The Ghost's Grave (3 page)

“Steven learned about the India assignment last week,” Mom said.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“We wanted to wait until we knew if I'd be going, too. We found out today that I got the assistant job. If I hadn't been hired, I would have stayed home this summer and continued to look for work here.”

“Maybe Steven's aunt has other plans for the summer. Maybe she's going on a trip herself.”

“Aunt Ethel doesn't travel anymore,” Steven said.

I envisioned a frail old woman in a rocking chair.

I left the house, got my bike out of the garage, and rode off, pedaling as hard as I could. Anger formed a hard knot in my chest. Why should I get shipped off to spend the summer with an elderly woman I'd never met?

I didn't blame Steven; I blamed Mom. Steven had to go where his company sent him, but Mom had a choice. She could stay home this summer if she wanted to. She could look for a job here and let me play summer baseball.

I rode until my legs ached and ribbons of sweat rolled down my face. When I returned home, I went straight upstairs, got in the shower, and let the water
pour over my head, wishing it could wash away my problems. I was sorry I'd made the team. If I had been cut, I would've been glad to leave town for the summer.

I dressed and sat on my bed, still fuming. There was a knock on the bedroom door.

“May I come in?” Mom asked.

I sighed.

“Josh, we need to talk.”

“Okay, okay. Come in.”

Mom sat beside me. “I've tried hard to find a job here,” she said. “I'm registered with several employment agencies, I read the Help Wanted ads every day, and I've sent out dozens of applications and résumés. I wish I had found work but I haven't, and we need the money. This is my chance to contribute to our income, and it might lead to a permanent job. Please try to understand.”

I stared at my shoes. I understood why Mom wanted to go, but that didn't help me any.

“Why do I have to go live with a stranger?” I said. “If I can't stay here, why can't I go back to Vermont where my friends are and spend the summer with Gramma?”

“Gramma's having hip surgery the first of June,”
Mom said. “She'll be laid up much of the summer.”

“I could take care of her.”

“She'll need help bathing and dressing for a while. Aunt Marian is going to stay with her.”

There was no sense arguing. With Mom's sister in Gramma's spare bedroom, there wasn't any place for me. I knew I couldn't stay with my dad, either. He's in the Army, so my visits with him are restricted to when he's on leave. My summer in Washington was a done deal, and I could do nothing to change it.

I wondered what Steven's aunt was like. What if Aunt Ethel was an old fuddy-duddy who expected me to have perfect manners and listen to opera and wear a necktie? She didn't travel, which meant she wasn't adventuresome. I figured I'd be bored out of my mind.

Now, lying in bed on my first night in Aunt Ethel's house, I knew I'd been wrong about that. Aunt Ethel was definitely not boring.

Mom had packed paper and pens, as well as envelopes, already stamped and addressed. The last thing she had said to me was “Be sure to write!”

I had not expected to write often because I didn't think there would be anything interesting to report. Now I clicked the light on, found my notebook and pen, and wrote a letter.

I knew that bat blood, bullets, and no seat belts would give Mom fits, but I didn't care. She's the one who had made me come here.

I fell asleep hoping the hotel in India was full of spiders.

I
awoke to a horrible scream. Heart pounding, I jumped out of bed and rushed to the window, certain I would see either Aunt Ethel's murderer making his getaway or a scene fit for
National Geographic
, where a cougar catches an antelope and dismembers it.

Early sunlight filtered through the forest; the trees stretched calmly into the distance. I saw no murderer. No cougar. Except for a few birds fluttering between the trees, there was no movement of any kind.

The scream sounded again. It pierced the morning air, even more shrill than when Aunt Ethel first saw the bat. This time I realized it came from the front side of the house, outside the living room.

I pulled on shorts and a sweatshirt, then ran downstairs. Aunt Ethel stood in the kitchen, calmly
stirring something in a big pot on the stove. It smelled like spaghetti sauce.

“What's happening?” I asked. “Who's screaming?”

“Oh, that's Florence. I should have warned you. I'm so used to her, I never gave it a thought.”

Speechless, I looked at my hostess, who wore the same pink dress she'd had on the night before. I decided I was right about it being her nightgown.

I went to the living room and cautiously peeked out a window.

A large peacock perched on the front-porch rail, its turquoise feathers shimmering in the sunlight. Gray glops the size of silver dollars dotted the porch floor beneath the rail. Yuck. Seeing them made me uneasy. Compared to this peacock mess, bat droppings were practically invisible. I hoped Aunt Ethel didn't get out her gun.

As I watched the peacock, it called out again.

I had never before heard a peacock cry. How could something so beautiful make such a shrill, ugly noise? It sounded as if it were being tortured, but there it sat, calm as you please, on the porch rail.

Aunt Ethel strode toward the door, motioning for me to follow her. She stepped out to the porch, set a pan of cracked corn on the porch floor, and said,
“Good morning, Florence.” The peacock hopped down and began to eat.

I edged out the door to watch, being careful where I put my bare feet.

“This is our great-nephew, Josh McDowell,” Aunt Ethel told the bird. “His stepdad is Will's boy, Steven. Josh will be staying with us for the summer, the way Steven used to.”

The crown of feathers on the bird's head bobbed up and down as he pecked at the corn.

Aunt Ethel smiled at me. “This is your Aunt Florence,” she said. “My sister.”

The peacock continued its breakfast.

“Your—sister?” I waited for Aunt Ethel to explain.

“Florence was three years older than I,” Aunt Ethel said. “We were the youngest and the only girls in a family of six children, so we were always close. Since neither of us married, we lived together here in the family home after our parents were gone. My brothers are gone now, too. Florence loved birds, and she told me many times that after she died, she planned to come back as a peacock, the most beautiful bird of all.”

