Ghost Letters

by Stephen Alter

  “Late last night,” says Mehboob Khan. “You were asleep.”

  “But what about … the war?” Sikander asks. “The execution?”

  His father raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. “What war?” he says. “You must have been dreaming.”

  The two pigeons have returned and one of them settles on Sikander’s shoulder. He can remember clearly seeing the white birds flying through the black clouds of smoke.

  When his father sets him down, Sikander hurries back downstairs to get dressed. Then he heads out to collect lampblack from all of the houses in the neighborhood. At each door, when he knocks, he recalls the burning roofs and shattered walls. There is no sign of the battle now, and by the time Sikander has finished his rounds, he begins to question his own memory.

  The calligrapher is waiting for him when he arrives, drinking his tea, as he always does each morning. Ghulam Rusool says nothing about the terms of surrender that he penned the day before. Instead, he gives Sikander instructions to make an ink for writing the verses of Ghalib, a poet whom the calligrapher admires more than any other. The old man asks Sikander to mix the lampblack with the burned wicks of seven candles. This is combined with two spoonfuls of rosewater and a drop of wild honey. When the mixture is complete, Ghulam Rusool dips his nib in the ink and begins to write in a flowing script. Sikander watches the characters stream across the page from right to left, recognizing the Urdu words. As the calligrapher dips his pen in the ink to begin the second couplet, there is a shout from the street. Sikander hears someone calling his name.

  When he goes out to see who it is, Lawrence stands there in a white shirt and khaki shorts. Sikander is so surprised he cannot speak. As he glances at the calligrapher, he sees the old man wave, shooing him out of the shop.

  Sikander grabs Lawrence by the hand and slaps him affectionately on the shoulder.

  “What happened to you? How did you get back? I thought you were kidnapped!” he asks.

  “I was,” says Lawrence. “But my parents got the ransom note and they paid the money to the three Tommies, who set me free. Of course, the police caught up with them soon afterwards. Now they’re in jail.”

  Sikander blinks in disbelief.

  “I got your note,” Lawrence says with a grin.

  “Which one?” asks Sikander.

  “The one you sent by pigeon,” Lawrence reminds him, frowning. “Unfortunately, the Tommies ate the bird.”

  “I’m sorry I ran away,” says Sikander.

  “You didn’t have any choice,” says Lawrence. “By the way, what happened to your bottle and those messages?”

  Sikander hesitates for a moment.

  “Oh, that,” he says. “It’s gone.”

  As the two boys set off along the street toward the river, Lawrence describes his adventure with the Tommies, how they kept him hostage in the dak bungalow. He begins to tell Sikander how he escaped and was almost shot, then got lost in the forest and was bitten by a cobra … Suddenly, Lawrence stops and looks puzzled.

  “Wait a minute,” he says. “That couldn’t have happened. I must have dreamed all that, but I’d swear …”

  Sikander grins at his friend. “Don’t worry,” he says. “The important thing is that you’re safe.”

  Lawrence scratches his head. It seems as if everything has changed, while at the same time nothing is any different than before.

  • • •

  A few days later, they decide to go fishing again to Ambital, though this time Lawrence’s father accompanies them. As they walk up the trail through the forest and look back on the town from the ridge above the tea estate, Lawrence seems to have forgotten about the threat of war. Sikander tries to tell him about the burning palace and the booming cannons, but Lawrence looks at him as if he’s making it all up.

  “Come on, it would never have come to that,” he says. “The Russians backed down and the maharajah was allowed to keep his portrait on his postage stamps.”

  Sikander begins to argue but then thinks better of it. Instead he challenges Lawrence to a race, to see who will be the first to reach Ambital. Roderick Sleeman follows behind the boys, pausing to light his pipe.

  When they reach the lake, Sikander and Lawrence stop for a moment to catch their breath beside the gravestone in the grass. Something is different, Sikander can tell, but before he is able to puzzle over the words, Lawrence is pulling impatiently at his sleeve. As he turns away, Sikander notices two names on the stone instead of one:

  Sacred

  to the memory of

  EZEKIEL FINCH

  MARCH 12, 1802—AUGUST 18, 1879

  and his beloved wife

  CAMELLIA

  SEPTEMBER 3, 1812—AUGUST 19, 1879

  Come live with mee, and bee my love,

  And wee will some new pleasures prove

  Of golden sands and christall brookes,

  With silken lines, and silver hookes.

