If Onions Could Spring Leeks

by Paige Shelton

  She looked at me and blinked. “I do not know your grandmother and I don’t quite understand what you mean. At all.”

  Since the ghosts’ memories were sometimes scrambled when they first arrived, it could take time for them to acclimate, but if this was this ghost’s first visit it would also be my first visit without Gram to help me through the introductions. I thought about one of our previous experiences.

  “May I ask your name?” I said.

  “Grace,” she said absently as she searched the platform.

  “Well, Grace, this is bound to be strange, but you are currently visiting the twenty-first century. This scene,” I waved my arm, “is something from the past.” I swallowed hard before I said the next part because it seemed so cruel, but Gram had told me that there was no need to be delicate. The ghosts’ realization that they were no longer a part of the living world couldn’t possibly harm them, and the sooner they knew the truth the better it was for them, and for her and me.

  “Can you tell me what you think the date is?” I said.

  “Of course. It’s August 16, 1888.”

  “Actually, it isn’t. You died long ago, Grace. You’re just back visiting Broken Rope, a long time after you lived. My Gram and I are the only ones you will be able to communicate with.”

  “I don’t understand. I’m in Broken Rope?”

  I was surprised that this was the most curious part of what I’d just told her, but I said, “Yes.”

  “I made it then, I made it,” she said as she stepped back, turned and looked around. “Is he here?”

  “Who?”

  “Robert. Is he here?” She continued to search.

  “I don’t see anyone else around,” I said. “There were other people here a few minutes ago, but I don’t know who Robert is.”

  “Oh, oh no. This isn’t right,” she said.

  “What isn’t right?”

  “This is not the Broken Rope station,” she said.

  I felt words of protest rise in my throat—how could this be another station? We were in Broken Rope. But then I realized she might be right. I stepped away from the building and looked around. I thought about the pictures Jake had shown me, and though the people in their interesting clothing and the oily black locomotive were parts of what I had seen, the station building I was currently looking at was not. In the pictures, the building had been diminished, a part of the backdrop, but I knew it had not been an uninteresting one-story made of simple, boring pine planks. In fact, I remembered that at one time Jake had gone on and on about the station building and how it had been an attraction in itself, how it was something he wished could be rebuilt for the tourists to see and experience. I tried hard to remember the building details, but I just hadn’t found it as interesting as the people and the trains.

  “Where are we?” I asked Grace as I peered out toward my house. It was still there in the murky distance. I was relieved.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “But . . .”

  I looked at the building, searching for a name, a town, a signpost of some sort. There was nothing. In fact, there were no words anywhere.

  “Grace,” I said, “who is Robert?”

  She blinked and then turned her confused attention toward me. “Robert Findlay was the man I was supposed to marry. I was to meet him in Broken Rope, and we were going to run away together.”

  “Run away?” I said. “Why did you need to run away?”

  “We had to find a place we would be accepted. I’m from Mississippi, Robert was from Broken Rope. We were going to go north, perhaps as far north as we could go.”

  “Accepted?” I said, but then I thought I understood what she was getting at.

  “Yes. Of course, a white man marrying a negro woman is not welcome in many parts.”

  I cringed at the word negro, but I had to remember that in 1888 that word wasn’t unsettling or racist, and an interracial marriage most definitely wouldn’t have been welcomed back then, or, sadly, for some time afterward.

  “Do you think you didn’t make it to Broken Rope?” I said.

  Grace fell into thought and I was once again taken aback by her beauty. She was not pretty in a youthful way, but in a wise and strong but slightly sad way. It would be easy to see how men, and women too, of all different colors would have found their eyes drawn to her.

  “I don’t know. Wait, I do think I made it to Broken Rope.” She glanced at the building, her eyebrows coming together. “I don’t know what or where this station is, though.”

  “Your station, from Mississippi maybe? Was this the beginning of your trip?”

  “No, I really don’t think so. I don’t remember the station from Mississippi, but something tells me this isn’t it.” She paused, stared blankly at the planks of the platform, and then looked back at me. “Something terrible happened to me, I’m almost sure. Do you know what that was?”

  “I don’t. Try to remember some specifics,” I said.

  A long few beats later, she said, “I was killed, murdered, I think.”

  “Grace,” I said as I stepped closer to her. I reached for her hand, glad it was solid. “Listen to me, you can’t die twice. You’re probably getting a bunch of jumbled memories coming at you at once, and that’s normal, I promise. But you don’t need to be sad or worried or afraid. You died a long time ago. Whatever you remember can’t hurt you anymore, and things will become clearer—if you give it time and allow yourself the memories. You will know.”

  Grace looked at me briefly, but her anxious eyes were still focused on the past. It was long ago, but I still didn’t understand how the passing of time worked for the ghosts.

  “I was killed, murdered, that I’m sure of, though I don’t understand how I’m so sure. I would never have abandoned Robert. Never.” She looked at the station. “But perhaps I never did make it to Broken Rope. Oh, dear. He must have thought I didn’t want to join him. I don’t understand. Is there any chance you can help me understand?”

