Christina's Ghost

by Betty Ren Wright

  The next morning she was up early and outside, wandering restlessly around the yard. She walked along the shore, and all around the edge of the lawn, peering into the woods. When she reached the big garage behind the house, she hesitated, then tried the door. It opened into shadowy depths.

  In the light from the tiny windows the garage loomed as large as a church. Some folding chairs hung from the walls, and on the far side a small boat was balanced on the rafters.

  Chris started to back out before she noticed a board propped against one wall. It took a minute for her to realize it was a swing. The seat was sanded, and the heavy ropes were firmly tied.

  Someone must have made it for the little boy but hadn’t put it up. Why not? Chris wondered. She tugged the swing out into the sunshine, feeling as if she’d found what she’d been looking for.

  Once again she circled the yard, this time searching for a tree with straight, sturdy branches. The best one was close to the shore. She hurried back to the garage and found a ladder to help her into the tree’s lower branches. Then she pulled up the swing and tied it to the biggest branch, using knots her father had taught her.

  The seat of the swing hung high, so she had to stand on tiptoe to hitch herself onto it. Cautiously at first, to test the knots, then higher and higher she flew. With blue sky above her, sparkling water below, she felt as free as the eagle that sometimes soared over the lake in wide circles.

  When the swing slowed to a stop, she was hardly surprised to see the little boy watching. He was at the edge of the woods, and his shy smile made her long to comfort him. It’s his swing, she thought, and I’m the one who’s riding on it. She smiled at him encouragingly, till he faded back into the shadows and was gone.

  “You looked as if you were having a good time this morning,” Uncle Ralph commented at lunch.

  Chris glanced up, surprised. Most of the time she paged through comic books while she ate, because Uncle Ralph always brought a book to the table and seldom spoke.

  “I saw you swinging,” he explained. “I’ve been coming out occasionally to see how the swimming was going, but I got involved in something and I didn’t see you put up the swing. You should have let me help you. Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “I know how to do stuff like that,” Chris told him.

  “Hmm.” He looked at her, hard. “Still, I think I’ll check after lunch.”

  Chris shrugged, annoyed. I thought you didn’t want to be bothered. She swallowed the words. After all, it was kind of nice to have him talk to her, since there was no one else around.

  After lunch, she rinsed the dishes while Uncle Ralph went outside. When her work was finished, she dashed upstairs and peeked out of her bedroom window. Uncle Ralph was down at the lake front, straddling the branch that held the swing. One hand fingered the knots and tugged at the ropes; the other hand clutched a smaller branch overhead. When he was satisfied, he began edging backward, very slowly.

  He’s scared! Chris realized. Imagine a grown man afraid to climb out on a branch as sturdy as that one! She ducked back from the window and waited till she heard her uncle come in and return to his study.

  For a few minutes this noon she’d thought about telling him some of the exciting discoveries of the last few days. She could have mentioned how well the swimming had gone yesterday morning. She could have told him about the rowboat stored in the garage. Now she was glad she’d kept still. He’d probably get nervous and be full of crabby “don’t’s” and warnings.

  She didn’t even consider telling him about the ghost boy, or about the dark presence on the other side of the attic door. When it came to ghosts, she knew what he’d say.

  It would be different if he could see the ghost boy himself, she thought. But he won’t. The boy comes when I’m feeling good. When I’m laughing. And Uncle Ralph doesn’t laugh. The world really is too much for him—especially with Chris Cooper cluttering up his summer.

  6.

  Footsteps in the Hall

  Midnight. Chris peered at the straight-up, glowing hands of her clock. She didn’t know what had awakened her. Maybe it was the baked beans and hash they’d had for supper. Uncle Ralph’s meals came mostly from cans.

  She tiptoed to the door and peeked out. Trembling, she felt for the light switch, hoping Uncle Ralph wouldn’t wake up.

  The hall was chilly and damp. At the far end, beyond the row of closed bedrooms, the attic door stood open.

  What should she do? Call her uncle and tell him—what? Wake up, Uncle Ralph. The attic door’s open and I’m scared. He would tell her to close it and go back to bed.

