The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney

by Suzanne Harper

  “Not fair at all.”

  “Well, you already knew that life isn’t fair, right?” he said. “I guess death isn’t either.”

  Chapter 18

  “Did you know that Arthur Conan Doyle believed in ghosts and fairies?” Jack shook his head in amazement. “The guy who created Sherlock Holmes, the most logical and rational detective of all time! You’d think that he would have more sense.”

  “Yes, I did know that,” I said shortly. It was a study period, and we were sitting opposite each other at a library table. Fiona sat at the next table, her nose buried in her history textbook, trying to pretend she wasn’t listening to every word we were saying. “Doyle’s son died in World War One,” I pointed out. “He was desperate to make contact with his spirit—”

  “Okay, but fairies?” He looked so outraged that I grinned and shrugged in agreement.

  “Fairies are a little out there,” I admitted, with a silent apology to Mrs. Winkle.

  “I’ll say. You might as well believe in hobbits,” he muttered before going back to his reading.

  Fiona caught my eye and gave an encouraging little nod. She had been delivering pep talks for several days about how I should use my study time with Jack to build a relationship of trust and mutual respect that would allow him to open up and share his feelings about his brother’s disappearance and perhaps help him reach some sort of closure, which is so vital to the grief process and absolutely necessary for future psychological growth . . . or something like that. My mind usually started to drift after about thirty seconds.

  I flipped through a history of western New York State but found nothing on Lily Dale. That book went into my reject pile, and I picked up the next one with a sigh. Our table was stacked high with books. I had grabbed every book on local history from the library shelves. They all had titles like The History of Western New York State from 1700 to the Present Day. And if the titles sounded boring, the actual books were even worse.

  The books on Jack’s side all had titles like Spiritualism Exposed: A History of Frauds and Cons Among Mediums, Psychics and Channelers. For the last fifteen minutes he had been reading out tidbits of information to demonstrate that any rational, thinking, sane person could never believe in ghosts.

  “Listen to this,” he said. He had opened a book titled The Skeptic’s Guide to Psychics. “‘Most psychics start a reading by quickly running down a list of general facts, such as “I see an older woman, perhaps a grandmother or aunt,” or “I sense that you’ve recently had a time of trouble.” These statements are so general that there’s a good chance that at least some aspect of them is true. Most people over the age of twenty, for example, have an older female relative who has died. The medium then watches for subtle body signals, such as eye movements, facial expressions, and unconscious nodding or shaking of the head. The medium then tailors the rest of his comments accordingly.’ ”

  I looked at Jack through narrowed eyes, trying to interpret his “subtle body signals.” Hmm . . . a gleeful grin as he read about a medium who used ventriloquism to impersonate spirit voices. An eager glance as he pushed Spiritualism Exposed across the table to me. A sarcastic roll of his eyes as he flipped through an old copy of Fate magazine (cover story: “Ghosts Made Me a Millionaire!”). If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say that maybe he was, oh, I don’t know . . . a skeptic?

  “Sounds like a lot of work,” I commented.

  “But worth it if you make a lot of money.” He flipped the page. “Did you know that Spiritualism started in Hydesville, New York? Two teenage girls—”

  “The Fox sisters,” I said wearily.

  He glanced up, surprised. “Yeah. You’ve heard of them?”

  “Of course.” I sounded testy, and Fiona shot me a warning glance, but I was getting impatient. The Fox sisters were as well known to mediums as George Washington is to the average American. In 1916 the Fox family’s house had even been moved to Lily Dale as an exhibit (it had burned down in 1955). “Back in 1848, a spirit started coming through to them with a message,” I continued, showing off a little. “He said he was a peddler who had been murdered and buried in the cellar. And then in 1904”—I gave Jack a significant look—“a skeleton was found in the cellar wall.”

  “But Margaret later said she and her sister had faked everything,” he said triumphantly. “She showed people how she cracked her toes to make it sound like ghosts were rapping on tables!” He grinned at me in a friendly manner. “Think you could do that?”

