Ghost Town (20 page)

Lissie and Mr. Ramsey stared at Charlotte and then looked at each other in a stunned moment of silence. Then they both burst into laughter.

“Oh, Charlotte. What did you think I was going to say?” Mr. Ramsey asked. “That Lissie and I were going to get married or something?” He couldn't help but chuckle again. When he saw that Charlotte was truly upset, though, he put his arm around her.

Charlotte was a jumble of emotions. All at once she was embarrassed, relieved, and mostly hurt. After all, her father and this woman they barely knew were laughing at her.

“It's really not funny,” Charlotte insisted.

“I'm sorry, Charlotte. It was just the look on your face that made us laugh.” Mr. Ramsey looked genuinely sorry as he explained this, and Lissie was actually starting to look kind of embarrassed.

Good
, Charlotte thought. You should be embarrassed
that you are trying to woo my father with beef stroganoff and flickering candles!

Mr. Ramsey collected himself and took a deep breath. “Lissie and I are just friends. We have a lot of the same interests and enjoy each other's company,” he said, smiling at Lissie. “Contrary to popular opinion, men and women are quite capable of being friends.” He paused as he looked pointedly at Maeve and Avery. “Even when there are candles involved. How else would we see what we were eating?”

Maeve and Avery shrugged and shook their heads, and Charlotte just waited for her dad to continue.

“Lissie and I were just talking about her family and stories about growing up. That's all,” Mr. Ramsey explained honestly.

Charlotte's sigh of relief was so big that everyone burst out laughing again, and even Charlotte joined in this time.
I guess it WAS kind of funny
, she thought.

“Why don't you all sit down?” Lissie said, pulling a few more chairs up to the table. “Where's JT? He must be hungry by now, too.”

Charlotte opened her mouth to answer, but her father interrupted her.

“What I was starting to say before is that I have a very interesting announcement,” he began.

The girls leaned forward expectantly.

Charlotte wondered if her dad had gotten a call on his cell phone saying that a rescue team was on its way.

Maeve wondered if Mr. Ramsey was going to tell them that because they'd become close friends, Lissie was
going to change her plans and move to Boston.

Avery wondered if Lissie and Mr. Ramsey had found a frozen pizza somewhere and were baking it in the oven.

“Girls, I'd like you to meet Amaryllis,” Mr. Ramsey announced grandly.

The girls looked around, visibly confused.

“What?” Charlotte shrugged.

“Who?” Maeve wondered.

“Where?!” Avery demanded.

Lissie pointed to herself. “I'm Amaryllis. Lissie for short. Amaryllis is my grandmother's name.”

Someone gasped, and Charlotte looked around the room to see where it came from. She was surprised to see JT standing in the doorway of the small, candlelit room. “Your grandmother's name was Amaryllis?” JT asked. “That's . . . that's a very unusual name,” he stuttered.

Lissie nodded. “My grandmother moved away from Montana at the end of World War II. Her husband was a soldier fighting in the war, but then was listed as missing in action and presumed dead. My grandmother was pregnant with my mother at the time, and she went to live with her parents so she wouldn't be alone. But her parents died a couple of months later in a car accident.”

JT's face went ghostly white. He looked as if he might fall down and grabbed the doorframe for support. Instinctively, Charlotte and Maeve both rushed to his side, and the two girls helped him to a chair.

“What was your grandmother's name? Her full name,” JT managed to ask.

“Amaryllis Lockhart Tucker,” Lissie told him.

JT slowly shook his head. “It can't be. But . . . I thought . . . I got a letter from the Army . . .”

“It's true!” Charlotte cried out. “You see, I found this diary . . .” Charlotte took the diary from her inside coat pocket and laid it on the table in front of JT.

His fingers fumbled with the pages. “My eyesight ain't what it used to be,” he mumbled. “Can't see much print anymore.”

“The diary says that some guy named J's wife— Amaryllis—was pregnant when the mine disaster struck,” Avery burst in. “She wanted to wait around in case J came back from the war, but she had to leave with her family to take care of her baby.”

JT stared first at Avery and then at Charlotte. “How in the world,” JT started, but he was too flustered to finish.

