Child of the Storm

by R. B. Stewart

  He had no sooner disappeared than two more faces peered around the trunk of the tree and spied her. But after a moment’s surprise, they both stepped out and approached Celeste bravely, but maintained a safe distance as well. The black girl spoke first, being probably twelve and therefore a little older than the small white boy with his uneven crewcut.

  “Is this your property?” the girl asked. It was a sensible question, Celeste thought, and one she might have asked under similar circumstances. It’s always good to know the legalities.

  “No it isn’t. And I didn’t mean to frighten your friend off. I didn’t even know you three were here.”

  “That was her brother,” explained the crewcut boy. “He doesn’t like coming here since we told him about the ghost.”

  “Ghost?”

  “Yeah,” explained the girl. “Long time back, there was a lady killed in this house. A storm blew up and dropped the house on her and killed her in her sleep. When her ghost came back from wandering through the woods while the lady was dreaming, it found she was killed. A ghost gets stuck to a place when something like that happens. So when my brother saw you coming his way from where the house stood, he must’ve figured you were the ghost.”

  “It was a negro lady killed here,” the boy clarified.

  “I see. Well I hope you’ll tell him it wasn’t a ghost he saw.”

  The boy and girl looked at each other and the boy grinned. “Might be more fun if we don’t,” said the girl.

  Celeste raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t press the issue since it was between a brother and sister, and was not for her to meddle in.

  They left her and went walking off toward the path her brother had taken in his flight. Celeste walked to the base of the dead oak and looked up, recalling its massive and welcoming branches and the dense canopy of leaves. She recalled the day of the storm and pictured the frightened cub’s face as clearly as if it had been in front of her right then. Better to picture that…

  “So much is gone,” she whispered to herself. “So much that was good.”

  The walk into town was much shorter than she remembered it, partly because her legs had grown longer since she was nine and the edge of town had also moved outward so there was less distance to walk. The houses and other buildings she came to first were all new to her and she paid them little mind. The street that ran through town was paved now, so the dust wasn’t coating everything the way it used to. People were out walking or sitting on their porches. Some greeted her as she passed, the way they do in small towns, but others ignored her on purpose since she was a stranger or somehow unworthy.

  She found the cemetery much as she remembered it except that, like the town, it had more residents than in 1918. No one living was about in the cemetery except for an older man tending the grounds off in a far corner. She could hear the clip-clip of his shears and his soft whistling as he went about his work. The gate was open so she entered and weaved her way among the monuments until she found the one dedicated to the teacher’s spot. A thick band of moss grew along the bottom edge of the stone where it was always moist and shaded. Celeste knelt and pried loose a chunk of the moss with her finger tip and found that a fragment of the weather beaten stone had come away with it. She placed it inside her handkerchief and tucked it all away in her purse.

  Either she heard a sound or sensed something behind her. She turned, and though the corner of her eye told her something was there, when she looked squarely, there was nothing at all. The old man was still whistling in the distant corner. What was it she had sensed? A question; a curiosity about what she was doing lingered in the air around the monument and Celeste felt as if a cold finger had run down her spine. She rose quickly and without looking back, left the graveyard and even closed the gate behind herself. There was another stop to make.

  The school was much grown and changed. Looking at it from across the street, her back to the old Jeffers place, she couldn’t make out whether the old schoolhouse was gone or simply swallowed up by newer construction. Even though it was a Saturday, there was some activity at the school and the front door was propped open as people came and went often enough for her to feel like risking a visit.

  As she stepped inside she found a woman seated at a table sorting through something in a box. She wore a dress of a blue that didn’t suit her. When she looked up from what she was doing, the smile she had popped on for greetings dropped off again on seeing Celeste.

  “Yes? Were you delivering something?”

  It recalled her first encounter with the teacher and her stomach knotted. “No, ma’am,” Celeste began politely. “I used to live nearby when I was young. Just passing through and thought I would see how the town had changed.”

  The woman looked at her blankly.

  Celeste was just thinking she had hit that obstacle she knew must be waiting for her somewhere, and that her best bet was to backtrack and get what she needed by other means, when another woman entered from inside the school and seemed to sum up the situation at a glance.

  “Did I hear you say you used to live around here?” asked the second woman. She was younger than the woman at the table and obviously had a better eye for color. Her dress was overloaded with a flower pattern, but the effect was at least cheerful.

  “Yes, ma’am. My family moved to New Orleans when I was a little girl.”

  The flowered woman glanced at the woman in blue, then waved for Celeste to follow.

  “I’ll show you around if you like. It’s changed a great deal since you were a child. I don’t imagine you’ll recognize much…” She stopped and looked at Celeste with such deep embarrassment that Celeste felt obliged to help her out.

  “I did wander in once and had a little run in with the old teacher at the time. There was only the one room back then. I don’t suppose its even still standing what with all of the progress. I was curious to see if it resembled my bad memories or maybe I could see it in a kinder light. Maybe lay an old ghost to rest.”

