by Leah Weiss
Lu says to me, “Do you know that Chrysler in Detroit, Michigan, stopped making civilian cars two years back? That’s when they switched to making tanks for the war effort, and poor Uncle Nigel hasn’t had a new car since. The Hollingstons have been a Chrysler family since 1925, haven’t you, Uncle Nigel? Tell Bert about the Chryslers you’ve had.”
I wanna smack her upside the head, cause that’s what Uncle Nigel starts doing the whole ride. “Well, let me see… that first Chrysler was a Model 70 with six cylinders…” I don’t look at Lu, cause I’m miffed at her thinking I give two hoots about fancy cars, but I look out my side window as we glide cross the river, past the courthouse with the flag flying and the Majestic advertising National Velvet that me and Lu is gonna see next Saturday, past the Hollingston Pharmacy and Soda Fountain, cross the railroad tracks and First Baptist, then we there. Things look different from inside a Chrysler. My kind don’t belong in a Chrysler.
Up close I can tell the house is too big for two people, and I think that’s why Aunt Fanniebelle gets lost inside her head talking scatterbrained. We pull into the driveway easy, and their yardman rakes leaves from under bushes and cuts little bitty branches and puts em in a pile. He waves, and Uncle Nigel waves. We step outta the car, and I get a gander at the red brick and wide porch, and it hurts my neck to look up so tall.
We don’t come in the front door like company. We come in the side door like family, and we hear a piano playing, and I follow Lu running through big rooms and find little Aunt Fanniebelle playing “When the Saints Go Marching In” on a long black piano. Me and Lu start singing, and my throat gets a knot in it from joy I almost forgot, and I sing to lift my heart, and Lu grabs my hands and we take to dancing, and we spin and twirl, and my chocolate birthday cake Mama made special gets agitated, and I puke on Lu and on the rug and on my new green coat.
The piano playing stops, and Aunt Fanniebelle lets fly. “Lord’a mercy, child.”
I wanna die. “I’m sorry, so sorry.” And somebody from the back of the house comes with wet rags they hand me so I can wipe off my clothes, and we follow Aunt Fanniebelle up long stairs, me holding the rag to my mouth, leaving behind my mess on the floor for somebody else to clean.
She says, “A soak in a tub’s gonna do y’all a world a good. Should’ve thought about that when you first came.”
I wonder who’s gonna haul hot water up these long stairs, then I see hot water come out a spigot in a white tub big as a Chrysler. Aunt Fanniebelle pours pink syrup that bubbles in the tub, and the water grows deep and sweet.
“Give me your clothes, and don’t fret. I seen y’all naked as jailbirds and bout as helpless as a kumquat with that sickness. If the water turns cold”—she points—“turn this thingy here for more hot water. I’ll fetch you robes and towels.” She leaves, taking the mess with her and closing the door, and on the back is a mirror that catches me and Lu looking back, me with my mouth open, flummoxed at hot water from a spigot and pink bubbles, and seeing me and Lu necked side by side, looking different but the same.
Lu turns shy and says, “Let’s get in before we catch cold.” We sink into suds up to our necks and water that’s warm. Then Lu says, “Hold your nose and close your eyes.” We go under to a silent place. When I can’t help it, I come up for air, giggling like a fool. We wash each other’s hair and each other’s back.
“How rich are these relations of yours?” I whisper. “Do they make their own money?”
“No, silly. I’ve never heard what they’re worth, but they aren’t uppity, so that counts.”
“You said this place got secrets. What kind?”
“A dead body. Buried in the wall.”
“Who said that?”
“Aunt Fanniebelle’s daughter, Patricia, who’s up North at Cornell University. It’s spelled like the Cornell who helps put in tobacco, but he doesn’t have a thing to do with the university. It was when this house was being built in 1915. One of the workers got killed. They buried him in the wall.”
“Which wall?” I look at the one so close I can touch and wonder.
“She didn’t say, but he might be buried right here.” Lu’s hand trembles as she lays it on the wall, then snaps it back, scared.
“What? What’d you feel?” I might puke again.