“I found the diary and the letters in the library,” Charlotte explained. “I know I shouldn't have gone through the desk, but I just couldn't help myself. It was like discovering a museum right in the Hotel de Paris. And I didn't want to tell you what I found—I thought it might stir up painful memories. And it wasn't until right now that we found out that . . . that Lissie must be your granddaughter.”

“You're not alone, Jasper,” Maeve smiled at him. “You have a family.”

No one said anything, and the only sound was the soft flicker of the candle flame.

From the look on her face, Charlotte could tell that Lissie was as shocked as JT. Finally, Lissie was able to speak. “I didn't know what town my grandmother came from or anything about the mining disaster, except what I've read
on my own. Gram always talks about life in Montana, but never the bad things that happened to her. From what I know of the family history, my grandmother remarried when my mother was twelve.”

Charlotte watched JT's face. It was obvious that JT had thought his wife, Amaryllis Tucker, had been dead for years.

“My grandmother was widowed a few years ago,” Lissie added.

“A few years ago?” JT asked, finding it difficult to keep up with the story that was unfolding. “But I got a letter sayin' she an' her parents were . . . that there was a car accident . . .”

“We saw that letter, too,” Charlotte added, putting it all together. “But now we know it must have been a terrible mistake! Just like the letter that she got saying you were missing in action!”

JT shook his head slowly, trying to sort everything out. “So . . . if she were widowed a few years ago . . . you mean she was still alive a few years ago?”

“She's still alive now,” Lissie said softly. She reached over and patted JT's arm.

“And she's going to be thrilled when I call to tell her that I've found you.”

JT's mouth dropped open, but no sound came out. Happy tears welled in his eyes.

“Grandma hoped for so long that you would come back,” Lissie assured him. “She refused to believe that you were gone. She will be so overjoyed to learn that her heart was telling her the truth.”

JT shakily raised a hand to his eye and wiped a tear away with the tip of his finger. “To think, I was here the whole time . . .” an emotional JT whispered.

Mr. Ramsey rose from his chair and ushered the girls from the room to leave the newfound grandfather and granddaughter alone.

The girls stepped out onto the wooden sidewalk outside the little cottage. Charlotte looked back through the growing darkness at the window of light. “Look! Look!” she pointed at the scene unfolding.

They saw Lissie and JT share a warm hug. JT patted Lissie on the cheek, and he looked really, truly happy.

“Wow!” Avery cried.

“It's all so heart-wrenching and tragic and romantic!” Maeve said as she feigned a swoon. “Totally out of a classic movie.”

“He looks so genuinely happy,” Charlotte said. “Without that permanent frown on his face, I almost don't recognize JT—oops, I mean
Jasper
.”

“Jassssssssper.” Avery giggled, rolling the strange, old-fashioned name around on her tongue. “Nah,” she said decisively, shaking her head. “He'll always be plain old JT to me. That's what he told us to call him, right?”

“Shhh! Listen,” Maeve demanded, cupping her ear. Since the town was silent, they could hear little bits of the conversation. They heard JT say that maybe it was time to stop living all alone in the ghost town. After all, he wasn't getting any younger.

Then they heard Lissie say that she'd be going back East from time to time to visit her family, and that JT should
come with her to see what rural Vermont was like.

The girls could tell by the way JT nodded that he liked the idea, although they overheard him wonder who'd take care of the wolves.

Lissie promised that she and Mr. Ramsey would see what they could do to get the wolves a safe haven, if not here in Dry Gulch, then somewhere else.

“Really?” Avery asked Mr. Ramsey. “Can you really make that happen?”

Mr. Ramsey put a reassuring hand on Avery's shoulder.

“I promise, I'll do what I can, Avery.”

The happy troop followed the pathway through the deep snow back to Main Street and the Hotel de Paris. It was late afternoon, and the darkness was growing. Lissie joined them in the hotel a few minutes later. “My
grandfather
,” she said, smiling at the new term, “is checking on the wolf pups back at the mine. He said he'd join us as soon as he's finished.”

