The Swallow (7 page)

Anyway, we arranged to meet after school on Monday in the attic and talk about what she finds out. Meanwhile, my job was to try to find proof that Rose actually moved into that house last summer. Mum would know.

Rose

Despite everything, somehow I felt happier than I had for a while. It felt so good not to be alone anymore. Even if I was a ghost, at least I wasn’t invisible to Polly, the way I was to everyone else.

Yikes!
Even if I was a ghost …!!!
The whole idea was preposterous. Polly was a nutcase, a very persuasive nutcase. But there were some weird things I couldn’t explain. Why were Polly’s brothers scared of me? Why was my mother crying in her sleep over losing me? Why was my name on a gravestone in the cemetery? Why did I feel so floaty, and drifty, and unconnected to the world, ever since I was sick in the summer? If you took everything into consideration, it looked pretty bad.

I didn’t feel dead. But who knew what feeling dead was like?

As usual, no parents were around when I got home. Father wouldn’t be back for a week or so, and Mother was out visiting. Even if they were home, how could I ask them if I was dead? It would be one more reason for them to think I was crazy and needed to be locked up. Or if I really was dead, what could they say? “Yes, dear, we wondered when you’d catch on. Now run along to heaven”? It was just too weird.

I told Polly I’d try to find out about Winnifred, so I went into my grandfather’s study. In one of my searching-for-books expeditions I’d noticed a big old Bible on the bottom shelf. I knew that people used to keep birth and death records written in their family Bibles, so that seemed a good place to start.

The study was dim in the late-afternoon light. I quickly found the thick Bible and hauled it out. It was heavy, covered in cracked
brown leather. The edges of the pages were tinged with gold that made a smooth, shiny surface when the book was closed.

I brought it over to the desk, switched on the lamp and opened it. Sure enough, there were names inscribed on the inside cover in different handwriting. Names and dates.

The first name was John Gerald McPherson, born 1806, Aberdeen, Scotland. He married someone named Margaret Campbell in 1829. They had seven children, and four died as infants. I ran my finger down the page. The first McPherson came to Canada in 1864, to Toronto, where he married Elizabeth Drummond. More marriages, births and deaths followed. My grandparents were there, married in 1909. And then that name,
MY
name, jumped out at me again, almost as suddenly as it had on the gravestone. “Winnifred Rose McPherson. B. Dec. 5, 1910, D. Jan. 8, 1923.” Beside it was my father’s name, “William George McPherson, B. Aug. 28, 1915. M. May 5, 1949, to Mary Louise McTavish.”

My arrival on the scene, December 5, 1950, was not recorded. But this Winnifred person had the same birthday as me. And she’d died when she was around my age: thirteen.

DINNER

Polly

Dinnertime is always the same in my house. We eat squished around a table in the hallway, because we haven’t had a dining room since the foster kids started coming in droves and crowding us all out. Eating in the front hall is ridiculous. Dad has to sit down first, because the dining table fills up the hall, and once he’s in he can’t get out without everyone getting up. He serves the meat from his end, then the plates get passed down to Mum to serve the vegetables. We all have to wait until everyone is served to start eating.

The Horrors make faces at me all through dinner. I try to ignore them, but every once in a while I lose it and start yelling at them.

Moo and Goo chatter on about school and boys and makeup and the latest rock-and-roll hits and all the other stuff they think is so very interesting, Lucy makes a few intellectual remarks about English lit or history that get Dad going off on some tangent, and Susie sits in her high chair and throws food around. I jump into the conversation wherever I can, although sometimes it just seems better to stay quiet and
concentrate on eating. My family can make quite a racket over dinner.

Mum brought up my question for me. “Do the new neighbors have a child, Ned?” she asked as she nudged Mark’s elbow off the table.

“I’ve never seen one,” said Dad. “I find them quite standoffish. I understand they used to live in Rosedale. Why they wanted to move down here is beyond me.”

Rosedale is where the rich people live, on the other side of Bloor Street.

“There’s always Ghost Girl,” said Matthew, poking Mark in the ribs.

“Ghost Girl?” I asked. Nobody paid any attention to me.

“Don’t be so foolish, Matthew,” said Mum. “And don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Mark took over. “I’ve seen Ghost Girl floating in their front door. She dresses in black and she’s really ugly and she talks to ghosts.”

“I think she is a ghost,” said Matthew. “She steals people’s souls.”

“What absolute nonsense,” said Dad. “You’re making it up. I’ve never seen any children there, just a woman and a man, leaving early and getting home late. Needless to say, I haven’t spoken to them since that altercation when they moved in.”

“You really were very unreasonable, Ned,” said my mother with a sigh.

Moo and Goo started to giggle and Dad shot them a black look.

“Some people,” he said gravely, “think they own the world.”

Rose

Dinner was hot roast beef sandwiches with gravy, but I could barely eat a bite. I kept thinking about that page in the Bible.

When Kendrick came in to get my dishes, I blurted it out.

“Who was Winnifred Rose McPherson who died in 1923?”

Kendrick jumped. She wasn’t used to me speaking.

“None of your business,” she said.

“Who was she?” I persisted. “My aunt? Father’s sister? Why have I never heard of her?”

Kendrick’s mouth tightened in annoyance. She really didn’t like me.

“If your father chooses not to speak of her, I don’t think it’s my place to.”