“A heartbeat. I swear it was a heartbeat. An ice-cold heartbeat. Lub-dub, lub-dub…”
Right then, there’s a tap on the door, and we near bout jump outta our skins. It opens a crack, and Aunt Fanniebelle reaches in to put towels and robes on the floor. “Y’all get out when you’re ready. You can find me in my dressing room.”
Lu giggles cause she scared me. She pulls the plug, and the water starts gurgling out, and I know she was fooling bout that heartbeat. “You a mean girl,” I tease, and we step out on the softest rug and dry off with fat towels and put on white robes that hang to the floor and socks to keep our feet warm. I whisper, “I know the heartbeat was pretend, but is the dead body true?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die. That’s what Patricia said.”
We comb our wet hair and let it hang down the backs of the robes. We open the bathroom door, and Aunt Fanniebelle calls out, “I’m here, I’m here,” over and over, and we follow her voice through rooms and rooms till we find her in one filled with girly things. Even the ceiling’s got paper roses on it.
“What is this place?” I say.
“This here’s my dressing room, and nobody comes in except by invitation, and you girls get an invite cause it’s your birthdays.” She sits at a gold table holding bowls of necklaces and brooches and bangle bracelets like the ones Trula Freed wears. A silver brush and comb are beside a hand mirror. A blue glass hand stands up, and every finger has got a stack of rings. There’s hats lined up neat on shelves and silk scarves hanging on hooks. Dresses are on padded hangers, not pegs, and shoes are in boxes I can see inside.
I say, “You know where everything is? Where it come from? What you need it for?”
“I do.” She reaches over my shoulder and pulls out a green shawl with fringe and peacocks made of sparkly beads and silk threads on the back. “Take this here. It came from the French District in New Orleans in a shop not much bigger than this dressing room. When the saleslady held it up and Nigel got a gander at these sparkly peacocks, he said ‘Sold,’ and he slipped it around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. Thirty years have passed, and I can still see the gaslights on the streets, the lovely iron works on balconies with French doors open to humid air that’s different from here. I still feel Nigel’s sweetness. I love that possessions carry memories. Want to touch it?”
I rub my fingers over sparkly beads held tight by stitches tiny as quilting.
Two lamps hang on the wall beside the mirror that holds the three of us looking in, Lu and me fourteen and scrubbed clean, and Aunt Fanniebelle old. She watches us in the mirror, her eyes like dark dimes. “We near bout lost you,” she starts soft. “It was a fright to behold, the sucking power of it,” and we know she’s talking bout the sickness.
“At the start, we went through a block of ice a day, packing all y’all in ice chips to bring down the fevers that could boil blood and burn a brain. Tiny Junior did the hauling every morning, and we never ran out of ice when we needed it.
“Then there was the everyday pile of bed linens and towels needing washing and drying, and wood chopped for heat, and every believer in Riverton praying for the Browns, and you wheezed through the nights and moaned through the days, but y’all wouldn’t get better.
“Trula Freed never missed a day mixing teas and making broths, but one day when she came, she was carrying six jars of purple honey. She said, ‘This honey came to this place for a reason,’ and not even Doc Robertson spoke against her when she started giving each of you a spoonful three times a day till the fever went away and the rattle in your chest stopped.
“Y’all were lik
e Lazaro rising from the dead. It was a miracle.”
Lu quietly says “Lazarus,” and even I know who that is.
Aunt Fanniebelle rises from the stool and stands between us, a half head shorter than us. She rests her knotty hand on my arm. “Bert, I’m sorry I threw too much joy your way and got you sick when you first came today. We need to start small, even with music and singing and dancing. Why don’t you girls pick out a bauble for your birthday from these bowls, get dressed, and come on down when you’re done. The real jewels are locked in the safe. It’s teatime.”
When only two faces look back in that mirror, we sift through jewelry, looking for the right one. “Wonder when we’ll see the real jewels?” I whisper.
“Maybe next birthday.” Lu grins and slides big rings on every finger. We sort through earrings and brooches, then find the perfect birthday gifts and go to Patricia’s room to get dressed. A storm has been building while the puke on our clothes got sponged off and we were in Aunt Fanniebelle’s dressing room, picking out our presents. We see the storm out the window when we walk down the stairs wearing our bangle bracelets like Trula Freed. Mine slides up and down my arm, rubbing the hairs. I ain’t never gonna take it off.
