The Blue Ghost

by Marion Dane Bauer

  So that’s who the voice had been calling just now! Maybe the blue woman had been calling that Elizabeth, too!

  Liz’s head was filled with questions. She reached for her clothes. She could at least find out who that girl might be. She wanted to know, too, why the woman she saw was so different from the rest. The girl and the children had looked solid. They had seemed as real as Liz herself. But the woman was more like a ghost. If you wanted to believe in ghosts!

  Liz dressed quickly and went to the kitchen. Gran was mixing up pancakes. Bacon sizzled on the stove.

  “Good morning, Gran,” she said. “Smells good.” She settled at the wooden table. After a moment, she said, “I’ve been wondering. Who built this log cabin? I mean, how many greats ago was he?”

  “He was my great-grandfather. So let’s see … he was your great-great-great-grandfather.” Gran counted the greats off on her fingers.

  “And his kids? There must have been kids.”

  Gran smiled. “If there had been no children, you and your mother and I wouldn’t be here. There were four, I think. No … five of them.”

  “One girl and four boys,” Liz supplied. “The boys were all younger than the girl.”

  Gran turned to give Liz a puzzled stare. “How did you know that?” she asked.

  “I … I …” Liz felt caught. Should she tell Gran how she knew? Gran would never laugh at her. She knew that. Still, the girl, Elizabeth, felt like her secret now. “I guess Mom must have told me,” she lied. And she shrugged as though none of it was very important, after all.

  Gran nodded. She turned back to her pancakes. “The girl,” she went on, “was the first Elizabeth. She was your great-great-grandmother.”

  “And her mother? She must have had a mother.”

  “She died soon after the last baby was born. Elizabeth wouldn’t have been much older than you at the time. But she was the one who raised all those boys.”

  Liz thought about what she had seen, the three little boys at the table and the crying baby. How could a girl not much older than she was manage to take care of all those children?

  And if the woman in the blue light was Elizabeth’s mother, then she really was a ghost!

  Liz shivered at the thought.

  “But what about their father?” she demanded. “Didn’t he help?”

  “As best he could, I imagine,” Gran replied. “But he was a farmer. Farming was backbreaking work then. Dawn-to-dusk backbreaking work. He probably didn’t have much time for the children. Elizabeth must have done most of the caretaking.”

  Liz considered. What more did she need to know? Gran, did you ever step through the wall in the bedroom? Have you ever been in the old log cabin yourself? But she couldn’t ask that.

  “Do you believe in guardian angels?” she asked instead. “I mean … really?”

  Gran poured a pancake into the hot pan. When she turned to Liz, her eyebrows were raised. Clearly it wasn’t a question she had expected. She answered simply, though. “My mother used to tell us we each had our own guardian angel.”

  “Did you believe her?”

  Gran was silent for a moment, thinking. “Yes. I’m sure I did. I guess I half believe her even now. Mostly, though, I think we’re meant to be guardian angels for one another. Don’t you?”

  Liz took a slow, deep breath. She quite liked that idea. “What are we going to do today?” she asked.

  “I thought we’d go swimming first,” Gran told her. “Then I want to go through that big trunk in your room.”

  The trunk! Was that what the blue woman had been trying to tell her to do … to open the trunk?

  “I wonder what we’ll find,” Liz said. She said it casually, but her heart pounded.

  The whole time Liz swam, she kept thinking about the trunk. Something important must be in there!

  But when she and Gran returned to the house, Gran couldn’t find the right key. She found several keys in a dresser drawer in the small bedroom. None of them fit.

  Gran laid a hand on the curved lid. “It’s strange. I don’t remember ever looking inside. Still … I keep thinking that whatever is in here must be important.”

  Reluctantly, they decided to sort out the closets instead. One was filled with games like Monopoly and Scrabble. Some of those they packed up to go to Gran’s house in the city. Others they put back on the shelves.

  “Whoever buys this place will enjoy them on rainy days,” Gran said.

  With every box they packed, Gran seemed to grow quieter.

