Ghost Wood Song Read online

  “Shady,” Aunt Ena says, pulling me from the memory. “This isn’t good for you, darlin’.” She takes the dirty dishes to the sink and turns on the tap.

  “Do you think Daddy’s fiddle is really at the bottom of the lake?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even, despite the sharp stab of longing in my chest.

  “Where else would it be?” she says, staring fixedly into the soapy, churning water.

  I don’t answer because I’m picturing Daddy’s truck careening off the road, the fiddle sinking into the water. It happened four years ago, and even though I wasn’t there, I’ve pictured it so many times it feels like I was. The truck hitting the lake, sending up a spray of frothy, algae-scented water, his body slamming into the windshield, his blood turning the water red. He was bringing Jesse home from a friend’s house, and there was a deer in the road. Daddy died on impact and the fiddle was lost, but Jesse made it out alive.

  Aunt Ena turns off the water and leans against the sink, settling her eyes on mine. There is pain and anger and a kind of tenderness in her face, a combination I see there whenever the fiddle comes up. “That fiddle’s at the bottom of the lake or broke up and carried off somewhere. Either way, it’s gone, just like your daddy.”

  But what if it’s not gone? A thought that’s been tempting me for a while surfaces. What if I could find it and use it? I could raise his ghost; I could talk to him again. And with Daddy’s fiddle, I could make music worth hearing. I could be everything he meant me to be. Everything I want to be.

  “If I could play Daddy’s fiddle, it’d be like having him back,” I say, but I keep my other ideas to myself.

  Aunt Ena guesses my unspoken thoughts, as usual. “Maybe so, but the dead always stay dead,” she says gently. “We live with their ghosts, but that’s all. Wallowing in your grief will only draw evil. You need to focus on all the good things in your life, not the things you’ve lost.”

  “I guess.” I rest my chin in my hands and stare at the cracked and faded linoleum floor. Maybe that’s what I’ve been doing these last few weeks, out in the woods playing my fiddle. Wallowing. Maybe that’s why the shadow man is back. But if I’m wallowing, Aunt Ena’s just as bad—living here alone, the last survivor of her family home, with only ghosts for company.

  I leave after a few more awkward minutes, claiming homework. But when I reach the car, I turn and look back, lifting my eyes to the upstairs windows. I don’t know what I hope to see there—the dirty windows are empty, except for a few wasps climbing across the glass. Behind the house, the pine forest looms, deep and dark and waiting, always waiting.

  The clouds grow heavier and darker as I drive home, and the sky dims like it’s twilight instead of early afternoon. When I pull into the driveway, Jim’s truck is gone, which I hope means he and Mama and Honey have gone off somewhere.

  I climb out of the car and start toward the trailer, but then I hear the fiddle tune again, faint and faded as an old photograph. I stand still in the yard and listen. Only the wind in the trees.

  But then a sharp, mournful wail slices through the air, familiar and dreadful at once. I move closer to the woods and listen again. Shadows settle over the golden pine needles, turning the woods dark. The atmosphere feels taut as a bowstring, the storm starting to roll in from across the fields.

  And then the fiddle begins to play in earnest, the volume going up and down, swirling through the trees like it’s carried on the wind. It’s carrying my heart with it.

  I walk to the boundary of our five acres and then go deeper into the woods, until the trees grow so close together I have to stop and squeeze through them. My hair catches in hanging vines, and thorns scrape against my skin, snagging my clothes.

  The fiddle plays on and on, low and slightly mad, growing into a frenzy wilder than the wind that’s whipping through the trees. Rain drops out of the sky without preamble—fat, hard, stinging drops that would soak me to the skin if the trees weren’t so thick.

  I think of the lyrics from “The Twa Sisters” again.

  Only tune that the fiddle would play was

  Oh, the dreadful wind and rain

  And then the rest of my memory from Aunt Ena’s place comes back—what happened after Daddy’s fiddle brought the old man’s ghost to my room. It was the first time I ever saw a ghost with my own eyes, instead of just knowing it was there or feeling it brushing by. I was so little, but I wasn’t scared. I pushed the covers away and got out of bed, my feet cold on the bare floorboards. “Come on,” I said, holding out my hand to the man.