  JOHN DONNE

  43

  Back to School

  As the bell rang, Gil slid into his seat and arranged his notebook on the desk in front of him. It was strange to be back in school again; he felt nervous and excited at the same time. Some of the other students were staring at him, and he knew they were trying to figure out who he was and where he’d come from. Gil could hear whispers and the restless sound of homework papers being sorted. Somebody dropped a book and there was muffled laughter. The teacher was tacking sheets of paper to the bulletin board. When she turned around, the students settled down. Two kids came in late and hurried to their desks.

  After all of the dead letters, the reluctant genie and the skeletal hand, it was nice to be back in an ordinary classroom again, where everything seemed perfectly normal and predictable. The homeroom teacher, Mrs. Ballantine, seemed nice enough. She introduced Gil to the rest of the class. He was relieved she didn’t call him Gilbert. Nargis had made sure of that. Still, he felt uncomfortable as everyone’s eyes turned on him, though soon enough they got down to work.

  Convincing his parents to let him go to school in Carville had been easier than Gil had thought. His grandfather had done most of the persuading, telling them that he was happy to have Gil stay with him, and how it was better than putting him in a military academy.

  “I think he’s learned his lesson,” Prescott told them over the phone. “And Gil seems to like being here. He’s made friends. It would be difficult adjusting to a new place all over again.”

  His mother and father had come up and spent the weekend at the Yankee Mahal, instead of taking him off to Michigan. Gil had introduced them to Nargis and they had driven over to look at the school. Even though his father mentioned Howitzer Academy a couple of times, it seemed as if he too had decided it wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  “Michigan is pretty far away,” his grandfather had said. “He’d have to fly home.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Gil’s mother said. “Here you’re only a couple of hours away.”

  “The two of us will drive down for weekends,” Prescott said. “And you can come up any time you want.”

  Saturday night, Prescott introduced them to Lenore and they all went out for dinner together at a seafood restaurant. They had already agreed not to tell Gil’s parents about the letters and everything else that had happened. It seemed as if everybody got along, especially Gil’s mother and Lenore. He noticed that his father and Prescott even shared a laugh.

  On Monday, there were papers at the school that Prescott had to fill out. Gil met the guidance counselor, who got his grades and other documents from McCauley Prep. By Tuesday morning, he was in class. Even after having been out of school for three weeks, Gil didn’t feel he had fallen too far behind. In math there wasn’t much of a problem because his teacher at McCauley had got ahead of himself and Gil had already done most of the work. In social studies they were doing a project on the Civil War and Gil joined a group that was writing a report on the Battle of Gettysburg. He and Nargis were in most of th
eir classes together, except for PE and French, where they were on a different schedule because Nargis was taking Spanish.

  When it was time for lunch, they met near the lockers and she took him to the cafeteria.

  “You’re lucky, it’s pizza today,” she said. “Not green Jell-O and tofu burgers.”

  Nargis led him to a table with some of her friends. She introduced him to a girl named Ming and a boy named Orion. They were talking about some horror movie Gil hadn’t seen, but it didn’t really matter. Orion kept imitating one of the ghouls who lived in a woodshed on a farm in the Ozarks. He made a creepy face and pretended to carry an ax in one hand. Ming and Nargis laughed. Gil didn’t say very much, but he felt sure he was going to fit right in.

  During the last period of the day, they had English and Mrs. Ballantine made them read two poems by Robert Frost, including one called “The Bearer of Evil Tidings,” which was pretty good. Then she gave them their homework assignment. Each student was supposed to write a poem of their own and bring it to class the next day, to read aloud. Gil glanced nervously at Nargis, who was seated across the aisle from him. She rolled her eyes and grinned, as if to say, Don’t worry, it’s only homework …

  44

  Postscript

  After school, Gil and Nargis headed home on their bicycles, but when they reached the cemetery they took a detour. Parking their bikes at the gate, they walked down the hill toward the chestnut tree.

  “Maybe we should have brought another lobster trap,” said Gil.

  “I don’t think so,” said Nargis, wincing.

  It was cold but clear, and they could see the harbor spread out below them, and the lighthouse in the distance.

  The branches of the chestnut tree were bare, and dead leaves carpeted the ground. As Gil and Nargis reached the spot where Camellia’s grave had been, they couldn’t see a headstone. Together, they brushed away the fallen leaves, but there was no sign of the granite memorial, only brown grass and gnarled tree roots.

