Excerpt
It was right quick after we got there that Gloria Jean became obsessed with the romantic notion of a ghost in Aunt Emma’s house, and at first I was relieved to get her mind off of Merlin. For all her chasing him, there wasn’t a lot to show for it.
We’d been going along taking sunbaths, walking to the pool and the Paramount. We read books, took our Sunday rides, and attended church and MYF at Christ the King. I wrote letters to Shelby, Aunt Jewel, and Mama, too.
Gloria Jean always came up with an interesting book when she dusted the library. She’d switched from the poems of Emily Dickinson to a two-volume set on Haunted Houses of the Confederacy. That’s what started it all.
“Do you realize how many people have died in this house?” she asked one night as she came into my room unannounced. There was a thick gray book in her hand and she munched on a Fig Newton. I’d just taken my bath and was on my bed in my lavender shorty pajamas, polishing my toenails with Helena Rubenstein’s Hot Pink. It was important to look nice at the pool. She plopped down in the chair near my bed, still dressed in the blue shorts and shirt she’d worn all day.
“Ummm . . . Mary Emma and Uncle Ellick are all I know about. And Uncle Ellick actually died at the jewelry store, so maybe that doesn’t count.”
She ignored my attempt to answer her question. “A house as old as this; why, there must be dozens of people who died right here. Probably in that bed you’re on this very minute.”
“Nooo . . . I don’t think so. Aunt Emma would’ve said,” I reminded her. I screwed on the top of the Hot Pink polish and gave it a shake. The strong smell almost took my breath away.
“No, she wouldn’t. She might not even know. That’s the kind of thing folks like to keep quiet . . . unless they want to scare the living daylights out of you. Especially if an enemy soldier was shot by their weak and sickly daughter. They’d just scrub the blood out of the rug and not tell.” She got up and started to pace the floor, deep in thought, and hugged the thick book to her chest. “Now a ghost from the War would probably want to go back to Yankeeland, but if he was mad, he might just hang around. Have you noticed anything unusual?”
She stopped dead still and glared at me with a question in her eyes.
“No, not really.” I pretended to reflect on it a minute to keep her happy. “Do you mean “mad” as in “crazy” or mad as in “angry”?” In spite of myself, I was uneasy at the thought of staying all summer in a house where a Yankee ghost roamed about in either condition . . . but I didn’t plan to let on. Gloria Jean, silent now, watched me paint on a second coat of Hot Pink. From her next remark, I guess she didn’t even hear my question.
“This little girl, Mary Emma, do you know all about that? How she died, I mean? Was it` in this house, in one of these beds?” She waved her hand with a flourish toward my bed and didn’t wait for an answer before she went on. “The ghost of a little girl would probably want to stick around and play and be near Mommy. Stuff like that.”
I blew on the wet polish I’d just applied and admitted, “Nobody ever talked about it to me. They just said she died. And it like to’ve killed Aunt Emma, so nobody brings it up.” I warned her then because with Gloria Jean this was necessary. “I don’t think you’d better ask.”
“Oh, no! I wouldn’t do that! With some things you’ve got to be real careful and wait for people to tell you. And then you have to be quiet and listen and not upset them.”
I was amazed at her sensitivity to grief.
It’s not like I’m scared or anything,” she continued, “most ghosts don’t hurt anybody. It says so right in this book.” She tapped the book with her finger. “Even a Yankee soldier . . . probably wouldn’t hurt us.” She said it kind of slow and doubtful. “But let’s both listen for anything unusual. Okay? Listen for a Yankee cursing or a little girl laughing. The book says you might even smell something . . . like gun powder or a lady’s perfume.”
“Okay,” I agreed, cheerfully, my mind untroubled by her silly ghost talk. Besides, how would I know what gun powder smells like?
But that night when my light was out and I lay in the dark in Aunt Emma’s carved mahogany bed on her snowy-white sheets that smelled of wind and sunshine, I started to think. I remembered the little girl in the pictures in Gran’s old candy box. I wondered how old she’d be now. I wondered if she was jealous of Gloria Jean and me being in her house.
It curled my stomach to think about it. Something skittered beyond the billowy white curtains in the yard below. Was that a creak on the stairs? Could Gloria Jean be prowling about? The grandfather clock throbbed in the silence. I reached down for the top sheet and pulled it close under my neck, my body rigid as I clutched it tightly. Maybe Mary Emma died in this very bed I sleep in every night, her fever raging so high she couldn’t stand it any longer . . .
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