  She started down the corridor, pressing close to the wall. If there was some thing on those steps, she didn’t want to see it. With every step, she felt colder. Her teeth chattered.

  As she edged around the chest that stood just beyond the last bedroom door, there was a thud from above. It could have been a footstep. With a whimper of terror, Chris flung the attic door shut. Then she pulled the chest from its place against the wall and shoved it hard against the door.

  Uncle Ralph’s bedroom door shot open. “Christina! What in the world!”

  Chris felt dizzy. “The door . . . open . . .” she gasped. “I—I closed it.”

  “You certainly did.” Uncle Ralph looked disgusted. “But did you have to bang it? In the middle of the night? I thought the house was falling down around me.” His gray hair stuck out in every direction. “Who cares if the attic door was open, anyway?”

  Chris took a long, shuddering breath. “It gets cold.”

  Uncle Ralph pressed his head between his hands. “You have a very noisy way of dealing with cold,” he said. “Did you ever think of just putting on an extra blanket?” He looked at the closed door with the chest in front of it, and then at Chris’s white face. “Doors open and close by themselves in an old house,” he said, a little more gently. “Happens all the time. Now, if you’re ready to go back to bed, I am.”

  Chris padded down the hall to her room and switched on one of the dresser lamps. Then she closed the door and pulled a chair in front of it. A moment later she heard the hall light click off.

  I’ll stay awake until morning, she promised herself. I won’t close my eyes.

  But once in bed, with the covers tucked up to her ears, she slipped quickly into uneasy sleep. First she dreamed that her mother and father had been in a car accident. Then she dreamed that Aunt Grace was moving to Alaska and taking Jenny with her. And then she dreamed there was a tiger in her closet, struggling to get out.

  “No!” She woke with the word straining her throat. The room was still dark except for the circle of light from the dresser lamp.

  Out in the hall, something scraped across the floor. The chest! The chest was being pushed aside. Chris dived under the covers, but she couldn’t close out the slow, heavy footsteps coming down the hall. As they drew closer, damp cold seeped into her bedroom.

  He—it—was outside her door. She knew it. Uncle Ralph would be sorry tomorrow when he found her lying here, frozen solid, a look of terror on her face. She looks so pitiful, he’d say. Why in the world didn’t she get herself another blanket?

  The footsteps moved away.

  Chris lay rigid, afraid to move. Time passed, and her muscles ached, but she stayed in her sheet-tent. When she peered out at last, the first gray light of morning was touching the windows.

  She stayed in bed another half-hour, listening to the world wake itself up. A cardinal sang. A squirrel scolded. The lake made its soft, lapping sounds.

  When she opened her bedroom door, the house was very still. Uncle Ralph’s door was closed. The attic door was closed, too.

  There was nothing unusual to see, except for the chest. It stood out from the attic door at an angle, as if it had been roughly thrust aside.

  7.

  Grandma’s Hint

  Uncle Ralph peered around the box of corn flakes. “I’m sorry I barked at you last night,” he said. “You startled me.”

&nb
sp; “That’s okay.” Chris had been trying to decide whether to tell him about the pushed-aside chest. He might accuse her of moving it herself. He might get angry all over again.

  The gray head was already bent over the book beside his plate. He wouldn’t want to know, she decided. He doesn’t want to think about anything that isn’t in a book. But something scary was happening in this house. Something bad! She almost forgot to eat, trying to figure out what it was.

  Uncle Ralph swallowed his last spoonful of cereal and closed his book. “We’re going to see your grandmother today,” he said.

  All thoughts of the attic door were swept away for the moment. “You’re kidding!” Chris exclaimed. “Will she come home with us?”

  “No, she won’t. I called the hospital early this morning, and she said she’s feeling much better. But the doctor wants her to stay a while longer. Her arthritis has been acting up, and he wants her to go through the arthritis clinic while she’s there. It’ll take a while.”

  Chris eyed him suspiciously. “How long?”

