Ghosts of Rathburn Park (13 page)

“At the door of the church. The side door. Just before you left.”

So she had been there after all. But where? Not in the cabin, he was sure of that. There just wasn’t any hiding place inside the cabin where someone, even someone as small as Amelia, could be out of sight.

“So where were you?” he asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know? Maybe I was right there in the cabin only you couldn’t see me. Maybe I can be invisible when I want to be.”

For a moment he was almost ready to believe…But then he grinned. Invisible or not, she couldn’t have been there in the cabin and then reached his bicycle before he did.

“Yeah. As if,” he said. “And how about my bicycle? Didn’t you move my bike?”

She grinned. Reaching out, she pretended to grab the handlebars of the bike. “Yeah. Want to see how I did it? I picked it up and threw it. Like this.” Spinning around, she acted out throwing a heavy object down the trail.

Okay. So she’d heard him call and then she got to the front of the church before he did and… “Where were you—” he was starting to ask when she interrupted.

“Never mind where I was. But I heard you, all right. I heard you call Amelia, and then you called me another name.”

He remembered then. “Oh,” he said. “I wasn’t calling you. Not then. I was calling—Rover.” He shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed. “I don’t know why exactly, but sometimes I wonder if Rover is still around.”

Amelia looked puzzled. “Rover. Who’s Rover?”

Matt stared in amazement. “You mean you don’t know about Rover?”

She shook her head slowly. Her voice had a sarcastic tone as she said, “No, I don’t know about Rover. So why don’t you tell me?”

Matt thought for a moment before he said, “Well, okay, I will. I’ll tell you about Rover—if you’ll tell me about Dolly.”

It took her a while to decide but finally, with her eyes still narrowed thoughtfully, she said, “Okay. I’ll tell you, but you go first. Tell me about Rover.”

“Okay,” Matt said. “I will.”

M
ATT WAS PUZZLED. MRS.
Keeler, the librarian, had said that everybody in town had known about Old Tom’s dog, so it did seem that the Rathburns would have known about him too. Of course, Amelia, this particular Amelia, wasn’t around when Old Tom was alive, but she’d heard about Old Tom, so someone in her family must have told her about him and how he’d lived in the church after the fire. So why not about Rover?

“About Rover,” he began. “I wonder why your family didn’t tell you about Rover.”

“My family?”

“The Rathburns. They must have known about Rover.”

Amelia shrugged. “Oh yeah, the Rathburns. Maybe they did know about him. But they didn’t tell me. There’s not that many Rathburns left, you know.”

“I know,” Matt said. Taking a deep breath, he paused, thinking about how to begin. “In fact, Mrs. Keeler told me—”

Amelia put her finger to her lips: “Hush,” she said. “Listen.” And then Matt heard it too. A car’s motor and the crunch of tires on gravel. “Stay here. And be quiet.” She disappeared down the trail that led to the parking lot, but in just a moment she was back. “Come on,” she said. “We’d better go. It’s a car full of people.”

“Why do we have to go?” Matt said. “They’re probably just going to the picnic grounds or the ballpark. They won’t come in here, will they?”

“Maybe not,” Amelia said. “But sometimes people come up the path a little way to get a look at the church. Kids mostly. Usually they get scared and go back before they get this far. But we better move just in case.”

“All right,” Matt said. “But my bicycle. What about my bike?” Amelia knew the answer to that, too. Pushing back a low-hanging tree limb, she quickly shoved the bike past a thick bush and into a cavelike cubbyhole in the underbrush.

“Hey, this is a neat hideout,” Matt said, and then, wondering if this was where she’d been when he’d called to her and then to Rover, “Do you hide here sometimes?”

“Yeah, sometimes. But I’ve got lots of better hiding places than this one.” Gathering up the stuff she’d used to pad the coat, she shoved it into Matt’s arms. “Put this stuff with the bike,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” She grabbed the old coat and hat and disappeared down her secret trail. After stashing the pile of padding in the underbrush, Matt returned to the narthex, and in a few minutes Amelia was back too.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Let’s get out of here.” She led the way then, down another almost invisible path that angled away from the church and the parking lot. The trail twisted, turned, ducked under low-hanging branches and around huge, thorny blackberry barricades and finally stopped in a small clearing not far from the swamp. At the edge of the clearing the trunk of a fallen tree made a kind of bench. Scooting up onto the trunk, Amelia said, “Nobody ever comes here. It’s too close to the swamp.”

