The Blue Ghost

  For Zoe and her mum, Megan

  —M.D.B.

  Contents

  1. The Blue Light

  2. Connections

  3. Again

  4. A Visit

  5. Guardian Angel!

  6. The Croup

  7. “Booke of Remedys”

  8. A Story

  Liz bolted straight up in bed. She stared into the inky darkness. She had no idea what woke her. For a minute she couldn’t even remember where she was.

  Then she did. She was with her grandmother in the house Gran had grown up in. It was an old house deep in the forests of northern Minnesota. That’s why everything was so dark. The only light came from the distant moon.

  Liz lay back down. She closed her eyes against the dark.

  “Elizabeth.” It was just a whisper, but very clear. “Elizabeth!”

  Liz jerked upright again as if she were pulled by a string. That was it! That was what woke her up the first time. That voice!

  But no one called her Elizabeth. Not even Gran. For all her nine years she had been Liz.

  “Elizabeth,” the voice whispered again.

  It wasn’t Gran’s voice. Liz was certain.

  Liz pulled her knees up to her chest. She sat back against the wall. She squeezed her eyes shut and listened hard. She heard nothing more. Only the wind in the trees. Only water lapping lightly against the lakeshore.

  She let her eyelids drift open. A blue light hovered near the window on the wall opposite her bed. The light came to rest on the curved lid of the large wooden trunk under the window.

  Now it sank down in front of the trunk and circled it. The blue light paused over the top again. Then it floated away. It moved along the wall. When it came to the far corner, the blue light turned and started toward Liz.

  Liz opened her mouth to call for her grandmother. Nothing came out but a gasp.

  The light moved closer. It grew larger as it approached.

  It had a shape now … or almost a shape. It seemed to form a person, a woman. One second Liz could see her clearly. She could make out the long, old-fashioned dress. She could see the woman’s hair was pulled back in a bun. Then the figure wavered like smoke in a puff of wind.

  Liz stared. She wanted to close her eyes. She wanted to cover her face with her hands. But she could only stare.

  The woman grew more solid. She floated right over Liz’s head. She was so close, Liz could have reached out to touch her … if Liz had wanted to touch her.

  Now the blue woman looked back at Liz. “Elizabeth,” she whispered again. She sounded sad.

  “Yes,” Liz replied. Her voice trembled. “Yes?”

  The woman didn’t speak again. She motioned, as if she wanted Liz to follow. Then she vanished.

  Liz lifted a hand to reach for the woman. Her fingers touched the place where the figure had disappeared. There was only wall. Solid wall.

  The morning sunshine crept silently into the small bedroom. Liz turned over and squinted at the window on the opposite side of the room.

  No wonder the room had been so dark the night before. Even sunlight could barely make its way through the tall pine trees around the house. Not much light passed through the window, either. It was small and deep-set.

  What a strange room this was! It was made of logs. The bark had been stripped and the smooth wood polished to a dark gold. Only the wall next to her bed was ordinary. Liz ran a hand over its flatness.

  The wall! Liz pulled her hand back as if she had been burned. She sat up.

  What had happened last night? Really. Had someone called “Elizabeth”? Had a woman made of blue light appeared on the other side of the room? Over that trunk? And had she called Liz’s name again before she disappeared right through this wall?

  The idea was silly. Liz was too old to believe in ghosts. Still, she laid a hand on the wall once again where the woman had vanished. She pushed. The wall didn’t give. What did she expect? Walls didn’t do that.

  So it had been a dream, after all. A strange dream. She must have dreamed being awake and sitting up in bed, too. She had never had a dream that seemed so real, though.

  Quickly Liz pulled a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from her suitcase. Then she headed for the kitchen. It was empty. Where was her grandmother?

  She looked around the kitchen. This room was made of logs, too. Only the wall shared with the small bedroom was an ordinary flat one. She hadn’t noticed any of these details last night. She and Gran had arrived late after the long drive from Minneapolis.