  “Oh, but it is still here. They had to take the front off when they widened the street, but the room is still there and probably not much different after all these years. We use it for special things, meetings or town use. There’s talk of maybe tearing it down next year to make way for more classrooms.”

  “Then I guess I’m just in time.”

  The room seemed so much smaller than she remembered it, and with the front vestibule removed they came in by another door so she was disoriented for a moment. But it was the same room. The green slate chalkboard was still as she remembered it. The student desks were gone and a hodge-podge of chairs sat along the wall waiting to be assembled. New lights had been added and a ceiling fan hummed as it stirred the air.

  A lopsided looking boy appeared at the door to the old classroom and looked first at the flowered teacher, then at Celeste quizzically, then back again at the teacher. “Mrs. Keetchum’s looking for you,” he said.

  “What about,” she asked, but the boy was at the limit of his information.

  “Make yourself at home,” she said to Celeste and followed the boy out.

  Celeste assumed she wouldn’t have much time and began moving through the room methodically, looking for something she could use in the teacher’s spirit box. Something small. Something that wouldn’t be missed but also something that the teacher might have touched. She knew it was a stretch. What chance could there be that anything remained from that time? But the room was mostly cleaned out and strange ideas of prying up a splinter from the floor flitted through her head. Or what if there was some lingering white dust from the rail of the chalkboard? Just a few flakes tucked into a corner. But there was nothing, and she scolded herself for being silly.

  Then she found it, sitting in clear sight at the end of the room, but opposite the chalkboard—not where she expected it would be. She didn’t recognize it at first. It was a desk stacked high with books and assorted boxes, and beside it stood a chair. This was a teacher’s desk. It was the teacher’
s desk, or so every sense told her.

  Light streamed in through the tall side windows and weightless flecks of dust floated through it like the wandering thoughts of bored students, trapped year on year in the lost classroom. Celeste plunged through, sending them swirling in her wake.

  “Back again, and up to what this time, girl?” whispered a voice no stronger than the floating flecks and nearly drowned by the whir of the fan. “Come to pay your disrespects?”

  Movements caught her eye and as quickly disappeared. She could feel the wrath pulsing in the room and knew she would need to keep her focus. She reached the desk and scanned it quickly. None of the books looked new, but she wouldn’t be able to tell for sure. She reached for the long drawer, but it wouldn’t open so she moved on to the smaller drawers stacked one above the other. One by one, she opened them and gave a quick look while keeping an ear out for the return of the flowered teacher. Each of the smaller drawers opened with ease, but none held anything of use if they held anything at all.

  “And what are you looking for in my desk?” whispered the voice, straight into her ear, and she cringed. “No respect for property and no respect for authority.”

  It had to be in the long drawer, Celeste told herself. The one drawer that wouldn’t open, or was being held against her. Or was it just wedged? She gave the drawer a shake. Something hissed in her ear. No words, only the warning of a snake. Celeste ignored it and felt along the edge of the drawer, noting that it was not sitting true. It had been jammed in crooked.

  “Leave it!” hissed the ghost and Celeste felt her own hands go cold as though dead hands were laid over them.

  With one sharp move, Celeste punched the heel of her palm against one side of the drawer, setting it back in its track, then grasped the drawer with both hands and pulled hard, and the drawer shot open by a hand’s span before catching once again. And something rolled forward from the back of the drawer, coming to rest at the front. It was a fragment of a chalk stick, no bigger than the end of Celeste’s little finger. A tiny fragment of chalk. Her chalk. White and dry. Just the thing she needed.

  Footsteps outside. Celeste eased the drawer almost shut again and turned. It was the flowered teacher.

  “What else would you like to see?”

  Only one thing came to mind. “Old friends of mine used to live out at the edge of town. Her name was Sandrine and he was John Stone.”

  The woman nodded. “Didn’t know her well. She passed away a few years back. But Mr. Stone lives in a boarding house, just a block away.” She pointed.

  It was a nice day for taking a walk. It was a nice day as well for sitting on a front porch to watch people coming and going and remember you were still a part of it, to some degree. She found John Stone sitting there on the porch by himself. She almost didn’t recognize him, except for that deep quiet he had about him. A very still and quiet man.

  He didn’t recognize her, but he nodded politely as she came to the edge of the porch.

  “John Stone? Do you remember me? Celeste Dubois?” she said.

  He moved to rise, but she motioned for him to keep his seat and joined him, perching on the railing so he wouldn’t have to turn.

  “I do,” he said. “You’re taller now, and I’m older. Sandrine is gone.”

  “I was told. I’m sorry. Sorry I never got back here to see her again.”

  He nodded. “I spend hours out here just visiting memories of her and memories of your parents. Your father?”

  “Gone now, too.”

  “Most everyone I know is gone. Maybe waiting for me somewhere. Hard to say.”

  “Yes it is.”

