Ghost Girl

by Delia Ray

  “Lady’s slipper,” I breathed.

  Daddy nodded. “First one I’ve seen this year. I always know its time for your birthday when the lady’s slippers come out.” He shook his head, still studying the flower. “That’s one thing your Mama and me always had in common. Our favorite month. April.”

  Daddy peeked at me with a little sideways grin. I waited for him to fall silent again, like usual. Most times, he was quiet as a cave. But he kept talking, and I leaned against him, letting his slow, deep voice rumble over me. “Some people call those moccasin flowers,” he told me. “There’s a story I remember hearing about a little Indian girl who wandered off in the snow. She wasn’t wearing any shoes and it was bitter cold, and pretty soon night came along. The whole village went out hunting for her, but they never found her. The only trace they found was in the spring—a flower no one had ever set eyes on before blooming right in the spot where that little Indian girl was last seen.”

  I looked up at Daddy. “You think that’s true?”

  He shrugged. “Makes a good story for your birthday, don’t it? Now you owe me some time at the woodpile.”

  I laughed and followed Daddy back to the chopping block. We spent the rest of the morning together, splitting wood and loading up the wagon with extra kindling for Aunt Birdy. After lunch we hitched up Old Dean and were just about to set off for Aunt Birdy’s when Mama ran out on the porch.

  “I wouldn’t mind going with you,” she called, pulling on her sweater.

  Daddy couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice. “That’s fine,” he said. “Climb on up.” I scooted off the buckboard and settled in the back of the wagon, in the middle of the split logs, where I could get a good view of Mama and Daddy up next to each other. I hadn’t seen them sitting side by side for months, and as we started off, I almost felt like humming. Springtime coming had brought out the best in all of us, even Old Dean. His step was lively and his nostrils flared in and out, taking in the fresh piney-wood smells.

  Daddy was quiet again, but a few times I saw him turn his face up to the sun coming through the trees. He let the reins go loose in his hands, leaving Old Dean to find his own way down the trail. Mama was livelier, too. She even started pointing things out along the way. “Listen to them blue jays courting,” she said. Then, a little farther along, I heard her say, “Look a’there. Lady’s slippers!” We all turned to stare for as long as we could at a patch of white blossoms growing in a gully beside the trail. Mama’s gray eyes didn’t look quite so tired, and the sharp air had brought out some color in her cheeks. Daddy winked at me over his shoulder.

  By the time we pulled into Aunt Birdy’s clearing, it had warmed up enough to take our sweaters off. I jumped down from the wagon and ran ahead to check whether Aunt Birdy had any new stones on her railing. There weren’t any, but the view from the porch was fine. The valley almost glowed with the bright green haze of new leaves budding on the trees.

  Mama stopped to admire the view. Then she clumped up the steps and knocked once on the door.

  “Ma?” she called, pushing the door open. “We got a load of wood for—” Her voice broke off, and then I heard her say, “Oh. Didn’t know you had a visitor.”

  I peeked in to see who it was, and there in Aunt Birdy’s front room was Miss Vest, settled into a cane rocker by the fire.

  “Well, hello there, April,” she said with a big smile.

  Aunt Birdy hopped up from her chair to greet us. “Ain’t this a surprise? April’s schoolteacher coming by to call, and now you all here! Come on inside!”

  Miss Vest stood as we shut the door behind us and reached out her hand to Mama. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Sloane. I’ve been hoping we’d have the chance to meet soon. You have a fine daughter here.” Miss Vest glanced at me and I felt silly, knowing my mouth was stretched into a fool grin, ready to split my face in two.

  Aunt Birdy was beaming, too, but when I looked at Mama, she wasn’t smiling at all, and it took her a long time to notice Miss Vest’s hand hanging in the air. She finally gave it a clumsy little shake.

  “Alma Sloane,” she said in a flat voice. “This here’s my husband, Wesley.”

  I could see Mama looking Miss Vest up and down, taking in her hairstyle, her plaid wool skirt and soft blue sweater with the pearly buttons. Mama started tucking the limp strands of her own hair behind her ears and smoothing her homely cotton dress over her middle, and all of a sudden I felt ashamed for her and mad, too. She had been acting happy on the ride over. Why couldn’t she smile now? Why couldn’t she just take my teacher’s hand and say, “Pleased to meet you” and “How’s April doing in school?”