  Liz stepped outside. She moved out into the yard, then she turned back to look at the house. The oldest parts of the house looked like they had once been a log cabin. Someone had built onto the cabin, both out and up. They had built in a rather helter-skelter fashion, too. The house seemed to stick out in every direction at once.

  “It’s a hodgepodge, isn’t it?”

  Liz jumped. It was Gran, speaking Liz’s very thoughts. She had stepped out of the forest. In her hands she carried a bouquet of wildflowers. “My great-grandfather built the log cabin,” Gran added. She joined Liz in the yard. “Then my grandfather added onto it. Every time a new child was born, he built another bedroom. So the whole house just grew like Topsy.”

  “The kitchen and my bedroom used to be the log cabin. Right?” Liz asked.

  “Right.” Gran studied the house, too. “Back then it was all one room. The wall between your bedroom and the kitchen was added later.”

  The wall the blue woman had walked through!

  Liz gave herself a shake. She was beginning to believe her own dreams.

  “I was born and grew up in this house,” Gran went on. “So were my mother and her mother before her. All of us named Elizabeth. Like you, Liz. And like your mom.”

  Liz nodded. She knew all that. She was Liz. Her mother was Beth. Gran was Betty. All of them were nicknames of Elizabeth. “So what were the Elizabeths before us called?” she asked.

  Gran shrugged. “Just Elizabeth, I think. I know my mother was never called anything else.” As she spoke, her gaze was caught by the house. She looked sad.

  “Why are you selling the house, Gran?” Liz asked softly. She reached to take her grandmother’s hand.

  At first Liz thought Gran wasn’t going to answer. She just went on looking and looking at the house. At last she said, “I love this old place. I always have. But it’s too far to drive all the way up here from Minneapolis. Your mom worries about me when I stay here by myself. So …” She straightened her back and squeezed Liz’s hand.

  “So,” she said again, “it’s time. That’s why I brought you with me … to help me pack away my past. And to be my guardian angel so your mom won’t worry.”

  “I will be your guardian angel,” Liz promised. She threw her arms around her grandmother and gave her a hard hug. “Always.”

  Gran hugged her back. “I wanted you to see the house, too,” she said. “So you’ll remember. I guess for me it’s … it’s …” Her voice trailed off.

  Liz stepped back to study her grandmother’s face. “What is it for you?” she asked. She really wanted to know.

  Gran smiled down at Liz. “For me, dear Liz, this house is about connections. Connections with all the people who came before us. My grandmother used to tell me stories about them. It’s like they are still here. Can you feel it, too?”

  Liz thought about being called awake with the name “Elizabeth.” She thought about the blue light and the woman who had passed through the wall next to her bed. And despite the warm sunlight, ice water trickled down her spine.

  “Yes,” she said to her grandmother. “I can feel it.”

  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!” th
e 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.

  Liz sat on the bed, unable to move.

  Guardian angel! That girl thought she, Liz, was a guardian angel! A real one! She covered her mouth with one hand to hold back a laugh.

  But then she looked down at her long pink nightgown. Gran had made it for her and it did look like the dresses angels wore in pictures. And Liz had to admit that she had shown up in the room rather suddenly. A visit from an angel probably made as much sense as a girl stepping through a wall from the twenty-first century.

  This time Liz did laugh. Right out loud. Then she stopped herself. She didn’t want Gran sticking her head in the door to ask what was funny. What would she tell her? Did you know that I’m a guardian angel? Just like you said?

  Liz giggled quietly.

  Anyway, she rather liked being taken for an angel. The idea made the other strange things seem almost normal. Like walking through a wall into another time. Or a woman appearing in a blue light.

  Who were these people, anyway? The girl and all the little boys? The woman? Maybe the girl was her great-great … But Liz didn’t know how many greats to put before the word grandmother. At least she knew her name was Elizabeth.