by Foxglove Lee
The others nodded, which was nice of them. Made me feel a little less flighty.
“Tell me, now…” Setting her hand on my shoulder, Marcie bowed down to my height. “What did it look like?”
Weird question. “It looked the same as all the other ones I’ve seen.”
The townspeople gasped and whispered while Marcie asked, “You’ve seen others?”
“Sure. There are tons in the city.”
“I guess that makes sense,” an older man said. “More people in the city.”
“Did it make a banging noise?” the bearded barbeque guy asked.
“No, more like a growl.”
The boy with the ferret stared at me for a moment before asking, “Was it more like a mist or was it solid like a person?”
“Huh?”
These small town people really were weird.
Marcie reinforced the boy’s question. “Was the ghost hazy, or did it look just like you or me?”
“Wait, what?” I asked. “What ghost?”
“The ghost in the cupboard,” Marcie replied.
I laughed, even though I knew that sounded mean. “I didn’t see a ghost in the cupboard. I saw a raccoon in the cupboard. Why would you think I saw a ghost?”
I took a step back and browsed the curious faces of Erinville. They seemed disappointed. And then Marcie said, “That’s why we’re here, dearie. Didn’t your father tell you his house was haunted?”
Chapter Four
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “My father lives in a haunted house and he never told me?”
“He probably didn’t want to upset you,” Marcie said, brushing my bangs out of my eyes.
“But I’m staying here for Christmas. He should have told me.”
The woman sitting beside Marcie shook her head. “Your daddy don’t buy into none ‘a this ghost business. That’s why he didn’t tell ‘ya, kid.”
I was too old for my dad to be keeping things from me just because they might be upsetting. That’s what you do with little kids. I wasn’t a little kid anymore.
But the more I thought about, the more exciting it seemed. I got to spend Christmas in a haunted house! I’d never seen a ghost, but I’d always secretly wanted to.
“Why does everyone think it’s haunted?” I asked Marcie.
“Because every time out-of-towners step in and buy the place, they wind up abandoning it a few months later.”
“You’ve been inside,” Marcie’s friend added. “You’ve seen the state of the place. Needs fixing up, but that’s the thing about spirits: they don’t like remodelling. Wakes ‘em up. Gets ‘em agitated. That’s when they come outta the walls and creep folks out.”
“Is that why everybody’s here?” I asked. “You’re all waiting to see a ghost?”
“We don’t know what we’re waiting for, exactly,” said the barbeque beard man. “None of those city slickers stayed long enough to tell a soul what they seen.”
“My dad’s not a city slicker,” I said. “He was born in this town.”
A few people grumbled, but nobody outwardly argued. Maybe Amy the Architect had been right: the people of Erinville didn’t take kindly to anyone who left town, even if it was only for a little while.
“So, you didn’t see a ghost in there?” Marcie’s friend asked.
“No,” I said. “But I’ve only been here five seconds. Maybe I will. You never know.”
Barbeque beard man nodded. “Want a hot dog?”
I checked my pockets for spare change, but I only had a dime and three pennies. My wallet was in the house. The man didn’t have a price list up like the vendors in the city, so I asked, “How much?”
He laughed and so did all the other people camped out on my father’s lawn. Then the man said, “I’m not selling them, kid. Just sharing what I got. That’s how we do things around here.”
I must have looked like a city slicker extraordinaire, but no sense being embarrassed. I took him up on the offer. He’d set up a little table beside the barbeque with ketchup, mustard, relish and lots of napkins. When I’d finished dressing my dog, a lady with a baby offered me her lawn chair. I wasn’t going to take it, but she said her baby was fussing and she needed to get back anyway.
Sitting on someone else’s lawn all day seemed like a pretty weird pastime, but I could kind of see the appeal. My chair was on the outer edge of the grouping, where the lawn petered out and the forest took over. While I ate my hot dog, I eavesdropped on conversations about people I didn’t know. I’d seen small-town gossip in movies, but I didn’t think it was a real thing. It was.
