Lily's Ghosts

by Laura Ruby

  “Where’s here?”

  Max closed his eyes. “Nowhere.”

  Lily was suddenly frightened. “Isn’t there a heaven?”

  “Heavens, yes. Many heavens.”

  “Why aren’t you in heaven, then?”

  “We are earthbound until we learn. Some learn while alive, others learn while dead, a few never learn.”

  “What did you have to learn?”

  “Compassion.” He shook his head sadly. “The hardest thing to learn.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lily said. “Wesley murdered you didn’t he? Isn’t this all to avenge your murder?”

  “Oh, I’ve already seen to that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Max’s smile was serene. “Our worlds collect and the skin between them thins, so that even the dead can see. It will all soon be over.”

  “What will be over?”

  But Max just danced his strange, loping dance, and Lily got tired of watching him. “Where’s Katherine?”

  “At the house. She doesn’t like to leave the house. She likes to swing from chandelier in the dining room. She says it makes her feel clean. It helps her forget.” Max twirled in a circle, so fast that it made Lily’s head spin more than it was already. “You made her remember. You and your mother. She gave you the doll. You kept giving it back.”

  “I didn’t know what the doll meant.”

  “You still don’t. You’ll have to open the trunk to find out.”

  “Isn’t the treasure in there?”

  “A treasure, yes. But only in the eyes of some.”

  “Was Ms. Reedy right? Did you really talk to Captain Kidd?”

  “All the time. He lets me wear his hat. It has a feather in it. We made a deal, he and I.”

  Lily was confused again. She was always confused. “About the treasure? You made a deal about the treasure?”

  “Treasure isn’t everything. It’s not even that much of something. There’s love and kindness and hope and art. That, and dreams. People need to dream, or else they die.”

  “My mother said that! You’re quoting her!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, no,” said Lily. “I’m not sure of anything right now.”

  “That’s because you’re dead. The dead are never sure.”

  “Then I don’t want to be dead anymore.”

  “Uh-oh. You’re going to have to…”

  * * *

  “Wake up!” shrieked the woman in the flowered bathing cap.

  “Uh? Wha’?” said the man. He sat up on his elbows. He was wearing purple eye shadow and what little hair he had on his head was gathered into dozens of tiny braids, making his head appear like the body of a strange, many-legged insect.

  “Get away from him you hoodlum!” said the woman, hitting out with her straw bag at the girl in the fuchsia satin skirt.

  “My name’s Lola,” the girl said, cackling. “And I was just having a little fun.” She smiled at the man. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  The woman looked past the hoodlum and gasped. She clutched at her husband’s arm. “The little girl who built those castles! That man just hit her with something!”

  “What?” said Lola, whirling to look behind his wife. “Hey! I know her! I know that guy, too!”

  The woman wailed, “Why did he have to hit her? What kind of monster is he?”

  “Quiet, both of you,” hissed the man, scrambling to stand and shoving his blue feet into his sandals. “You don’t know what’s going on over there right now. I say we get outta here before they see us.”

  “Oh! Now they’re attacking that poor old lady!” the woman said. As the three of them watched, the short, wormy man with the big head wrapped his arms around the teenage boy to subdue him. The older woman in the fur coat wrestled awkwardly with the other man.

  The wife looked around at the beach, packed with folks of all shapes and sizes, a scant few watching the strange people who had forced the children to dig a large hole, most going about their business. “Why isn’t anyone doing something to help? Why are they acting like everything is normal? What’s wrong with everyone?”

  “Keep it down, will ya?” yelled the man, who subsequently realized he wasn’t keeping it down, and threw a look of pure terror at the group gathered around the hole. None of them seemed to hear. One of them, the gaunt man, was screaming at the teenaged boy, telling him to sit down and shut up.

  The woman stood, flowered bathing cap quivering in fury. “If you’re not going to do anything, I am!”

  Lola crossed her arms. “No way? Really?” She seemed to think a minute. “I’m coming too. I mean, what the heck, right? It’s important to have heart.”

  “For Pete’s sake, will you both can it! That’s crazy talk!”

