Ghostsitter

by Shelly Brown

  I found myself on F Street just two blocks from the Delta. The smell of the water and the cool breeze blowing down the street gave me hope that I’d make it. Some ladies were shopping at a sidewalk sale and getting around them was tricky. A few of the orphans knocked over a display rack but I didn’t even stop to apologize, let alone turn it back upright. It went against everything in my upbringing but I kept running. My lungs had just started burning when I reached the end of the road. Right as I set foot on the sandy space between me and the water I heard a horn. Not a car horn, though. A train horn.

  The tracks went along the waterfront and a train was coming at a good clip. I was trapped.

  There wasn’t time to cross before the train reached me, and the other way, the road dead-ended, storefronts on both sides keeping me from turning right or left. I swiveled around and Lisette was too close. I imagined her throwing my body into the moving train that I could hear passing behind me. My tired legs began to shake.

  Lisette slowed down when she saw I was cornered.

  That was definitely not part of the plan.

  She put out her palm as if I would just give her the bone. The children began to let out an occasional gasp of fear which resulted in screams popping up here and there. The children surrounded me but I wasn’t sure what good it was going to do.

  Lisette’s eyebrows dipped. She stopped walking, crouched a little, reminding me of a lion, then sprung at me. I turned back just in time to see the last of the train pass and I bolted for the water. Leaping across the still screeching tracks, I scrambled over the boulders until my glitter sneakers were soaked in the lapping water. They were my new back-to-school pair so I cringed at the prospect of ruining them, but I knew what I had to do. I grasped the bone tight in one hand and pulled the photocopies out of my pocket with the other as I got deeper into the water. I didn’t turn around until I reached my waist.

  The kids were all around me and Lisette was nowhere to be seen.

  I would have thought that was good, except that the whole reason I was in the water was because Justin had read somewhere that ghosts were afraid of the water and wouldn’t enter it. And yet there I was surrounded by thirty ghosts . . . in the water.

  Plan A was a bust.

  Fortunately, we had a Plan B.

  Unfortunately, it involved more running.

  Fortunately, if that failed, we had Plans C and D.

  Unfortunately, I was pretty sure I would be dead before I ever reached Plan D.

  I started trudging back out of the water as fast as I could. A warm gust hit me so hard from behind I almost lost my balance and fell in. Wobbling I turned around to see Lisette floating above the water, looking down on me like an angel of death.

  “I’m not scared of you!” I yelled at her over the sound of the wind. “I’m pretty sure you were a good lady. The kind of lady that would spend her own money and time taking care of children without parents.”

  She screamed at me and I turned back around and waded as fast as my legs allowed.

  I guess I was a little bit scared of her.

  Once out of the water I ran for the hills.

  I couldn’t run as fast because oxygen was required to operate a body (yes, I did listen in Mr. Leibmen’s class sometimes!), and my bronchiole tubes were constricting (and I listen to my doctor!), but I put one foot in front of the other and made my way up the dirt trail.

  I finally spotted the cemetery and sprinted to the gap. As I ran through the black iron archway, the wind let up.

  Lisette paced just outside as if the invisible wall that kept the White Witch in kept Lisette out. The cemetery felt peaceful after that constant barrage of anxiety that Lisette filled me with, but her not being able to enter the cemetery was throwing a kink in Plan B as well.

  Another wrong assumption.

  But I had to try.

  “Lisette Hurtado. We’ve done our homework. We know who you are.”

  She hollered but was listening.

  “We both know that you buried all of these children—” I motioned to the children who were standing close to me in the safety of the graveyard “in the back of the orphanage. But I don’t think that you’re a murderer.”

  She dropped her head and stared up at me through her brows.

  “In fact, I have copies of your sister’s journal.” I held up the photocopies, a few of which were rather wet. “Rosaline Hurtado, and she says—”

  I couldn’t finish because coming from behind me was the ugly hot fear of the White Witch.

  I recognized it instantly.

  I was trapped.

  I couldn’t imagine one direction was safer than the other. Lisette blocked the only way out and the White Witch was free to chase me anywhere inside. I took my chances with where I was and continued.

  “You didn’t kill them. The kids died of the flu. Rosaline Hurtado was at fault, not you, for the death of those children.”

  The White Witch didn’t like that and started her screaming, but the sound went silent when my inner dial tuned to hear:

  Hurtado.

  It was the same voice as before.

  I turned around and looked at the young witch.

  Seventeen. Really thin. Long blonde hair. Hated cherries. Doomed to haunt.

  The White Witch was Rosaline Hurtado.

  What the freak?

  Forget Plans C and D, I created a Plan E on the spot.

  “Rosaline, I read about you as well.” I felt completely foolhardy trying this new tactic but I wasn’t ready to die at the hand of these specter sisters. It was worth a shot. “You were born in Spain, Barcelona, I think. You came to the United States to be close to your sister and earn money to send back home to your parents. But you didn’t know what evil lurked on that transpacific boat you took. Influenza. It entered your exceptionally healthy body only showing slight symptoms. An occasional fever. A cough here and there.”