  His hand felt like a winter chill but was solid enough to hold mine. Goose bumps trickled up my arm from where my skin met his, but I didn’t let go. I led him out of my bedroom and down the stairs, into the parlor where Daddy liked to play.

  When we appeared in the doorway, a child of six in a pink nightgown and an old man with a lost expression, Daddy looked up, his eyes widening even as his left hand continued to hold down the fiddle strings and his right arm continued to draw the bow across them.

  Once his mind took in what his eyes were seeing, he dropped the fiddle and leaped across the room, grabbing my empty hand to pull me away from the man, who cowered away, his solid form already beginning to wane.

  “Why’d you come here? I didn’t call you here,” Daddy said to the ghost, angrier than I’d ever heard him. He glanced back at me as though to assure himself I was all in one piece.

  The old man said, “I can’t . . . I can’t remember.” He was hardly a man now, more like a whirl of human-shaped wind.

  “Go on home,” Daddy said, his voice low and shaking. “Go back to your rest.”

  And then the man was nothing more than the kind of ghost I was used to—a breath, a memory.

  Daddy turned back to me and swept me off my feet and clutched me to his chest like he’d just pulled me out of the ocean half drowned. He sat on a sofa and held me close, his breath in my hair. I pulled my head back to see his face and put one hand on his cheek, which was rough as sandpaper. A tear slipped down from one eye, wetting my hand. I wiped the next one away. “Why are you sad, Daddy?”

  He turned his head to kiss the palm of my hand. He stared deep into my eyes, and it was like looking into a mirror, the same soft brown and long eyelashes. “Shady Grove,” he said, “I think it’s time I laid this here fiddle to sleep.”

  Of course, that fiddle couldn’t be laid down. He took it up again less than a year later. He always took it back up. Maybe he’s still playing it, even though he’s dead. Maybe that’s what I’m hearing now.

  The thought speeds my feet, but I run into a patch of trees so clotted with vines I can’t find a way through. I have to backtrack, looking for an opening, but the woods are so dim now it’s hard to see far ahead.

  I find an opening and run, full out, until my chest heaves and I’m clutching a stitch in my side. But the fiddle music’s all around me now, swirling on the wind, whistling through the tops of the trees. If there’s a source, I’ll never find it.

  Finally, breathless, I drop to my knees on the pine needles, my hair soaked and dripping, my skin marked with scratches. Lightning forks overhead, spreading shadows through the trees. They all look like hulking men.

  Oh, the dreadful wind and rain

  I lie back on the damp, earthy-smelling forest floor and let the rain pummel me. The thunder has ripped through the fiddle tune, leaving nothing more than half-formed notes fluttering in the treetops, the torn remnants of Daddy’s song.

  It was Daddy. I don’t know how, but somehow, somehow it was him.

  “Where are you?” I whisper.

  The only response is a low, spine-tingling rattle. I turn my head toward the sound and open my eyes, every hair on my body standing up. The lightning flashes again, illuminating a pair of glittering black eyes and a coiled, sinuous body. Icy fear spreads through me.

  A rattlesnake is curled at the base of a tree, its eyes trained on me. Even in the gloom, I can tell it’s a diamondback rattler, maybe five feet
long. I haven’t seen one this big in years. My thoughts turn frantic. If it struck me, sending its poison racing toward my heart, where would my ghost end up? Would Daddy be there to meet me?

  Or is he already here?

  My breathing is loud and ragged, matched only by the beat of my heart. The snake’s tongue flicks out, as though tasting my fear on the air. It shakes its rattle again, a little louder this time.

  Every magical kingdom has its monsters.

  I should crawl away and run for all I’m worth, but some stubborn spirit has taken hold of me, and I remain where I am, staring into its cold, black eyes.

  Thunder cracks so loud it shakes the ground and makes the trees shudder. The snake turns its head and begins to move away, its long body slithering soundlessly over the wet pine needles. I watch until it disappears into a gopher tortoise’s hole, its ominous rattle fading into quiet. My whole body feels like a held breath.

  When I turn my face back to the treetops, a gust of wind rocks the highest branches, sending pine needles floating down to coat me with the rain. I get to my feet and walk slowly through the storm-whipped woods toward home.