  “It must be here,” said Gil, circling the tree.

  “Maybe not,” Nargis said with a thoughtful frown. “If we really changed history, who knows what happened to Camellia? Maybe Ezekiel came back …”

  “Or maybe she went to India,” said Gil.

  Just then, they felt a breeze and the dead leaves rustled at their feet. Both of them caught sight of a lone figure coming toward them up the hill. It was the postman in his gray uniform, stooped under the weight of his mailbag. He was almost the same color as the gravestones, and when he passed through the shadows of the trees he seemed to disappear briefly. Gil and Nargis could tell that he was coming in their direction. Both of them felt like running, but their feet were stuck to the ground.

  “Yipes!” said Nargis under her breath.

  “Stay calm,” said Gil, even though his hands and knees were shaking.

  The postman trudged up to the chestnut tree. With a tired sigh, he touched the brim of his cap in greeting.

  Nargis tried to say “Hi,” but her voice squeaked. Gil’s mouth had gone dry and all he could do was nod. The postman reached under the flap of his mailbag. After hunting around for a moment, he took out a magazine in a brown paper wrapper. With a wistful wink and the faintest smile, he handed the piece of mail to Gil.

  Seconds later, the postman was gone.

  “What is it?” Nargis asked as she let out her breath.

  “I don’t know,” said Gil, turning the magazine over in his hands. On the other side, he saw an old stamp, and across one corner of the wrapper was written

  Complimentary Copy

  “Hey, it’s addressed to you,” said Nargis, pointing at the label. “Gil Mendelson-Finch. Open it.”

  “But, how could this …?” Gil ran his finger under the wrapper and ripped it open. Inside was a copy of The Atlantic Monthly, but it was an issue from May 1, 1933.

  “That’s sixty years before I was born,” he said as Nargis took the magazine from his hands and began to leaf through the pages. At first, there didn’t seem to be anything interesting inside, but as she flipped back again, something caught her eye.

  “Look! Here’s a picture of the Yankee Mahal,” Nargis said. It was a black-and-white photograph. In the foreground stood a man who looked as if he might be Indian. Nargis and Gil read the caption together.

  The author, Sikander Khan, poses in front of Ezekiel

  Finch’s home near Hornswoggle Bay, Massachusetts.

  “It can’t be!” said Gil.

  “Of course it’s him,” said Nargis, turning back a page to the title of the article.

  RETRACING THE FOOTSTEPS

  OF A YANKEE TRADER

  At the beginning of the article was a short biographical note on the author.

  MR. SIKANDER KHAN is one of India’s most respected journalists. He is currently touring the world as a foreign correspondent for The Statesman newspaper in Calcutta. Mr. Khan recently visited Massachusetts. In this article, published here by special arrangement, he tells the story of Ezekiel Finch, a Yankee trader who made his fortune shipping tea from India to America. Finch’s tea estates were in Ajeebgarh, which happens to be Mr. Khan’s hometown, where he began his distinguished writing career as a calligrapher’s apprentice.

  Returning to the photograph, Gil and Nargis both squinted to try to make out Sikander’s features.

  Nargis started to laugh. “He’s almost bald,” she said.

  “Of course. This magazine is from 1933,” said Gil, pulling it out of her hands. “In this picture he’d be much older than when we were writing back and forth.”

  The Yankee Mahal didn’t seem to have changed at all, with its heavy stone walls and slate roof. Standing in the front yard, Sikander had one arm raised. Gil and Nargis could tell he was waving at them.

  Copyright © 2008 by Stephen Alter

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner

  whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief

  quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  First published in the United States of America in January 2008

  by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers

  E-book edition published in April 2011

  www.bloomsburykids.com

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

  Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Alter, Stephen.

  Ghost letters/Stephen Alter.—1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: While exploring the area around his grandfather’s home, Gil discovers a bottle

  that carries messages into the past, finds a genie in a letter, and three letters that were

  never delivered but would have changed the course of history.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-58234-739-4 • ISBN-10: 1-58234-739-5 (hardcover)

  [1. Space and time—Fiction. 2. Letters—Fiction. 3. Genies—Fiction. 4. Grandfathers—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.A46373Gh 2008 [Fic]—dc22 2007030844

  ISBN 978-1-59990-815-1 (e-book)