Ophie's Ghosts: "The Attic"–Chapter 21

Weren’t her rafters strong and straight, holding aloft the roof and keeping everyone below safe and dry?

Mrs. Caruthers had been awake all morning, longer than any days previous, and the old woman was clearly feeling better because she was growing crankier by the hour. Ophie had tried to open the curtains to let in the glorious spring morning sunshine and had gotten an earful, and that was only the beginning.

Ophie was glad to have a bit more information to help Clara pass on, since she was convinced solving the murder was the thing keeping Clara in Daffodil Manor, but something about Clara’s ghostly exuberance set Ophie a bit on edge.

Clara’s shoulders sagged, the manic excitement draining from her just a tad.

Ophie took a half step toward the staircase, wariness seeping into her bones. Clara had never seemed like a particularly dangerous haint, but Ophie knew that the violet spirits were nothing to mess with.

She’d seen the way they screamed at the living, their fits of impotent rage on the sidewalks and in the train stations.

Being angry didn’t always mean a person was bad, especially when they had ample reason.

Her crimes had seemed minimal, but now Ophie could not help but see her afternoon respites through her mother’s eyes, and shame ran through her, hot and itchy.

She knew Mama was mad when she let the familiar cadences of Georgia slip into her voice.

Colin stood at the bottom of the staircase, staring at her balefully, his sad countenance seemingly a manifestation of Ophie’s own wretched feelings.

Colin stood at the bottom of the staircase, staring at her balefully, his sad countenance seemingly a manifestation of Ophie’s own wretched feelings.

“Here’s hoping they ran off to join the circus,” Mama said to Ophie, the first words she’d uttered since her reprimand earlier in the afternoon.

Ophie’s curiosity had not waned, but her fear of the dead had, and so she decided it was time to have a conversation with the dead man haunting the garden.

Then the azaleas began to bloom, a garish display of pink, the rainy days leaving the flowers littering the ground.

This gave Ophie a light feeling, because there was a pattern to the movements of the dead, and by understanding the rhythms, the ebbs and flows, Ophie could be that much better at helping the dead pass on.

But she did believe that helping the dead pass on might just be a matter of making them realize that the people they well and truly wanted were gone, giving the errant spirits a direction of pursuit.

“Can you tell me what your daughter looks like?” Ophie finally asked when the ghost did not seem inclined to leave without an answer.

Ophie bit her lip once she got the question out, waiting for the censure she was certain would follow.

“Agatha and her brood have decided to come north for the summer. And of course she’s going to bring her mother and aunt. So you will get to spend June surrounded by Virginians!”

Mrs. Caruthers’s bright disposition faded as quickly as it had arrived.

“Amelia, go down and fetch Henry immediately. Tell that man not to tarry.”

From the evening with Aunt Rose’s husband and the subsequent conversation with Aunt Rose, Ophie knew the dead could do things to the living, especially when they were asleep.

Women were always being kidnapped by cads in both True Romances and the detective stories.

“I’m sorry, Ophelia,” Aunt Rose said, taking a halting step forward.

Her husband, no longer a stooped old man but a handsome young gentleman, walked toward her wearing a dapper suit and holding a single pale pink rose.

But in the past year, he’d had more than his share of upheaval. First, there had been the ones who tracked mud across his floors and slammed his doors, so that the whole of him vibrated uncomfortably.

Mama wasted no time in packing up their things once the undertaker had left with Aunt Rose’s body.

When they climbed aboard there were only a handful of people, most of them clearly heading home from a night of carousing as opposed to going off to work.

Ophie eyed the papers he was holding, which were emblazoned with the words Join the Communist Party.

“Well, I bet more people than ever will read them now,” Ophie murmured absently, gesturing to the driver and passengers leaving the trolley, all of whom were fixated on the poor man’s body and the papers strewn about the street.

After a breakfast of fatback and grits with lots of butter—Cook foisting a second helping onto Ophie despite her protests—Ophie was sent to take Mrs. Caruthers her morning tray.

For the most part, Ophie’s day progressed as usual, but by the late afternoon, when she would normally be reading aloud to the old woman, she had been conscripted to help the rest of the household staff clean various rooms, since Gladys was gone.

“Is this where you’ve been disappearing to, Amelia? Gallivanting around instead of seeing to my needs?”

The surly old woman harrumphed and crossed her arms, not saying anything else, and Ophie pushed Penelope out into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

She was normally blunt with the dead, but it felt unseemly to talk about Clara’s murder in such a matter-of-fact way.

“Yes, that might be something to search for. A tortoiseshell hair comb. Next to a gray bureau in the far back corner. That’s where I got this fabulous dress,” she said, twirling.

A shiver of premonition ran down Ophie’s arms, but she shrugged it away.

And there was very little chance Mama would want to take Ophie to a picture show. She thought they were silly and frivolous, and now that they were living at Daffodil Manor they were making even less money each week since their room and board were covered.

It wasn’t a lie, and Ophie just hoped it bolstered whatever pleas Penelope had made.

Mama’s pinched expression did not waver, but she turned to Ophie and said, “Make sure you stay with Penelope. She knows the trolleys and will make sure you get to the show and back without a fuss.”