Ghosts Beneath Our Feet (2 page)

“We can take Frank's mail to him,” Jay suggested slyly. “If we can find his house, that is.”

“That's easy enough. Just go down to the corner and then straight up the hill. Get to the top and keep going. Big and gray, that's the Pendarra place. He doesn't have any letters. You can tell him Mrs. Trewartha said hello and how-are-ye.”

Katie bobbed her head. “Is there a bus going that way?” she asked. She was pretty sure she knew the answer, but she dreaded a long uphill walk with heavy suitcases.

“Bus?” Mrs. Trewartha repeated. “Can tell you're from the city, all right. The only bus Newquay ever sees is the one you folks just got out of. Wouldn't know what to do with a bus if we had one, I'm sure. Walking's good for you,” she added.

Jay followed Katie out into the sun. Without a word he picked up two suitcases, and Katie took the third, leaving her mother the two shopping bags. Mrs. Blaine hurried after them. When they stopped again, beyond the dusty windows of the bus station—post office and grinned at each other, she stared at them in astonishment.

“What in the world …?”

“The lady in the post office.” Katie giggled. “She says she could tell Jay and I are brother and sister because we look so much alike.”

“And we both look like our uncle Frank,” Jay finished. His smile faded, as if he'd suddenly remembered how much he didn't want to be here. “Silly woman,” he snorted and picked up the suitcases. He sounded disgusted, but there was a twitching at the corners of his mouth, as if the smile were struggling to return.
Maybe things really will be different here
, Katie told herself.
Even if it's a dead town, like that awful man said
.

They turned the corner and faced the steepest hill Katie had ever seen—a baby mountain, with a ragged sidewalk that gave way to patches of weeds every fifty feet or so. Old houses with drooping porches and sparsely curtained windows alternated with vacant lots full of buttercups and rubbish. The gravel road was red, as if the ground itself were rusty.

“This is iron country.” Mrs. Blaine's explanation came in little puffs. “Or it used to be, before the mines were emptied and closed up. I suppose that's why the houses are red, too—with so much dust, it saves repainting them every couple of years.”

Katie doubted that these houses had ever been repainted. Each step made her dream of pretty little picture-book Newquay more ridiculous. And it was so hot! Who would have thought it could get this warm in a town surrounded by tall green woods and only fifty miles or so from the deep waters of Lake Superior?

They trudged on. “I hope you have those directions right,” Mrs. Blaine panted. “I couldn't climb another hill after this one.”

“The whole stupid town's on one hill,” Jay snapped. “So how could anybody make a mistake?”

“Oh, Jay, for goodness' sake—” Mrs. Blaine's voice was oddly thin. Katie glanced at her mother and saw her stagger. Her shoulders were bent under the weight of the overstuffed shopping bags.

“Are you okay, Mom?”

Abruptly, Mrs. Blaine sat down on the sidewalk.

“Mom!” Katie squeaked with alarm. She knelt and put an arm around her mother. “What's the matter with you?”

Mrs. Blaine leaned forward. “I'll—I'll be all right in a minute,” she said. “It's just the heat … and this terrible hill … and everything.”

Katie looked around frantically. “I'm going to get some water,” she told Jay. “You stay here.”

They had stopped in front of a narrow red house with a deep porch. The front door hung open. Katie dropped her suitcase and ran up the walk.

“Is anybody home? Please! Is someone here?”

There was a movement at the end of a dim hallway, and a girl appeared.

“Who's there?”

The girl was about Katie's age, tall and leggy. She wore blue jeans and a man's shirt, and the hair on one side of her head was piled high in fat sausage curls. The rest of it hung to her shoulders.

“What do you want?”

“My mother needs some water. She fainted—sort of. Out in front of your house.”

The girl turned and disappeared. Katie went down the hall into a large, cluttered kitchen. The girl was at the sink filling a glass.

“You 'ere to look after Frank?” The cracked voice made Katie jump. A tiny old woman sat in a corner close to the huge gas range. She was dressed in black, and in spite of the heat she wore a scarf knotted tightly under her chin. Sparkling dark eyes peered out of a face as round and creased as a dried apple.

“Yes.” Katie reached for the water the girl offered her.

