Just South of Home

by Karen Strong

  I also hadn’t forgotten the way she came down from Mrs. Greene’s attic with that smirk on her face. What else was she hiding in that pink backpack of hers?

  I pushed up the bedspread and pulled out the backpack. The zipper made a loud zmpff noise. I found the MLK church fan, celebrity magazines, and nail polish. I also found a small silver hand with a blue eye. The same one showcased at Mrs. Whitney’s gift shop. How had Janie taken one of these?

  Light footsteps traveled up the stairs, and I quickly crammed everything back into the backpack, zipped it as fast as I could, and shoved it under Janie’s bed.

  “What’s taking you so long?” My cousin appeared in the doorway.

  I tried to remove the guilt from my face. “I’m ready.”

  “I came to get the cameo.” Janie reached under her bed and retrieved it from the front pocket of her backpack.

  I followed Janie downstairs in relief.

  • • •

  It didn’t take Jasper long to arrive. He cruised down our street and swooped into the driveway. He jumped off his bike with wheels spinning and bounded up the porch steps.

  “Where is the message?” Jasper panted.

  He followed us upstairs to my bedroom and stood in front of my window. I studied his face. Jasper didn’t seem amused; he looked afraid.

  “This is what happens when folks don’t listen to me,” Ellis said.

  “So what do you have to say for yourself?” Janie came up beside Jasper and put her hand on her hip. “Proud of your little handiwork? Guess what, though? You didn’t scare me.”

  Jasper looked down at her, his eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “I didn’t do this.”

  “Stop playing games,” Janie said. “We know Ellis told you that we went to Creek Church.”

  “I didn’t tell him anything,” Ellis said. “He just found out when I called him this morning.”

  I went and stood on the other side of Jasper. “You didn’t know anything about the cameo?” I asked him.

  “I have no idea what’s going on. But this right here?” He pointed to the window. “This is bad news. What did you do?”

  Janie and I looked at each other. The smirk on her face instantly faded, and I felt a slight queasiness in my stomach.

  What had Mrs. Whitney told Jasper? I thought of all the creepy things we had seen at the back of her gift shop: bags of herbs, spooky dolls, and the tower of silver hands. I also remembered Mrs. Whitney’s words. Don’t mess with the spirit world, and it won’t mess with you.

  “Did you take something from Creek Church?” Jasper asked.

  Janie pulled the cameo out of her pocket and gave it to him. “It’s just a piece of junk jewelry. What does it matter?”

  “It matters to the haints,” Jasper said. “They don’t like it.”

  “So you really believe a haint wrote this?” I asked.

  “Mrs. Whitney told me that Creek Church is a sacred place. Frozen in time. Nothing should be moved or taken away.”

  “I tried to warn them.” Ellis sneered at Janie.

  “Shut up,” she snapped.

  I sat down at my desk to think. I glanced at my astronomy books, but I knew I wouldn’t find any answers there.

  It was clear that Jasper hadn’t written the message, and the way my cousin was acting, it didn’t seem likely that she had written it either. It could only mean one thing.

  “We saw a boy at Creek Church,” I blurted out. “About eight years old. Dark skinned. Torn-up clothes. Bare, muddy feet. Jasper, have you ever seen a kid like this around the trailer park? Maybe he’s homeless?”

  “Not many kids live in the trailer park anymore,” Jasper said, his voice quaking.

  I wanted to ask him about the dead oak tree and the shadows, but the way Jasper kept staring at the words on the window made me pause. He was looking more and more afraid.

  “You have to take the cameo back,” Jasper whispered.

  “You should come with us,” Janie said. “Both of you.”

  Ellis frowned. “Didn’t you hear what he said? He didn’t say we should go. He said you should go.”

  “Too scared?” Janie sneered.

  “I ain’t scared.” Ellis pulled out his prized slingshot from his pocket. “I know how to protect myself.”

  Janie laughed. “You think that thing is gonna protect us?”