  Miss Vest started chattering, trying to make up for the sudden quiet in the room. “I’ve been out calling on some of my students’ families today,” she said. “I actually thought of trying to find your place, but I was afraid of getting lost.”

  Daddy nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Best to know your way if you’re heading over to Doubletop.”

  “I was on my way home when I noticed Aunt Birdy on her porch,” Miss Vest said. “I thought I better stop in and say hello since she’s my nearest neighbor. Then I found out she was your grandmother, April. . . . I meant to stay ten minutes, but I’ve been here more than an hour.” Miss Vest gazed around the room, shaking her head. “It’s like walking into a curiosity shop,” she said.

  I had never heard of a curiosity shop before, but somehow I knew what Miss Vest meant. You could spend all day in Aunt Birdy’s front room and still discover something new the next time you came. Every spare inch of shelf and windowsill was covered with geegaws. There were things you might expect lined up on planks around the fireplace, like baskets of mending and canning jars full of pickled green tomatoes and peaches. But jumbled in were Aunt Birdy’s keepsakes—more of her best river stones, the reddest cardinal feather and knobbiest turtle shell you ever saw, and little carvings of chestnut wood that Grandpap Lockley had whittled when he was a boy. Even the ceiling was busy, hung with bunches of dried herbs and roots for brewing into medicinals.

  Mama was running out of patience. “Well, Wes,” she said, folding her arms across her chest, “we better get to unloading that wood ’fore it gets too late in the day.”

  Miss Vest touched her arm. “Oh, just a minute, Mrs. Sloane. Would you mind if I showed you one thing first?” She hurried over to a leather satchel she had left by the rocking chair, reached inside, and hefted out a big book. It was the Sears, Roebuck mail-order catalog.

  “During my calls this week, I’ve been asking all the parents about an order we’ll be sending off soon to Sears, Roebuck,” Miss Vest explained. “A lot of the students need new school shoes, and when I went down to Taggart’s the other day, I realized Mr. Taggart only stocks a few styles and not very many sizes for children.”

  Then she stopped, glancing down at my old boots. “Now that you’re here, I thought I could get April’s shoe size, if you like, and send the order off on Monday morning.”

  Aunt Birdy scurried over, lighting on the catalog like a fly on jam. “Mind if I look at that for just a minute, miss?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer, she took the catalog out of Miss Vest’s hands, then sat herself down in the rocker and started rustling through the pages.

  I felt Mama stiffen up beside me. “April’s boots still got plenty of wear left in ’em,” she said. “And besides, we ain’t put away any money for Sears, Roebuck school shoes. I reckon they don’t come cheap.”

  “Oh, there’s no need to worry about that,” Miss Vest said quickly. “The Hoovers have set up a fund for those sorts of things. They knew that the children would be walking a long way to school and would need extras, like sturdy shoes and warm mittens.”

  “No, thank you, just the same,” Mama said, her voice turning hard.

  Aunt Birdy looked up from the catalog, and the room got still again until Daddy finally cleared his throat. “Ain’t no harm in it, Alma,” he said. “Long as all the others ar
e getting ’em.”

  “Look here, Alma,” Aunt Birdy said, poking her finger at a page in the catalog. “Here’s some pictures showing which ones Apry could—”

  Mama cut her off. “No use me arguing,” she said. “Seems like everybody knows what’s best for April these days but me.” Then she turned and stalked out the door.

  Daddy stood there blinking after her like he always did, rubbing at the stubble on his chin.

  “I’m sorry,” Miss Vest said softly. “I just—”

  “No, ma’am,” Daddy said with an embarrassed look. “You go ahead and order them shoes for April if you have a mind. Seeing as all the others are getting ’em.”

  Miss Vest nodded, and Daddy left without another word. Once he had gone, Aunt Birdy sat rocking and shaking her head. For a minute I thought she might make excuses for Mama, maybe even tell Miss Vest all about Riley dying. Part of me wanted her to—just to get it out in the open. I could almost hear in my head how Aunt Birdy would tell it. “It was just after Christmas a little more than a year ago,” she would say. “Alma near about died herself from the grief of it. She laid in bed nine days. Wouldn’t eat or drink for nine days straight.”