“Well, you tell Frank for me, they're goin' to get out, no matter what,” the old woman said. “You can't stop 'em, my dear, and neither can I. Nobody can.”

The words meant nothing to Katie. “Thanks for the water,” she said and dashed back down the hall.

“You tell Frank what I said, missy.” The cracked voice followed her. “You tell 'im!”

Mrs. Blaine had moved from the sidewalk to the scruffy patch of grass in front of the house. Jay had put two of the suitcases behind her, and she sat leaning against them, her eyes closed. When Katie pressed the glass to her mother's lips, she drank eagerly.

“Thanks, hon.”

“You can bring her inside if you want to.”

Katie looked up and saw that the girl had followed her out of the house. In the afternoon sun her up-and-down hair gleamed like copper.

“Mom, do you want to—”

But Mrs. Blaine struggled to her feet, brushing away their helping hands. A little color had returned to her cheeks. “I'm all right now,” she said. “Really. That was very silly of me. Thank you, anyway.” She looked up the hill. “We're nearly to the top now, aren't we?”

“I'll carry the shopping bags the rest of the way.” Katie hurried to pick them up before her mother could protest. “I can do it, honest.” She lifted the suitcase in her other hand, and Jay picked up the remaining two. He still hadn't spoken, but he was looking at the tall girl as if she were an alien just arrived from Mars.

“Oh, gosh, my hair.” The girl raised a hand and touched the lopsided curls. “I was trying something new,” she said, her face flaming. “I bet I look—”

She didn't finish. Jay's expression told her quite clearly how she looked.

“Your hair is really pretty,” Katie said. “I love red hair.” But the girl's lips tightened, and she didn't answer. Jay started up the hill, and Mrs. Blaine followed with a wan smile. Katie hesitated, longing to patch things up.

“That lady in the kitchen—”

“My grandma.” The girl sounded hostile.

“She knew we were going to Frank Pendarra's house. I guess in a small town everybody knows what's going on.” The words sounded critical, as if Katie were accusing the townspeople of being nosy. “What I mean is, what did your grandma mean for me to tell him? What was she talking about?”

“I don't know.” The girl turned her back and stalked up the narrow walk to the house. “She says things sometimes. Just forget it.” She went into the house and slammed the door behind her.

Katie bit her lip. They hadn't even gotten around to introducing themselves. She sighed and started walking. Darn that Jay, anyway. He could make trouble without saying a word. It was too hot and she was too uncomfortable to tell him what she thought right now, but she promised herself she'd do it later. He'd spoiled her chance to make a friend.

As they neared the top of the hill, the houses were farther apart. At the crest, both the town and the sidewalk ended. The red gravel road, deeply rutted and edged with dandelions, stretched ahead of them across a meadow and into a wide stand of trees.

Jay dropped the suitcases and sat on one of them. Mrs. Blaine huddled on the other. “This is the dumbest thing I ever heard of!” he exclaimed. “An empty field. That woman in the post office must be laughing—”

“That's enough.” Mrs. Blaine wiped her face. “We're all in danger of heatstroke, and complaining won't help. You go along the road a way, Katie, and see if there are more houses beyond those trees. We'll wait here.”

With a worried glance at her mother, Katie trotted away. Small white butterflies rose in front of her, lifted like flower petals by the warm wind. Far off to the left, pointed red hills marched in a line and vanished beyond the woods.

At the edge of the woods, Katie hesitated. The road ahead was like a tunnel edged with pines and clusters of bone-white birch. Bears could be lurking among those trees. Or wolves! The leafy walls seemed to close around her as she forced herself to go on.

She rounded a turn, just in time to catch a movement on the path. A deer bounded in front of her. It came and went so swiftly that she had only a glimpse of its flowing grace. Then she was alone again, breathless with pleasure.

She'd seen a deer! Even Jay would have to be impressed when he heard that.

Two more curves, and the little wood ended as abruptly as it had begun. Another meadow lay beyond it, this one dotted with willows that hung limp in the heat like sagging umbrellas. Partly hidden by the trees was a tall gray house with a porch around its front and one side. Shutters hung at angles next to the windows, and bushes crowded around the porch. Except for a sturdy stone chimney, the whole place looked as if it might cave in at any minute.

