Ghost Girl (17 page)

We waited for what seemed like a long time. I crossed and uncrossed my legs, breathing in the smell of lemon furniture wax and listening to the gold clock on the shelf above the fireplace ticking away.

“I remember how petrified I was the first time I sat in this room,” Miss Vest said. “I was here for my interview for the teaching job at the school. It seems like such a long time ago.”

I could tell Miss Vest was trying to get me to settle down. I watched her look around the room until her eyes landed on an old painting on the wall. The man in the painting had long fluffy sideburns and a big white fancy bow tied under his chin, and he stared down at us with mean snake-eyes.

Miss Vest stuck out her tongue at him, trying to make me smile. I was just letting out a laugh when Mrs. Hoover breezed in.

“What's so funny?” she asked as we stood to greet her.

“Oh, nothing,” Miss Vest said, giving Mrs. Hoover a little hug and sneaking a glance at me. “We're just thrilled to be here.”

“Well, there's more to come,” Mrs. Hoover said, raising one eyebrow. “Follow me.”

She took us back down the staircase to a place she called the State Dining Room. I felt tiny as I stared up at the high ceiling and the huge, jeweled light fixtures hanging down. Mrs. Hoover said the room was mostly used for grand dinners to welcome important visitors from other countries. But for us, they had set a pretty table at one end by a marble fireplace and made it cozy with tall screens and leafy plants in china pots.

We sat down in our places, and I spread the big linen napkin over my lap like Miss Vest had taught me. All of a sudden, I didn't feel brave enough to ask Mrs. Hoover about the park. But I had to find out the truth. I had to think of a way to prove Dewey wrong.

I thought about my question all through lunch, as the waiters set plates of food down in front of us and then swiped them away as soon as we were done. The food was good—thin slices of ham, mashed potatoes, and tiny spring peas—but I could barely taste a thing, with my brain so twisted up in wondering how to bring up the park.

“You're awfully quiet, April,” Mrs. Hoover finally said. “Is your arm bothering you?”

“No, ma'am,” I said. “It's not hurting me a bit . . . but there's something else I've been wanting to ask you, if you don't mind.”

Miss Vest looked up from her piece of lemon pie.

“Yes, dear?” Mrs. Hoover said. “You can ask me anything.”

I rubbed at the corners of my mouth to make sure there wasn't a piece of pie crust hanging there.

“Well, I was wondering about Camp Rapidan. People have been talking a lot lately about what they're gonna do around there.”

Mrs. Hoover looked confused. “Whatever do you mean, dear? Do what around Camp Rapidan?”

“I mean the—the park. People say the government is planning to change everything. . . . That they're wanting to take our homes . . . clear folks out and put gates around the bottom of the mountain and make a park so visitors can come and see the Blue Ridge.”

I waited for Mrs. Hoover to wave her hand at the air and say, “Nonsense!”

But she didn't. She set her fork down on the edge of her plate as quiet as she could, and Miss Vest shifted in her chair. I could feel the hairs along the back of my neck start to prickle up.

“Well, dear,” Mrs. Hoover started, “you know there have been plans to create a national park in the Shenandoah area for a long time—long before the president and I ever began looking for a place to build a summer home. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it before.”

I stared, not believing what I was hearing.

“It's true that plans for the park are moving forward little by little,” Mrs. Hoover went on, “but you mustn't worry. There's absolutely no reason for you or your family to be alarmed. The men in charge of the effort are doing everything they can to make sure that all the residents in the area will be treated fairly and taken care of, park or no park.”

“But what about—”

I turned to Miss Vest. She didn't say anything, but something in her eyes or the tilt of her head told me I better save my questions for later, for when Mrs. Hoover didn't have so many other things to worry about, like the children by the railroad tracks or her husband trying to win another election.

I let my voice trail off. Then, before anyone could try to change the subject, the waiters were back, whisking more plates away and asking us if we'd care for coffee or tea.

Wit came to fetch Miss Vest
and me from the train station after our return from Washington. As I stood on the platform, holding my sling against my stomach and trying to hear his voice over the rumble of the train, I started thinking maybe the ether the doctors had given me at the hospital hadn't worn off yet. Two full days had passed since they had put a mask full of the medicine over my face to make me go to sleep while they broke the bone in my arm again. Already my afternoon at the White House and all the finery of our eighth-story hotel room in Washington seemed like a dream.

But now Wit was saying something about Aunt Birdy, something I didn't understand, and for a minute, everything turned dark and fuzzy just the way it had when I breathed in the strange, sweet-smelling gas at the hospital.

Miss Vest spoke for me. “What do you mean, Wit? How sick is she?”

“She's resting pretty well now,” Wit said. “But she had us going for a while there. Mr. Jessup was the one who found her. He happened to stop by to see her the same afternoon you left for Washington, and she was in bed in the middle of the day. We called in Dr. Hunt right away. He says it's pneumonia.”

“Pneumonia?” I repeated, scrambling to remember what that word meant.

“It's in her lungs,” Wit told us. “She just can't seem to get enough air, and she's got a nasty cough. Dr. Hunt wants to move her to a hospital, but she won't budge, so he's given her some medicine to help clear up the inflammation in her chest.”

“Will she be all right?” I asked, my voice coming out in a whisper.