We don’t go to the piano room for teatime. We go to the sunroom with windows on three sides where we see the mean storm clouds up close. Tall candles burn, sitting on the window ledges all around the room in case the electricity goes out. Aunt Fanniebelle is at the table fit for a queen. She pours tea from a silver teapot that tips down to pour. It’s got a chain sticking out the top like a necklace. When I touch it, Aunt Fanniebelle opens the top and takes out a silver ball. She says, “It’s an infuser. It holds tea leaves. You put it in the hot water till the tea steeps right. The darker the color, the stronger the tea.” She sets the dripping infuser on a dish where the brown tea pools.
Uncle Nigel sticks his head in the door. “We got a big storm coming. I’ll take supper in the study, Fannie, then retire. Happy birthday, ladies.”
On a plate with little legs, darling cakes are stacked. Chocolate, strawberry, and buttercream are decorated with sugar flowers. I count fourteen for me and fourteen for Lu. They the prettiest little bites I ever did see. Everything in this place is rich. Nothing looks like a war’s going on and ration coupons matter and people go without. There’s a birthday candle in each cake, and Aunt Fanniebelle lights all twenty-eight and sings “Happy Birthday” in a wobbly voice and tells us to make a wish. Like always, my wish is that I can be good enough. I wonder what Lu wished for, since she’s got everything. Maybe she wishes she was Nancy Drew.
Aunt Fanniebelle pours tea and puts a pressed napkin in my lap. “Your tummy feeling better? You want to drink the tea first to settle it. We’ll wait to dance another day.”
“I’m fine,” I lie, then blurt out Lu’s secret. “Patricia told Lu a man died building this house and got buried in the wall.” Lu glares at me for telling her secret without asking, but I need to know. A dead body buried in a wall means ghosts in the night. I can’t sleep with ghosts close by. “Is it true?”
“Well, yes and no.” Aunt Fanniebelle plops back and thinks. “A man did die building this house that I can recollect. He fell from the roof because his harness rope broke. It was a terrible accident that made me sad to come here for a while, but no, they didn’t bury him in the walls. That would be cruel. He got buried with his people. Patricia is mistaken.” Aunt Fanniebelle sets her lips firm. “You might be thinking of one of your Nancy Drew stories about a whispering wall or wishing well.”
“Or I might not,” Lu says in a bit of a huff. “You know I love Nancy Drew dearly, but I’m not good at being a detective. I want to succeed at solving mysteries, but when Bert and I investigate and uncover a good clue, we find trouble instead of approval. Mama and Daddy don’t understand how hard it is.”
“Nonsense. You got an analytical brain that puzzles things out. What you need is a little help.”
“What kind of help?” Lu says, and that hurts my feelings, acting like I’m not the help.
“Maybe Ouija can help.”
“Weegee?” we both say when a bolt of lightning strikes and thunder claps overhead and the windows shake. That storm has arrived.
Aunt Fanniebelle says, “Go to the parlor and look in the bottom of that walnut secretary. Bring the box that’s got O-U-I-J-A on top.” Lu goes to look, and I go, too, while her aunt talks a little louder. “The name comes from the French and German words for yes. Oui and Ja. Do you see it?”
“We got it,” I shout. Lu lets me carry it.
“Help me make room, girls,” and teatime gets moved. “Now this here is a spirit board that will give you answers from a mystifying oracle. Either of you seen one before?” We shake our heads while she opens the box and takes out a wooden board. Painted on it are the letters of the alphabet, numbers from zero to nine, and Yes and No. The sun is in one corner and the moon in the other. Good Bye is at the bottom.
“How does Weegee work?” Lu says.
“It takes two open-minded, curious souls to connect to the spirit world. Scoot your chairs so you’re directly across from each other. This pointer, this planchette with the circle window in the middle, that’s the key to enter the portal and get answers. Both of you rest all ten fingertips on it—but don’t press down hard—and ask it a question. Let’s start simple to see if the spirits are willing to let you in. Bert, ask it if it’s your birthday.”