Someone was sitting in a chair close to the front door. As Katie stared, the figure rose, and she saw that it was an old man. He tottered to the edge of the porch steps and raised a hand over his head. She couldn't tell whether he was waving a greeting or shaking his fist.

“You, girl!” The old voice was harsh. “You come 'ere. Come 'ere, I say!”

Katie stepped back into the deepening shadows. She couldn't stop herself from retreating. Not that house, she thought. Not that man, with ragged, shoulder-length hair and an angry bark of a voice. This couldn't be the end of their long journey.

Katie turned and raced back through the woods, trying to think what she'd say to her tired mother.

I found the house
.

I saw Uncle Frank
.

And then perhaps the words that had been pounding through her head from the first moment she'd looked out the bus window at Newquay's main street.
Jay's right. We shouldn't have come, to this place. Let's go back to Milwaukee right now
.

Chapter Three

“An old feller could starve 'ere by 'imself, 'e could!” Settled again in his rocking chair on the porch, Uncle Frank had hardly stopped talking since the Blaines arrived. “Yesterday I called down to the town for a bit of bread and some soup, and they 'aven't brung it yet. That's why I 'ollered at you, girlie. Wanted you to take word. Tell 'em to 'urry up.”

Katie sat on the front steps, obeying her mother's suggestion that she “keep Uncle Frank company while I look around.” Keeping him company, Katie decided, meant keeping still. The long white hair grew increasingly unruly as Uncle Frank combed it with gnarled fingers, his thin frame trembling. It was surprising that someone who looked so fragile could complain so loudly.

In spite of the stream of words tumbling around her, Katie was lonely in the fading light. The woods loomed dark beyond the meadow, and the willows close to the house formed great tents of shadow. Milwaukee and her friends seemed ten thousand miles away.

Her thoughts went back to the dark, shrunken grandmother in the house halfway down the hill. What was it she'd said?
You tell Frank they're goin' to get out, no matter what. You can't stop 'em.… Nobody can
. Katie wished Uncle Frank would calm down a little so she could ask him if he knew what the message meant.

“You'll 'ave to go down 'ill to the store, girlie. There's nothing to eat in this 'ouse.” The old man slapped the arm of his chair, and Katie jumped. “What's your name, then?”

“Katie. Katherine Jane Carson Blaine.”

“Well, you and that boy can go—what's 'is name again?”

“Jay. He's my stepbrother, Uncle Frank. He's upstairs—lying down, I guess. He's sort of tired.” She wanted to apologize for the cool way Jay had acknowledged Mrs. Blaine's introductions. “He'll feel better tomorrow.”

“Don't care about that.” Skinny arms flailed the air. “You two 'ave to go back down the 'ill and get food. Better start right now.”

The front door opened, and Katie sighed with relief as her mother came out onto the porch. Mrs. Blaine looked cheerful. This was what they'd come to Newquay for, Katie realized—for a job that would keep her mother too busy to grieve. The worse things looked at Uncle Frank's house, the better her mother was going to like it.

“No one has to go to the store tonight,” Mrs. Blaine said. “There are several cans on the cupboard shelves, Uncle Frank. We can make do until tomorrow.”

Katie thought Uncle Frank looked disappointed. “Delivery boy from the store 'id 'em, then,” he muttered. “I looked, but I couldn't find anything to eat. Not a bite.”

“He probably thought he was being helpful.” Mrs. Blaine stood at the top of the steps and looked out over the yard. If she found the view depressing, her smile didn't waver. “It's nearly five,” she said. “We'll have supper in a little while. You run along, Katie. I want to talk to Uncle Frank.”

Katie jumped up. “I'm going to unpack my stuff,” she said.

The paneled foyer was bigger than her cozy bedroom at home. A grandfather clock six feet tall towered against one wall, its pendulum stilled. Beyond it a stairway rose into shadows, and on the opposite wall double doors led into a long parlor that looked as if no one had sat in it for years.

On tiptoe, Katie followed a hallway that opened into a dining room. Beyond that was the kitchen, with a wide table covered with oilcloth, painted cupboards, a pantry, a gas range, and—wonder of wonders—an old-fashioned wood-burning stove. Katie unlatched the oven door and stared into a sooty cavern, feeling like the witch in
Hansel and Gretel
.