When I’d eaten everything but my ketchup-stained napkin, I walked around to the side of the house to see if that’s where my dad kept the trash cans. He hadn’t exactly given me the grand tour. His garbage was right where we had ours at home: beside the house, with two big stones on the lid to keep out the raccoons. Apparently, around here, that just drove them into the kitchen cupboards.
“Hello,” said a voice so close behind me I actually gasped as I spun around. The girl stepped back, chuckling sweetly as her shiny ringlets bobbed against her cheeks. “Did I frighten you?”
“No,” I said, to save face. “Well, yeah, a little. But only because of all the ghost talk.”
“You must be Sylvie. I’m Celeste.” When she introduced herself, she placed her hand on her heart. She wore white leather gloves and a red cape, which made her look like something you’d seen on an old-timey Christmas card. “I’ve so been looking forward to meeting you. I heard you were coming for the holidays.”
“Wow, word sure gets around.” I tossed my garbage in the can, then set the stones back on the lid. “Are you from England?”
She looked a little confused and shook her head.
“Australia?” I asked. “I’m not good with accents.”
Laughing she said, “Hardly.”
“Scotland?”
“No.”
“Ireland?”
She shook her head again, sending curls flying this way and that.
“I give up. Where are you from?”
“I was born right here in Erinville,” she said.
This time I was the one shaking my head. “Small towns are weird. You talk so different from people in the city. And you look all nice and proper.”
“You look quite fine as well.”
“Thanks.” I looked at my pea coat, which wasn’t particularly in style. My mom said it reminded her of the Beatles. “A lot of girls at my school want NBA starter jackets for Christmas. I don’t get it. They’re so big and bulky.”
Celeste smiled, but didn’t say anything.
“Celeste—that’s a really pretty name. Sounds like a Disney character: Princess Celeste.”
“Hardly.” She smiled bashfully. “But I appreciate the compliment. Have you explored the woods yet?”
“No, I just got here. My dad said we could cut down a Christmas tree, though.”
Celeste’s eyes lit up. “I know the perfect one. Come, I’ll show you.”
When she reached for my hand, I let her lead me toward a path cut out between a pair of pine trees. Even through my clunky wool mittens, I could feel the softness of her leather glove. Her boots were leather too. They looked really expensive, but she had no problem tramping through mud and sticks and snow. Imagine that: a princess who didn’t mind getting her shoes dirty.
Her pace was too quick for me, but I powered through. I had to concentrate hard on lifting my foot fully over rocks and fallen branches. The last thing I wanted to do was trip and make a fool of myself again.
Had Celeste seen me fall by the car?
We ducked under evergreens so thick and full they nearly blocked out the winter sun. It was like a secret world, the world beneath the pine boughs. The trees out here were old and tall. We could stand easily beneath them without hitting our heads.
“You’re not thinking one of these should be our Christmas tree,” I said, touching the trunk of a tall pine.
“If our house was ten times the size, it still wouldn’t be big enough.”
Celeste chuckled sweetly. Her cheeks were rosy from the pace we’d kept and she said, “No, that tree is still a ways off. Only, I thought perhaps you might benefit from a rest.”
“Me?” I said, trying not to pant too hard. “No, I’m fine. We can keep going.”
“Only, I wanted to show you my special spot before we passed it by.” Celeste sat on a log that had been stripped bare of bark. “This is where I come when I want to be alone.”
“Isn’t it on my father’s property, though?”
“I suppose it is… now.” She looked at me curiously. “Your father seems like a kind man. He wouldn’t eject me from his property, would he?”
“Doubt it, unless you’re littering or setting forest fires.”
Celeste smiled mysteriously. “Nothing like that. I only come here because it’s so peaceful, like my own little home.”
“Sure, if you’re a Keebler Elf,” I said.
She stared at me blankly.
