Ghostlight (14 page)

We found her still sitting under the oak tree, her glass empty and her lap full of Weasley.

“I meant to get up fifteen minutes ago,” she said, slowly trailing her fingers along the cat's spine. “But I just don't have the heart to push him off.”

“That's easy enough to fix.” I scooped Weasley into my arms and set him on the ground. He raised his tail and sauntered away, making sure we had a clear view of his backside.

Mom picked at the fur on her shorts. “What's up, Avery?”

“Remember when we were doing the dishes and I asked you about Joshua Hilliard? Is it okay if I ask you a few more questions about him?”

Her eyes moved to Blake before settling back on me. “Sure, honey.”

“Great. Now…would it be okay if Blake filmed your answers with his phone?”

“Are you deposing me, Avery?” Her brow wrinkled. “What's this about?”

I tightened my ponytail to stall for a second. When explaining something to Mom, it was important to set things out straight and clear. “You know how Julian and I were making a movie, right? But it turned out bad because he tricked me.”

She started to say something but then closed her mouth and nodded slowly.

“Well, I still want to make a movie, sort of like the history I told you we were making, but now it's become more of a
mystery
than a history of Hilliard House. I want to get the facts straight, and that's why I need to ask you some questions.”

“That sure was a mouthful.”

“Yeah, sorry,” I muttered.

She smiled. “So you're turning Ken Burns on me? At the tender age of twelve?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” she said. “I'm glad to help. Do you want to do this inside?”

“No. The light's good out here, and I want the trees behind the house as a backdrop.”

I hustled Mom to her feet and stuck a chair under each arm. Once I had her settled in the chair on the opposite side of the house with the soft afternoon light warming her face, I placed the other chair at a diagonal from her and sat down.

“Okay, Blake, when I give you the signal, start filming. But keep me out of the frame. We'll probably edit out my questions later.”

“How?”

“We'll figure it out. I just want the shot to be Mom from the waist up with the trees behind her. Tilt the phone so the picture is wide instead of tall. And make sure her face is in the center of the frame.”

Blake grinned. “You got it, boss.”

I faced Mom. “Okay, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions, and I just want you to answer with all the things you can remember, only make it sound good and smooth and all. Like on TV.”

“That's it, huh?” She straightened up and smoothed her hair.

I turned to Blake. “Ready?”

He nodded.

My heartbeat skittered into a trot. “Okay, start filming.” I took a breath. “Mom, I want you to tell us about Joshua Hilliard. Start with how Grandma and Grandpa, and, you know, the folks in the community, saw him. Then tell us how you saw him differently. Because you did see him differently, didn't you?”

She nodded and stared into the distance for a moment. Mom had always told Blake and me to think before speaking, and nobody was better at that than her. When she opened her mouth, she spoke in a cool, calm way.

“By the time I met Joshua Hilliard, he was in his eighties and living on his own in that big, lonely house. He didn't go to church or socialize with the family—that much is true. He kept to himself, and people thought he was strange. My father said he was a good-for-nothing atheist who lost his child through neglect, and who later drove his wife to an early grave.”

I couldn't help a little shiver at that.

“But the man I talked to was kind and gentle,” she continued. “Terribly sad, though. He told me he left the church because it didn't make sense to him anymore—not after what he'd seen in France during the war. It wasn't that he didn't believe in God. He just longed for peace and forgiveness, and Dad's faith was too much about fear and judgment.”

“What about Margaret Anne?” I asked.

“Oh, he adored her. She meant the world to him.” Her eyes held mine. “You'll understand when you have kids of your own.” She turned back to the camera. “For all he suffered in the war, I think her death was a much greater tragedy. One he could never quite get over.”

“How did she die?”

“It did have to do with the floods, but not a drowning, like your friend Julian thought. Mr. Hilliard told me she contracted typhoid from contaminated water, which happened a lot back then when it flooded. His wife had been visiting family on the other side of the river and couldn't get back right away because the water was too high and the ferry wasn't running. By the time she got back, Margaret Anne was on her deathbed. Mr. Hilliard told me his wife blamed him.”

“Why?”

“She said he hadn't boiled the water properly, hadn't watched Margaret Anne closely enough, hadn't called the doctor soon enough. Basically, he got everything wrong.” Mom shook her head. “I'm sure it was just her grief, but she made her feelings known to everyone in town. She stayed with him a year after Margaret Anne was buried, but then moved back with her folks. The poor man lived alone with the blame for the rest of his life.”

“That's pretty tragic,” I whispered.

Mom wiped her right eye. “Does that answer all your questions?”

“Yeah…I guess that's a cut, Blake.”

“Man.” Blake lowered the phone. “This mystery of Hilliard House is already starting to bum me out.”