  “I have a lot of talents,” I said coolly. I wasn’t feeling friendly. “Cracking my toes isn’t one of them.”

  Fiona cleared her throat loudly at this response, but Jack just shrugged. “Too bad. I’d pay good money to see that. In fact I bet a lot of people would!” He put on a booming TV announcer voice. “You too could have a lucrative career as a psychic!”

  “I’d never try to fool people for money!” I closed my book with a bang. Fiona looked alarmed.

  “I never thought you would,” Jack said, puzzled.

  “I hate con artists! I hate fakes!” I could feel the pulse pounding in my temple and my face flushing with anger. In one small, distant part of my brain I realized that I was overreacting, but I didn’t care. “But what I really hate are narrow-minded, judgmental people who call other people fakes—”

  I was interrupted by the librarian, who was now standing over me. She looked as if she had a headache. “Perhaps,” she suggested with a forced smile, “we could keep it down to a dull roar over here?”

  “Sorry,” I murmured. I sank down in my chair and opened another book, carefully not looking at either Jack or Fiona. I had found this book, Guiding Spirits: The Life of a Medium, propping up one leg of a kitchen chair at home. It was written in the early 1900s by a Lily Dale resident who had channeled spirits for hundreds of people, including a few minor celebrities. I leafed through it, hoping that my eyes would magically stop at an interesting paragraph. After a few minutes I realized that this was a futile quest. I’m sure Anna May Dodds had a fascinating life, but she somehow made the telling of it duller than . . . well, than The History of Western New York State from 1700 to the Present Day.

  I sighed deeply and turned a few more pages until I found a photo of the medium sitting in a spirit cabinet. Her hands and feet were tied so that she couldn’t create mysterious noises by bouncing an apple on the floor, banging a tambourine under the table or snapping her fingers. Although, I thought bitterly, she could probably still crack her toes.

  I heard a slight cough from the next table.

  I turned the page and concentrated studiously on the text.

  Another cough, this time louder.

  I made a note to myself on a legal pad and kept reading.

  Now there was a series of racking coughs that culminated with a book falling off the table and landing on the floor near my foot.

  Resigned, I leaned down to pick it up. A piece of paper stuck out of the pages. I pulled the paper out and handed the book back to Fiona, who was unwrapping a cough drop with a look of utter innocence on her face.

  I unfolded the note. “Be sweet!!! Jack is reaching out to you!!! Seize The Moment!!!” It was signed with an enormous initial F and a hasty sketch of two intertwined hearts.

  I raised my eyebrows. Nine exclamation points. Clearly, attention must be paid.

  Jack leaned over the table to whisper, “So, um, have you found anything more about why Spiritualism was so popular around here a hundred years ago?” He casually picked up the biggest, heaviest book—Spirited Lives: Nineteenth-Century Mediums and Changing Views of the Afterlife—and moved it to the side of the table closest to Fiona.

  “Tons,” I whispered back, a little puzzled by this question. All I had been doing for the last hour, after all, was reading about that very subject. I watched as he took two more books and stacked them on top of Spirited Lives. “I think we need to find more dates, though. We don’t have much of a time line yet.”

  “No probl
em. I got a lot of stuff from this book,” he said, picking up another massive volume and putting it on top of the others.

  I could see Fiona eyeing the growing wall of books. The stack was now a foot high.

  Jack lowered his head toward the table so that the books blocked him from sight and gave a conspirator-ial wave to indicate that I should do the same.

  “What?” I whispered as I leaned toward him.

  “I think this library is far too crowded and noisy for serious research,” he said seriously. “Do you want to come over later to work on the project? We can do some Internet research on my computer, and I think we’ll have fewer, um”—he shifted his eyes in Fiona’s direction—“distractions.”

  “That’s a great idea,” I said.

  There was a small coughing fit from the next table.

  I ignored it.

  Chapter 19

  “Favorite ice-cream flavor?” Jack asked.

  “Vanilla,” I said, opting for honest.

  “That’s pathetic.” He smirked. “Mine’s pistachio.”