“The TV commercials? With the elves? They bake cookies in a tree?”
Celeste shrugged, then asked, “What is wrong with your leg? You have an odd sort of limp when you walk.”
“Yeah, thanks for pointing it out.” Leaning against a tree, I kicked the rust-coloured pine needles. “I have this thing called drop-foot. I’m supposed to wear a brace, but I left it at home.”
“What kind of brace?” Celeste asked.
I’m not sure why I was telling her this stuff. With most people, I would have told them to mind their own business. “My brace is plastic. It supports the back of my calf, then scoops down past my ankle and goes under the bottom of my foot.”
“How does it stay put?”
“There’s a strap at the top,” I told her. “It goes around my leg, just under my knee.”
She stared at my leg, even though I wasn’t wearing my brace. “Does it go on top of your clothing?”
“No, it goes under. Well, under my pants but over my socks. If I don’t wear high socks it rubs against my skin and cuts in after a while.”
I thought about the Christmas socks Amy the Architect gave me.
“Does it pain you?” Celeste asked.
“What, the brace or the drop-foot?”
“Drop-foot,” Celeste said.
“Nah, it’s not like that. It’s because of a pinched nerve, but that doesn’t hurt either. It just makes it so I can’t really feel my foot the way I should. I kind of can’t lift my toes off the ground right. That’s why I walk funny.”
“What is the cause of this disorder?”
I laughed at her phrasing. “You sound like a doctor. But I don’t know what caused it. I wasn’t born like this. One day I just noticed my leg felt a little weird. Then my big sister Naomi told me I was walking funny. I figured it would go away on its own. When it didn’t, my mom dragged me to the doctor.”
“And is there no remedy?”
“The brace holds my foot in position, but I’m sick of wearing it. Anyway, I don’t know why people make such a big deal about it. I fall a bunch of times if I rush around, but so what? There are worse things in life.”
She looked away and said, “Yes…”
In a way I was relieved that she’d stopped asking questions about my stupid foot, but at the same time it made me nervous that she’d gone so quiet. “So tell me about this ghost in my father’s house,” I said. “What have you heard?”
Celeste looked up at me with her eyes wide open, like the thought scared her. “According to town gossip, every time a new buyer tries to fix the place up, they leave it barren before the work is ever done.”
“Why?” I asked, taking a seat beside her on the log. “Do they hear footsteps? Do they see apparitions? Oh my God, is there a poltergeist? It must be something really scary if they abandon a house they just bought.”
“People often are frightened by perfectly blameless matters.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. As I sat beside her, winter’s chill crept into my bones. The day was so mild I hadn’t felt cold until that moment. In fact, after wearing my coat on the bus and in Amy’s car and my dad’s new house, I’d even been a little sweaty. But not anymore.
When I shivered, Celeste put her arm around my shoulder to warm me up. It didn’t help. The chill had gone right into my spine.
“Maybe I should have stayed home with my brothers and sisters.” I hugged myself to keep out the cold. “Christmas is going to be so boring with just my dad. For some reason I thought it would be exciting to come here to Erinville. Boy, was I wrong about that. Where are we even going to cook the turkey? His kitchen is full of raccoons!”
“You mustn’t fret,” Celeste said. “Your father loves you—that much is obvious. You have no idea how lucky you are.”
I turned my head to look at the strange girl, but her face was too close to mine. She was just a blur. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to ask what she meant, because it gave me a bad feeling, like a knot in my stomach.
“Your father seems like the sort of man who would accept you no matter your whims.”
“Yeah, I guess so…”
“Even if those whims were rather unconventional.”
Celeste inched closer and hugged me tighter. Her arm was like a vice around my shoulder. That was the first time I thought about how I didn’t know this girl. I trusted her because she seemed sweet and innocent, but was she? Maybe she was an axe-murderer like Lizzie Borden.
“Sylvie?” she asked. “You live in the city, isn’t that right?”
I squirmed beside her but she didn’t let go. “Yeah. So?”