  “I wish you didn’t have to sell the house,” Liz said at last.

  Gran smiled, but the smile seemed sad. “It’s time,” she said. “Your parents have their own lake cabin. Who would use this old place?”

  Liz had to admit she liked her parents’ cabin best. Still, she wished she could take away Gran’s sadness. The best she could think of was to make them both chocolate-ripple ice cream cones. Their favorite. She heaped the ice cream high, and they sat on the back steps and licked and licked.

  A chipmunk with lumpy cheeks ran in and out from under the house. He was carrying seeds to store. “I hope the new people like chipmunks,” Liz said.

  “And raccoons,” Gran added. “Not to mention a bear or two. The ones who are too fierce to be scared off by raccoons.”

  They both laughed.

  And ghosts, Liz thought. But she didn’t say that.

  That night after Liz went to bed, it happened again. There she was … suddenly awake and sitting up in the middle of the bed, not knowing what had awakened her.

  When Liz heard the strange noise, the skin on her arms pricked into goose bumps.

  The sound was hard to describe and impossible to identify. A breathy screech? A whistle being sucked on instead of blown? She had never heard anything quite like it before.

  Something about it said trouble, though. Serious trouble. Liz leapt out of bed. Her toe hit the wall. She doubled over, grabbing her foot to squeeze away the pain.

  “Elizabeth,” whispered a voice. “Elizabeth!”

  When Liz straightened, the blue woman stood before her. She seemed to be halfway through the wall. She lifted a hand for Liz to follow.

  Without even considering that she had any other choice, Liz did.

  She hadn’t taken more than three steps, though, before the blue woman vanished. Without her light, the darkness was total. Liz couldn’t even see the bed she had left behind. The breathy, whistling sound, however, grew louder, closer. In addition to the whistle, now she heard a murmuring voice.

  “Elizabeth?” Liz called. “Is that you?”

  “Who are you?” came the reply from the darkness. The voice trembled slightly.

  “I’m Liz,” Liz replied. And it seemed easiest to say, “I think I’m your guardian angel.”

  “My guardian angel?” There was a clanking sound—the stove door opening?—and a candle flickered. “But you said, ‘I think.’Wouldn’t a guardian angel know? I mean … whether you be my angel or no.” The face lit by the candle looked worried.

  “I am,” Liz told her. She made her voice sound certain. After all, hadn’t Gran said we are all meant to be one another’s guardian angels? “Your guardian angel, I mean. I’m sure of it.”

  Elizabeth set the candle into a holder on the table. She stood next to the table, the baby in her arms. The strange noise came from him. Each time he drew in his breath, that whistling sound came again. Every breath took such an effort that Liz thought he would quit trying. But he couldn’t do that, of course. The moment he did, he would die!

  “What’s wrong?” Liz asked, moving toward them. “Why is he breathing like that?”

  “He has the croup,” Elizabeth told her.

  Liz wasn’t sure what “the croup” was. Clearly, though, it was dangerous. “And your father?” she asked. “Where is he?” He couldn’t still be farming in the middle of the night.

  “He’s gone to fetch the doctor.” Elizabeth lifted the gasping baby high above her head as th
ough the air might be better up there.

  “Oh … the doctor!” Liz relaxed a little. Then everything would be all right.

  “Only …” Elizabeth lowered the baby and kissed his forehead. Her mouth trembled. She was struggling to hold back tears.

  “Only what?” Liz asked gently.

  The answer came in a rush. “Only the doctor be hours away. So Pa will not return until near on to noon. I am afeard poor Matthew cannot last so long.”

  And then, to Liz’s surprise, Elizabeth thrust the wheezing baby into her arms and added, “I am so glad you have come! We do need an angel here.”

  A chill raced across Liz’s skin. She had let Elizabeth think she really was her guardian angel. And now the girl was counting on her to help! And what did she know about sick babies? Nothing.

  What help could she bring? Absolutely none.