  Something in her tone seemed to prod a question he’d wanted to ask for years, but hadn’t the chance. “I think about you too. Think about you and your spirit guide. I sit sometimes just hoping it’s been a good companion and has shown you things—good things.”

  Heat blushed her neck and cheeks. Embarrassment she hadn’t expected. For a moment she thought of just saying that she’d had that companionship all this time and seen such wonders she could hardly put into words. Thought of treating him like a child to be played with instead of like a grown man, old and tired out, but deserving a proper respect.

  “Oh John, that was so long ago. Lot’s gone on and maybe passed me by. I’ve been so busy. So distracted by this and that. You know how it is.” She could see something in his expression dim. Disappointment, she supposed. Maybe he didn’t know how it was, or maybe he did indeed, but kept her memory near at hand for the sake of hope.

  “The spirit had your mother’s eye,” he said. “Guess you needed that being a little lost child.”

  “Guess I did.”

  “Maybe spirits are patient things. Maybe could see your life was so full up and busy. Patient and waiting,” he said. “Couldn’t hurt to look again. See if it’s still out there. You’d tell me if it was, wouldn’t you?” He turned about enough to point out the house number on the door jamb. “You could just post it to me at that number.”

  He’d given her an easy way out. “I’ll be certain to do just that.”

  From there, he steered the conversation to simple things like the history of the town since she’d left it. Nothing weighty. Nothing as important as spirit guides or dreams. When the La Salle rolled back into town, tooting its horn to call Celeste out for her ride, she left John Stone on his porch, promising one last time that she would write to him.

  “Well,” Aurore said as she pulled away from the curb and took them out of town again. “Did you get what you needed?”

  “We’ll see,” Celeste said. “Maybe more than I expected.”

  Reading

  Aurore’s family sounded like it was spread far and wide, like that family of mystères she served in her official capacity. This branch of her earth bound family was of poorer means than some who lived elsewhere, and seemed to be one she felt drawn to help more than others. A niece and her husband, and two little girls, five years old and identical twins. After taking care of some request for help from her niece—for some of Aurore’s highly valued advice and a touch of treatment for a minor bodily ailment, Aurore sat down with the little twins and suggested they needed a good palm reading. Celeste observed, but could tell from Aurore’s wink that this would be a reading tailored toward entertainment more than authentic information.

  The twins offered up chubby hands and Aurore cut her intently squinting eyes, back and forth between their palms, reading them as if the lines were as identical as the faces looking on in wonder. The nail of Aurore’s little finger lightly traced the long lines, bringing out tickled laughter. “You will both grow up to be taller than my friend Celeste,” she said, “and prettier than your old Aunt Aurore.” So far so good. “You will get new dresses…soon, I think.” Sounded like privileged information to Celeste. Aurore looked deeply at a tiny wrinkle and frowned thoughtfully. “There will be travel. Stormy days and starry nights. Days when you’ll get what you want and others when you’ll get only what you need.”

  Then Aurore took those little palms and tipped them toward Celeste. “Anything I missed?” she said to her friend.

  Celeste reached forward and took each hand in her own, lightly pressing her thumbs into those palms and rubbing gently.

  “I can’t read them the way you do,” Celeste said. “Need to feel to read.” She rubbed a bit more. Not so lightly as to tickle. “These are good hands. Small but open. Hands need to be open to give and receive. Feels like they’ll do a good bit of both.”

  Bind

  Back home again, late, Celeste faced unfinished business before she could sleep, tired as she was. There was a ghost to bind. She sat at the table, placing the spirit box in front of her. She set the bit of moss-bound stone beside it on one side, and the piece of chalk on the other. As she mulled over what to do next, it struck her that there should be three things in the box. Three was a better number if you were binding. But as hard as she thought about what else could go in that represented the g
host, nothing offered itself up. So she found her drawing paper and her pencil and she began to draw the teacher. She drew up the clearest memory of that day in the old school—a powerful memory, though not so very clear in the details. Without details, the feelings of that day had to guide her hand, and she dredged up those feelings and fashioned a face around them with exquisite care over every hate filled line in that memory from long ago.

  The night was so quiet and the room so still that she could hear something moving about outside. The work of drawing the teacher brought on a strange chill, and she brought out the picturous quilt and draped it over her shoulders, protecting herself.

  The picture done, Celeste laid it out between herself and the box. She placed the mossy stone and the forgotten chalk onto the picture, and she folded the paper over them like a shroud. Something tapped against the glass of her window. Maybe it was one of those flying bugs with their hard shells and hard heads, attracted by the light. Maybe so, but she wouldn’t draw back the curtain to find out. She set the parcel into the spirit box and closed the lid. For the bind, she had first thought of rope, but rope wasn’t something Celeste used or felt comfortable with. Instead, she fashioned a band of black cloth as wide as her palm and long enough to go round the box with just enough left over to stitch it together. This she did and set it aside.