  “And that’s trying a little too hard to be interesting,” I countered.

  We were walking to Jack’s house after school. Somehow the conversation had moved easily from the Great Ghost Debate to What’s Your Favorite——? (fill in the blank). We had compared notes on favorite foods (mine: pot roast, Jack’s: sausage pizza), favorite words (mine: serendipity, Jack’s: effervescent), and, now, ice cream.

  “Favorite movie of all time?” I asked.

  “No contest. It’s gotta be—” Jack stopped suddenly. His smile vanished and was replaced by a tight-lipped glare. “Shit!”

  “What?” I followed his gaze and saw a chubby, balding man standing across the street, peering at us through black-framed glasses. “Who is that?”

  Jack took my elbow and began moving me faster toward the driveway, all the time glaring at the stranger as if he were a career criminal with bad intentions.

  The man didn’t seem that threatening. He wore a rumpled gray suit. His tie was loosened, and the side of his shirt was coming untucked. His shoulders slumped as if it took all his energy just to stand there. He looked like a mournful baby elephant.

  “Jack?” I said again. “Do you know him?”

  Jack looked at me as if he had just remembered that I was standing there. “No,” he said in a totally unconvincing manner. “Let’s go inside.” He was still holding on to my arm, and now he began steering me up the driveway.

  “Jack!” the man called out. I turned my head and saw that he was crossing the street in our direction. “I’d like to talk to you.” Even though he had raised his voice, he wasn’t yelling. He sounded reasonable, even friendly.

  “I think he wants to talk to you,” I said, unnecessarily.

  “I don’t want to talk to him.” Jack tightened his grip and walked faster, pulling me along like a guard marching a prisoner to a cell. “Hurry up.”

  As anyone in my family could have told him, the best way to make me do something was to command me to do the opposite. Especially if the command was issued in an edgy voice and accompanied by an impatient little jerk on my arm.

  I stopped walking and did my best to become a dead weight. He yanked on me again, but I didn’t budge.

  “Will you move?” he snapped, glancing over my shoulder.

  “Not unless you stop pulling on my arm!” I snapped back. “And you could say ‘please’ once in a while, you know.”

  “Fine!” He dropped my arm and took a step back, his arms held out as if to demonstrate to a crowd of onlookers that he was no longer trying to force me to go anywhere. “Will you please move?”

  By then, of course, it was too late. The man had reached us, huffing a bit (he really was too round for even a minor dash across a street). He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, mopped his forehead, and smiled genially at Jack.

  “Jack. Glad I caught you. You got a few minutes?”

  “No.” Jack turned to me but knew better than to grab my arm again. “C’mon, let’s go inside.”

  The man seemed unfazed by Jack’s rudeness. “I just thought I’d stop by, see how things were going for you,” he said calmly. “And for your family, of course. You’re all doing well?”

  “Yes.” Jack spit out his one-word answers as if he couldn’t stand the taste of them in his mouth.

  “Good, good.” The man sounded breezily unconvinced. His eyes seemed to sharpen a bit as he asked, “So, your dad’s doing well then?”

  Finally Jack swung around to face the man, his face blazing with anger. “We’re all fine, okay?” he shouted. “We’re great! And I’m not talking to you about my dad!”

  The man held up his hands in a calming gesture. He moved closer to Jack and lowered his voice. “I just want you to know that I’m available if you want to talk. Anytime. Day or night.”

  Jack’s hand clenched into a fist, and the man quickly stepped back, just as a car turned the corner. The driver swung into the driveway, fast, and braked hard enough to make the tires squeal.

  He turned off the engine and stepped out. “What’s going on here?” He was a thin man with graying hair, a stooping posture, and sad eyes. He looked at the strange man with barely concealed distaste. “Detective Calhoun. I thought I told you not to bother my family anymore.”

  “I just wanted to see how you folks were getting along,” the man said again.

  “Right,” said the driver, who I had cleverly deduced was Jack’s father. “You just happened to be driving by, twenty-five miles from home.”

