The Ghost Belonged to Me by Richard Peck

camera and a device for flash powder.
    She put her finger to her lips and then pointed down to the gravel. The two of them made a silent retreat toward the side of the barn. Before they disappeared, though, she halted the stranger and put out her hand. He propped his tripod against the barn and dug into a pocket, coming up with folding money. Blossom deposited it down her shirtwaist front, and the two of them departed.
    That night Cousin Elvera stayed to supper, and the conversation touched on every topic except recent issues. I was up in my room again by nine. I knew Mother expected me to make an early retraction of my story, and I was half persuaded to go along with her. A quiet night would have convinced me. But that’s not the way matters arranged themselves.
    I slept for a while and awoke to moonlight. Slipping over to the window, I surveyed the barn. But if Inez was afoot that night, she was sending no signals. One more trip to the barn, I thought, and I will put the whole business out of my mind and be quit of it. I drifted down through the creaking house and out across the yard.
    With any luck, I said to myself, Blossom will not be charging admission at this hour. I thought this notion was somewhat witty, but my heart was in my mouth anyway.
    As a rule, a murky flight of stairs is not comforting. But the darker and quieter, the better, I thought. When I pushed the door open, a strong smell of swamp water came from above. I slipped in and stood to one side of the moonlight. It picked up the girl’s footprint, which was black and glistening wet. I tried not to concentrate on that, but the rest of the place was in shadow.
    There was a whimpering then, and I nearly took flight. I blinked my eyes and thought I saw Trixie’s bedraggled little dogface, but it was suspended above the floor in a corner. By degrees I could see the dog clearer and that she was being held. A white hand smoothed her tangled fur.
    â€œInez?” I said, not loud. “It’s me.”
    â€œThere are many intruders,” her voice came back, “but I know you are the boy from the house.” It was her same voice with the strange accent. But she was not agitated.
    â€œHave they told you I do not exist?” she said, going right to the heart of the matter.
    â€œThey don’t want you to exist, I guess.”
    â€œThe living wish to forget the dead,” she sighed. She was in a very different frame of mind. “But it does not matter. You saved the people in the train, all but the madman.”
    It wasn’t a question, but I told her I did, thanks to her.
    â€œEven the madman rests easier than I,” she said, sighing again. Trixie whimpered. “I had thought to be saved, but my rescuer was my robber. I am even denied a decent grave.”
    â€œWhy are you here, Inez?” I whispered.
    â€œBecause of that.”
    â€œAre you a soul in torment, Inez?”
    â€œYes,” she said, “though there are quiet times. In my loneliness I have watched you from the window.”
    I did not like the thought of that but said nothing.
    â€œI have watched you since you were old enough to walk, and I have looked out across the fields before the town was here.”
    â€œThen you are old, Inez.”
    â€œNo, I am not old. I was spared that.”
    â€œWhat do you want?” I asked her as most of my fear left me.
    â€œTo be among my own people. Like me, they are above the ground, but they rest.”
    â€œHow can I help?”
    â€œThere is little you can do alone,” she said. “For a boy is hard to believe.”
    â€œThen why do you appear to me?”
    â€œI have no choice among those who will see me and those who will not, and little experience of either.”
    â€œBlossom’s Mama says I’m receptive.”
    â€œThere are many ways to express it.”
    â€œBut you appeared to Lucille too and to Tom Hackett.”
    â€œShe was in danger—or he was.