  The baby in Liz’s arms began to cry. His voice was deep and hoarse. When the crying stopped, it was only to be replaced by a brassy cough. He had a fever, too. He might have been a tiny stove the way heat poured off of him.

  If only she could talk to Gran. Gran knew about sick babies.

  But if she gave Matthew to Elizabeth and went back to her own time, she might not be able to get here again. She hadn’t had very good luck returning when she had tried before. And the baby’s lips were turning blue!

  Matthew sat heavily in Liz’s arms. He coughed and wheezed and sobbed. Liz hugged him to her and looked around the small cabin. She had to find something that would help. There were bunks at one side where the other boys were sleeping. A table sat at the other side, a cast-iron stove in the middle. And … Liz gasped.

  Here was the woman again, the woman made of blue light.

  “Look!” Liz cried, pointing.

  Elizabeth turned to look, but her face remained blank.

  “Don’t you see?” Liz asked.

  Elizabeth looked at Liz again. She shook her head. Clearly she saw nothing. “Please,” she begged. “You must help our Matthew. Whether you be an angel or no, you must. I fear we have little hope except for you.”

  Little hope except for me? Liz wanted to drop the baby and run. Instead, she turned back to the woman on the other side of the room. The blue figure hovered over a wooden trunk with a rounded lid. It was the same as the trunk in Liz’s bedroom!

  “That trunk!” Liz pointed. “Tell me what’s in it.”

  Elizabeth stared at the trunk, then at Liz. “My mama’s belongings,” she said. “But—”

  “Let’s open it,” Liz replied. “I think there is something in there that will help!” She handed the baby back to Elizabeth and hurried to the trunk. But, as before, the brass hasp was locked.

  “Where’s the key?” she cried.

  Elizabeth took a large key down from a nail set in the wood frame of the window. The nail and the key were hidden by burlap curtains. “Here it is,” she said. “But I do not know what you will find to help in there. It is just Mama’s dresses and such.”

  Liz took the key. She had to find something in the trunk. Otherwise there was no hope. Certainly she didn’t know anything about babies with the croup.

  Her hands trembled as she fitted the key to the lock. She turned it until it clicked. Then she lifted the lid and began to sort quickly through the contents. She didn’t know what she was looking for. She knew only that this was where Elizabeth’s mother wanted her to look. Under a silk dress were sheets, a pair of silver candlesticks, a Bible, a black lace shawl. And when she gently lifted the shawl, she found a small handwritten booklet.

  “What’s this?” she asked. She held it up for Elizabeth to see.

  “I think it be my mother’s book of remedies,” she said. “I had quite forgotten it.”

  “Remedies? Like for making people well?”

  “People and cattle and all manner of creatures,” Elizabeth replied. “Mama knew much of medicine. People came from far—”

  “That’s it!” Liz broke in. “Don’t you see? The book will tell you what to do about the baby’s croup!”

  For an instant, Elizabeth’s face glowed. But when Liz thrust the small hand-lettered book toward her, she didn’t lift a hand to take it. She just stood there, shaking her head.

  “What’s the matter?” Liz pleaded. “Your mother wanted you to have this. I know she did.”

  Elizabeth only lowered her head. In a small voice that Liz strained to hear over the baby’s wheezing, she said, “I cannot read.”

  Liz was amazed. “Why not?” she asked. “Everyone knows how to read!”

  Elizabeth’s head came up. “We have had no school here. We will not have school until a master comes next winter. Mama was going to teach me, but there be so many babies. She never had time. And Pa does not know himself.”

  “Ah,” Liz said. Only that. So that was why she was here. Maybe she was, indeed, Elizabeth’s angel. An angel who could read.

  Liz flipped through the small book. When she came upon “The Croup,” she read the page eagerly.

  “Quick! A wet cloth,” she told Elizabeth. “A wet cloth to put over his face. And build up the fire in the stove. We have to boil water and make a tent to fill with steam!”

  The two girls started the tasks. The baby seemed to sense that help was at hand. He watched everything they did with enormous eyes. The blue woman hovered in the corner of the room as the girls worked. Strangely, Liz found the ghost comforting.

