Spirited (21 page)

~*~*~

Two weeks later, I head toward my spot in the library and stop. Josh is there. I’m not sure if I should be scared or glad to see him. “Hey Jared—”

He laughs. “Josh.”

“So where ya been?” I ask.

“Around.”

I sit and take out my Algebra Two textbook. Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean we can’t hang out. “How did you do in last week’s chapter test?”

“An epic failure. You?”

“Not bad.”

He looks at me. “So I guess you took my advice,” he says. “You’re no longer the new girl.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Joel.”

“Josh.” Grinning, he pulls his sketchbook from his backpack and rips out a page. He pushes the sheet across the table toward me as if it’s a huge effort. When he lets go, a high-pitched pop sounds. “For you.”

I pick it up. It’s a drawing of Grief lying on the ground with a dagger through its heart. Standing over it is a girl with her fist raised in triumph. I meet his gaze.

“Grief’s not dead,” he says. “But round one goes to you.”

“What about you and Matt?” I ask.

“We’re good. Thanks for your help.”

I shrug. “That’s what friends do, right?”

“Right. And you’ll soon have lots of friends. Matt knows everybody.” He glances at my Algebra textbook. “So what did you get for number three?”

A couple things click, and I realize Josh hasn’t been hanging around to copy my homework.

“Do your own work, Josh.”

“You called me Josh!”

“So?”

“You know what that means, don’t you?”

“That you don’t have to worry about Algebra Two anymore?”

“Yeah, and it’s time for me to say good-bye.”

“But I’m not leaving.”

“I am.”

“Oh.” I swallow. “Thanks for the picture and for… everything.” Tears threaten to spill.

“That’s what friends do, right?”

“Right.”

“Good-bye, Emma.”

“Bye, Josh.”

Aftermath

Someone is haunting me. I see her in my dreams. She stands amidst a cluster of other girls, their filthy white dresses flowing around them, looking over the edge of a dusty cliff. Her green eyes tunnel into me, and I become her.

An alarm rings. Air raid! I run to the nearest pile of rubble to hide from the German bombers. This burnt-out building is all I have for protection, but it isn’t enough. I cry out, knowing my life is about to end.

“I will take my secret to the grave. Basil must never be told the truth!”

“Lenora, you’ll be late for work.” My mother’s sing-song voice floats in on the morning breeze.

I freak out. I jump out of bed staring at the sky blue wallpaper and track lighting. How did this building survive the last blast? Where is the fire? Is the air raid still on? How can my mother still be alive?

Mom stares at me as if she doesn’t know me. The alarm is still ringing. My reality slides back into place.

“I’m up.” I yawn and fall back onto my forget-me-not blue duvet as Mother pads down the hall.

Work. I work at the sub shop down on Fourth. I have two weeks left before I move to Tallahassee to begin pre-med at Florida State. I don’t live in war-torn England with someone named Basil. I don’t have those bouncing blonde curls she has, the ghost who haunts my dreams each night.

I can’t share this with anyone. I can’t even share it with my boyfriend, Dylan. He knows I get these crazy dreams—giant spiders or gory axe killers. It bothers him how much I dream. He doesn’t need to hear any more.

These dreams I can’t escape. While I’m sitting at work, counting out slices of meat, doing dishes, or anything mundane, my mind reverts back to the ghost. Images flicker past my eyes like a badly edited movie, a war movie with choppy frames and a sepia tint.
Dirt is everywhere. Men fighting and trucks loaded with sullen-faced people. Bad teeth. Ripped wool scarves. White lace. Red lipstick
.

“Lenora, you there?”

I blink. The salami is still in my hands. “Sorry, I was trying to remember something.”

My co-worker, Tracy, sits at the cash register, texting on her pink phone. “Like the day’s count for salami?”

Mornings are always slow.

The door chime jingles as Dylan walks in. He usually stops by before his shift. What will he do when I leave for college? Will he carry on a long-distance relationship with me? So far he hasn’t hinted at anything, and I’m starting to worry the next two weeks might be our last. The thought catches something inside my memory as if I’ve been through this before
. A group of miners with headlamps shuffling into the bright summer sun. One turns back and winks at Tracy. I look over to the cash register, and it’s her. Blonde curls in pink ribbons. She returns the miner’s wink before he vanishes.

“Hey, good to see you too.” Dylan leans against the glass sneeze-guard.

“What?” I look hard at Tracy. Her cell lights up with a new message. The ringtone is a church bell tolling.

“I said ‘good to see you too.’ You’re a bit preoccupied with who knows what. Save any burnt cookies for me?”

Sometimes Tracy and I will overbake the cookies on purpose, so we have to throw out the whole batch. They taste just as good. “Uh no, sorry.”

“Hmm. Well, I’ll call you when I’m done work. We’ll catch a flick or something.” He backs up, waving. “See ya, guys.”

Tracy waves without looking up.

“Hey, wait.” It takes me a moment to realize he’s leaving. “I’m sorry. I was hungry this morning. I’ll burn a new batch… “

He’s already pushing the door open with his back, the chime jingling. “No worries.”

Tracy’s phone tolls.
Dong. Dong. Dong
.

~*~*~

The movie is disturbing. It’s about a girl who gets committed to an insane asylum.

“You always take things too personally,” Dylan says.

“What do you mean?”

“You are not the girl in the movie.”

I change the subject. “What do you know about the World Wars?”

“Which one?”

“I’m not sure… “

He chuckles. He does that when he doesn’t understand me. “Look it up later. Want some more popcorn?”

“No thanks.” I will find out later. I’ll be learning all about it in my dreams.

Hands twist in pain. Blood stains her dress. Long fingernails break as they scratch into the dirt. Letters emerge in the hard ground. D-o-l-e-. A name. An old family name she doesn’t want forgotten.

