Two grown boys went out to play
All day they ran and ran
But only one went home—
Ollie stepped back again. Another step and she’d be leaning on Cathy Webster’s tilted grave. “But—”
Jon, my dear, said their kind mother
Where on earth is your little brother?
Don’t know? Oh, foolish child
Enough nonsense, you are exiled
Till you bring him home for supper.
Ollie didn’t know what to say. The three gravestones loomed in her imagination big as barns at her back. “I like poems,” she said a little at random, talking to keep herself from being frightened. “I memorized one from a book I liked,The Grey King. ‘On the day of the dead’—”
“No,” said the bus driver.
Something cold and flat in his voice silenced Ollie. Her heart was going rabbit fast now, with the iron fence of the graveyard behind her and the bus driver in front. “Listen, girl,” said the driver. “Listen.There’s no time. Four graves, three stones, two sets of bones. But all four souls unquiet. The mist comes off the creek when the year’s turning and—”
“What onearth?” said a new voice.
The bus driver went still, except that his tongue shot round, just once, and licked his red lips. Seth, the pale-haired farmhand, was standing at the gate of the graveyard. “Is he scaring you?” he asked Ollie. He had his handsin his pockets. He didn’t raise his voice. But the bus driver was backing up.
“Never mind, never mind,” said the driver, his voice almost a whine. “Just telling this little inquisitive one some history. Nothing wrong with history.”
Seth raised a pale brow. “Nothing at all wrong with history. The bigger problem is cornering a kid in a graveyard.”
Seth’s voice was completely ordinary, comforting. Ollie felt the little scared knot inside her begin to ease. “Go on,” said Seth to the driver. “I’ll walk her back.”
Without another word, the bus driver hunched his shoulders and hurried out the gate and up the road.
“Got tired of Cora, did you?” Seth asked her.
Still breathless with fright, Ollie managed, “It was noisy in there.”
“Well, you’ll have that,” said Seth. “Kids and all.” He waved Ollie out of the graveyard and shut the gate behind them. Ollie, looking at the back of his head, wondered why she was stuck with brown hair when some people got unlikely shades of blond.
“Is it true?” Ollie asked as they walked.
Seth turned to her with a face politely questioning.
“What the bus driver said. Are there only two bodies buried in those three graves?” She pointed to the three at the back of the graveyard.
Seth’s glance sharpened. “He said that? I’m going toreally have to make sure that guy stops lurking around. Use your head. How would he know who’s buried down there? It’s not like we’re running around digging up hundred-year-old graves. Just for the sake of ghost stories.”
“So there is a ghost story?”
When Seth smiled, it softened the angular bones of his face. Ollie found herself warming to him. “Come on, kid,” said Seth. “There’s always a ghost story. Look around. How long have people lived on this land? There’s us, yeah, but before us, there were those people in that graveyard back there. Fanny Collar—you saw her, right?—on her grave it says that she married the first white child born in Evansburg—why do you think that was even a thing? Because before them, there were the Abenaki, andtheyhad this land and farmed it and died on it and wrote their own ghost stories while people died of plague in the streets of London.” Seth’s eyes were far away. “So yes, there isalwaysa ghost story. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Wherever you go in this big, gorgeous, hideous world, there is a ghost story waiting for you. Maybe made-up or maybe not, but that’s no excuse for that guy to lurk around graveyards and scare kids.”
They were getting to the edge of the wood. Ollie could see the scarecrows peeking over the carrot tops in the vegetable garden. “You should probably stay out of graveyards this close to Halloween,” said Seth. “I think the others arein the horse barn.” He gave her a push in the right direction and started off toward the cornfield, whistling.
So much for sneaking off. She couldn’t very well say she’d gotten lost now. Ollie headed toward the horse barn. In the normal light of the barnyard, Ollie was less sure that something weird was going on. Ms. Webster probably had a well-hidden mental illness that made her panic and throw books into rivers. Or maybe she just hated books. The author ofSmall Spaceshad probably visited the farm once. She had seen the graves, heard the story, gotten inspired. That was the only logical explanation.
The bus driver was standing at the edge of the vegetable garden. She had to walk past him. Ollie lifted her chin and stiffened her spine.Linda Webster is maybe crazy and this guy certainly is, but Seth is nice, the sun is shining...
