The Ghost Belonged to Me (17 page)

I reached for the little skull-Trixie's, or whatever her real name had been. It was as warm as life and rested in the hollow of my hand. I remembered the draggled little bit of pink ribbon and the damp tangles in the fur. You won't need to whimper any more, Trixie, I said, but not aloud.

We worked faster then and got caught up in the rhythm of the job. I reached without looking and pushed bones of various sizes into the cool place. In a moment the box was empty except for some crumbs of dirt from our backyard which I flung out on the hard-baked New Orleans ground.

“She's home now,” Mrs. Pomarade said, “bless her heart.” Uncle Miles stood up and wiped the sweat off his brow. I stayed crouched where I was, and when I looked one last time into the box, my eyes swam.

Uncle Miles's hand dropped on my shoulder. From far overhead he said, “Old folks don't grieve over the mystery of death. But Alexander, you ain't old.”

There was no sign that Inez knew she was home, and the white bones were a far cry from the heart-shaped face and rustling skirts in our barn. There wasn't any sign of contentment from inside the peculiar tomb. Nor any moan of welcome from Inez's people, whose own bones had maybe been cleared out who knows when. Inez was gone from me for good. And I was setting forth into life at just the age she'd left it, and doors seemed to clang shut through all the years between us. It was a fanciful thought, I know, and I didn't in fact hear doors clanging. But I knew a time had passed that wouldn't come again. And I knew as sure as if Blossom's mama had said so that I no longer had the Gift and that there'd be no place for being receptive to the Spirit World in my future.

Then Blossom darted out from behind the tomb, busy as ever. Her finery was wilted, and her hair was frizzing out of control. As a result, she looked her normal self. In her hands was a double bunch of tired flowers clearly filched from other graves. She stepped up to Inez's shelf and jammed the bouquet in as far as it would go. One black-red gladiolus drooped down outside.

Nobody pointed out to her that she'd robbed the dead to honor the dead. But still, she turned and said, “It was all I could think of to do.”

“It was right,” said Mrs. Pomarade.

I hammered the lid back on Inez's box, and Blossom and I slid it back on the wagon. Then we all made off, but took the long way around to see the tomb of Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen, who was well known in New Orleans circles.

According to Mrs. Pomarade, Marie dealt in strong potions and various charms and generally had quite a hold on people down there during her lifetime. People still visited her tomb. There were X's scrawled all over it in brick dust, which is considered lucky. The grass before it was all worn bald, and that's part of the ritual too. People wishing to be on the safe side of her spirit mark up her tomb and then shuffle their feet at her door.

Mrs. Pomarade wanted to know if we cared to pay our respects, but neither Blossom nor I did. I for one was done with all that and ready for the living world.

With no reason for stealth, Uncle Miles aimed the horse into the heart of town. We passed along through the old quarter where the cast-iron porches hang well out to shade the pavement. We'd likely not have turned into the main drag, Royal Street, except that the buckboard wheels wedged with a curving trolley track, and we were in the thick of the traffic before we knew it.

Royal Street is given over chiefly to banks and fine shops, though much of it is the worse for wear. Women balancing laundry bundles on their heads mingled with top-hatted bankers. The smell of brewing coffee blended with horse-droppings, and there was nothing of the graveyard to this part of the city.

We were just drawing along past the new Monteleone Hotel when we heard shouts. Since Blossom and I were facing backwards off the end of the wagon bed, we weren't the first to take notice. But when the horse stopped and reared up, I was on my feet. Hanging onto the bridle up front was Mortimer Brulatour, howling his head off.

Mrs. Pomarade quivered some but held her ground, and Uncle Miles was on his feet, grabbing for a buggy whip that wasn't there.

“Scroundrels!” Brulatour bawled. His face was purple, and his big white hat rolled into the gutter. “Yankee trash!” he shrieked, alarming the horse dangerously. “Mortimer Brulatour does not play the fool to a bunch of—”

From there, his fulminations seemed to lead him into another language, French possibly. Apparently we weren't far from the
Delta Daily
offices as several of his ink-stained minions stepped cautiously out of the gathering crowd.

“It's a hot day to get too worked up,” Uncle Miles said from his lofty perch. Loud as Uncle Miles often was, he sounded quite calm compared to Brulatour. “State your business, man, and watch your language. There is ladies present.”

“Ladies!” wailed Brulatour, at the end of his rope. “Listen, you dried-up old rube, you have all but cost me my job by stealing the body of Inez Dumaine! If you think a tin-horn old ghoul and a couple of brats are going to rob me of my good name—”

More French. But Mortimer Brulatour gestured to his flunkies to grab Inez's box out of the wagon. I was ready to make a stand, and no doubt Blossom was prepared to light into them with the claw hammer. But Uncle Miles turned to look right at me and winked once behind his spectacles. “Well, they have us outnumbered, Alexander,” he said in quite a loud voice. “Better give them what they are after.”