  She wouldn’t stop pacing but I was sure she was listening. I worried about saying something that she didn’t like, but kept going.

  “Your sister was thrilled to see you, but sent you on quickly to work in the local cherry orchard where Mr. Williams would house and feed you. That’s when life got super crappy for you.”

  I don’t think she knew what the word crappy meant but I went on to explain.

  “You see, Mrs. Williams was expecting their first child but started coughing. Fever, weakness, then death. The next day, Marshall, the labor manager, took ill as well. A week later, Sarah, Mrs. Williams’s hired lady, took ill. Both of them died, while your cough kept getting worse. Then the flu hit you hard. As if your strong body had surrendered. You were bed-ridden. That was the end of your journal entries. But Percy, you remember him, the stable master, kept a detailed journal as well and tells the rest of the story.”

  Once again I held up the papers.

  “Percy says that Mr. Williams figured out that it was you who brought the sickness to his orchard and refused to let anyone wait on you while you were sick. People snuck you food here and there, but that must have been a terribly lonely death. Once you were gone, Mr. Williams was so angry with you for killing his wife and unborn child that he handed you over to the church for a pauper’s burial.” I pointed to a corner of the graveyard that didn’t have any tombstones but was within the gates. “I had to look those words up, but I think it means that you were just buried with a bunch of other poor people in an unmarked grave.”

  The anger swelled up around me. It made me feel irrational but I had to remind myself that it was her anger, not mine.

  “I think he was right. I think that you brought the sickness to the area.”

  I had thought the feeling couldn’t get any uglier and darker but it seized at my chest, and I felt like an over-wound clock. But I was undeterred. I was going to say my piece even if it meant dying at the hands of a sk
inny ghost with anger-management issues. Plus, I already knew there was life after death.

  “They had a reason to be mad at you,” I said. It was time to try the original plan on the unexpected visitor. “But you didn’t do any of it to hurt people. You were just as much a victim as the others.” I called the children in close to me. “Children, you died from a terrible disease that this woman brought into your city.” I gathered them in close then asked, “Do you forgive her?”

  The question must have come as a surprise, because the White Witch stood still and quiet. Watching. Waiting.

  Ruby looked at me then stepped forward first. She knew what I had asked her to do, but this was the wrong person. She did it anyways.

  She reached out her hand to the White Witch and waited.

  Rosaline looked at the small girl and her tiny hand, then slowly raised her own hand and took it. Ruby shook hands, delighted that it worked, then walked back to the other kids.

  Inspired by his sister, Patrick was the next to move forward. A few other kids followed behind him, and after he got his handshake, they each offered their hands, one at a time.

  Rosaline didn’t smile but she didn’t scream either. With a very serious expression she shook hands with every child who approached her until there were none left who hadn’t shaken the hand of the White Witch.

  All eyes were back on me. “There may be others here—people that I can’t see. Who feel the same—”

  I was hoping for this huge reconciliation group hug with invisible people. What I got was the creepy baseball field guy appearing beside me and startling the heck out of me.

  I immediately went for Henry.

  But the creepy guy didn’t even address me. He walked straight up to Rosaline.

  Her head dropped and she said, Lo siento.

  He looked off towards the paupers’ field. Sorry, he responded. He walked a few graves down and rested his hand on a flat grave marker. Pay no more.

  More curious than smart, I took a few cautious steps forward to see the name on the plaque.

  Laura Williams, age twenty-five, and unborn daughter

  Williams. Like the orchard owner.

  He stood again. Walking towards Rosaline with an outstretched hand, he said, Peace.

  Peace, she answered with her thick accent, as her hand met his.

  Then they both disappeared.

  It worked.

  It worked!

  Feeling brave from my recent success, I was ready to try it again.

  I smiled at Lisette who was hovering outside of the fence line. She hissed at me but I wasn’t scared. I had this down to a science.

  Chapter 38

  The Plan: The Dry Part

  Justin

  It took everything in me to stay still and quiet when Lisette made Tiffany’s nose bleed. Once I assured myself that Tiffany was going to be okay, I relaxed again but the twelve other kids around me with shovels seemed shocked.

  “What the . . .” Jessica whispered but I brought my finger to my lips and she stayed silent.

  When Tiffany was thrown against the wall, I had to grab Mario’s arm to keep him from running to her aid. It made me physically ill to watch her go through that but I couldn’t do her part for her. I just hoped that Lisette was done hurting her.

  I was impressed with how quiet the others waited—because if Lisette knew we were there she would have never left with Tiffany. Once they were out of sight I led the others to the grass.

  After having witnessed what we did, everyone was a little leery of putting their shovels into the ground. I took a deep breath, raised my arms high, and thrust the shovel into the grass.

  Nothing.

  It sliced through the dirt smoothly and the other shovels around me went straight to work. I winced at the idea of finding children’s bones under the soil—it wasn’t my idea of a good time.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Tiffany with Lisette. We needed one of us to do her part of the plan and one of us to do mine, and no matter how much I would rather let her do this safer part, I couldn’t bring the children with me. That was a job that only Tiffany could do.

  I just hoped she was okay.