  “A while, Christina. Maybe two weeks.” He pushed back his chair and began picking up dishes. “Anyway, we’re going to see her today,” he said. “I thought you’d be thrilled to see someone beside your cranky old uncle.”

  “Oh, I am.” Chris stopped, aware that she wasn’t being tactful. “I mean—let’s go this minute,” she begged.

  “After we wash the dishes and make our beds,” Uncle Ralph said. “We don’t want to come back to a mess.”

  Chris wouldn’t have cared about that at all, but she kept still. She could hardly wait to see her grandmother. If she had to stay here for another two whole weeks, and she couldn’t tell Uncle Ralph what was happening in the house, maybe Grandma would listen. She had always taken Chris’s adventures seriously.

  But by the time Chris and Uncle Ralph had found their way through the hospital lobby in Rochester, taken the elevator to the third floor, wandered down one long hall and then another, Chris didn’t feel like talking at all. The hospital made her uneasy. People sat around in wheelchairs or walked up and down the halls in their bathrobes. All the nurses were in a hurry. And when they finally found Room 347, Grandma didn’t look like the grandma Chris remembered. Her usually pink face was pale, and the glossy brown hair looked frizzy. Only her voice was the same.

  “Chrissy! Ralph! Oh, I’m so glad to see you two dears.” She held out her arms, and Chris ran into them. Then Grandma hugged and kissed Uncle Ralph. “You both look so good to me!” she exclaimed. “So healthy!”

  “I’ve learned how to swim longer distances,” Chris told her.

  “Good for you!”

  Uncle Ralph sat on the edge of the bed and took Grandma’s hand. “How are you feeling, Ma?”

  “Fine, except for the arthritis,” Grandma said. “Bored. Hungry for my own cooking.” She brushed off the rest of their questions, after telling them she was starting appointments at the arthritis clinic tomorrow. When her treatments were finished, she could go home. “And you’ll be there,” she said, giving Chris another squeeze. “You and Jenny will be my helpers till your folks come back. We’ll have a grand time, just the way we planned.”

  “I can’t wait!” Chris said. “Oh, I wish you could go home today.”

  There was a little silence. Uncle Ralph shuffled his feet. Grandma looked at him and then at Chris.

  “I wonder if you’d run down to the gift shop and get me a magazine, Ralph,” she said. “You know the kind I like. And a few chocolates, dear. With cherries, if they have them.”

  Uncle Ralph seemed pleased to have a job. He hurried off, and Grandma patted the bed beside her. “Sit here, Chrissy,” she invited. “Now, how are things going? Tell me.”

  The words spilled out. “Uncle Ralph doesn’t want me with him. Oh, we get along okay”—she wanted to chase away Grandma’s worried frown—“but he’ll be glad when I’m gone. And so will I,” she added.

  Grandma hugged her. “My Ralph is a loner, I’m afraid. He’s lived by himself for a long time, and he’s used to it. But I’m sure he’s glad to have you with him, dear. I’m just sure of it! He’s always been a good host when I’ve visited him in the city.”

  Chris sighed. “He loves you, Grandma. I think it’s just tomboys he doesn’t like.”

  “Of course he loves me,” Grandma said. “But he loves you, too, dear. It’s just that he’s the kind of man who’d rather do something for you than tell you his feelings.”

  Chris remembered Uncle Ralph crawling out on the branch to test her swing, even though he was afraid. She supposed that was what Grandma meant by “doing something.”

  “Anyway,” Grandma went on, “Ralph is a very lonely person, Chrissy. Maybe you can bring a little sunshine into my boy’s life while you’re with him. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Chris said honestly. “I don’t think he wants my kind of sunshine.” But she knew she’d have to try, for Grandma’s sake and for Uncle Ralph’s, too. If he really was lonely, she wanted to help him.

  There were footsteps in the hall, and Chris could hear Uncle Ralph talking to someone nearby. She had missed her chance to tell Grandma all about the strange happenings at the house.

  “Grandma, what would you do if you wanted to find out about something that happened a long time ago?” she asked hurriedly. “Uncle Ralph says something bad happened in the house where we’re staying, but he doesn’t know what it was. I want to find out.”