I was so caught up in the events, I'd forgotten the box was empty. When Brulatour's henchmen reached up into the wagon bed, I obliged them by scooting the box their way. As it slid past her, Blossom pointed to the top of it and said to them, “This end up.”

“Well, I reckon this will restore your rightful name!” Uncle Miles called out after Brulatour. But he was shooing his men with the box through the crowd and didn't favor us with a backward look. “And,” said Uncle Miles in a voice just for us, “I reckon he figured we were goin' to the cemetery, not
from.”

 

 

 

 

T
hat last evening in New Orleans, Mrs. Pomarade brought out a bottle of Madeira wine before supper. Blossom and I were allowed a half measure apiece. I gulped mine, and it went straight to my head. But this was Blossom's last time to be elegant, and she sipped hers with her little finger stuck out very refined. She wouldn't have said no to a refill.

Mrs. Pomarade brought out an extra glass to represent Inez, and we all toasted her. I can still see the way the pink light from the chandelier broke into red rainbows when it hit the wine. Then Uncle Miles threw Inez's glass into the grate, and we raised ours to her one more time.

The maid started in with our supper plates, and Blossom reached for her napkin. Something rolled out of its folds and wobbled across the tablecloth. Her hand was after it like lightning striking. Then she held it up, and it was Inez's brooch, the one with the human-hair flowers.

Her eyes got rounder and darker, if possible, and she looked at Uncle Miles. He blinked back at her from behind his spectacles. “Is it for me?” she whispered.

“I have an idee it must be,” he replied, and Blossom fixed it among the ruffles on her chest. She was never without it somewhere on her person from that evening on.

Later that night when we were off to ourselves, I told Uncle Miles he'd been pretty cute to hide the brooch that way in Blossom's napkin. “Alexander,” he said, “I mislaid that brooch on the very day we opened the grave back home. I ain't seen it again until this evenin', and it comes as quite an astonishment to me. And I am too old to be astonished by much.”

“Aw, Uncle Miles,” I said, wanting to be skeptical.

“Boy, I don't lie.” And I guess that after a lifetime of truth-telling he didn't. Maybe it truly was the last time that Inez Dumaine worked in our lives.

That night I lay abed sleepless long after Uncle Miles commenced a steady snoring. Outside, the St. Charles Avenue trolleys rattled by, reminding me of home. And when I slept, I dreamed I was dancing between the streetcar rails in my nightshirt. But I wasn't alone. Blossom was dancing with me, in hers.

 

 

Mrs. Pomarade saw us off down at the New Orleans depot. When it came time to board, she clasped hands with Uncle Miles and looked long at him from under her hat brim. I turned away from a couple of oldsters occupying themselves in this way. But I heard her say, “Come again, Miles, you old reprobate. You will never be a stranger here with Sophie.”

And he replied, “Let's us speak plain, Sophie. My travelin' days is drawin' to an end, but I will carry you in my heart.” According to Blossom's account later, they kissed then. But when I looked up, Uncle Miles was digging his tobacco tin out of his overall bib, and someone down the platform was calling the train.

We found a pair of facing seats, but Uncle Miles stood at the window until the train moved, looking out at the platform. Mrs. Pomarade put up her hand at the last moment and then turned and walked away, less lively than she had been.

For this journey Blossom rode in the chair car as Uncle Miles's guest. To my certain knowledge, she never spent a penny of that ill-gotten twenty-eight dollars and very likely still has it.

I slept a good part of the way, and so did Blossom. She sat next to Uncle Miles with her frizzy head wedged up against his arm and Inez's brooch hanging off her middy collar and her spider legs curled up under her. She was a sorry-looking sight again. But she had grit and possibilities, and I knew I'd have my work cut out for me just keeping up with her in the future.

I remember the three of us just that way, rolling along north through the hot afternoon, heading home. Blossom and I in a stupor from our adventures and the wine. And Uncle Miles awake and alert, with a far-off look in his eyes and Mrs. Pomarade in his heart.

Not many months after that, Uncle Miles passed away. All of Bluff City turned out for his funeral, and Mrs. Van Deeter herself carried a big wreath of roses up to the side of the grave.

By then, Lowell and Lucille were engaged, and Mother was busy by day and night with the wedding arrangements. The invitations were ordered engraved from a St. Louis firm, and Cousin Elvera was scheduled to pour. But these events don't bear on my story, for by then very few people even remembered that I'd once seen a ghost in the brick barn out in the back of our place.

RICHARD PECK
was born in Decatur, Illinois. He attended Exeter University in England and holds degrees from DePauw University and Southern Illinois University.

In 1990 he received the American Library Association's Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors “an author whose book or books, over a period of time, have been accepted by young adults as an authentic voice that continues to illuminate their experiences and emotions, giving insight into their lives.” His other books include
Are You in the House Alone?, Ghosts I Have Been, Remembering the Good Times, Princess Ashley, Lost in Cyberspace, and, most recently, The Great Interactive Dream Machine.