by Richard Peck
By afternoon, the sheriff had posted a guard at the end of the lane. Still, Cousin Elvera Schumate got through. She advanced toward the house, and there was no bird on her hat. She was strictly business.
“Luella,” she said, “I have come to you in your hour of need.”
“Oh, Elvera,” Mother said, “if it is not one thing, it is another. I believe in my heart we are cursed. First Tom Hackett and now this. Vulgar publicity will finish off our good name. I don’t know why I even try. It has all been for my children, and it seems they are both out to ruin us all they can.” She spoke at length on this theme and fingered her cameo.
Cousin Elvera said, “There, there, do not take on.”
And Mother replied, “You don’t know what it is, Elvera. A childless woman cannot know the grief.”
Gladys came into the parlor more than once to say that quite a number of people wanted to talk to me over the telephone. She’d chatted with them all. One was a reporter from the Alton paper who would pay to see the barn. One was somebody local who claimed to be a ghost catcher. And one was a lady from Pittsfield who had regular conversations with the dead and would be glad to team up with me. Mother told Gladys to hang up without conversing henceforth.
It was a well-nigh endless day, particularly after Cousin Elvera got there. She and Mother spent the afternoon murmuring in the parlor. I had not thought I was one to mind missing school, but I took to roaming without purpose around the house and staring up at the ceilings, thinking that if I could perceive an Inez, Captain Campbell might be the next step.
Lucille finally came in from the high school and exploded all over the parlor. She was in a temper since none of her friends wanted to speak of her party but persisted in quizzing her about my fame. Mother replied that the less said of both events, the better. Lucille went to her room.
Then Mother called me into the parlor, and I could see her powwow with Cousin Elvera had come to a satisfactory conclusion. “Alexander, draw near and sit down on that horse-hair sofa. There are times, Alexander, when it is better to be thought a naughty, untruthful boy than—than to be thought an eccentric one. Do you follow me?”
I did not and said so.
“Let me try it another way,” Mother said, shooting a glance at Cousin Elvera, who nodded. “It was a very brave thing to have hailed that streetcar and saved all those people. And they are all very grateful, as you know. Do you follow me?”
I did and said so, but I was not so much as a word ahead of her.
“Well then, it would be better not to take any credit whatever for doing a good deed, as might have been in your mind when you stole away from the scene of the—accident Saturday night. But when people come to you with hearts full of gratitude, you have to acknowledge it and you have a right to. Are you still attending me?”
I was and said so, and fairly interested since Mother had never before informed me of any of my rights.
“And so, we—I do not see why you must hide your light under a bushel and—and share your credit with—somebody else. You have my permission to announce to all and sundry that you were only acting on a hunch—or perhaps something Bub might have told you. That your story about the—barn was only a fabrication. And then you need not share your glory with a—a—”
“Ghost,” said Cousin Elvera, “particularly since there is no such thing.”
It was my private opinion that if they had displayed ghosts down at the St. Louis World’s Fair, she would be quick enough to claim she had shaken all their hands personally.
I didn’t like the idea of retracting my first story, especially since it was true. On the other hand, I didn’t like defying Mother and Cousin Elvera whose combined forces could stop the U.S. Cavalry cold. I told Mother I would give her words serious thought and headed to my room without making any commitments.
On my way upstairs, I heard Cousin Elvera said, “He is a sensible boy basically, and I feel sure he will come around to our way of thinking.”
“If he was a sensible boy,” Mother said, “we would not be in this mess.”
I sat up on my windowsill gazing without thought down on the barn that afternoon. Suddenly, the barn door opened a crack. Then it was ajar, and Blossom Culp’s head appeared from inside, turning to scan the yard. She seemed to signal an all-clear to someone behind her. Then she crept out into the lane. Following her was a man carrying a tripod camera and a device for flash powder.
She put her finger to her lips and then pointed down to the gravel. The two of them made a silent retreat toward the side of the barn. Before they disappeared, though, she halted the stranger and put out her hand. He propped his tripod against the barn and dug into a pocket, coming up with folding money. Blossom deposited it down her shirtwaist front, and the two of them departed.
That night Cousin Elvera stayed to supper, and the conversation touched on every topic except recent issues. I was up in my room again by nine. I knew Mother expected me to make an early retraction of my story, and I was half persuaded to go along with her. A quiet night would have convinced me. But that’s not the way matters arranged themselves.
I slept for a while and awoke to moonlight. Slipping over to the window, I surveyed the barn. But if Inez was afoot that night, she was sending no signals. One more trip to the barn, I thought, and I will put the whole business out of my mind and be quit of it. I drifted down through the creaking house and out across the yard.
With any luck, I said to myself, Blossom will not be charging admission at this hour. I thought this notion was somewhat witty, but my heart was in my mouth anyway.
As a rule, a murky flight of stairs is not comforting. But the darker and quieter, the better, I thought. When I pushed the door open, a strong smell of swamp water came from above. I slipped in and stood to one side of the moonlight. It picked up the girl’s footprint, which was black and glistening wet. I tried not to concentrate on that, but the rest of the place was in shadow.
