The Ghost of Tillie Jean Cassaway (8 page)

“Oh, that girl, that girl, I'll switch her legs good! What will her Ma think if I bring her home with pneumonia, drenched to the skin?” Granny talked angrily to herself, stamping around inside the kitchen, shaking out her dripping hat. But another part of her mind kept going back to the story Hilary had told about the ghost of Tillie Jean, and children being lured to the river. It was nonsense, but … what had happened to Hilary? What could have made her leave, without telling where she was going?

She kept looking out the window and the door, and nearly stepped on a kitten which had come out of the corner with its brothers and sisters when she started stamping around.

She went into the other rooms and saw the blue door. Seeing that door, so bright and gay inside the decaying house, quieted Granny Barbour. She felt embarrassed for stomping around and hollering. She felt she was in someone's home.

She coughed loudly, then carefully opened the door. Water was dripping from the ceiling and splashing up in the middle of the floor. “Oh, this won't do,” she muttered, getting Hilary's pail, which she had found and brought in with her own. She dumped all the berries into one pail and put the empty one under the leak.

Then she saw something on the floor near the door. She stooped to see it better. “Ah, how sad,” she said. “Poor thing, it's beat itself to death against the walls. Poor dead blackbird.” She dropped a handkerchief over it and started to carry it out when something else caught her eye. A small, broken, cracked plastic body propped up against the wall. A bird singing wildly at the window caused her to look up and see the head on the sill—the eyes staring straight at her.

She rose and gently set it back onto the body of the doll. Granny liked things put together proper. “I wonder who's your ma,” she said in a soft, squeaky voice, almost like little girls use to talk to their dolls. “Is it some little lost woods child? Some ghost child come out of the riv.…” She did not finish the word. Somebody had come into the house. She started to call, “Hilary?” when she heard a groan.

The woman slipped hurriedly but silently through the rooms to the open door of the kitchen and saw her grandson sitting on the floor, holding his ankle.

Willy, drenched to the skin and still dripping water, looked at her, mouth wide open. Granny Barbour was the last person he expected to see in this deserted house, in the middle of a downpour.

“Well, can't you speak? Willy, did you break your leg?” She bent over the boy.

“Granny, how did you get here? What are you doing here?”

“I came with Hilary, berry picking,” snapped Granny. “Now, what's the matter with you?”

“I … I turned my ankle,” said Willy. “It hurts. Did you come in the truck?” He looked hopeful.

“Yep, it's down the lane a ways. Let me see your ankle … it looks swollen. You probably sprained it. Where did this happen?”

“About a mile from here,” said Willy. “I liked to never get this far.”

“Well, I've lost Hilary.”

“Hil.… Lost?” Willy was confused.

“She disappeared while we were berry picking. I've got to find her.” Granny Barbour sighed, looking out at the slackening rain. “Guess I'll have to go back out there.”

“Aw, don't worry about ole Hil. She's probably found a dry place. Where do you think she went?”

“Probably chasing ghosts. She thinks she sees Tillie Jean Cassaway. Something drew her into the woods.”

“Hil was with Tillie Jean?”

“You know her, too?”

Willy smiled. “I caught a girl here at the house … she nearly scared me to death. But it was her. Tillie Jean.”

“Willy, Tillie Jean's been dead a year. She drowned in the river.”

Willy looked wide-eyed. “She ain't dead,” he said. “She grabbed me, I chased her. We talked and I went to Craig's Island where she lives, and this here's her book.” He pulled a wet book from under his shirt.

“She lives with Morton Craig?”

“Guess so. I saw her room.”

“Mercy,” said Granny. “How odd. There's strange things going on around here. Maybe she's the ghost Hilary saw.”

A chill went down Willy's spine in spite of himself. “Ghost? You don't think …,” he began.

“This is the Cassaway place,” said Granny. “Where she lived with her family. Just saw her little grave, God keep her, down by the garden.”

“Oh,” Willy breathed. “But you don't really think.…”

“I'd like to see this ghost,” she said.

“Look!” shouted Willy, pointing to the window. For an instant they saw a pale, wet face peering in through the broken glass. Huge eyes blinked. Then it was gone.

Granny looked stupified—it was as though the ghost had heard her. Willy hobbled out the door into the now drizzling rain. Beneath the window he found Hilary struggling with the strange girl, trying to keep her from running away.

“Help me!” cried Hilary. “She's afraid of Granny!

“Tillie Jean, Granny won't bother you—come on in out of the rain,” said Willy.

“She'll put me away!” cried the girl. “Let me go!”

“Granny, tell her you won't,” cried Hilary to her grandmother, seeing her coming around the corner.

“Won't what?” asked Granny.

“Tell her you won't put her away!”

“I won't put you away,” said Granny. “Now come on in.”

Reluctantly, the girl went with them into the house.

“I couldn't get her to go in without looking in first,” said Hilary. “She's taller so I helped her climb up to the window.”

“Do I look so scary, child?” asked Granny.

The girl looked down. “Mr. Craig said folks see me, they'd put me in with crazy people.”

“Now why would he say that?”

But the girl had no answer.

Granny turned to her granddaughter. “Hilary, I could whip you! What do you mean running off like that? Where were you? It'll be a time before I take you berry picking again!”

“I'm sorry, Granny … I … I.…”

“Well, never mind now. Right now we've got to get some young'uns dried off … why this child's trembling! She needs dry clothes.”

The words made the strange girl remember the sight of all her belongings floating down the river. Tears began rolling down her cheeks.

