The Blue Ghost (2 page)

Gran and Liz spent the morning washing the cupboards and sorting their contents. Most of the dishes and pots and pans would stay behind to be sold with the house. Gran chose a few things to take home with her. Liz found a salt and pepper shaker set shaped like a chicken and a rooster that Gran said she could have. She tucked them away in the pocket of her suitcase.

Gran had always been a hard worker. She did everything around her house in the city Last summer she had even climbed up on her roof to fix some shingles. (Mom had been really mad about that.) But after lunch, she looked tired.

“It’s been a long morning,” she said to Liz. “I think I’ll take a nap.” And she went upstairs.

Liz cleaned for a while longer. But the work was no fun without Gran. She wandered into her bedroom and looked around. Was there something in the trunk the blue woman had wanted her to see? She tried the lid.

The trunk was locked. Liz didn’t know where to look for a key.

Liz lay down on the narrow bed and put one hand against the wall. She chose the same spot where the blue woman had gone through. But nothing had changed. It was still as solid as … well, as solid as a wall.

She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. She hated naps. Sleeping in the daytime just made her feel muzzy. When she woke, she usually felt worse than she had before she slept. But at least a nap would take up some time until Gran was ready to start working again.

What had Gran meant by her being a
guardian angel? Probably nothing, really.

Grown-ups were funny that way They used words like
angel
, but they didn’t really mean them.

Liz let herself sink a little deeper into the bed.

And that was when she heard it. Laughter. It sounded like kids this time. A bunch of little kids messing around.

The playing sounds grew louder. Calling, giggling. Someone was trying to quiet them. “Hush,” a female voice said. “Hush! The baby is sleeping. You mustn’t be so loud!”

The voices quieted, but not entirely. Liz
held her breath, straining to hear. Was it the woman she had seen last night? Was she the one hushing the children?

Then she heard it again. They were whispering now! And then more laughter. This time the other voice joined in the giggling. Whoever it was didn’t sound like a grown-up woman.

Liz sat up slowly. She stared at the wall. She didn’t have to touch it again to know it was still solid. But somehow the sound came from there.

She strained her ears. She half hoped to hear something more. But only half. The other half would be happy if what lay on
the other side of the wall stayed a dream.

“Elizabeth! Come find me, Elizabeth!”

Liz gasped. There it was again!
Elizabeth!
But this time it wasn’t the woman’s voice.

She climbed off the bed. Tugging at the wooden frame, she pulled it away from the wall. When eight or ten inches had opened up, she walked around and stepped into the open space. She stood facing the wall.

“Elizabeth!”
Liz heard once more. “Can you find me?”

Liz’s heart pounded. Slowly she raised her hands. She pressed both palms against the wall’s smooth surface. Then she closed her eyes.

“Elizabeth!”

Somehow she had to answer that call! Liz took a deep breath, then she stepped forward. Her nose crunched against the wall.

She stepped back, rubbing her nose. Her cheeks blazed. How could she be so silly?

There was no sound now, nothing at all. Maybe there had never been any sound. Maybe she was imagining the whole thing. Maybe …

But she didn’t know any other maybes. And she didn’t believe any of the ones she had thought of.

“Elizabeth!” The voice came again. It
was farther away this time. Faint and far away. “Elizabeth!”

Liz pressed both palms against the wall and stood perfectly still. She listened. She waited.

She wasn’t Elizabeth. She was only Liz. Why, then, did she feel so certain that the voice was calling her?

And why did it feel as if she could pass through this very solid wall if she only tried?

When Gran woke from her nap, she said, “We’ve done enough work for one day. Do you want to go fishing?”

Liz did.

They walked down to the lake and stood on the rickety old dock with their poles. They caught only sunnies, but Liz liked sunnies. Gran cleaned them and dipped them in egg and cornmeal. Then she fried them in her cast-iron pan until they were crisp and golden brown.