  Then maybe I would fill in the rest. “On the tenth day, she finally got out of bed and dressed herself,” I would say, “and Daddy and me just cried, ’cause it seemed like the worst was over.” But the worst wasn’t over.

  Aunt Birdy sat there with her mouth clamped tight. I should have known she wouldn’t say a word about Riley to Miss Vest. If she did, Miss Vest would surely ask how he died and my grandmother would have to explain, with me standing two feet away—about how the accident happened when I was home alone taking care of my little brother. About how awful it was . . . how bad his burns were.

  Miss Vest stepped toward me. “Do you know what size shoe you wear, April?” she asked quietly.

  “No, ma’am,” I told her.

  She fetched her satchel again and dug around until she found some clean white paper and a thick pencil. Then she had me take my boots off and step right on the paper so she could draw an outline of my feet. My socks probably smelled like our shed and there were pieces of hay prickling out of the yarn, but Miss Vest didn’t seem to care. She bent down close to my feet, and I could feel her hands, warm and gentle, through the damp wool.

  “There,” Miss Vest said when she was done. “The next best thing to going to Chicago and having Mr. Sears measure your foot himself.”

  “I declare,” Aunt Birdy said, her face brightening up again. Then she remembered the catalog in her lap and went back to admiring the pages, holding each one like it was a butterfly wing between her fingers. I went around behind her chair in my stocking feet to watch the pictures flash by—rows of ladies’ bonnets and gloves, diamond bracelets and necklaces, baby buggies, furniture, and farm tools.

  Toward the back of the book, Aunt Birdy stopped. “Don’t tell me you can order a whole house right out of this catalog!” she cried, and leaned down closer to squint at the pictures.

  Miss Vest came over to join us. “You sure can,” she said. “They send you all the materials to build it. The lumber, the nails, gutters, shingles, paint, varnish—everything. So which one would you like? How about that one there—the Conway Bungalow? It’s got five rooms and a bath. And look, you’ll have a breakfast alcove and a coal chute and an ironing board that folds out of a cabinet in the wall.”

  “How much?” Aunt Birdy asked.

  “Only one thousand six hundred and four dollars, or you can make low monthly payments of just thirty dollars. What do you think?”

  “Heh!” Aunt Birdy crowed, kicking her little feet off the floor. “It sure is pretty, but I think I better stick with what I got.”

  As she flipped to the next page, a thought came to me, and before I even knew I was talking out loud, I said, “I wonder how long it would take me.”

  Miss Vest turned to look at me. “Take you for what, April?”

  I shook my head and tried to laugh a little. “Oh, nothing . . . I was just wondering how long it would take me to, well, to learn to write out an order.”

  Miss Vest’s eyes lit up. “I could teach you in no time, April. But why? Is there something special you’d like to buy?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said, feeling shy. “I don’t have money to buy anything, but still . . . might be fun just to make an order . . . just to think about.”

  “You mean a wish list,” Miss Vest said.

  I nodded. “That’s right. A wish list.” The words felt nice on my tongue—hushed, like a secret.

  Miss Vest clapped her hands together. “That’s a wonderful idea! We could—”

  But before she could say anything else, somebody banged on the door.

  “Now who’s that?” Aunt Birdy asked, pushing herself to her feet and scurrying over to open it. I half expected to see Mama standing in the doorway waiting to fetch me back home, but it was a marine—the one called Sergeant Jordan.

  “Sergeant!” Miss Vest cried. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been looking for you all afternoon, ma’am,” he told her, taking off his hat. “I’ve got a message for you from Camp Rapidan. The Hoovers are here for the weekend and would like you to join them tonight for dinner.”

  Miss Vest’s face turned pale. “Dinner? Tonight?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I tried to let you know earlier, but I couldn’t find you. Good thing I ran into Mr. Jessup on the road. He told me you might be down this way.”

  Miss Vest’s hands fluttered up to smooth her hair. “I’ve been out calling on my students. I didn’t even know the Hoovers were coming this weekend.”