  I stood up from my desk. Of course. Janie had taken something from Creek Church, and to break the curse she must return the cameo to the graveyard. I quickly had the sinking feeling that if we didn’t, something else could happen, and I didn’t want to find out what. There were already too many odd things going on.

  “If going back will get rid of the curse, let’s just do it so we can get out of this mess,” I said.

  “So you’ll come with us?” Janie asked Jasper.

  Jasper was silent for several seconds, and then Ellis groaned.

  “You don’t have to come,” I told Jasper. “This is Janie’s problem. She needs to deal with it.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Jasper said.

  “Ellis, you’re coming too,” I said.

  “Why I gotta go with y’all?” he whined.

  “We need to stay together.”

  Janie grabbed the cameo from Jasper. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Black Tree

  The heat from the asphalt rose up in shimmers as we walked down Hardeman Road. The sunlight on my hair made my scalp itch. The humidity was heavy in the air, but the goose bumps remained on my skin.

  Janie tugged my T-shirt, her face serious. “You think going back will help?”

  “We wouldn’t have to go back if you had listened to me,” Ellis said.

  “I didn’t take anything; I found it.” Janie pushed her chin up in the air and closed her eyes to the sun.

  “Will you stop saying that? You didn’t find anything. You took it. Just like you took the church fan and that creepy—” I stopped myself. I couldn’t reveal that I had seen the silver hand from Mrs. Whitney’s gift shop. If I did, then she would know I had been snooping in her backpack. I trotted up between Jasper and Ellis to get away from her.

  “Most ghosts don’t know they’re dead,” Jasper said.

  “That doesn’t seem fun,” Ellis said. “To be dead and not know it.”

  “Mrs. Whitney says this whole town got a reckoning with the dead left at Creek Church.”

  “You mean the ones in the graveyard?” I asked.

  “No,” Jasper said. “Others who are trapped there. They can’t leave. They’re bound to that place because of unfinished business. Mrs. Whitney says it’s up to their blood kin to free them.”

  “What does that even mean?” Janie asked. “When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

  “I wouldn’t stay here. I would be up in heaven, chilling. Eating all the fried eggs I wanted,” Ellis said.

  Jasper glanced at us. “Mrs. Whitney is on a mission to free every restless spirit in Warrenville. Folks in town are interested too. She’s taking appointments.”

  “Appointments?” I asked. “For what?”

  “Spiritual problems. She meets with her clients in a back room. She helps them out.”

  Maybe that explained all of those things Mrs. Whitney had in her gift shop.

  “Are the appointments free?” I asked.

  “She takes donations,” Jasper said. “She has different types of payment plans.”

  “Sounds like a scam artist to me,” Janie said.

  I wondered if Mama knew about this. Even though she thought Mrs. Whitney was eccentric, Mama wouldn’t like it if she found out that Mrs. Whitney was feeding on superstitions and taking money from hardworking folks.

  But what if Mrs. Whitney was right? What if Warrenville did have a haint problem? I had seen enough strange things happen that my seed of doubt had grown roots. I couldn’t explain what Janie and I had seen, and now I was going back to Creek Church, the origin of everything, because I had a tiny shr
ed of belief that the curse might be real, and I didn’t want to take any chances.

  We turned off Hardeman Road onto Linnard Run. Nothing had changed from yesterday. The broken chain was still on the ground, tire tracks were still pressed into the dried mud, and trash still lay scattered in the bushes. This time I didn’t bother looking at the NO TRESPASSING sign.

  As we walked down the dirt road, I searched the woods for any sign of movement. At the dead end, we saw the mossy stone steps shaded in darkness. Cold sweat prickled at the base of my back, and my heartbeat pounded in my ears.

  Janie pressed through the weeds and stood on the steps with Jasper right behind her. “The graveyard is farther back in the woods. That’s where I found the cameo.”

  Ellis pulled out his slingshot and searched for rocks. I remained still, trying to slow down my heartbeat. Despite the heat, I was shivering. My nervous system sensed something bad was in the air. Something dangerous. My body was telling me to run.