Liz went to bed that night before dark had even settled around the old house. The late-June sun didn’t set until after ten o’clock this far north, so Gran didn’t seem especially surprised when Liz said she was ready. She wasn’t tired, though. She was ready for something else. She was ready to listen for the voices.

She thought several times of telling Gran what was going on, but she didn’t. She wasn’t sure why.

Instead, she lay perfectly still, listening. Nothing happened. No whispers. No blue light. No laughing children.

The next thing Liz knew, light had crept into the room again. She rose on one elbow and gazed at the morning. Then slowly, carefully, she reached a hand to the wall next to her bed. Only an ordinary hard surface. And the sounds coming from the other side were ordinary, too. Gran was making breakfast. Liz heard the refrigerator door open and close. She smelled bacon frying.

She flopped back down onto the bed, pulled the covers to her chin, and closed her eyes.

Liz didn’t know how long she had been lying there when she heard the crying. A
baby? It sounded like a baby. There was no baby in Gran’s house.

But then there were no giggling children, either.

She sat up slowly, holding her breath. She turned to face the wall. This time she didn’t touch it. Instead, she just sat there, cross-legged on the bed, waiting.

Now she could hear someone talking. It was the kind of singsong talk people used to soothe babies.

Slowly the crying let up. Then … silence.

Was that all? Would there be nothing more?

The bed was still pushed away from the wall. Liz dropped her feet into the opening between the bed and the wall. She stood and closed her eyes. After a few breaths, she took a small step forward. Another. Then another.

Each time she took a step, she squeezed her eyes shut harder. She kept expecting to bump into the wall.

She didn’t.

She took a few more steps and stopped. Her heart pounded. Slowly she opened her eyes and drew in a long, slow breath.

Liz no longer stood in the little bedroom with the trunk. Instead, she was in a log
cabin. It was the log cabin her great-great-grandfather had built before the extra wall was added. She was certain of that.

She faced a window that was exactly like the one over Gran’s kitchen sink. It had four panes of wavery glass. A low wooden dresser stood below it now instead of a sink. A girl was changing a baby on the dresser top. She was probably only a year or two older than Liz.

Three little boys sat at a table eating something that looked like oatmeal from
wooden bowls. They gaped at Liz. Their spoons stopped in the air in front of their faces, and they stared and stared.

Liz stared back. They all looked solid enough. She didn’t think they would suddenly disappear the way the woman had. But she couldn’t be sure.

Liz turned back to the girl. She wore a faded cotton dress that reached to her ankles and no shoes. Her hair fell over her shoulders in two chestnut-brown braids. Liz touched her own hair. It was almost the same color, but not nearly as long.

Liz neither moved nor spoke. She wasn’t entirely sure she could.

Finally, the largest of the little boys cried, “Elizabeth! Look! There be somebody here. Behind you.”

The girl—was she Elizabeth?—whirled. She gasped when she saw Liz. She snatched up the baby and clutched him so hard that he let out a small cry. Her eyes were a vivid blue. Her face had gone as pale as paste.

Liz put out a hand to calm the girl. “I’m Liz,” she said. “I’ve come …” But she stopped. She had no idea why she had come or how she had gotten here.

“Oh!” the girl cried. “Oh … oh … oh!” And then, to Liz’s surprise, she fell on her knees. She let the baby slide gently to the
floor. “My guardian angel!” she said.

Guardian angel!
Liz took a step backward. This girl really meant it!

Elizabeth reached her hands up as if in prayer. “Mama always told me I had a guardian angel. And here you be!”

Liz was too shocked to speak. And since she couldn’t think of anything else to do, she took another step backward.

The baby was clearly outraged to find himself on the floor. He screwed up his face for a long, silent moment. Then he opened his mouth and began to howl.

Liz took two more steps away from the girl and the baby’s noise. Something cool
against the back of her legs stopped her. She didn’t even check to make sure it was her bed. She just collapsed onto it.

And when she looked up again, the girl, the baby, the little boys at the table … all had disappeared. Even the baby’s cry had faded away.

Nothing remained but the wall.