  Grandma’s eyes were on the door, watching eagerly for Uncle Ralph’s return. “Well, I guess . . . I guess I’d look in old newspapers,” she said. “You can go to the nearest library and—” Uncle Ralph hurried in. He carried a whole stack of magazines and a huge box of chocolates.

  “There,” he said, looking pleased as he stacked his purchases on the table next to the bed. “That should do it.”

  “Oh, my, yes,” Grandma said. “Thank you, dear.” She winked at Chris as she started to open the box of candy. “Love comes in all kinds of packages,” she said. “Right, Chris?”

  “Right,” Chris said. She winked back, but her mind was busy with Grandma’s good idea. Look in old newspapers. . . .

  All she had to do now was get Uncle Ralph to stop at a library.

  8.

  “Murder—That’s What Happened. . . .”

  “We’ll stop at Clearwater on the way back,” Uncle Ralph said as they walked to the car. “We’re running low on powdered milk and a lot of other stuff. And then I want to go to the library. If they have one, that is.”

  Chris stared at him, wide-eyed. Could he read her mind? Had he overheard Grandma talking? No, she decided, he was just naturally a Library Person.

  The grocery shopping went quickly, with Uncle Ralph tossing cans and packages and loaves of bread into their cart with hardly a glance at the labels. After that they went next door to a drugstore. Uncle Ralph bought shaving cream, and Chris found a paperback book full of jokes and riddles. If she was going to bring sunshine into her uncle’s life, maybe the book would help.

  And maybe not. He sniffed when he saw what she’d chosen.

  “Now the library,” he said. “It’s right around the corner, according to the druggist. I don’t suppose it’s a very big one. . . .”

  His voice faded as they turned off the main street and stared at the tiny one-room building marked Public Library. Uncle Ralph shook his head. “Not a chance in a million that they’ll have anything I need,” he grumped, “but I suppose they can order for me. I’ll be out in a few minutes, Christina. You can wait in the car.”

  Chris felt sick with disappointment. She’d pictured a big two-story library like the one at home. How could she go into this little building and ask to see newspapers of thirty years ago? In the first place, they probably wouldn’t have them. In the second place, Uncle Ralph would hear her and tell her to forget the whole thing.

  She walked back to the corner and looked for something to do while she waited. Across the street was
a clothing store advertising a sale of summer shorts and T-shirts. Beyond that was an ice-cream shop. Chocolate, pecan, and rainbow, she thought, suddenly starved. She’d take a triple-dipper back for Uncle Ralph, too.

  She was just turning in to the shop when a sign in the next window caught her eye: The Clearwater Journal. A newspaper office! She studied the other signs taped to the glass. Subscribe now! Job printing, reasonable rates. Surely the printers would keep copies of their old newspapers.

  The triple-dippers forgotten, Chris marched into the office and looked around. A skinny, glum-looking man was behind the counter. One fist clutched a telephone; with the other hand he was jotting additions to a long list of items. He had an odd, glazed expression, and his glance flicked over Chris without seeing her.

  After what seemed a very long time, he mumbled a good-bye and hung up. “Liberated women,” he snarled into the air above Chris’s head.

  “Excuse me?” She took one step closer to the counter.

  “Women!” the man snapped. “Wives!”

  Chris looked over her shoulder, ready to run if necessary.

  “I suppose when you grow up you’re going to want a career,” the man jeered. He made career sound terrible. “My wife’s a nurse. Works second shift at the hospital.”

  Chris cleared her throat. “That’s nice,” she said cautiously.

  “Nothing nice about it! She calls to tell me to do the grocery shopping. She calls to tell me to wash the windows. She calls to tell me what to fix for dinner.” He shook his head so hard the pencil poised behind one ear hurtled through the air. “And what do you want?”

  “I’d like to see some . . . some old newspapers,” Chris said. The request sounded silly, even to herself.

  “How old?” The man glared at the phone as if he was daring it to ring again.

  “About thirty years,” Chris said. “If it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “It’s trouble,” the man said. “What week do you want? We publish once a week.”