  I really didn’t want to go to the graveyard because I would have to pass the dead oak tree again, but I needed to make sure Janie put the cameo back in its place. I grabbed my brother’s hand, but he wouldn’t budge from the dirt road.

  “Come on, Ellis,” I said.

  “I couldn’t find any good rocks to protect us,” he said. “We should stay here and just wait for them.”

  “We need to stick together, just in case,” I said.

  Ellis positioned his slingshot in front of him as a shield as we continued deeper into the woods.

  “I thought you said you couldn’t find any rocks?”

  “I always bring backup.” He held out his palm to reveal three tiger’s eye marbles. “I don’t know if these will work, but they’re from my special collection.”

  We crept past the dead oak tree. No shadows. I grabbed my brother’s hand again and headed eastward to the graveyard.

  We found Jasper and Janie in front of a tombstone. She held the cameo in her hand.

  “How do we know if this will break the curse?” Janie asked.

  “Because that’s what Mrs. Whitney says,” Jasper replied.

  “So we’re gonna believe a possible scam artist?” Janie frowned.

  “You saw that message. Also, this is the only thing we can do,” I said. “Do you have any other ideas?”

  “Do it,” Ellis said.

  Janie pushed away some old leaves and put the cameo back in the dirt. I rubbed my arms, hoping to remove the shivers.

  Jasper bent down to examine the tombstone. “That cameo may have belonged to a relative paying her respects to this grave.”

  “It could have belonged to anyone,” Janie said.

  “We’re done here. We should leave,” Jasper urged.

  I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath. I let out a deep sigh. “I hope this fixes everything.”

  A crow cawed, and Ellis pointed his slingshot in its direction. The sunlight peeked through the foliage. I focused on the black tree, dark against the bright green woods.

  A gust of wind whipped through the graveyard and knocked Ellis down to the ground; it hit my face, and faint whispers filled the woods.

  Ellis staggered to his feet and aimed his sling-shot toward the trees. “Do you hear that? It’s coming from up there!”

  We gathered in a circle with our backs to one another, gaping at the trees. The whispers rose with the wind, hissing like angry snakes. We moved closer together until the wind weakened and the noises stopped. Janie gripped my hand. The air suddenly grew colder, and our breath curled out from our mouths in cloudy puffs. We stood still, afraid to move.

  “What’s happening?” Janie asked in a small voice.

  Jasper put his finger to his lips to silence her. Across from us in the graveyard, the branches of the black tree creaked and swayed. Dark shadows, like wisps of smoke, filtered out of the trunk and hovered above the dead branches.

  “Are you seeing this?” Ellis’s voice was high and squeaky.

  The shadows broke apart into several globs of inky blackness and then began to take shape into human form. Two arms. Two legs. I hadn’t been imagining things. I had seen this yesterday. It was happening again.

  They thinned and grew taller than anything human. The shadows twisted around the trunk and gazed at us with silver eyes. They settled in front of the black tree. One of them pointed at us as it hissed.

  Jasper and Ellis were the first to run. Janie and I fled behind them. The woods blurred as we zigzagged back to the church. We jumped up onto the stone slab and raced down the steps. I didn’t turn to look behind me, afraid to see if the shadows were chasing us. We shoved ourselves through the bushes and ran down the dirt road until we were in the safety of the sunlight.

  We panted at the entrance of Linnard Run. Nothing had followed us, and no shadows were in sight.

  Everything was calm.

  Janie punched Jasper in the arm. “Why did you leave us like that?”

  Jasper didn’t say anything. Was he shocked? Scared? Maybe he was both. I know I was.

  “Don’t get mad at him,” Ellis said. “You saw what happened. We were about to be haint food.”