“Did you find any scrap paper in the library, Charlotte?” Mr. Ramsey asked.

Charlotte nodded. “Loads.”

“I'm going to need some kindling to build up this fire.”

Mr. Ramsey disappeared into the library, while Lissie served bowls of beef stroganoff to the girls. They were all famished after their hike and the long day, and no one spoke as they devoured the satisfying dinner.

Suddenly, they heard a sound—a faint whirring at first, but growing louder by the minute.

“What IS that?” Maeve asked.

Avery's face tensed up with concentration as she struggled to place the sound. “It's a helicopter!” she blurted out and jumped up as if she were a game show contestant who had just come up with the million dollar answer.

Mr. Ramsey raced out of the library and onto Main Street, the others at his heels.

Sure enough, a helicopter was circling the town. Against the night sky, it looked like an alien spaceship about to swoop down on Dry Gulch.

Everyone jumped up and down and waved their arms, trying to get the helicopter's attention.

“Save us, save us!” Maeve cried dramatically, flailing her arms in every direction.

“OVER HERE! OVER HERE!” Avery bounced up and down, throwing snowballs in the air.

The pilot signaled that he saw them and landed the helicopter just north of Main Street. He and an emergency medical person with a first aid kit and a stretcher climbed down and hurried to the little group to make sure everyone was okay.

“No injuries here, thank goodness,” Mr. Ramsey assured them. “We're all just a little chilly but completely safe and sound.”

“There's no way we can get you all on one chopper,” the pilot told Mr. Ramsey. “Gather your things together. I'll get another guy in here.”

The girls rushed into the hotel to pack their clothes. As Charlotte shoved her belongings into her backpack, she couldn't help feeling a bit sad at leaving the little ghost
town. There was so much more to explore in Dry Gulch and in some ways it had started to feel like a second home.

Maeve and Avery, on the other hand, were already out the door.

“Come on, Charlotte,” Avery called. “Let's get outta this place!”

Charlotte lingered for a moment, absorbing all the details of the room and imagining once more how it must have looked in the 1890s when it was a booming mining town. She could almost see the ghosts of Dry Gulch moving through this once busy hotel. She was definitely going to write about this place someday.

Avery appeared at the door. “Charlotte, hurry up! We're LEAVING!”

Charlotte picked up her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. There would always be ghosts here—ghosts of the people whose lives she never had a chance to learn about. But somehow Charlotte felt like she had freed the ghosts of Amaryllis and Jasper Tucker through uncovering the diaries and letters. Now they would be free to live in the present instead of pining away for the past.

Lissie and JT were standing on the sidewalk when Charlotte stepped over the threshold and closed the door to the Hotel de Paris.

“I . . . I don't know,” JT was saying. “What about the wolves?” he asked Lissie. “It's hard enough leaving my home, but leaving the wolves to fend for themselves? No. No. It's too much.”

Mr. Ramsey was quietly observing the conversation from across the street and motioned for JT to walk down
the sidewalk with him. Mr. Ramsey talked in a low voice with JT as they walked. As much as she strained her ears, Charlotte could not hear what they were saying. But by the time they reached the end of the sidewalk, Jasper Tucker was ready to go. He had been convinced to step onto the helicopter and start another chapter of his life.

The girls strapped themselves into one helicopter with Mr. Ramsey, while Lissie and JT got into the second helicopter that had been called in.

Maeve was scared to death as the propellers whirred and the engines kicked up clouds of white snow.

“Owwwwww! Maeve! Let go of my arm! Your nails are digging into my skin!” Avery yelled, yanking her arm away from Maeve.

“Sorry,” Maeve mumbled.

“Just shut your eyes and relax,” Charlotte suggested. Maeve squeezed her eyes shut and hummed “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' “ to herself. The tune calmed her down, but having her eyes shut made her feel woozy.

“Airsick,” Charlotte explained to her.

“I feel like I'm on a tilt-a-whirl,” Maeve said, holding her head in her hands. “The whole world is spinning and tilting around and around.”

“They call that vertigo. Just try to relax and breathe normally,” Charlotte suggested, as she patted Maeve comfortingly on the back.