined!” she moaned.

  “No,” Marla said firmly. “She’s not ruined at all. Well,” she added ruefully, “she’s a sorry mess, that’s for sure, but she’s not permanently ruined. I’ve already been making phone calls, and I found an antique dealer that specializes in dolls and restoration. She said she can fix her up brand-new again. Clean her clothes, redo her hair, the works.”

  “This is our precious family heirloom doll,” Kat said, anguished, lifting her puffy red eyes. “Gwen must have taken her out of the case. Why would she do that? Why?”

  Marla shook her head sadly, cautiously watching Kat.

  “We’ll never know,” my grandmother whispered, smoothing her hand down the doll’s dress. “A secret gone forever. Gwen always loved her like we all have. My grandmother Anna would roll over in her grave if she could see her precious doll like this.”

  “We’ll get her fixed up,” Marla said. “I’ll get Zach to drive me over to the antique dealer tomorrow so she can get started right away. That will help — I hope.”

  Grandma Kat didn’t speak for a moment. Then she said, “Nothing will help, but I appreciate all you’re doing for us, Marla.”

  There was a shout from outside, and the two women jumped up and peered out the front window.

  “It’s Zach and Preston in the yard,” Marla said, her voice tight. “They’re back from the bridge.”

  “I’m going with you,” Kat said. “Just for a moment. I don’t want to leave Gwen alone for long.”

  Within seconds both women hurried out the front door and I was alone with the casket.

  And the doll.

  Creeping out from my dark corner, I couldn’t bear to look at Gwen dressed up in her Sunday best inside the casket. I didn’t want to see what death looked like. It came too close last summer. I’d felt its fingers clawing after me when I was sinkin
g down to the bottom of the bayou.

  Instead I was drawn to the shoe box and Anna Marie.

  Without touching anything, I bent down to study the grimy silk dress, all wet and wilted. Her eyelashes were stuck with tiny bits of dirt. She looked distressed. In fact, her face appeared tormented, as though she was suffering. I’d swear those blue eyes were about to cry.

  “Don’t worry,” I said softly. “Someday you will be beautiful again. I promise.”

  She just stared at me intently, as though willing my words to be true, and our eyes locked in a strange grip.

  Wrenching my gaze away, I whipped my head toward the front door, wondering if I could escape before anyone saw me. I’d have to try the back door. Through the gauze curtains, I could see people in the front yard, more walking up the path, coming for the wake.

  It was probably a stupid thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. Before I turned to sneak out the back door, I reached out and touched the beautiful doll, staring into its clear, sad eyes. My fingers barely brushed the texture of scalloped lace on her sleeves before a terrible shaking began.

  My stomach heaved and I fell to my knees, like I was about to shatter into a million pieces. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t dare make a peep. “Help me,” I finally choked out.

  From a tunnel of darkness the fireflies came zipping to my rescue. They flew frantically, as though I’d done something very wrong, circling me, making me dizzy.

  I don’t think I was supposed to touch the doll.

  The golden light blinded me and, instantly, I was sinking through the floors, spinning and whirling through a sinister gloom that squeezed my throat like a boa constrictor.

  My arms whirled like a windmill out of control. I was positive I was going to die this time. I tried not to scream in case someone from the past could hear me, but terrified howls came out anyway. When I hit the staircase banister and landed with a thump, I was shrieking like a banshee.