“But it feels like I'm finally getting somewhere,” I said. “Like we might actually be getting close to something
true.
”

That night after supper I asked Grandma for a higher-watt bulb for my bedside lamp, and I had my speech all prepared.

“Blake and I are working on a project together, and I need to do some planning tonight. It would help to have a brighter light. So I don't permanently damage my eyesight or anything.”

Grandma clucked her tongue. “No need to be dramatic, Avery May. Can't you just work at the kitchen table? The light is very bright in there.”

“Grandma, I need to work in private, where it's quiet, so I can concentrate.” I'd also be staying up late, but I didn't tell her that.

She studied me for a moment, and I just studied her right back without blinking.

“Will sixty watts do?” she finally asked.

Once I'd changed the bulb, I reached down to pull several sheets of drawing paper from the Kingdom box. Then I grabbed the colored pencils and made myself comfortable on the quilt.

Did I know what I was doing? Not really. I couldn't imagine what this movie with Blake would look like when it was finished. I just needed a plan for the next day. Otherwise, he and I would waste too much time arguing.

Weasley watched from the edge of the bed as I divided my first sheet of paper into eight squares, each one representing an individual shot. When Julian first told me about shots and angles, he'd called this kind of thing a storyboard. With a regular pencil I sketched out how each shot would look. It wasn't the best drawing I could do—just outlines and stick figures so I had an idea of what should go where within the frame.

The opening scene would be a wide shot of the cemetery, panning from left to right to get a sense of the trees that surrounded it, and coming to a stop on me standing next to the Clearview Cemetery sign. I knew from studying those films with Julian that I couldn't just stand there talking for a long time. He would have called that a
static
shot because not enough was happening and the audience would get bored. Maybe it'd be better if I walked toward Joshua Hilliard's grave? I wrote some introductory words in the space left over. That way I could practice it a little before we actually shot the scene.

The next shot had to be the gravestone of Elizabeth and Margaret Anne Hilliard. A close-up first, but then pulling back to include me. This was where I would introduce the story question—why was Joshua Hilliard buried separately from his wife and daughter? Did it have something to do with his daughter's tragic early death?

After that I made a list of short clips we could use to break up long scenes. I had no clue how to edit them in, but Blake and I could figure that out later. I listed all the close-up shots I could think of: the lettering on headstones, drooping grave flowers, carvings, photographs. Maybe even an angel statue.

Weasley attempted several stealth landings on my stack of papers—he just couldn't resist the crinkle of paper under his paws—so eventually I had to shut him out of the attic. I worked until nearly midnight and only stopped because my eyes were dry and gritty. When I finally turned out the light, I slept hard. Too hard for any dreams to creep in.

“Zoom in on that carving of the cross.”

Blake looked up from the headstone. “Avery, there's no zoom on this phone.”

“Can't you do that two-finger thing?”

“I tried, but the picture goes out of focus.”

“Well, just walk closer to it while the camera's rolling, I guess.”

“That's what I've
been
doing.”

A bead of sweat plopped into my right eye, so I backed away to rub at it. Something moved in the distance, but when I focused both eyes in that direction, everything was still. Just trees and graves.

My stomach gave a hideous growl.

“Tell me about it,” muttered Blake.

It was all taking a lot longer than I'd planned. Even though I'd scripted out what to say, we'd needed eleven takes to get the intro segment even close to right, and fifteen to get the bit by Margaret Anne's grave. I knew this because Blake had numbered each take, his voice growing snarkier each time. On the last take, he'd muttered, “Action. Take
one billion.
”

Honestly, I wouldn't have minded Julian stepping in at that point. He was selfish and took advantage of people, but he knew what he wanted and got the job done. If we didn't finish this day's filming soon, Blake would mutiny on me, and then I'd be up a creek with no cameraman.

“Did you see that?”

I shaded my eyes to look where Blake was pointing but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. “What?”

“I could have sworn I saw somebody.”

“This heat could make a person hallucinate.” I wiped my forehead on my sleeve. “Look, we just need some shots of grave flowers, the more droopy and tattered, the better, and then we can go back for lunch.”

Most of the flowers were fake—silk carnations and roses on knobby plastic stems—but we did find a grave with a built-in vase full of lilies with browning, crinkled edges. I knew from listening to Julian that the contrast of the white petals against the dark gray stone would look even better in black and white. I just had to somehow figure out how to make that change later.

Deeper into the cemetery Blake found a grave with a vase of freshly picked daisies tipped over on its side. Without me even asking he took some footage of the fallen vase, so I stood back and studied the gravestone. It was very similar to Grandpa's—a man's name with birth and death dates at the left, and his wife's name at the right with the death date still blank. It made my heart ache a little to think of old Aileen Forney Shelton bringing fresh wildflowers every week to her husband Clarence only to have the wind blow them over.