“Oh, you poor thing, don't cry now, we'll find something, and don't worry.” Granny looked straight at Tillie Jean. “I ain't gonna make you go nowhere you don't want to. Here's your book now. It's all wet but we'll dry it off. You live on the island with Mr. Craig?”

The girl nodded but paid no attention to the book.

“We'll take you home soon's it stops raining.”

“No! I don't want to go back there. I want to stay here.”

“Why, this place is deserted. This is the Cassaway place.”

“I'm Tillie Jean Cassaway. I can live here.”

“My goodness,” said Granny. “It's certainly strange.”

“She ain't no ghost,” said Hilary. “We played together. She never tried to get me to go in the water.”

“'Course she's no ghost,” said Granny. “But … well, let that be now.” She began rummaging around the house, looking for something dry to put around the girl, who was the only one of the children who seemed cold.

“There's a trunk up under the eaves, might have something in it,” said Willy. “But I couldn't get it open to look.”

“Let me see,” said Granny.

“You can't get up there, Granny. I had to climb,” said Willy.

“Could we get it down? How big is it?”

“Like a footlocker. Not too big. Say, I got an idea. We can make a rope out of that old rag—he pointed to the couch cover—and tie it around the trunk. Then let it down to the floor.”

They tore the rag into strips and knotted the ends together to make a rope, and Hilary got up under the eaves and tied it around the trunk. Granny and the other girl stood underneath to catch it as it came swaying down. But the cloth was rotten—it gave way under the weight of the trunk which fell to the floor with a crash.

“Fiddlesticks, I thought it might come open with the jarring, but it didn't,” said Granny. “Anybody got a hairpin?” Blank faces stared at her.

Hilary looked at her new friend. “She has a key!”

“Yeah,” said Willy. “Around her neck.”

Tillie Jean turned away from them, clutching the key tightly to her throat.

“Tillie Jean,” said Granny. “What's the key unlock?”

“It's mine,” said the girl. “I found it in my room.”

“At Mr. Craig's?” asked Hilary.

“No. My room here.” She turned and ran through the house to the tiny bedroom with morning-glory walls. They followed slowly, except Willy, who was sprawled in the middle of the floor, nursing his ankle. He groaned softly.

Hilary gently pushed open the blue door. “Tillie Jean, we just wanted to know if it could be the key to the trunk. Don't you want to try it?”

“It's mine! This is my room! Go away, all of you!”

“Let her be a minute,” said Granny Barbour, laying the book down on the floor near the door. “Come on, you all, get away from her.” They went back to the kitchen and were quiet for a time.

Willy looked up from the floor in astonishment. “She's giggling!” he said.

Indeed, the sound of plain girlish giggling was coming from the room.

“Stay here, I'll go see,” said Granny. She went to the morning-glory room and found the strange child standing in front of the bucket into which water was dripping from the ceiling, giggling.

“Is it funny?” asked Granny Barbour.

“Yes,” giggled the girl.

“I put it there,” said the woman. “I hate to see water messing up a floor.”

“That's my doll,” said the girl, pointing to the sad plastic creature on the floor—head still on its shoulders. “I put its head in the window so it could see out sometimes, but somebody put it back.”

“I did,” said Granny Barbour. “It seemed right. What's its name?”

“Tillie Jean,” said the girl.

“Another one!”

“Tillie Jean is dead,” said the girl. “She drowned in the river. Only her ghost can be seen.”

“My, then you must be somebody else!”

The girl took the key off her neck and with her back to the woman, flung it over her head. “There, take it!” she said. “It won't fit nothing of hers, 'cause it's mine and I ain't dead!”

“Yes, but you found it here. Come on, let's see if it will work,” said Granny Barbour. But the girl stayed in the room, holding the doll, and would not leave.

The woman took the key—warm from being clutched in the girl's hand—and tried it in the trunk. “It seems to fit but I can't get it to turn,” she said. Willy tried, working it back and forth in the rusty lock. “Now,” he said. “We got it.”

The lock sprang open and they lifted the lid.

“Oh!” said Hilary. “It does have clothes!”

“Wait a minute,” said Granny. “Here's a piece of paper on top—let's see what it says. You read it, Hilary. I ain't got my glasses.”

Hilary took the paper on which someone had written a note in curly longhand, putting little circles over the i's. She read:

These here things are dresses and play clothes that belonged to my daughter, Tillie Jean Cassaway. I know I should give them to some child who could wear them, but something in my heart keeps me back. I want to keep them with me but Mr. Cassaway says it would be too painful a remembrance. So I am leaving them here where she lived her life
.

Her mother
,

Mary Cassaway

“Come look, Tillie!” cried Hilary. “There's clothes here just to fit you.” She held up a blue-and-white-checked dress which had been ironed and carefully folded, but which was spotted with mildew.

“And here's some jeans and shirts!” Every article in the trunk was neatly ironed and folded, but badly discolored from the long period of storage, unprotected from the damp.

Granny Barbour was calling again to Tillie Jean. “Come little girl, we got it open. There's things here you might wear! And you can have your key back.”

The girl came slowly into the room, looking angry. “It ain't mine no more,” she said. But when she saw all the dry things that she could choose from, she could not help smiling. She liked the blue dress and went to the small bedroom to put it on. When she came out, she was grinning.

“Hey, it just fits, like it was made for you!” said Willy.

“No!” said Hilary. “No, not like that!”

But a change had already come over the girl. She no longer smiled, but looked miserable. Granny Barbour started to say something to her when they all heard someone shouting outside.

“Tillie Jean!” It was Morton Craig. “You girl, come out of there. I know you're in there with that ruffian! I come to take you home!”