  Detective Calhoun shrugged, a faint smile on his face. “I take cold cases very personally.”

  Mr. Dawson’s jaw tightened, but he said, calmly enough, “We’re doing as well as can be expected. Now, unless you have some news for us . . .”

  He left the question hanging. After a long pause the detective shrugged and shook his head. “No. No news.”

  Mr. Dawson nodded curtly, as if that had been just what he expected. “Then it’s time for us to have dinner. Good night.”

  He turned on his heel and marched to the door, with Jack following. I walked more slowly after them. As I reached the door, I turned to look over my shoulder.

  The detective hadn’t moved. He was standing at the end of the driveway, watching.

  We stood in a cavernous kitchen that was filled with shiny state-of-the-art appliances and absolutely no evidence that food was ever cooked or consumed there. Mr. Dawson stared down at the gleaming white tile floor, lost in thought. I heard a drop of water drip from the faucet into the stainless steel sink. It seemed to echo in the room.

  Finally Jack cleared his throat. “So, Dad—”

  Mr. Dawson looked up, startled. “Oh, sorry.” His voice was thin and gray and sad. “I was just thinking. . . .” The words trailed off as if he were too tired to remember what he was going to say.

  “This is Sparrow. She’s in my history class. We’re doing a project together.” Jack sounded as if he were reciting lines in a school play. Lines that did not inspire him at all.

  His father sounded as if he had been cast in the same dispiriting play. “Very nice to meet you, Sparrow. How are you enjoying school so far?”

  “It’s great,” I said woodenly. Oh, great. Now I was in the play, too. “I really like it.”

  “That’s good. School is important.” Mr. Dawson paused for a long, long moment. Was he waiting for his cue? Finally he nodded, as if remembering the next line, and went on. “What’s your favorite class?”

  “I like English. And history, of course.” I stopped. I would have kept talking if I could have, just to fill the overpowering silence, but my mind was completely blank. The atmosphere in that kitchen made me want to find a dark corner, curl up into a little ball, and weep for days.

  The three of us looked at one another, no one saying a word. Fortunately, Jack’s mother walked into the kitchen a few seconds later, carrying an empty wine-glass. She smiled brightly at all of us.

&nb
sp; “Sparrow, it’s lovely to see you again!” She reached across Mr. Dawson to pick up a wine bottle and filled her glass. “Would you like something to drink?” She gave a brittle laugh. “Not the Cabernet, of course! You have years before you’re ready for that! But we always keep lots of soda for the boys, so if you’re thirsty. . . .”

  I swear I felt Jack flinch when she said “the boys.”

  “No, thank you, I’m fine,” I blurted. “But we should probably get started on our project. My mother wants me home before dinner.”

  A complete and utter lie, of course. There was a reading tonight in the parlor, so my family would assume that I was hiding in my room, as usual. But Jack seized on this excuse, his face practically incandescent with relief.

  “No problem. We should be done in an hour.” To his parents, he added, “We’ll be working on the computer in my room,” and then moved toward the door.

  “Door open,” his father called after us. I gritted my teeth with embarrassment and carefully avoided looking at Jack.

  His mother called after us, “Well, let me know if you get hungry. We have lots of snacks, too. In fact, the pantry is full of chips and cookies. Or you could microwave some popcorn—”

  I had already edged out the door. I glanced back and saw Jack put his hand on his mother’s arm.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” he said softly.

  She looked at him, and he nodded reassuringly. “We’re fine.”

  She sighed, and I could see her shoulders relax and her smile become a real smile, not the painfully bright and false one that she had been using. “Yes, I know. I do.”

  He patted her arm again and came toward me. Over his shoulder I saw Mrs. Dawson’s smile slip as she took another sip of wine.

  The first thing I noticed about Jack’s bedroom was all the maps. I felt a little shock of recognition as I saw them, papered onto the wall behind his desk, floor to ceiling. “Cool maps,” I said, walking to get a closer look. Colorado. Wyoming. Utah. Montana.

  “Thanks.” He reached around me, his hand brushing my arm, to turn on his computer.