  But his wife had already grabbed the striped bed sheet they had been using as a blanket and was marching over to the strange people, the girl named Lola close behind. Any minute and they were going to turn around and see a two-hundred-pound woman in a polka-dotted swimsuit brandishing a fitted Queen-size sheet, a teenage girl in a cancan costume. And then they’d be done for.

  He saw a large bucket filled with plastic sand toys in a netted bag and he swiped the bucket as he lumbered after them.

  “George Herbert Walker Bush in a red pickup truck,” he swore. “We’re all done for.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Wake up, Lily! Come on, wake up!”

  She tried to lift her head, but it weighed so much. The left side of her face rang with pain; her cheek felt as if it were broken. Was that possible? Can a person break a cheek?

  “Come on, Lily, can you hear me?”

  “Get away from her and sit down, boy! You, too Aurelia!” a terrible voice said.

  “Max?” said Lily. “Where are you?”

  “Uh-oh, Wesley,” a man said. “You’ve given her brain damage.”

  “She’s lucky then. I could have shot her.” It was the terrible voice again. She hated the voice. She wished someone would make it shut up.

  “Shut up,” she said.

  Another voice, whining. “The girl had a shovel, Aurelia. She was going to hit him.”

  “She should have,” the woman said, in a voice that sounded like a snakebite. They were all terrible voices.

  Lily opened up one eye, and Vaz’s anxious face floated above hers. “Vaz?” she whispered. “What happened?”

  Vaz jerked his head in Wes’s direction, his eyes hard with fury. “He hit you with the butt of the gun. He hit her when she tried to get the gun away from him.”

  Lily turned her head and saw Ms. Reedy crouched in the sand next to her, cradling her own cheek. “I’m sorry,” the librarian said. Her red lipstick was smeared across her chin, making her skin look burned in the moonlight. “I thought the gun was just more of Wesley’s bluster. I never thought he would hurt you.”

  “Vaz,” said Lily. “Where’s Max?”

  Her uncle Wes’s jarring eyes appeared next to Vaz’s. “Dead,” he said. “Max is dead.”

  “You killed him,” Lily said, struggling to sit up, one hand on her possibly broken cheek. “You killed your own brother.”

  Ms. Reedy gasped. “What?”

  “I think that bump on the head addled your brains,” said Bailey Burton. “Max killed himself.”

  “He didn’t,” said Lily, struggling to speak through the ringing in her head. “Wesley did. He set all the fires and tried to blame them on Max. But your mother didn’t believe it, did she? She suspected you.” Despite the pain, Lily’s mind was clear. “That’s why she wasted away. Why she died. She knew, but she couldn’t admit it. And she couldn’t stand it.”

  “This can’t be true,” said Ms. Reedy. “It can’t.”

  Wesley plucked the cigar from his mouth and threw it to the sand. “You’re a filthy little monkey. You’ll do your mother proud.” He strode over to the trunk, gesturing to his companions. “Let’s open this up.”

  Bailey Burton he
sitated. “Is it true, Wesley?”

  Wesley’s eyes narrowed. “What is it, Burton? All of a sudden you have a conscience?” He looked at Ms. Reedy, who had clapped both hands over her mouth, tears running over them. “And you, too, Aurelia? You, who would have jilted my poor besotted brother in a hot minute if a richer man had come along? You, who told us about the treasure when he wasn’t even cold in his grave?”

  Ms. Reedy dropped her hands, her face knotted with anguish. “All this time, I thought he’d left me. All this time, I thought he didn’t love me. I’ve been such a fool. A venal, silly fool.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me,” said Wes.

  “He was your brother, Wesley,” Ms. Reedy spat. “Your own brother. How could you? How could you hurt him like that?”

  “Somebody always gets hurt,” said Wesley. “It’s the way of the world.”

  “Max, Max,” Ms. Reedy moaned, “I’m so sorry.” She ripped the cranberry scarf from her neck and struggled to her feet. “I may be a fool, but I’m not a murderer. I won’t let you do this.”

  Wesley looked down his nose at her as if she were about as threatening as a moth. “You’re more arrogant than my brother was. He tried to stop me, too.” Wesley turned to Bailey Burton.