  My phone rang in my pocket and I answered it.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello Justin? It’s me, Nellie, from the Historical Society.”

  “Hi, Nellie,” I said while I propped the phone between my shoulder and my ear so my hands would be free to keep shoveling.

  “Justin, I found something very interesting about Lisette Hurtado. Do you remember how we decided that she was mostly just a victim of circumstance? That sure she faked some paperwork to keep from getting caught, but she wasn’t really a bad lady? We were wrong. We were very, very wrong.”

  I stopped shoveling and held the phone in my hand again. “What did you find?”

  “I do think that those first children died of influenza, but once the money started coming in for the adoptions, Lisette found a new way to make money.”

  “Murder?” I had just sent Tiffany off with this ghost all by herself. I dropped my shovel. “Mario, you’re in charge. If you can uncover a whole skeleton use Jessica’s phone to call the police department and talk to an Officer Murphy. After that the rest of the digging should be done by professionals,” I shouted. Mario looked confused but I just started running.

  “Not exactly.” Nellie cleared her throat and I could hear papers shuffling. “Okay, this is what I found . . .”

  Chapter 39

  The Plan: The Part that Didn’t Work

  Tiffany

  “Lisette Hurtado,” I started. “It wasn’t your fault those children died. Your sister wrote in her journal that you cared for those children as well as their own mothers would have. It must have been crushing for you to see them die, child after child.” Her face didn’t show any emotion as I spoke. “Not only that but you were paid per child that you cared for. If they died on your watch what would become of your income? Who would trust you anymore? You were an immigrant, who came out on your own, it wasn’t like you had anyone around to fall back on if times got tough.” I shook my head. “No, you had to take care of yourself. That’s when you learned of the bonuses given for placing children in adoptive homes. It was a lot of cash since it saved the church a lot of money.”

  I put my right hand out, palm up. “On one hand, if the kids got adopted, you got lots of money.” Switching Henry to the other hip, I raised my left palm. “And on the other hand, dead kids meant no money. It was kind of a no-brainer.”

  I was ready to make my final statement. I motioned for the kids to follow me out of the graveyard to meet Lisette. They were hesitant. A few of them wouldn’t move at all but Ruby, Patrick, and a handful of others trailed close to me. I felt a surge of love and pride as they trusted me in another dangerous situation. “So what? When they got sick and died you hid their bodies and forged records. There are worse things you could have done.”

  I walked through the archway, Lisette staring blankly at me.

  After the first step, she rushed her hands forward and the wind hit me hard, barreling me to the right and away from the entrance. The blast, full of dirt and rocks, felt like being slammed into a wall. Knocked off of my feet, I tried to rise again but another gust, this one from behind, pulled me, straight toward Lisette.

  She didn’t scream or smile, only glared with distant, fiery eyes.

  I tried to push back against the wind, but wasn’t succeeding. It was too strong, too powerful.

  Lisette began to move toward me, her hand now outstretched.

  This was not how it was supposed to work. There was supposed to be forgiveness and love and peace, not crazy wind, her creepy veiny hand, and me about to die.

  Lisette was less than twenty feet away.

  “Leave her alone,” Justin shouted as he bolted up the trail.<
br />
  Lisette didn’t even turn to acknowledge him.

  “Tiffany, run!” he called out to me. “I was wrong, she’s evil.”

  I tried to explain that if I could run, I would run, but the wind sucked the words out of me. Justin didn’t yell again, but barreled toward Lisette’s back. All one hundred pounds of him charged ready to tackle the monster.

  No!

  It was bad enough that she was going to kill me. I was hoping that one of us would live to write the screenplay.

  Lisette knew he was coming. Maybe Justin runs too loud. Maybe my eyes gave it away. Maybe she had super nasty demon powers that sensed stuff like that. Either way, right before Justin reached her, Lisette turned around and with one might shove of her hand, hit him with a gust of wind so hard that he soared backward through the air several stories above ground.

  Justin screamed as he smashed into the branches of a nearby pine. Thankfully, he managed to grasp onto some of them. He pulled his body close the branches and shimmied toward the truck, the whole tree swaying in the wind.

  Lisette turned back to me. She was only six feet away. I was six feet away from a painful death. That was the first time I was truly grateful she couldn’t have been over five feet tall.

  In the distance I heard a default ringtone.

  “Hey.” Justin sounded winded. “No, I can’t meet you in the parking lot. Bring it to the cemetery. ‘Kay, love you. Bye.”

  He yelled from the tree, “Lisette! I know what happened to the rest of the kids.” I caught sight of him trying to work his way down. “You sold them to mine speculators. They paid you good money for each kid, and with your forgery abilities you convinced the church that you had found them homes as well.”

  Lisette had stopped approaching me. She didn’t face Justin and she didn’t release me.

  “Money from the mines. Money from the church.” Justin didn’t stop talking as he moved down a branch. “You couldn’t care less who hauled them away or what would happen to the children.” He jumped to another branch, then caught one more below. “You were selling them like they were a product.” He was almost out of the tree. “Like bread, or shoes, or livestock.” He dropped onto the dirt and grass.