“I wonder if perhaps you have a sweetheart back home.”
“Me? No way. I have a best friend, Zachary, and the other kids used to think we were secretly girlfriend and boyfriend, but we weren’t. If you ask me, it’s pretty stupid that kids our age say they’re going out, because it’s not like they ever go anywhere. They sit across from each other in science class and that makes them a couple?” After bashing the institution of dating, I wondered why she was asking me. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
Her face was still a too-close blur, but I’m sure I saw a grin cross her lips as she said, “Goodness, no…”
“I don’t know why anyone would want a boyfriend. Like the girls in my class, the ones who have boyfriends, some of them are too scared to even talk to the guy! What’s the point of that?”
Suddenly Celeste’s face was against my face. At first I didn’t realize what was happening. Then I felt her lips on my lips and my body froze solid. What was she doing? Was she… was she… kissing me? Why would she do a thing like that?
Summoning all my strength, I pushed her away so hard she landed on the carpet of pine needles. I shot to my feet. My heart was thumping like a drum. In fact, that’s all I could hear. Until my voice intruded and I yelled at her: “What are you doing, you freak?”
She stared up at me. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t even blink.
I wiped my lips hard. There wasn’t even any saliva or lip gloss on them, but I brushed them again and again with my mitten just to make a point. “What’s wrong with you? Why would you do that?”
“I felt as though you wanted me to,” she said, sounding quiet and very hurt.
I yelled, “Well I didn’t want you to. You must be crazy if you thought I did. Don’t ever come near me again!” I kicked through the neat carpet of pine needles, but turned around before ducking out of Celeste’s shelter. “And stay off my father’s property. This secret spot is mine now!”
I’d said that just to hurt her. I’d seen in her eyes how much she loved the place, and I really wanted her to suffer. But I wasn’t sticking around to watch her cry. I had to get as far away from Celeste as humanly possible. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so mean, but I couldn’t help it.
So I took off through the woods, hoping I was heading in the right direction. I ran as fast as my
leg would let me. And I only tripped twice…
Chapter Five
I woke up in the morning thinking about that kiss. I woke up reliving it in my mind. My first kiss! My first one ever and it had to be with a weird girl I barely knew. It was strange, but I’d never been able to picture myself kissing anyone. I’d never wanted to.
Why couldn’t I stop thinking about it?
As I rolled over on my lumpy, pokey straw mattress, I forced my brain to change the subject. I forced myself to think about the dinner my dad had brought home the night before, which sat like a brick at the base of my belly. I figured he’d get a pizza or Chinese food, but his version of take-out was a little different from what I was expecting.
Apparently the people who worked at Great-Aunt Esther’s old age home were really fond of my dad. He was the only person who visited a relative every single day. They probably felt sorry for him too, considering what his kitchen looked like. So every day they let him stay for dinner, and yesterday they packed it up to go—enough for me, too.
The food was gross: mystery meat concealed under gelatinous gravy, overcooked vegetables, watery mashed potatoes. I don’t know how my dad could stomach it.
Maybe he couldn’t afford any better.
As I tried to get a few more minutes’ sleep in my lumpy bumpy bed, I heard a rumbling noise. At first I thought maybe it was coming from my stomach, but then it got louder. Maybe the house was haunted after all! Maybe all those people camped outside would finally get a glimpse at something supernatural!
And then my bed started to shake.
I bolted upright and struggled for my clothes. The evening had been warm so we didn’t light any fires in the fireplaces, but the temperature must have dropped overnight because now my bedroom was freezing cold. When I’d bundled up in layers of tights and jeans and tops and sweaters, I rushed from my room to see what was causing such a racket.
My father came out of his bedroom at exactly the same time, putting on a top one of Great-Aunt Esther’s old lady friends had knitted him. It looked like those hideous dad-sweaters from the sitcoms.
“What’s happening?” I asked. “What’s that noise?”