Wit put his arm around me, being careful not to bump my plaster cast. “We'll just have to keep a close eye on her. Mrs. Jessup is watching her while we're gone.”

A nasty cough.
I had heard it that day when I went to see Aunt Birdy after my trip to Camp Rapidan. It was a dry little hacking sound, but I was in such a rush to get back to the schoolhouse, I barely even noticed. Now I remembered all the signs. She had a fire going and she never got up from her rocker, even though it was a warm spring afternoon.

Poor Aunt Birdy.
She was so happy for me when I told her I was headed to Washington, D.C., even when she must have been feeling sick. But I had brushed off her slew of questions just like I was brushing off a fly.

Wit reached for our suitcases.

“Does Mama know?” I made myself ask.

He shook his head. “I went out to tell her, April, but nobody was home. I finally just slid a note under the door.”

My voice came out sounding sharper than I meant. “That wouldn't do any good. She can't read.”

“Oh,” Wit said. He looked embarrassed.

“Well, let's not worry about that now,” Miss Vest said, grabbing my hand. “Let's go tell Aunt Birdy we're home.”

I half expected Mama to be there when I opened Aunt Birdy's door, but it was only Mrs. Jessup. I didn't like seeing her wedged in Aunt Birdy's rocker, sitting among all my grandmother's special keepsakes. When we walked in, she was holding the red cardinal feather, and I could tell things had been moved around on the shelves.

“She's sleeping now,” Mrs. Jessup told us. “I heated up some broth a little while ago and managed to get a few swallows down her.”

I could see Mrs. Jessup eyeing my cast and sling. “How was your trip, April?” she asked with a little sniff.

“Just fine,” I said. Then I turned to Wit and Miss Vest. “Can I go in and see her now?”

Wit nodded. “We'll be right out here if you need us.”

I slowly opened the door to the back bedroom and stepped inside, trying not to let the hinges creak as I shut the door behind me. Aunt Birdy was still sleeping and I tiptoed over and peered down at her, holding my breath so I wouldn't wake her.

I barely recognized the woman in the bed, lit up by the dusty beam of sunlight streaming through a crack in the curtains. She took long raspy breaths and her face looked as shriveled and yellow as a dried apple peel. Her white hair, usually pulled back in a bun, lay across the pillow in dirty strands. But that wasn't what sent a chill running through me. I had never seen Aunt Birdy so still before. . . . Surely I had never seen her sleeping. Ever since I could remember, she was always up at dawn, flitting from one chore to the next without stopping until everyone else had gone home and headed off to bed. The only time she halfway rested was when she sat in her rocker, polishing her stones. Now I kept expecting her to hop up any second and say, “Come on, Apry, the day's a'wasting.”

I pulled a stool over to the bed and reached up to touch the tall cherrywood headboard with my free hand. Grandpap Lockley had made the bed as a wedding present when he and Aunt Birdy were married. For good luck, he had carved special patterns in the fine red wood—circles woven together, with flower petal shapes inside. Aunt Birdy always kept the bed polished and gleaming. It was the prettiest piece of furniture in the whole house, and it stood out like some sort of rare jungle bird next to the bare plank floors and the walls where Aunt Birdy had plastered old newspapers to keep the wind from whistling through the cracks.

Mama once told me that when she was a little girl she believed that if she traced the carvings on the bed with her fingernail every night she could keep bad spirits and haunts away. Didn't do her much good, I thought. Still, for the next five minutes I traced my fingernail along Grandpap Lockley's grooves and notches and curlicues. By the time I finished, I was so worn out with praying for Aunt Birdy and listening to her raggedy breathing, I wanted to crawl into the big bed and go to sleep beside her.

But then Wit and Miss Vest were poking their heads in. Wit had his little black bag so I moved out of the room to give him space. Mrs. Jessup was still sitting in Aunt Birdy's chair. For a while she didn't say anything. She just rocked, every once in a while reaching out to pick up one of Aunt Birdy's stones. Then she said, “Funny how your mama hasn't come over yet. You'd think she'd want to be with Birdy right now.”

“Mama doesn't even know she's sick,” I told her in a rush. “Wit said she wasn't home when he went to tell her.”

Mrs. Jessup kept rocking. “Oh, she knows all right. I sent Dewey down to make sure she got the news. She was out at the pump. Dewey says he told her and she just nodded and went back to pumping.”

I could feel the blood rushing to my head. I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream so loud that Mama would hear me all the way over at Doubletop. I wanted to throw myself on Mrs. Jessup and rip Aunt Birdy's stones out of her stubby hands. But I just stood there in the middle of the room, swaying a little, like a dried-up branch in the wind.

The next few days
passed in a blur. While Aunt Birdy drifted in and out of sleep, neighbors drifted in and out of the house, bringing more and more food and advice. Thank goodness Wit and Dr. Hunt kept coming round to help me keep the visits short and work my way through all those pots of soup and chicken and dumplings.

Miss Vest came to help as often as she could, too—before and after school and during lunch recess. She worried about me spending so much time at Aunt Birdy's bedside.

“April, how can you keep this up?” she asked me one day during her noon visit. I could feel her studying me as I ladled out a bowl of broth for Aunt Birdy. I made sure to keep my good arm steady and not to spill a drop in front of her.