  Sergeant Jordan sighed. “Neither did we, until yesterday. You should see what it’s like down at the base. We’ve all been reassigned to new posts, and everybody’s tearing around like crazy trying to—” He blushed and pulled himself up straight again. “Anyway, ma’am, we should probably get going. I’m supposed to have you over at Camp Rapidan by five o’clock.”

  Miss Vest looked at her wristwatch and let out a gasp. “But—but it’s quarter to five now!” She stared down at her skirt and sweater. “Can I at least wash up and change my clothes?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sergeant Jordan told her. “I’ve got the truck waiting up by the schoolhouse.”

  Aunt Birdy and I traded looks. Miss Vest was going to Camp Rapidan. For months everybody had been gossiping about what was behind those big metal gates down the mountain. Folks said that Mrs. Hoover rode around on her big bay horse wearing a suit of white riding clothes and the president spent all day fishing the trout streams, not even stopping to loosen up his high starched collar and tie. I imagined their summer house probably looked like the biggest one in the Sears, Roebuck catalog, the two-story one with the brick chimneys and the shutters and the porch with the pillars out front.

  And now Miss Vest was heading off to see Camp Rapidan for herself. I watched as she flitted around, gathering up her catalog and the outline of my foot and shoving them in her satchel.

  “It was so good to meet you, Aunt Birdy,” she said, all out of breath. “And April, I’ll see you at school on Monday. . . . I’m sorry I have to run off like this. What in the world am I going to wear?” She laughed a high, nervous laugh and touched the tips of her fingers to the bright red spots on her cheeks.

  Aunt Birdy and I walked out to the front porch to see her off. Mama and Daddy were still working, stacking wood against the shed over in the side yard. “Goodbye!” Miss Vest called to them. “Hope to see you again soon!”

  Daddy waved, but Mama never even looked up from the load of kindling in her arms. I was glad Miss Vest was too riled to notice. As she hurried up the slope behind Sergeant Jordan, she turned around and gave me one last smile. It was all I could do to hold myself back from running up the mountain after her.

  Eight

  The Hoovers must have invited Miss Vest over so they could ask her to work even harder. Because pretty soon after her dinner a
t Camp Rapidan, she told the class she planned to start holding Sunday prayer meetings at the schoolhouse. Most of the kids broke out clapping. We had never had a real church on our mountain before. The nearest one was over in Dark Hollow, near eight miles away, with no heat and a leaky roof to boot. So most folks chose to squeeze into the Jessup cabin on Sundays, where Mr. Jessup preached his long, rambling sermons standing on an old kindling box at one end of his front room. Now that their daddy would be helping Miss Vest with worship services at the schoolhouse, Dewey and Ida looked around the classroom grinning and nodding as if the whole thing had been their idea.

  I was about the only one who didn’t cheer over Miss Vest’s announcement. I felt sorry for Miss Vest, having to teach us our letters and numbers and now the Bible, too. I couldn’t help worrying over how hard she seemed to be working. After school let out every day, she sat right down at her desk and bent over her lesson book with her face feverish and her ink pen flying. One night I had supper at Aunt Birdy’s and took the long way home, just to check, and sure enough, there she was, lit up in the schoolroom window, still sitting at her desk and rubbing her tired eyes.

  I didn’t even bother to ask Mama if we could go to the Sunday prayer meetings. We hadn’t been to church since Riley died. Used to be, we’d all ride in the wagon to go to meetings in Dark Hollow. Once in a while, if the weather was too bad to make it that far, we’d crowd into the Jessup cabin with all the other neighbors. I knew Mama despised those mornings as much as I did. Most of the time, we got stuck sitting back in the sweltering kitchen next to the cookstove, listening to Mr. Jessup rant and rave for an hour or more. We always came home smelling like cabbage or collards or whatever had been bubbling on the burner next to us.

  Mr. Jessup wasn’t an official preacher anyway. During the week he worked at the sawmill over at Thornton Gap, heaving logs onto the conveyor belt. But on Sundays, he put on his black suit and combed his thick hair back with pomade and turned into someone else. Aunt Birdy said he had learned to preach from traveling men who wandered around the Blue Ridge holding tent meetings and revivals. She said his sermons were hand-me-downs, but even so, Mama and Daddy thought it was important for us to learn the Gospel, so Riley and I went along without complaining.