  I couldn’t deny it. What we had seen was as real as the sun, the stars, and the planets in our solar system. Those shadows were physical things, and they weren’t human. I didn’t need any more theories. No more explanations. Creek Church was haunted.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Dark History

  Jasper’s trailer had pale blue shutters and sat on four concrete blocks. Next to a picnic table, a clothesline sagged low with laundry. I tried not to stare at the underwear blowing in the wind. In the small yard were several birdbaths. The last time I visited I had counted seven, but I think Jasper’s mama added a couple more since then.

  We traveled past the trailer to an open field and sat under a weeping willow tree. The long branches rustled in the summer breeze, and the leaves provided a curtain of shade. Jasper fetched us a bowl of blackberries from his refrigerator, and Ellis immediately dug in; he smashed several of them into his mouth. After watching him do this three times, I took the bowl away from him.

  “Hey!” he protested. “Give that back.”

  “You’re eating too many blackberries. You’re going to get sick,” I warned.

  Janie sat next to me, her braids hiding her face. She stayed silent and peeled nail polish off her big toe. Jasper twirled blades of grass in front of him.

  “Now that the cameo is back in the graveyard, everything should be okay, right?” I asked.

  Ellis pointed at Janie. “Wouldn’t even have to deal with none of this if you had just listened to me.”

  Janie smacked his hand down. “Leave me alone.”

  I glowered at Janie. My brother was right. She had created this whole mess. Now I had uncovered something I didn’t want to believe but couldn’t deny after our experiences yesterday and today. Ghosts were real, and this town was cursed with them.

  “Those shadows? The ones that came from the black tree? They were the same ones I saw yesterday,” I said.

  “Those must be the restless spirits,” Jasper said. “Torn from the living world in a painful way, unable to move on.”

  Daddy had told us about Warrenville’s dark history. Back in the day, any member of the black community could be killed without punishment. No judge. No jury. Killed without cause. Most of the time it was because of false rumors. Other times, a blood sport. We were killed because we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were killed because we didn’t stay in our place. We were killed for wanting a better future. We were killed for having the audacity to even exist. It was true that Warrenville had changed over the years, but its past would stay the same. Nothing could ever change that.

  “So those haints are trapped there? They can’t leave?” Janie asked.

  “That’s what Mrs. Whitney says,” Jasper said.

  “You say that the ghosts usually want something. Unfinished business. Maybe they want ven
geance,” I said. “Or justice.”

  We all stared at one another. We knew those spirits wouldn’t find who they were looking for. As the haints dwelled at Creek Church, the folks who had killed them had lived long lives. Never punished. Never prosecuted. Unscathed by their crimes. Justice wasn’t available to the haints. Not anymore.

  “So did we stir up a different curse?” I asked.

  “We took back the cameo,” Jasper said. “The haints should respect that. But—”

  “Will they come to our house again?” Ellis asked.

  Jasper stayed silent for a few moments. “There’s no reason for them to bother you anymore.”

  “You don’t seem so sure. And what about the boy?” Janie asked. “We didn’t see him.”

  Yesterday the boy looked so young and fragile standing on the stone steps. He looked alive and real. But I also remember how he made me feel. Unsettled. The sunlight had curved around him. I was glad we hadn’t seen him today, because it would have confirmed he wasn’t a boy at all.

  “We’ve done all we can.” I stood up and brushed the grass off my shorts with trembling hands. My nervous system was telling me to go someplace safe.

  “We need to go home,” I said.

  Ellis and Jasper got up, but Janie didn’t move. She sat with her arms crossed.

  “Janie, get up. Let’s go,” I said with irritation.

  She rose off the ground and tossed her braids over her shoulder. “So that’s it? We’re going to forget this ever happened?”

  “What do you want us to do?” I asked.

  “We saw ghosts!” Janie shook her hands in the air. “Don’t you think we should tell someone?”

  “Tell who?” Ellis asked. “I ain’t telling Mama nothing about this.”

  “We’re done with that place,” I said.

  “But what about the little boy? Didn’t you say he could be lost or homeless?”

  “I don’t think we can help him,” I said.

  “So what—we leave that little boy out there in the woods by himself?” Janie said. “You just want to hide in your boring books and study stupid science all day.”