“That’s plain silly cause you know it is,” I say, but when I see she means it, I do like she says. Me and Lu’s fingertips barely touch the pointer, and I say, “Spirit, is today my birthday?” and the pointer goes flying across the board to Yes and shocks the bejesus outta me. We both pull our fingers back like they got burned.
“Did you push it?” I say to Lu, and I can tell she’s spooked. She shakes her head but won’t touch the pointer. “You sure?”
“I swear I did not push it, Bert. Did you?” and I shake my head, too.
“Okay, that’s a good sign,” Aunt Fanniebelle says. “The spirits have let you in. Now you can ask something you don’t know.”
Lu says, nervous, “I think Bert should go first since she’s older by seven days,” but I can tell she’s scared to put her fingers on that runaway pointer.
I’m scared, too, but I don’t quit. “Come on,” I say. “Put your fingers up and don’t be a sissy.” When she does, I say quick, “Spirit, who’s gonna be my first love?” and Lu rolls her eyes. A crash of thunder booms overhead, and I get the willies in my belly, but our fingertips stay on that pointer. It don’t move for the longest time, like it’s making up its mind, but then it slides over F and stops. Then over the T and stops. It don’t move again.
I pull my fingers back and say, “F T?”
“Maybe they’re initials. Like mine would be LB for Lucy Brown and FH for Fanniebelle Hollingston. Do you know any FT?”
“No, but maybe we ain’t met yet. I got time.”
Right then, hard rain bashes against the windows in sheets and startles my heart. The electric lights flicker and go out. The room is lit only with the tall candles. It’s downright spooky.
Lu says, “Let’s ask about that dead body Patricia says is buried in the wall.”
When the pointer goes to No right away, Aunt Fanniebelle says, “Told you so.”
We got one question we need to ask. It’s that missing man mystery what’s bamboozled us for months. “You ask it, Lu.”
She clears her throat and puts on her serious face, and we lay our fingertips down light. “Spirit, where is Larry Crumbie?”
The pointer acts like it’s sleeping, and the rain beats down, and our fingertips barely touch the pointer, waiting for the spirit to do the job. I think the storm is causing trouble, but then it moves slow as a turtle to the letter H. Is that for a town? A fishing river?
Then it moves slow as cold molasses
to the O, and Aunt Fanniebelle joins in the guessing part. “H O. Could stand for Hollins County, or Hopewell or Hogtown maybe.”
Then, like it’s tired of taking its time, the pointer floats to the M and to the E and knocks the living daylights outta us.
Weegee says Larry Crumbie is HOME. Same as what Trula Freed said. He go nowhere.
Chapter 25
Lucy: Miracle
Bert and I are enlightened, in awe, and mystified all at once. Later that night, we huddle under covers in that big bed at the top of the stairs at Aunt Fanniebelle’s where the storm rattles windows and lightning rips the sky. This is the best birthday I’ve ever had because Bert and I have been granted entrance into a spirit portal. We now have a tool to confirm truths that will make detective work easier. But we learned this evening that petty questions are not worthy of Weegee’s power, and the oracle might give us a trick answer. For example, when I asked her who I would marry, she begrudgingly spelled out ARM, which doesn’t make sense. What does an appendage have to do with true love? But we now know where Weegee lives: in a box, on a shelf, in the belly of the walnut secretary.
The next morning, before we go down to breakfast, Bert and I pinky swear that we’ll not abuse this power. We’ll only call upon Weegee when we have serious need. And we promise to keep her existence to ourselves. If Mama struggled with the mystery of Trula Freed, how would she feel about a spirit portal we are willing to walk through for truth’s sake? We are changed girls who return home with bangle bracelets on our wrists and a secret in our hearts. We wear an air of confidence as our health mends in the coming weeks, and we wean ourselves of afternoon naps. Only Lydia remains weak and still sleeps for long spells and worries us. Then Daddy remembers the last jar of purple honey in the barn, and now Lydia gets a spoonful every meal. The jar is half empty, and Lydia is half healed.
We are all well enough to yearn for spice to our winter days that drag into mid-February when a genuine miracle happens—Irene meets a man who’s good enough.