Wait…
Aileen?

Her birthday was June 8, 1930.

I ran back to Margaret Anne's grave to check. She was born in 1930, just as I'd thought. My face flushed hot and tingly, and this time it wasn't the sun's fault.

“Are we done with this one?” Blake called.

I walked toward him and set the daisy vase upright again. Then I pointed at the gravestone. “This woman—I'm almost positive she was Margaret Anne's friend. We found a framed photo of Margaret Anne with another girl, and the names written on the back were Margaret Anne and Aileen.”

“How do you know it's the same Aileen?”

“Same birth year. And how many Aileens have you seen in the cemetery? It's not an everyday sort of name.” I took a breath to calm my thumping heart. “We have to talk to her. We could even get her on camera. Someone who knew Margaret Anne? That would make this film into something
real.
Well, it's real now, but it would be so much cooler.”

“You know, Avery, she's probably dead.”

“Nice one, brainiac. If she were dead, she'd be
here.
With a death date on her grave.”

“Right. Duh.” Blake looked away. “But still, she's over eighty years old. She may have lost her mind already.” He shivered. “Old people…they weird me out.”

“Grandma's old and you like her just fine.”

“She's different. She's not
that
old, and she's only a little batty.”

“Well, this lady brings fresh flowers to her husband's grave, so she must be pretty neat.” I imagined a lady knitting in a rocking chair, her soft white hair in a bun and a lace collar around her neck. She'd look so
quaint
on camera. And that was just the sort of thing this film needed.

By the time we got back to the house, Grandma had already settled into her afternoon nap, so Mom made us grilled cheese sandwiches with apples and brown sugar toasted inside.

“How'd your meeting go?” I asked between chews.

“Try swallowing before you speak,” Mom said. “The closing is set for three weeks from tomorrow, pending the outcome of the inspection. Mama settled on a lower price in lieu of making repairs, so unless there's something horribly wrong that the buyers didn't find, I think everything will work out fine.”

A sliver of apple stuck in my throat. In all the craziness of the past couple of days, I'd forgotten about the Hilliard House inspection. The whole point of such a thing was to look for damage. Had Julian left water in the tub upstairs? There could be water on the floor, too.

“How was your filming at the cemetery?” Mom smiled and shook her head. “Now that's a question I never expected to ask my children.”

I looked at Blake.

He shrugged.

“Actually, we found something interesting.” I pointed at the folder I'd set on the china cabinet. “Can you hand me that?”

Mom reached for the red folder and set it next to me. I wiped my hands and pulled the photograph of Margaret Anne and Aileen out of the left pocket.

When I held it out to her, she stared at the photo for a moment, her mouth dropping open. “I remember this,” she said, wiping her hands before taking it. “Mr. Hilliard showed it to me. But I think it was in a silver frame back then.”

“Turn it over, Mom. The other girl is named Aileen, which is a spelling I'd never seen before. At least not until today at the cemetery when I saw the name—spelled exactly the same way—on a gravestone. It was for a man and his wife, but the wife hasn't died yet. Her name is Aileen Forney Shelton, and she was born in 1930, just like Margaret Anne. There's someone alive who knew her!”

“My goodness,” Mom said. “The name sounds familiar—I probably met her at one of the cemetery gatherings.”

“Do you think she'd be part of our film? That she might talk to us about Margaret Anne?”

Mom took a sip of tea and carefully set the glass down. “Avery, you realize it's been over seventy-five years since Margaret Anne died? Think of all that's happened to Mrs. Shelton in the meantime. She may not remember very much.”

“But Grandma always says she remembers things from her childhood better than what she did yesterday. We have to try, don't we?”

Mom smiled. “I suppose we could give her a call.”

I sank in my chair. “If we just had Internet on this hill we could do a search on her and maybe find her email address or something.”

“If we had Internet,” Blake said, “we could use satellites to find the exact location of her house.”

“I have an even better idea.” Mom stood up, taking her plate to the sink, and walked out of the kitchen. She returned with a skinny yellow book in her hand. “Here's some technology that'll blow your mind. How about we look her up in the phone book?”

I raised an eyebrow at Blake.

Mom sat and paged through the book. “Okay, here's Sheerin, Shehan, Shelsey…well, there's no Aileen, but here's a Mrs. Clarence Shelton.”

“That's it! Her husband was named Clarence.”

“Get a pen and write this number down, Avery.”

“And then you'll call her?” I asked.

“Not a chance, my girl.”

I gulped.

“This is your project,” Mom said. “You make the call.”