  I sighed inwardly, but I tried not to let it show too much. There was a time not long ago that I would have said there was probably nothing I could do to help her. I wouldn’t have been cruel enough to tell her that the answers just didn’t matter anyway. The past was the past and dead was dead. But my perspective had changed. I had been able to “do things.” I had been able to help—maybe just a little, and while the historical facts hadn’t been altered, little changes had been made, little changes that somehow helped the ghosts deal with their tragic situations, though I didn’t totally understand what that meant. It didn’t matter that I never knew the end results. I was glad to be of some small assistance.

  I looked at her, squeezed her hand as I smiled, and said, “Maybe.”

  Chapter 2

  I made it back to bed at around 4:00 A.M., able to easily fall back to sleep and catch a couple more hours’ rest. That was something else that had changed. My visits with the ghosts didn’t keep me up all night. I didn’t spend as much time worrying about them or trying to figure out exactly what I could do for them. I wanted to help if I could, but I was beginning to take them more in stride. But as I swung my legs off my bed again, happy that I wasn’t too worn out, I recognized my own casual attitude and a chill zipped up my back.

  “These are ghosts we’re talking about,” I said aloud to myself. “They are beings that aren’t supposed to exist. I should never, ever consider them just another part of my day or night, or as something not to worry about.”

  My words were greeted by silence. I looked at the doorway and took a big sniff just to see if, perhaps, someone might have appeared. No unusual or strong smells. No scent of woodsmoke. No cowboy-hat-clad silhouette filling the space. No Jerome.

  My first ghost, Jerome Cowbender, and I had formed a complicated relationship. I had a crush on the old dead cowboy; I was pretty sure he had a crush on me. Of course, as a
real relationship, it could never work; ghosts and live people should probably not develop crushes on each other. The heart does what the heart does, though, no matter how much you will it not to.

  I thought I’d gotten better. During Jerome’s last visit, I hadn’t kissed him on the lips—this was a good start. I told him we needed to quit flirting. He’d agreed.

  Fortunately my live boyfriend, Cliff, and I had continued to expand our relationship. Things had only gotten better and better between the two of us. We’d been high school sweethearts, but a decade or so later, after a few career changes, post his marriage and divorce and his return to Broken Rope, we had what I thought was a bright new outlook on the kind of couple we could be. Things were going great.

  Except for one thing. Okay, well, maybe two.

  The first one was that Cliff was a smart guy and he had sensed that something wasn’t quite right. I’d tried not to let my weird and probably morally corrupt feelings for the dead ghost (whom he could neither see nor communicate with) show. I’d tried to make those feelings disappear, actually. But Cliff had picked up on the fact that there was something “in between” us, something keeping me from jumping all the way into what Cliff and I could be. I told him that the “something” wasn’t his imagination, but it also wasn’t something he needed to be concerned about. There was a very weird component in my life that might make me seem distracted, but it didn’t change how I felt about him. I even offered to tell him what it was if he really, truly wanted to know. But he needed to be more than one hundred percent sure he wanted to know because—and I said this a million times—it was unquestionably weird. Before he left for the weekend, he mentioned that he decided he wanted to know the full story, and he wanted to hear it this week when he got back. My mind was working double-time to try to figure out the best way to tell him the truth. I was ready and willing, but still working on the right combination of words and the best approach.

  The second thing was simply this: No matter how much I loved Cliff, how often I saw us having a future together, how much stronger we had become, how I told him that he didn’t need to be concerned about my feelings for him—and I believed that statement, mostly—I still could not stop thinking about Jerome. I tried. I beat myself up over it. But it didn’t work. This was not good, of course, and Cliff deserved better. Unfortunately, I was just selfish enough that I wanted him to accept the messed-up me. I wanted my live man and my ghost, too.

  I glanced at the doorway one more time.

  No Jerome.

  As I got ready, I decided I would find Jake later and discuss Grace and her situation with him. Though he couldn’t see or communicate with them either, he knew all about the ghosts and was typically more than willing to lend a hand in uncovering their histories. For now, I forced the majority of my thoughts away from the ghosts and toward present-day activities.

  Summer in Broken Rope was our busy tourist season. All of Gram’s and my most recent crop of full-time cooking students had recently completed their nine-month training and were off beginning or continuing their food-centered careers. The school year had been unusual and punctuated by murder and danger, but then ultimately successful, turning out some stunning cooks and bakers. We were as proud as we could be and hoped next fall’s students would be even better.

  As the classes wound down and we kicked off the part-time evening classes with Vegetables and Why Cheese Makes Them All Taste Better, I had been recruited to assist with a new Broken Rope summer tourist attraction. One of our part-time night students (we called them “nighters”), Roy Acres, presented a proposition to the vegetable class: Did anyone want to help him with one of his inventions? It seemed that Jake had originally approached Roy with the idea of motorized wagons. Big Old West wagons, not small red ones.

  Roy was not only a country boy with a heart as big as all of Missouri, he’d also been trained as a mechanical engineer. Through the fine art of what he called “tinkering” he’d created more farm machinery around Broken Rope than you could shake a tractor at.