Matt was impressed. Amelia did seem to have all kinds of mysterious information, at least about the Rathburn forest. Like Robin Hood had known all the secret places in Sherwood. All the hidden trails and hideouts and—

“Okay.” Amelia’s sharp voice interrupted his thoughts. “Sit down and start talking. Tell me about this Rover person, and why you were calling him. What’s the rest of his name, and what made you think he might be somewhere around here?”

Matt was grinning as he climbed up on the log. “Well,” he began, “in the first place he is…I mean he
was
a dog. Mrs. Keeler at the library was the one who told me about him. He was Old Tom’s dog.”

“Old Tom’s dog?” She was obviously surprised, and very interested. It didn’t take Matt long to tell the whole story. How the dog named Rover had lived with Old Tom in the shack in the ruins of the church and how, when Tom died, the dog went on living there.

“He went on living right there in Old Tom’s shack?” Amelia’s eyes were wide and unblinking.

“He must have,” Matt said. “Mrs. Keeler said there was a story going around that he slept on his master’s grave, but when people went to look for him he was never there. He came into town every day and people would feed him, but he wouldn’t stay with anybody. He lived to be very old for a dog, I guess, and when he finally died, the people who lived in Timber City in those days buried him beside his master. Mrs. Keeler said she was a little kid at the time but she could remember when that happened. And they even made him a gravestone. You know, that little stone tablet right beside Old Tom’s grave. I think that must be the one.”

“Oh yeah,” Amelia murmured, as if talking to herself. “I wondered about that gravestone.” A minute later she whispered, “Rover.” After that she didn’t say anything more for a long time and neither did Matt. Sitting side by side on the tree trunk, they were quiet for so long that when Amelia said, “Matt,” suddenly and sharply, he jumped—and almost fell off the log.
“Matt,”
she said, and then, more quietly, “What else do you know about him? About Rover?”

Matt shook his head. “Not much,” he was starting to say when, without even planning to, he began, “I think that after Old Tom died, Rover would just sit there on the floor of the cabin with his chin on the cot, like this…” Demonstrating, pretending to be a sad-eyed dog resting his chin on the edge of something, he felt his throat and eyes reacting like they always did when he thought about the picture in Mrs. McDougall’s living room of the sad-eyed dog grieving for his dead master.

Amelia was watching with narrowed eyes. “How do you know he did that?” she said. “Did someone see him doing that?”

“Oh—oh well,” Matt stammered, “not exactly. I just used to look at a picture like that. A picture…” And then Matt found himself not only telling Amelia about Mrs. McDougall and her dogs and the painting in her living room, but going right on to tell about the Fourth of July picnic and how the small shaggy dog had rescued him when he was lost in the woods. And how he’d had the feeling ever since that Rover was still around, kind of keeping an eye on things and maybe looking out for people he liked.

Amelia listened to the whole thing without saying a word, and without reacting at all, except that her dark eyes went wide and unblinking. When he finally ran out of things to tell, she took a long slow breath and said, “Yeah, I think I
did
know about Rover after all. I mean, nobody ever told me about him before, but…” She paused and then went on, “I just knew. I mean I’ve heard him barking and…and I think I’ve seen him, too, like you said.” She was staring out toward the swamp with that faraway look in her eyes. “Yeah, I think I know about Rover.”

Matt was puzzled. He wished he knew what to believe. What to believe about a lot of things. Like Rover—and Dolly. And Amelia herself. He really wished he knew just what to believe about Amelia.

Suddenly remembering the rest of the bargain they’d made, he said, “Well, okay, it’s your turn now. It’s your turn to tell me about Dolly.”

As Amelia turned to face him, her eyes slowly lost the far horizon look and began to narrow. “All right,” she said, “about Dolly. Dolly is…Well, she’s a ghost too, like Rover. Only she’s the ghost of a girl who used to live in the Palace a long time ago. Her real name was Amelia, like a lot of girls in the Rathburn family. Dolly was…” Another pause and then, “Dolly was just her nickname.” She nodded. “Yeah, Dolly was the nickname of the Amelia that’s in this big painting in the Palace.” Amelia paused and, smiling that strange, out-of-focus smile, she stared off into the distance. At last she sighed and went on, “In the picture she’s wearing this old-fashioned lacy dress with a high collar…” She paused again and her hand went to her throat. “With a gold locket around her neck, and a big hat and…” Suddenly she was watching Matt carefully as she repeated, “A big hat sort of tied on with a veil.”