There was a whimpering then, and I nearly took flight. I blinked my eyes and thought I saw Trixie’s bedraggled little dogface, but it was suspended above the floor in a corner. By degrees I could see the dog clearer and that she was being held. A white hand smoothed her tangled fur.
“Inez?” I said, not loud. “It’s me.”
“There are many intruders,” her voice came back, “but I know you are the boy from the house.” It was her same voice with the strange accent. But she was not agitated.
“Have they told you I do not exist?” she said, going right to the heart of the matter.
“They don’t want you to exist, I guess.”
“The living wish to forget the dead,” she sighed. She was in a very different frame of mind. “But it does not matter. You saved the people in the train, all but the madman.”
It wasn’t a question, but I told her I did, thanks to her.
“Even the madman rests easier than I,” she said, sighing again. Trixie whimpered. “I had thought to be saved, but my rescuer was my robber. I am even denied a decent grave.”
“Why are you here, Inez?” I whispered.
“Because of that.”
“Are you a soul in torment, Inez?”
“Yes,” she said, “though there are quiet times. In my loneliness I have watched you from the window.”
I did not like the thought of that but said nothing.
“I have watched you since you were old enough to walk, and I have looked out across the fields before the town was here.”
“Then you are old, Inez.”
“No, I am not old. I was spared that.”
“What do you want?” I asked her as most of my fear left me.
“To be among my own people. Like me, they are above the ground, but they rest.”
“How can I help?”
“There is little you can do alone,” she said. “For a boy is hard to believe.”
“Then why do you appear to me?”
“I have no choice among those who will see me and those who wil
l not, and little experience of either.”
“Blossom’s Mama says I’m receptive.”
“There are many ways to express it.”
“But you appeared to Lucille too and to Tom Hackett.”
“She was in danger—or he was. Perhaps I could do it because she was your sister. Besides, they were intruders here.”
“I wish I could help you, Inez.”
“Perhaps you can if you find me,” she said. “But you will need the help of other believers—true believers.”
“But aren’t you here?”
“I am not here, but near. You will know me if you find me.”
“How?”
For an answer, the shadows moved, and Inez stepped onto the moonlit floor. Her skirts covered the wet footprint, and Trixie was all but lost in the folds of her skirt. Inez seemed to stare through the floor, her face in shadow. But she pointed to the brooch that held her old-fashioned collar together. The moonlight caught its tiny flowers beneath the glass oval.
“This is all he left me,” she said in a very ghostly voice this time. “And this is how you will know me.”
Then she was gone, and I was staring at the footprint in the empty loft. But I heard her voice once more and never again: “Not here, but near. ”
Chapter Fifteen
I was in my school knickers and sitting to a family breakfast of scrapple and bacon when Cousin Elvera began her pounding on our front door next morning. Mother had decided I was to go to school if only to spread the word among my chums that I’d been lying about Inez. Remembering how Blossom had once fared at the hands of our classmates, I had no intention of doing this. Still, I was glad not to be under house arrest. The words of Inez were strong in my mind but hard to decipher.
“Look at this!” Cousin Elvera said, rocketing into the dining room. “It is the St. Louis Democrat, and your name will be a byword of ridicule nationwide!”
Mother clutched her cameo, and Dad said, “Elvera, take a chair.” She was beside herself but enjoying it. Her corsets squeaked in time to her breathing. She began to read aloud. The article covered the same ground as Lowell’s, but it embroidered considerably, calling Inez a “fearful apparition” and me “a shyly sensitive and mystical lad, given to swooning and introspection.”
“I can see you did not grant this interview, Alexander,” Dad said. “What a lot of balderdash, Elvera.”
“You don’t know the worst, Joe,” she replied, holding up the St. Louis Democrat. Taking up half a page was a photo of our barnloft, though not a clear picture. The wet footprint was only a smudge on the floor. The central figure was Mother’s dress form. When she recognized herself, so to speak, she fell back in her chair. The headline over the photograph read:SPECTRAL BARN WHERE DREAD VISITOR
FORETELLS FUTURE HORRORS
“Horrors,” said Mother, “we are standing on the abyss. You won’t be attending school again today, Alexander.”
“I guess we ought to have a guard posted at the back of the property too,” remarked Dad.
“If you ask me, Joe,” Cousin Elvera said, “that is a classic example of shutting the barn door after the cat is out of the bag.” She smiled, very satisfied at this clever statement, and added, “People will be carting away souvenirs next.”
“Or that nasty little arachnid, that Blossom, who Alexander is sweet on, will start selling the bricks off the barn. She is of the class to take liberties,” Lucille said.
I said nothing.
“I wish you would all be quiet. You too, Alexander,” Mother said, very near tears. “You are all as bad as the public, and no one knows the pain I am being put to.” She flung herself out of her chair and swept over to the bay window to stare out through a Boston Fern. “I think,” she said in slow and tragic tones, “we had just as well sell the house and—Dear Lord, an automobile has gotten through the barrier and is coming up the lane. What good is it to have a guard posted? We are as vulnerable here as early settlers!”
Dad joined her at the window and said, “It’s a Cadillac.”