I focus on the girl’s ghostly white face, trying to keep the dream from fading. I want to ask who she is, but I already know. She is one of my sisters.

The rest of us watch helplessly as the stain on her dress spreads. She raises her head. She cannot speak. Her mouth is full of dirt. She has no eyes. I shudder. Her head falls back into the dirt, lifeless. Her finger’s still stuck in the earth where she carved the name. Dole.

My eyes snap open, and I draw in a shaky breath. I stumble downstairs to the display case in the living room where we keep the Hansen family Bible. My father usually keeps the case locked, but I am in luck. Today he must have cleaned the glass and left the latch undone. It isn’t that I’m forbidden to touch it. He just wants to keep it well preserved. One touch, and the oil on my fingers will slowly erode the parchment. I wear gloves when I take the display cover off. Elaborate oak branches dance across the parchment with ancestral Hansen pictures nestled between the foliage. When the dates precede photography, the faces become drawings of Hansens. And records. Hansen’s father and his father’s father. How much land they owned and how it was divided when they died. The wives’ names are written off to the side.

When my mother enters the room, I jump.

“Did your father say you could take that out?” she asks.

No point in hiding it. “Do we have any Doles in the family tree?”

“Not on my side. But I’m sure there are some in there.” She peers over my shoulder and pushes a page back with her sleeve.

“There.” She points. “Sarah Hansen was a Dole. Her son Basil was your great grandfather. They came to America after the Great War.”

I stare at the portrait. Her hair is curly blonde, but too short. Too much flesh on the cheeks, but close enough to my ghost to be a relation.

The Folkestone mine is dark and tight.

“Fill yer boots, mates.” The man’s voice echoes through the darkness.

The boys are laying rail tracks to haul out carts of ore. Water drips steadily down the black walls. Twice it douses a lamp. The horse shivers. He’s restless, stomping and snorting. He’d buck if there were room.

“You hold the horse. I’ll set the track.” The man hands off the reins.

“Thanks, Garret, you’re a corker,” the boy says.

Garret swings his hammer high overhead and brings it down hard. He drives the nail into the bedrock with a loud clang. The impact sends water spraying onto his coveralls. Something is wrong. There’s too much water.

“Bring the lamp will you, lad?” Garret has the boy hold it as close to the tunnel’s end as he dares. He punts the hammer hard against the rock. The wall of the mine cracks like gunfire. Water sprays onto his boots.

“This will be the last load tonight boys. Mary Anne will be wanting me to head home. This shaft may be flooded by the morrow. We’ll need to pump it out.” He passes the lamp back and encourages the horse to back up the steep shaft.

I wake, holding my arms up for protection. Protection from what, I can’t remember. I check overhead, expecting something to fall on me, but nothing is there.

The truck grinds gears trying to downshift. Its tires spin in the mud as it claws its way over the rise. The town of Folkestone is lost to the fire. Mother and Father never made it out. My sisters’ dresses are soiled. The white lace that once gleamed is now gray and will forever remain that way no matter how hard they scrub. Men in wool uniforms offer their hands to help us up and into the bed of the truck. I bump into a toothless stranger in a worn top hat. He eyes me as I sit on the floor of the cab. A homeless woman with two children under her cloak, and two scantily clad girls from the red-light district are sitting too close. I turn up my nose at the foul odors of sweat and urine.

I wince. “Sisters, let us pray this ordeal will be but a moment. When we arrive safely at uncle’s, everything will be in order, and we shall think no more of this small sacrifice.”

“If we arrive.” Mary Ann moans, cupping her hands over her enormous belly. “I would prefer it be with my child still inside.”

I don’t have time for this. My summer is coming to a close. My life is about to change forever. I should be packing my stuff, getting my textbooks, and breaking up with Dylan, but the ghosts are too strong.

I cry just thinking about it. I have no way to solve my problems let alone the unfinished business of my ancestors.

I sit in front of my computer, my head nearly falling onto the keyboard. I am so tired. I am trying to find information about a trek across England during World War One. There are so many sites with guns, bombs, green wool uniforms, red poppies, muddy trenches. Everything I could ever dream of reading, yet nothing helps. The battles, the enemies, the victims are organized into lists a mile long. It’s hopeless. Where is the image I saw last night? Of dark, dead trees lining an abandoned lane? Of the truck pulled over in a muddy ditch, the driver smoking while a woman, hidden in the tall grass, lies screaming? According to history, my dreams are not a documented part of the war. Apparently, the Internet doesn’t know everything.

My fingers hover over the keys. My eyes are unfocused
. Mary Anne’s baby cries, but Mary Anne is silent
. Silent as a one hundred-year-old grave. I change my search. I type “Mary Anne Dole death before 1920.” A thousand pages pop up. Genealogy sites, British censuses, fruit manufacturing… I rub my sleepy eyes.

The alert beeps on my cell phone. It’s Dylan.

U up? Wada u doin?

Some genealogy

That war stuff?

Yep

Y so keen?

I pause. It’s not really a secret, so I tell him.

My gr8 grandmothers ghost is haunting me

Huh?

Actually my gr8 gr8 gmother

I dont get it

Can’t get it out of my mind even when im awake. Talk about it l8tr?

U ok?

Just tired.

And petrified to go to bed, petrified of what I might find in the tall grass in the ditch.

Nothing is left of the Dole family’s flat on Harper Street. The foundation isn’t even intact. Only a black crater remains. Am I even on the correct street? Yes, I must be, the fishmonger is still across the way. And there’s the chapel on the hill, minus a roof. Will Garret come looking for me? Where do I go now?

I wake up, and my hands are dirty and cold, like hers. They’re holding a baby.