A chill shivered up the back of my neck. I vaguely
remembered Steven mentioning that there used to be an Aunt Florence on his long-ago summer visits.

“Florence passed away last January,” Aunt Ethel said. “In March, I woke one morning to find a peacock on my porch, and Florence has been here ever since.”

“Isn't this a male bird?” I asked. “I thought only the males had those bright tail feathers.”

“You're right,” Aunt Ethel said. “Only the males are peacocks; the females are peahens. The males have the long, beautiful feathers, called trains. Some of Florence's train feathers are nearly six feet long!”

“They're beautiful,” I said. “The spots on them look like eyes.”

As if he knew we were admiring him, the peacock spread his train into a huge fan and strutted around the porch.

“If I were going to return as a peafowl, I'd be a male,” Aunt Ethel said. “Wouldn't you?”

“I guess so.”

“All right, then,” Aunt Ethel said, as if that ended the matter.

I wondered whether Aunt Ethel had ever advertised that she'd found a peacock. This bird seemed tame; it must be a lost pet. Someone had probably been looking for their peacock for the last three months.

I didn't ask because I knew Aunt Ethel wanted to believe the peacock was her sister. I wondered if Mom and Steven knew about the peacock. I was pretty sure they didn't, and I could hardly wait to tell them.

I began planning a second letter. I'd say I wasn't sure if Aunt Ethel belonged to some odd religious cult or if she was plain losing her marbles.

“Are you ready for breakfast?”

“Sure.” I was always ready for breakfast.

“We have a special treat today from my friend's garden: young peas, still in the pod. Florence and I used to stand in the garden and eat peas as soon as we picked them. That's how they're best, uncooked. I can't keep up a garden anymore, but my friend, Muriel, knows how I love fresh peas so she brought these yesterday.”

Raw peas? For breakfast? Oh, great, I thought. She's a health food nut. I'll eat nothing but Brussels sprouts and cauliflower all summer and go home so malnourished I'll never be able to lift a baseball bat again.

I followed Aunt Ethel to the kitchen.

“I hope you like spaghetti,” she said. “It's too much trouble to make only for myself.”

“I love spaghetti, but I've never had it for breakfast.”

“One of the good things about living alone,” Aunt Ethel said, “is that I can eat whatever I want, anytime I want it. Spaghetti is one of my favorite breakfasts.”

She handed me a plate. A pile of raw peas, still in the pods, rose beside the spaghetti and meat sauce. “I eat fresh fruit or veggies with every meal,” Aunt Ethel said. “That's the secret of my long life. Raw vegetables and fruits are packed with nutrients.”

I knew she was probably right, but if I could eat anything I wanted at any time, I wouldn't choose raw peas for breakfast.

Aunt Ethel picked up a pea pod, held it lengthwise between her thumb and forefinger, and pressed until the pod made a
snap
sound. It split open, revealing a row of green peas. Using her thumb, Aunt Ethel pushed the peas into her palm, then popped them in her mouth.

I picked up a pea pod and snapped it open. I put one of the peas in my mouth. I'd never eaten a raw pea before; it was crunchy and sweet.

“It's good,” I said. I emptied the pod and ate the peas.

Aunt Ethel beamed. “Do you want Parmesan on your spaghetti?”

Nodding, I reached for a shaker of Parmesan cheese.

Aunt Ethel split another pea pod, expertly sliding the peas into her palm. “What are your plans for the day?”

I knew what I wished I could do that day: go to baseball practice, hang out with some of the guys afterward, maybe rent a movie. Longing for home brought a lump to my throat.

I looked down at my plate. “I don't know. What did you do in the summertime when you were my age?” I asked.

“Florence and I weeded the garden and helped with the canning. If we had any free time, we played in our tree house.”

“Steven mentioned the tree house. Is it still there?”

“As far as I know, it is. I haven't walked in the woods for years, but if it stood up to all of us children, plus those in the second generation, it's probably still standing. Florence and I called it our deer-watching station. We made a pact not to talk while we were there until after we'd seen at least one deer. We used to take picnic lunches until Florence decided the tree house was haunted. Then she refused to go there anymore, and it wasn't fun to look for deer alone, so I quit going, too.”

“What made her think the tree house was haunted?”

“Lawsy, child, Florence was full of fanciful ideas. She'd take a notion into her head, and there was no changing her mind, whether it made sense or not.”

Kind of like deciding your dead sister came back as a peacock, I thought. Gramma always said people believe what they want to be true, regardless of the facts. Aunt Ethel's peacock seemed to prove Gramma's theory.

This morning Aunt Ethel didn't look wild-eyed, as she had when she chased the bat. She looked weary, and I realized my presence for two months was probably as difficult for her as it was for me. I wondered how early she had gotten up to cook spaghetti sauce.

When I offered to wash the breakfast dishes, Aunt Ethel gratefully accepted. “I overdid it last night,” she said. “I'm not used to climbing ladders or scrubbing the floor on my knees. Usually I only need to sweep. My muscles ache today.”

I was glad to hear last night's bat episode had not been business as usual.

Aunt Ethel didn't have a dishwasher—no surprise—so I filled the sink with warm sudsy water and began swishing our plates around while my thoughts drifted back home. With the two-hour time
difference, the summer league team was probably practicing right then. I wondered who was playing right field.

Minneapolis seemed far, far away, not only in miles but also in lifestyle. Mall of America sells all the latest fashions and electronic equipment, none of which seemed necessary here. When I got off the bus in Carbon City, it was as if I'd stepped back in time fifty years.

When I finished the dishes, I wrote another letter.