  His experiments and inventions could be found in barns and on farms all around Missouri. Perhaps there were even some in Kansas. Most were successful and useful, but not all. Jake had attached one of Roy’s fertilizing implements to his riding mower. Unfortunately, things weren’t balanced correctly and the getup didn’t move quite right. After narrowly escaping the mower’s lethal blade when it tipped over and landed precariously close to Jake’s leg, the attachment was removed and discarded. Roy abandoned that particular idea. However, he still had lots of successful inventions; one of them being his motorized wagons. He’d made three, all of them fondly named Trigger, followed by the numbers one, two, or three. They were exactly what they sounded like: wagons with motors and steering wheels. Roy had created them because of growing concern about the horses—well, both the horses and the tourists that filled the town’s Main Street during the summer. Broken Rope’s popularity had continued to grow. We had more tourists than ever visiting our little town. In years past, we’d used horse-drawn wagons to escort people down Main Street, pointing out and talking up the highlights. The horses never seemed to mind and the crowd was controllable enough to stay on the boardwalks. Not so much anymore. Neither the horses nor the tourists were having as much fun lately. There was just too much activity. So Roy created the wagons, and they’d become one of our more popular attractions. Everyone loved to ride the funny-looking things that seemed like a cross between a wagon and a jalopy. The tourists were happier, so were the horses.

  Not only were they easier to control, the Triggers’ top speed was less than ten miles per hour and the side boards were padded for comfort, at least more comfort than the original wagons offered. Safety first with the added bonus of more comfort were always good things.

  My summer volunteer job was to drive a Trigger one day a week, every Monday. The task was much less wearing than some of the other jobs I’d had in the past; things like acting (which I was not good at) and clean-up duty (which I was okay at but didn’t enjoy). This was the first year I got to do something that allowed me to spend more time talking to and getting to know our visitors and I enjoyed my new semi-ambassadorish role.

  The invitation to participate had been almost an accident, a convergence of unexpected events. Gram and I had both been surprised by Roy’s interest in our night classes. Anyone who knew Roy would find his desire to cook vegetables, or anything, curious.

  But the mystery was solved when we learned that he had met someone on an Internet dating site. Roy and the “fiery woman from Iowa’s” plans were to meet in person at the end of the summer and Roy wanted to be able to cook for her since she “was searching for someone who could handle themselves in the kitchen” because, apparently, she couldn’t. Roy told Gram he would be participating in all our nighttime classes throughout the summer.

  One night a few weeks earlier, as the vegetable class was discussing the questionable need in the world for Brussels sprouts, Roy asked everyone in attendance if they’d be willing to be his drivers. Except for Gram, we all agreed enthusiastically. I was glad to have a task already in place when the cleaning crew came looking for volunteers, and I’d had a few great Mondays so far. I was looking forward to the rest of the summer behind a Trigger’s wheel.

  Not only was Monday my drive day, it was also the drive crew meeting day. I wanted to be early to the meeting, which was being held at the cooking school, so I hurried to get ready. As I bounded down the front porch stairs toward my old Nova, I glanced down the street to the spot where I’d met Grace. I slowed as I thought I saw something else coming into view.

  It was faint at first, an outline and then some faded colors that became a little stronger, a little deeper. Not much stronger or deeper, though, because it was daytime and the ghost world wasn’t solid in the sunlight.

  As far as I could tell, the building I saw was tall, two stories with a wide front porch, its ceiling held up by
four columns across the front. The top floor, with three large windows, stuck out all the way over the porch. The walls were bright red and the windows were framed by white shutters.

  The last two things that came into view were the sign across the front that said BROKEN ROPE and the figure of a man sitting on a bench on the wide platform. No other people appeared, just the man who had leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. There was no train, but I knew I was seeing the real Broken Rope station, the one from the past.

  “That’s more like it,” I said aloud, now better remembering the building from Jake’s pictures. They’d been black and white so my mind hadn’t preserved them exactly like what was coming into view, but the image was close enough.

  “And I bet I know who you are.”

  I looked at the time on my phone. I would probably be a little late, but I needed to talk to the man on the bench.

  I hurried down the street, feeling less secure about my activities in the daylight. I didn’t think anyone had observed my actions last night but if anyone was watching now, they’d wonder what I was doing in the otherwise vacant grass field.

  Nevertheless, I couldn’t miss the opportunity.

  I scurried, furtively looking in all directions, probably being way too obvious.

  When I reached the tracks, I slowed. They were like the ones last night—in good condition. There were present-day tracks in that spot, but unusable and grown over. I glanced to the right and to the left. Though I didn’t see a train, I was hesitant to cross. I’d seen the train last night, watched it stop. Ghost trains could appear out of nowhere, and though a ghost train probably couldn’t hurt me, I didn’t want to test the theory.

  Finally, I stepped over quickly and then up to the platform. I felt sturdy planks beneath my feet and a new scent filled the air. It was earthy, perhaps musky. I couldn’t place its organic form but it reminded me of a subtle men’s cologne, perhaps something my dad had once worn when I was a little girl.