  At last, they settled beneath a blanket tent with baby Matthew. When the kettle began boiling, the steam quickly filled the tent. Matthew rested his cheek against Elizabeth’s shoulder. After a time, his breathing grew quieter.

  They sat side by side under the blanket tent. The candle glowed at their feet. Liz tried to think of something to say.

  “It will be good when you can go to school,” she said at last.

  “I do not expect to go,” Elizabeth told her. “A big girl like me who has not learned to read—”

  “Could learn very quickly,” Liz broke in.

  Elizabeth’s chin came up sharply. She stared at Liz in disbelief. Then slowly a smile began to bloom across her face. “Do you think?” she asked.

  “You could,” Liz told her. “You must believe me. I’m your angel.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I could learn,” she repeated. “Surely.”

  Matthew’s eyelids fluttered toward sleep.

  “Be you truly an angel?” Elizabeth asked after another silence. She looked deeply into Liz’s eyes.

  Liz smiled at her. “Whoever I am,” she answered, “your mother sent me.”

  Liz woke in her own bed. Or rather, she woke in her bed in Gran’s old house. The morning was cool, but strands of hair clung damply to her face. She remembered steaming beneath the blanket and smiled.

  She didn’t know when or how she had returned to her own time, but she was glad to be back.

  Gran poked her head into the room. “You’re a sleepyhead today,” she said.

  “Sorry,” Liz replied. She sat up, and Gran came to sit on the side of her bed.

  “Tell me more about Elizabeth, would you?” Liz asked. “The first Elizabeth, I mean. What did she do when she grew up?”

  “The first Elizabeth?” Gran folded her hands in her lap. “Why … let me think. She became a doctor. She married and had four children, too.”

  “She became a what?”

  Gran smiled. “Yes. It was unusual for that time, but she became a doctor. The man she married owned the stable in the small town where she lived. He used to drive the carriage when she went to see her patients. I guess that’s when they fell in love.”

  Liz leaned back against the headboard of the bed. So Elizabeth had gone to school. And she had learned more than reading, too. Could it be that Liz had made a difference in Elizabeth’s life? It didn’t seem possible. Still … she couldn’t help wondering.

  “What about her brother Matthew? The baby. Did he grow up all right?”

  “Matthew? Oh … he became—” Gran
stopped. She stared at Liz. “How did you know Matthew’s name?”

  Liz laughed. “You must have told me. When we were talking about the little boys yesterday. You must have said his name then. Didn’t you?”

  Gran shrugged. “Well, anyway, he became a college professor. He taught mathematics.”

  Liz tried to imagine that round-faced baby standing in front of a class droning on about math. She couldn’t, but the idea made her laugh again.

  “Oh …” She stopped suddenly and jumped off the bed. “I just remembered.”

  “What is it?” Gran asked.

  But Liz was already looking behind the curtain. And there it was, the nail in the window frame with the brass key hanging on it.

  “Here,” she said. She turned and held it up for Gran to see. “It’s the key for the trunk.”

  “How did you know to look there?” Gran asked. She took the key and fit it into the trunk’s lock. When the trunk was open, she bent eagerly over it. She seemed to have forgotten her own question.

  Liz peered into the open trunk, too.

  The contents had changed since she had looked in it on the other side of the wall. She could see that at a glance. The trunk was filled with yellowed sheets, a torn quilt, some limp towels. Gran took them all out and piled them on the floor.

  “They’re pretty ragged,” she said. “I don’t think there is anything here worth saving.”

  And then, to Liz’s surprise, Gran burst into tears.

  “Oh, Gran,” Liz cried. She threw her arms around her grandmother’s neck. “What’s wrong? Tell me. Please!”

  Gran hugged Liz. Then she sat back, wiping her tears with the backs of her hands. “It’s nothing … really,” she sniffed. “I guess I’d been sure I had something special in the trunk. Photos, maybe. Something to remind me of the old house when I can’t see it anymore.”