Revived Spirits (16 page)

The full moon is bright, and when we reach Minnie’s cabin, the spaces between the logs give off a silver glow. “Miranda, you and Abigail go in first,” Granny orders.

Since I was knocked flat the last time I tried to walk through Minnie’s doorway, I decide to ask permission to enter. Standing outside, I call, “Miss Minnie, it’s Miranda and Abigail. May we come in?”

There’s a huge whoosh, and a force like a huge pocket of wind sucks me forward and dumps me on the floor of the cabin. I panic because the wind pulled Abigail’s mirror from my hand, but then I see that it also must have pulled Abigail from the mirror. She’s landed
spraddled
beside me and starts rearranging her position and her dress to look ladylike.

Minnie sits before us like a giant queen on a throne, puffing on her corncob pipe and glaring at us with her jet-black eyes. John Henry, as creepy as I remembered him, is perched on her lap, playing cat’s cradle with a piece of string.

“The mama and the granny can come in,” Minnie says, still puffing. “But the
menfolk
has to stay outside.”

I would feel a lot better if Adam could come in too. “Why does John Henry get to stay? He’s a boy too,” I say.

“John Henry stays for two reasons.” Miss Minnie’s tone is sharp. “One, ’cause he
ain’t
alive, and two, ’cause I say so. Now, did you come here to argue with me, or did you come here to get sealed to your spirit?”

“To get sealed to my spirit, ma’am.” I look back at Mom and Granny and at Adam and Dave who are just shadows outside the doorway.

“John Henry, draw the circle,” Minnie says.

John Henry puts down his string and climbs down off Minnie’s lap. He disappears behind Minnie’s chair and then comes out with a cloth drawstring bag. He waves his hands at us.

“He wants
you’uns
to scoot back,” Miss Minnie says.

We scoot. John Henry reaches into the bag and pulls out a big piece of chalk, the kind little kids use to make hopscotch boards. He squats down and draws a big circle on the floor. When he reaches into the bag again, he brings out a knife. It’s big and sharp and hooked, a hunting knife. I let out a little gasp, thinking of its blade against my skin. He sets the knife in the center of the circle.

The next item in the bag makes Abigail gasp. It’s another knife, a shiny dagger encrusted with green jewels. But the shine of the dagger is a strange glow, and the blade and the handle are translucent.

“It’s from the spirit realm,” Abigail whispers to me before Miss Minnie shushes her.

John Henry sets the dagger on top of the hunting knife so the two blades form an “X” shape.

“Come inside the circle,” Minnie says, setting down her pipe. “But once you’re in, there’s no going back.”

“Are you sure you want to do this, Miranda?” Mom asks.

I don’t look back because I can tell from her voice she’s crying. “I’m sure.”

I take Abigail’s cold hand in my sweaty one, and we step inside the circle.

“On your knees,” Miss Minnie says.

When we get on our knees, we’re at eye level with John Henry. He grins at us with his tiny teeth, and it’s horrible.

Miss Minnie grunts, pulling herself up by the armrests of her extra-wide rocking chair and rising to her feet. She’s a mountain of a woman, broad and tall. She reaches for a wooden walking stick carved with a snake coiling around its length. Using the stick for support, she steps inside the circle, towering over John Henry.

Minnie closes her eyes, and when she opens them, the black irises have disappeared, leaving only the whites. She lifts the stick and chants,

“When Eve’s curse is to start

Girl and spirit are bound to part.

 But to stop the spirit’s flight,

These two souls in blood unite.”

Her voice sounds like it’s coming from deep within and far away at the same time. “John Henry, the daggers,” she says.

Giggling, John Henry picks up the knives and gives the ghostly one to Abigail and the all-too-real one to me.

Minnie says,

“Wounds that touch once blood is shed

Unite the living and the dead.”

Minnie holds out her arm and makes a slashing motion across it.

“Don’t cut deep, Miranda!” Mom yells. “Stay away from the veins!”

She doesn’t have to tell me. I pull back my sleeve and stretch out my left forearm. My right hand shakes holding the knife. For a second I’m sure I can’t do it, but then I look at Abigail and think about never seeing her again. I lower the blade to my skin and wince as I make a shallow cut just below the crook. Blood wells in the gash.

John Henry laughs and claps his hands.

Abigail holds out her arm. A deep slash just below her elbow is oozing a green liquid that seems to vaporize after a few seconds of being exposed to the air.

Miss Minnie grabs my arm and Miranda’s and presses them together in the same X position the two knives had been in. Once the wounds are pressed together, there’s a hissing and bubbling like when Granny used to pour hydrogen peroxide on my skinned knees. Minnie holds a tin cup under our joined forearms, and my blood mixed with Abigail’s ghost blood
drips
into it. It’s black as coal. I stare into the cup until the blackness swallows me, and the cabin, Minnie, John Henry, and even Abigail disappear.

I think I might be dying. There’s blackness and a tunnel of light like people always say there is. I’m rushing through the tunnel so fast I feel the wind in my ears, but then I’m in my room in my bed. Only it’s different. Everything has the same hazy, translucent glow as the knife Abigail used. I’m wearing a frilly white nightgown, much fancier than anything I’ve ever really slept in, and I’m propped up on pillows waiting for I don’t know who or what.

The door to my room swings open, and in walks a man. He has shoulder-length red hair and glasses, but he has the same glow as everything else in the room. For a minute I wonder if he’s God or an angel, but when I see him smile, the mystery is solved.

“Not too old for a bedtime story, are you?” he says.

“Dad?”