I leapt to my feet, making her jump again.

“I have a right to know. Father isn’t here. Tell me.”

Kendrick stared at me. “You’re just like her. That’s the trouble.” She picked up my nearly untouched supper plate and started towards the kitchen. I followed.

“How am I just like her?”

Kendrick shook her head. “I don’t want to say. Ask your father.”

There was a woman with gray hair in the corner of the
kitchen, ironing. She was dressed in a long, faded print dress that swept the floor, and she wore one of those old-fashioned aprons with a big bow at the back. She looked up at me with tired eyes and smiled a sad little smile, then went on with her ironing.

A ghost. They were getting into the house again.

“White light, white light, white light,” I muttered.

Kendrick turned to see where I was looking. To her it was an empty corner of the room.

“Exactly like her!” she said bitterly. “She used to do that too. Seeing people who weren’t there, talking to herself—crazy as a loon.”

“How do you know I see people?” I asked her.

“I know the signs,” replied Kendrick, plunging her arms into the dishwater. “I’ve seen it all before. That girl brought so much trouble to this house, it nearly killed her mother, and now here you are, another one, just the same.”

“What trouble? What happened?” I asked.

Kendrick continued to wash the dishes. “I’m not saying any more. I’ve got work to do. You’d better get on with your piano practice, like your mother told you.”

And that was that. There was no getting any more out of her.

THE DOOR JUMPER

Polly

I went right up to the attic after school the next day. I was half-afraid that Rose wouldn’t be there, that she really was a ghost, or that I’d just imagined it all.

“Rose?” I said into the darkness.

No answer.

“Rose?” I said louder.

“I’m here,” she replied. She sounded very far away.

“So? Did you find anything out?” I asked.

“Sort of,” she said and then was quiet again.

“Well? What?”

“Winnifred was my aunt. My father’s older sister.”

“So how come you never heard of her? What did she die of?”

Silence.

“Rose! Rose, what’s going on?”

“Look, Polly, it’s just all really weird. Kendrick told me about her, she said that Winnifred was crazy and saw people who weren’t there—”

“Ghosts,” I breathed. “Just like you.”

“Yes, apparently, just like me,” said Rose softly. “She brought some kind of awful trouble to the house. That’s all she would tell me.”

“Sheesh.”

“I found this Bible with our family names in it, and that’s where I saw that Winnifred was my aunt, but the strange thing was—”

She stopped.

“The strange thing?” I urged.

“The strange thing was my name wasn’t in it. I just wasn’t there.”

“You don’t think—” I said breathlessly. “You don’t think—”

Rose jumped in.

“No, Polly, I don’t think it’s because I’m really Winnifred’s ghost! Why would Kendrick be talking to me if I were a ghost? Why would she be feeding me supper? Why would she talk about Winnifred as if she were a different person?”

“Well, maybe she’s a ghost too, did you think of that? Maybe they’re all ghosts, your mother, your father, maybe you’re all trapped in this in-between world in that house where you all need to keep repeating the past over and over, and you—”

“Polly, get a hold of yourself,” said Rose. “I’m not a ghost, all right? Get that out of your head! Something strange is going on but I—am—not—a—ghost!”

“My mother has never seen you,” I said quickly. I couldn’t help myself. “Neither has my father. My brothers have, but they think you’re a ghost too. They call you Ghost Girl.”

“Your brothers,” retorted Rose, “are two nasty little boys who like playing tricks on people.”

She had me there.

Rose

I was glad to get back into the attic. At least there were no ghosts there. Whatever had been keeping the ghosts away from me wasn’t working anymore. The Breakfast Ghost had returned that morning, peering mournfully at my toast and marmalade. And another one had come the night before. A really scary one. But I wasn’t going to tell Polly. She’d just start making up all kinds of theories about it and I couldn’t take it.

What happened was, after supper I decided to look around in my grandmother’s room to see if I could find out more about Winnifred. The door was closed. I turned the handle and took a step into the room.

Something black leaped out at me from behind the door. I put up my arm to ward it off. I felt a brief chill and a flash of hatred, and then it was gone.

It could have been a cat—except we don’t have a cat. The room was empty. So was the hall behind me.

I moved slowly into the room, stepping carefully, keeping an eye out. Nothing. The hammering of my heart against my ribs started to slow down.

A ghost. But not the usual sort.

I began a search of my grandmother’s room for some trace of my mysterious aunt. The bookshelves, the chest of drawers, under the bed. Nothing but dust there. Kendrick must not come in here very often.

I tackled the closet, still full of my grandmother’s clothes. There were stacks of shoe boxes, so I dragged them out into the light and began to go through them.

My grandmother liked shoes. She had kept them in their original boxes.

Old-fashioned ones with laces, dress-up shoes with little bows, dancing shoes, sturdy oxfords, satin slippers. I tried on a pair of dark-red pumps that were only just a little loose. My grandmother had been tiny, like me. A full-length mirror stood beside the dresser, so I admired how the high heels made my legs look so grown-up all of a sudden. I shook out my hair and frowned at my reflection. My face was just too pale, and I had big bags under my eyes. There was a smudge on my nose. I took a step closer to see what it was—and suddenly my reflection whirled into darkness and the black thing was back, racing towards me out of the mirror.

I ducked. I felt the cold again, and the biting hatred, but nothing touched me. I opened my eyes.

It was gone.