  “I hope you’re not crazy, Burton. I hope you can get yourself together and remember why we’re all here,” he said. “Now are you going to help me open this trunk or do I have to take all the treasure for myself?”

  Bailey took a few steps forward. “All right, no need to get hot under the collar.” Suddenly, he stopped in mid-stride, flailing his arms and tugging at his face. “Hey!” he shouted. “Hey! He danced around blindly, though Lily could see that his eyes were open. His arms were stretched out in front of him like a mummy in a horror movie. “Wesley! Help!”

  “What’s wrong with him?” said Ms. Reedy.

  “I don’t know,” said Vaz. “It’s like somebody threw a blanket over his head.”

  Wesley backed up a few steps, waving the gun, but Bailey Burton kept up his blind charge. His screams suddenly became strangely muffled. “Get it off me!” he cried. He held his hands to his head but didn’t actually touch his skin, as if there were an invisible helmet between his head and his hands. His head abruptly pitched sideways, as if his head were a gong and an invisible someone was ringing it. “Stop it, stop it, stop!” his cry a deadened moaning sound, like a voice over an intercom. “Stop it!”

  Vaz put his leg out, tripping the man, and Bailey Burton fell to the ground and banged his head into the sand.

  Wesley watched in horror. He ran to Lily and hauled her to her feet, shoved the gun under her chin. “Make him stop.”

  “What?” said Lily. She knew she should be terrified of the gun but she was just plain mad. “Stop who?”

  “Max!” he screamed. “Make him stop!”

  “Max?” she said. “Max is doing this?”

  Just then a furious yell ripped through the air, and they turned to see Lily’s mother sprinting toward them across the sand ,looking like some kind of angry priestess.

  Wesley pulled the gun from Lily’s neck and pointed it at Arden, but Arden kept coming, her face contorted in maternal rage.

  “Mom! Stop!” Lily yelled.

  Vaz kicked out and knocked the gun from Wesley’s hand. Lily picked up her foot and stomped on Wesley’s instep. Wesley yelped and released Lily just in time for Lily’s mother to catch him across the face with a wicked slap. He staggered, his hands flying to his cheeks. When he pulled them away, they saw the big circles of rouge underneath, the blue eye shadow, the bright slash of lipstick.

  “What? How?” Lily’s mother breathed.

  As Lily, her mother, Vaz and Ms. Reedy stood, confused, paralyzed, they saw white, crosshatched lines etching themselves into his newly made-up skin. They deepened into depressions as he screamed.

  Lily rubbed her neck where the gun had imprinted itself in the flesh. “What’s happening to his face?”

  “It’s like he’s caught in some kind of net,” Ms. Reedy said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Wesley danced and twirled as the depressions became welts and his nose flattened and spread. He staggered around the grave-sized hole that had hidden the trunk, teetering on the edge. When he fell in, the rest heard the sickening snaps.

  Vaz reached down and scooped up the gun. He peered over the edge of the hole.

  “Is he dead?” Lily’s mother said, grabbing Lily and giving her a fierce, protective hug.

  A weak voice wafted up. “I’ll get you, you filthy monkeys!”

  “Guess not,” said Lily.

  Vaz looked Lily’s mother and grinned, making a fist. “That’s some right hook you got there.”

  “How did you untie yourself?” said Lily. “How did you know where we were?”

  Lily’s mother stared off into the distance. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I felt something tugging at the ropes and then they just…dropped off.” She reached into her pocket. “I found this on the floor.”

  She held out a tarot card, a picture of a woman rising up from the ocean.

  Vaz frowned at the card. “A woman in a toga?”

  “The beach,” said Lily’s mother.

  “Right,” said Lily.

  Bailey Burton stopped flailing and sat up, his piggy eyes finally focusing on Vaz, on the gun in his hand.

  “Hey, Mr. Burton,” Vaz said. “I didn’t know you were such a great dancer. Any performances coming up? Need a manager?”

  Bailey Burton panted and shivered. Someone had decorated his hair with little pink barrettes, and large pearl earrings dangled from his ears.