“The one and only.” He’s standing by my bookcase, looking at the titles. “How about
The Secret Garden
?”

“Sure.” I’m so unsure of what’s going on that everything that comes out of my mouth sounds like a question.

“Okay, tiger lily,” he says, taking the book off the shelf.

“What did you call me?”

He scoots into bed next to me. “Tiger lily. Your hair’s the color of tiger lilies.”

“It beats Carrot Top,” I say.

“No kidding,” he says. I can feel the sleeve of his soft flannel shirt against my arm. He smells like coffee and cinnamon apples. “I had to put up with a lot of carrot top comments myself,” he says. “Which never made sense to me, since the tops of carrots are green.”

Wherever I am, time is different, so somehow my dad can read me all of
The Secret Garden
. I know the whole story anyway, about the orphaned girl who comes to her uncle’s gloomy mansion and discovers a garden hidden behind a wall. But mostly I’m listening to my dad’s voice. Until now, I didn’t know what it sounded like. It’s soft and deep, like a cozy quilt you snuggle into.

When he closes the book, I say, “So am I staying with you now?”

“No,” he says, stroking my hair. “You’re just visiting. You’ll go back soon. And when you do, tell your mom I love her and that I’m happy for her. I never wanted her to go through the rest of her life alone.”

My eyes are full of tears, and it’s hard to speak. “Why don’t you come back with me and tell her? Abigail can visit the living. You should visit too.”

“Yes, but Abigail is special the same way you and your mom and granny are special. I’m not, so I stay put.”

“Oh. Can you see us from here, though?”

He takes my hand in his. “Sometimes I catch glimpses. Just moments, like in a photograph. Enough to know that I’m proud of you and that you’re exactly the daughter I hoped to have.”

I look into his eyes, the same blue as mine, and say something I’ve never gotten the chance to say. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too, tiger lily.” He gathers me in a warm, flannel-shirted hug, and then I’m falling backward through the tunnel of light. It’s scary because I can’t get turned around to see where I’m going.

“Miranda!”

I’m on my back on the cabin floor with Mom and Granny and Abigail leaning over me. I smile at Abigail. “You’re still here,” I say.

“You are too,” she says. “We weren’t sure for a few minutes there.”

“She had to take a little bit of death inside her just like Abigail had to take a little bit of life,” Minnie says. She’s sitting back in her rocker, puffing her pipe, with John Henry on her lap.

“Can you tell if you’ve still got the Sight?” Granny asks.

“If her spirit’s still with her, then the Sight ought to be too,” Miss Minnie says.

Mom looks at me hard. “Tell me what I’m thinking.”

I sit up. “I can’t believe I let my child cut herself and lose consciousness right before my eyes,” I say.

Mom smiles. “That’s it.”

“Now we need to talk about the payment,” Miss Minnie says.

I look at Mom and Granny. “I don’t know how much money we brought. We never talked about payment before.”

Minnie shakes her head. “I always lived my life saying ‘Don’t do nothing unless you can get something for it.’ In death I’m no different. But I don’t want no money. What use would I have for it?”

“So what do you want?” I ask, my stomach knotting in fear.

“John Henry said
you’uns
had a picnic basket. Says he could smell the fried chicken from a mile away.”

“But what use would you have for fried chicken?” Abigail says. “Spirits can’t eat.”

“Most of the time that’s true,” Miss Minnie says. “But
when
your
and Miranda’s blood mixed, the dead and the living in this room mixed a little too. The rest of us won’t stay mixed. Tomorrow it’ll be the same as it was. But tonight the spirits have some of the spark of life about them. We can eat. We can be seen by people who
ain’t
got the Sight.”

I look around to the doorway where Adam and Dave are standing. Their mouths are open in amazement.

“I haven’t eaten in more than one hundred years,” Abigail says, her voice dreamy.

“Tell that man and the Oriental boy to go get the picnic basket,” Miss Minnie says.

It’s a good thing Granny fried lots of chicken. Miss Minnie is gnawing her way through a breast, moaning about how good it is and how long it’s been since she’s tasted anything. John Henry squats on the floor, tearing strips of meat off a drumstick like a starving wolverine. When the bone is bare, he snaps it in two and sucks out the marrow. Abigail, though, has a napkin spread on her lap and nibbles daintily at a wing, savoring it. All of us are sitting in a circle on the floor like kindergarteners about to play a game of Duck-Duck Goose.

Mom, Granny, Adam, Dave and I share biscuits and lemonade but leave the fried chicken for the ghosts. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anybody enjoy my cooking so much,” Granny says, setting the other wing in Abigail’s lap.

Adam isn’t really eating. He’s staring at Abigail. “I can’t believe I’m finally seeing you,” he says. “You’re so...pretty.”

Abigail giggles and covers her mouth with her hand. “Thank you.”

“She is pretty,” Mom says. “This is the first time I’ve seen her since I was thirteen years old.” She reaches out, takes Abigail’s hand, and squeezes it.

“I...I can’t believe I’m seeing any of this,” Dave says. His eyes are bleary, and his hair is mussed, almost like he just woke up.

“Well, you can’t tell nobody, or they’ll think you’re crazy,” Minnie says, reaching for a biscuit. She looks at me. “So me and John Henry used our powers for my business when I was alive. What do you use your for?”

“Well,” I say, “we kind of use them to help people.” I don’t stop talking even though Miss Minnie rolls her eyes. “Abigail and Adam and I were able to figure out who committed a murder in our town and get an innocent man’s name cleared. We also helped a Mexican family who was being harassed and ended up helping a spirit too.”