“What does that matter—a Cadillac, you say?”
“Yes,” said Dad, “and there is only one in town.”
“Mrs. Van Deeter!” Mother and Cousin Elvera shrieked in unison. I continued with my scrapple and bacon, though the noise was very nearly unbearable.
Mother stood poised between the door to the front hall and the other one to the kitchen. She clearly didn’t know whether to take courage or to take flight. A gentle knocking came at the front door. “It is surely only their chauffeur,” Mother said, “but what can he want?”
“We could all go down the cellar and hide out in the coal bin until he’s gone,” Dad remarked to goad her on. Mother set off toward the front door, and the rest of us were not far behind. It’s not every day when the richest and most invisible people in six counties send their automobile around.
Mother fumbled the door open, and there stood a lady. While not young, she was unusually beautiful. Warm though the morning was, she had a few fur skins draped around her shoulders, along with a big bunch of fresh violets. She was just turning the veil back over her hat, and there were a couple of rings on her fingers that could have served as Cadillac headlamps.
“Why, Mrs. Van Deeter, how do you do, I’m sure,” Mother said. “This is an unexpected pleasure. I do hope you were put to no trouble in getting past the guard.”
“None whatever,” Mrs. Van Deeter said, smiling firmly. “I hope you will permit a call at this unseemly hour. I have been remiss in my social obligations and am endeavoring to do better.”
Mother recovered slowly. “May I present my—” She looked around to find us all there. “My—entire family.” She managed to introduce us all, though she was somewhat vague as to our names. Then Mrs. Van Deeter was shown into the parlor, and we all settled in around her. A silence followed while she arranged her fur skins.
“It is very nice to find you all in,” she said at length. “Quite like a family party.
“I was so sorry to have missed your party, Miss Armsworth,” she said, suddenly remembering it, “and one reason for this call is to meet you. I read the sweet account of your debut in the Pantagraph.”
Lucille gave her an uncertain smile, but the cat had her tongue.
Mother sent me out to Gladys for a pot of coffee, so I missed the next part of the visit. I was hard put to convince Gladys we had a live Van Deeter in the parlor. But when she was persuaded, she took down the silver pot and the thin china. While I was bearing this away, I said, “And I guess you better go out and offer the chauffeur some coffee too since we are evidently moving in the limousine circle now.” Gladys said that this was truly the age of miracles.
When I came back to the parlor, no one had budged. Dad seemed to forget he had work to go to, and no one told Lucille she was already late for school. Mrs. Van Deeter had them all under her spell. She marked my entry with some interest. “I suppose,” she said, “that I should confess the major impulse for my visit.” Coffee spoons stopped stirring all around the parlor. “I am a reader of the St. Louis Democrat.”
Mother drooped, saying, “Then I suppose you must have a dreadful impression of us, Mrs. Van Deeter. I could not blame you if you condemn us for the worst kind of publicity-seeking.”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Van Deeter said, smiling into her coffee cup. “On the contrary, I think this is the most interesting thing to have occurred in Bluff City in ages. It comes in good time. I for one had nearly expired of monotony. And I wonder if you might persuade Alexander to show me his Ghost Barn.”
“Oh, Alexander, see how low you have brought us!” Mother accused me. Then her face changed, and she said, “You say you would care to see the barn, Mrs. Van Deeter?”
“I yearn to,” she replied calmly.
Mother and Cousin Elvera leaned toward one another to converse in low tones. But Mrs. Van Deeter said with a little frost on her voice, “Have you ladies considered just what a social asset a bit of novelty is in
a small town?” Their heads parted, and they gaped at her.
“Well, Alexander,” Dad said, “as you’re the hero of the hour, you better lead the way.” Everybody stood up, but Mrs. Van Deeter said, “Oh, won’t you permit Alexander to conduct me on a private tour?”
“I never go there myself,” Mother said, sinking back on the sofa. “I’m afraid you will find the place terribly dusty.”
“It will only add to the effect,” Mrs. Van Deeter said as she took me by the arm.
I was getting fairly experienced at leading ladies around. But I wondered if Mrs. Van Deeter was merely making sport of me, and I knew if I did not show her a good time, Mother would take it out of my hide.
We were approaching the barn when Mrs. Van Deeter said, “Tell me about your ghost girl, Alexander. Do you see her with regularity?”
“Only twice to speak to,” I said.
“What is she like?”
“Well, her name is Inez Dumaine. She has a small damp dog with a sore leg. And the first time I saw her she said the dead are robbed and cannot forestall it. And she said, ‘My hoops, my hoops,’ or words to that effect.”
“Women once wore hoop skirts,” Mrs. Van Deeter mused. “Long ago, of course. And then she warned you about the burning trestle?”
“In so many words. She did not make herself too plain.”
“I see. And she appeared again?”
“Last night,” I said, “but I haven’t made any mention of that.”
“Did she issue further warnings?”
“No, she spoke of her own concerns, which were harder to figure. She said she wanted to be with her own people who are above the ground but resting. Then she showed me her brooch and said she was near but not here. That there is a hitching post with her initials,” I pointed out.