Matt was definitely wondering again. “But we did hear someone calling her,” he said, “that day when you let me visit the Palace. Who was calling her?”

Amelia frowned. “Someone was calling Dolly? I don’t remember hearing anything like that.”

This time Matt was sure she was lying. Everything about that visit to the Palace was very clear in his memory. Everything, and particularly the voice calling Dolly.

“Well, I did,” he said. “It went
‘Dolly.’
It was loud and angry sounding. Not much like a ghost.”

Amelia slid down off the tree trunk. “Oh yeah. How do you know what a ghost sounds like? Anyway, I’ve told you about Dolly and now I want to go see Rover’s gravestone.”

I
T WAS GETTING PRETTY
late by the time they started to go to the graveyard so Amelia could look at Rover’s grave. All the way there, taking a long and roundabout trail, Amelia was very quiet. “Hush” was all she would say when Matt tried to say something or ask a question. Pointing toward the ballpark, where they occasionally got a glimpse of a father giving his kids batting practice, Amelia would only shake her head and say, “Hush. You want them to hear us?”

Matt didn’t think there was much danger, but he finally gave up trying to talk and followed Amelia silently along the winding pathway, over the graveyard’s rail fence and into the neglected, overgrown corner where Old Tom was buried. On her knees beside the larger gravestone, Amelia eagerly pushed away a thick tangle of ivy until the small stone marker was exposed to the light.

“See,” Matt said. “It’s all mossy. You can’t really tell what it used to say.”

“I can,” Amelia said, busily scratching away mud and moss with her fingernails. “It says ‘Rover.’ See!” She jerked on Matt’s shirt, pulling him down toward the gravestone.

Matt shook his head. He didn’t see it. At least not exactly. Maybe the vague squiggle was a part of an
R,
and maybe not.

“Rover,” she repeated, “Rover.” And then more loudly, almost calling, “Rover.” Suddenly lifting her head, she tipped it from side to side as if she were listening, and then, turning to Matt, she said, “There, did you hear that? I did. I heard a dog barking.”

Matt shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. Very firmly. “I didn’t. And neither did you.” He was feeling angry without knowing why, until he realized what was going on and began to grin. It was pretty ridiculous to be jealous of a dog, particularly one that wasn’t yours and wasn’t even exactly real. To feel like Amelia should just stick to her own ghosts and keep her hands off other people’s.

“Yes, I did,” Amelia insisted. “Listen.”

They’d both been listening for quite a while without hearing anything, at least Matt hadn’t, when Amelia suddenly jumped up. Whispering, “Uh-oh. I forgot,” she pulled at a chain that hung around her neck. A chain that held a small silver key and a large gold locket. A locket that opened to become a watch.

“Hey, I have to go,” she said, staring at the watch face.

“Oh yeah. I do too.” Matt moved closer, looking at the watch. “Hey, that’s cool,” he said. “It’s very old, isn’t it? My mom has one sort of like it that used be my grandmother’s. Only it doesn’t run anymore. And what’s the key for?”

“This locket isn’t my grandmother’s,” Amelia said. “It’s mine.” Her eyes narrowed. “And the key is none of your business.” She put the watch and the key back under her shirt and then suddenly grabbed Matt by the front of his shirt. “Okay. Come on Friday next time. And in the meantime…” She shook a finger in his face. “Don’t you go near the cabin. You hear me?”

Grinning as he peeled her fingers off his shirt, Matt said, “Okay. I won’t. Not even to leave a note. And I’m not sure about Friday, but I think I can make it.”

She was gone then, whirling and disappearing around a big bush. A moment later he caught another quick glimpse of her, farther away and still running, darting in and out between trees almost like some kind of…Like a bird or an animal, or maybe—a ghost?

He waited until she had disappeared entirely before he turned back for a last look at Rover’s tombstone. Squatting down, he put one finger on the mossy scratches that might say… “Rover?” he whispered, and then, suddenly remembering, “Rover, how about that bone? Was that yours?”

Nothing. No sound except birds chirping and now and then a distant shout from the ballpark. A distant shout? Maybe a distant bark, or maybe not. And then nothing more. At least nothing he could be exactly sure of.