  “We’re going to open this trunk now. Any objections?”

  Burton curled his odd body around his huge head like an inchworm.

  Lily dropped to her knees in front of the trunk and wrestled with the lock. All of a sudden it was the most important thing in the world. “Help me, Vaz.”

  “Somebody has to keep an eye on Burton, then.”

  “Let me watch my brother,” Ms. Reedy said. She held out her hand for the gun.

  “Are you kidding?” Vaz said.

  “Give her the gun,” said Lily.

  Lily’s mother looked doubtful. “Are you sure you trust her?”

  Lily touched the bruise on Ms. Reedy’s cheek. “We can try.”

  Ms. Reedy held the gun her own brother while Lily and Vaz tried to open the rusted lock on the trunk. Vaz took a shovel and finally broke it.

  “Okay,” he said. “Your turn, Lily. Open it.”

  Lily pulled the shattered hasp from the latch and lifted the lid. Besides several large stones that had been used to give the trunk its weight, the only thing inside was a document, folded neatly in an unsealed envelope. Lily pulled out the papers and started to read.

  “What is it, Lily?”

  Lily smiled and held out the document for everyone to see. Along the top of the cream colored sheets, in large type, were these words:

  THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF KATHERINE SPICER WOOD.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Katherine Wood had cut Wesley from her will and left everything she owned in the world to her daughter Ruth and Ruth’s heirs, of whom only Lily and her mother survived.

  They were not rich. Aurelia Reedy had been correct about Wesley’s less-than-sharp business sense. Of the once huge estate with vast holdings in numerous business sectors, the house at 206 Perry Street was the only asset left. Lily’s mother sold a bunch of antiques to pay the back taxes, and then she sold a bunch more to scrape together a deposit on Madame Durriken’s Good Fortunes Shoppe, which she promptly renamed Trinket.

  Vaz invited a bunch of his friends to help clean, paint and decorate the new shop to turn it into a proper jewelry shop. These friends included Kami. To Lily’s surprise, Kami seemed to think everything about Lily was cool, from her hair to her flea-market sneakers. Kami asked if she could have the now-famous Kewpie doll as a souvenir, but, oddl
y, Lily couldn’t find it anywhere.

  Lily started school as planned and — just as Madame Durriken had predicted — soon found herself to be something she’d never been in her life: popular. Lily was smart enough to know that such things don’t last but enjoyed it just the same, telling the story of the fire — and the murder — that had occurred more than forty years before. Everyone was fascinated by the arrest of insane Wesley Wood, hobbling from the courthouse in his double casts, and his henchman Bailey Burton, and the crazy hunt for Captain Kidd’s treasure. (The parents of many of these kids invested in metal detectors.)

  Lily kept some things to herself. She didn’t tell the other kids about the ghosts, of course. She didn’t tell them how quiet the house was now, how Julep had taken to curling up in the kitchen sink rather than on top of the dining room table. How she wished sometimes for the scent of smoke, of tea with mint.

  Soon after the events on the beach, Lily sat at the table under the glittering chandelier. In her hand were her mother’s pliers, the first time she had picked them up in years. She was trying to repair the chain that Wesley had broken when he’d ripped the coin from her neck. The work was harder than it looked.

  She heard the door slam and her mother’s footsteps in the hallway. Lily didn’t look up. “How was your date?” she asked, trying not to appear too disgusted with the whole thing.

  Her mother shrugged. “It was all right.”

  She was normally bubbling over with all kinds of plans after a first date. Lily stopped what she was doing. “Aren’t you going out with him again?”

  “I don’t think so.” Her mother made her kissy face, the face that usually meant she would say no more, but this time, she did. “The guy went on and on about how wild and colorful and fascinating I am. After a while it was like he wasn’t talking about me, he was describing some exotic bird from the Amazon.”

  Lily grinned. “My mom the toucan.”

  Her mother giggled. “Ha! You’re the colorful one,” she said, ruffling Lily’s still-pink hair (she’d decided it was kind of cool and kept it, and it had started a mini-trend at school. She and Kami were planning on dyeing their hair blue in time for their freshman year.)