  I’ve lived with ghosts my whole life, but this is the first time I’ve ever felt haunted.

  Another rumble of thunder vibrates through my body a few seconds before lightning scatters across the sky. I’m too tired to run, but I walk fast in the direction of the trailer. I hear Jesse’s voice before I see a break in the trees.

  “Shady!” he yells from the trailer’s front door, his voice nearly drowned out by the wind and rain. He’s waiting by the front door when I reach it, a towel in his hands. “One of these days you’re going to get struck by lightning, you know.” His eyes are wide and worried.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I’m always fine.” My whole body trembles, but I feel as electric as the sky. I don’t know why, but Daddy’s out there in the woods, and he’s calling to me.

  Four

  One week later, on Friday night, Orlando, Sarah, and I are piled together in his car, driving over to the café in Kellyville for the open mic. Sarah makes us listen to “Elvis Presley Blues” on repeat, as if we can absorb every ounce of Gillian Welch’s talent and then spill it out onstage.

  Orlando drums the steering wheel with nervous fingers, and I keep turning in my seat to look at Sarah. With my daddy’s ghost so close to me, I’ve barely been able to think about the open mic all week, but now that the night is here, it all feels so much more real. We’re going to get onstage for the first time and compete with other artists. I wish my heart were in it the way Sarah’s is, but I haven’t been able to shake the fiddle in the woods, the shadow man in my dreams, the feeling that something big is coming—something besides a trip to a recording studio. I haven’t heard the music in the pines again, but I know it’s out there, waiting for me.

  Jesse spent the last several days watching me with wary eyes. Each time I came in from the woods with my fiddle, he opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but instead just closed it and turned away. Sarah and Orlando can tell something is off with me too. At our last practice yesterday, I fumbled so many times that Sarah got angry and Orlando had to make terrible joke after terrible joke to diffuse the tension. They’ve both started to study me the same way Jesse has, like I’m a string out of tune, frayed to the point of breaking.

  Now, as we get closer to the café, I force my thoughts back to the open mic. I need to stay present tonight, need to stay here, with Sarah and Orlando. I can’t let them down.

  The parking lot is already packed with cars and pickup trucks, and we have to drive way down Main Street to find a spot. The noise inside the café is deafening. People mill around with drinks, yelling to be heard over the awful country pop music pouring through the speakers. This café used to be small, but when the thrift store next door went out of business, the owners knocked down the dividing wall and turned it into a huge event space. The open mic nights attract all kinds of musicians, but there is a heavy country-western influence. There’s a girl honest to God yodeling somewhere behind me. I crane my neck to see who it is but can’t locate the source. Orlando hears her too and cracks up laughing.

  “A little too hillbilly?” I ask.

  Orlando shakes his head wonderingly. “My grandpa in Miami would love this,” he says. “I wish he were here.” His face falls for a moment, but then he catches sight of his family coming through the door. “Be right back,” he says, hurrying toward them. I wave at his mom, dad, grandmother, and two brothers, feeling jealous of Orlando’s big, close family when my own is so fractured. I know that’s not fair—Orlando misses his Miami relatives so much, and his extended family has been fractured too—half of them in Cuba, the rest spread over Florida.

  “Did you invite your dad?” I ask Sarah.

  “God, no,” she says. “I’m nervous enough.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, turning back to the empty stage. My head starts to pound and my hands grow sweaty. I can’t believe we’re performing for the first time in front of this many people. I need some space, some air. “You try to find seats, and I’ll get drinks,” I say, handing my fiddle to Sarah. She nods mutely, as overwhelmed by the crowd as I am.

  The café side of the building is a little quieter, and my panic starts to fade while I wait in line.

  “I swear to God, Cedar, if I hear a single bro country song, I’m gone,” a girl’s voice says behind me. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

  I glance back and see Cedar and Rose Smith standing with their heads close together. Rose sees me looking and narrows her eyes, so I turn back around fast.

  Cedar and Rose are twins who go to my high school. They’re on the wealthier end of the farm-kid spectrum. Rose is probably the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in real life. I mean, most girls are beautiful in their own way, but Rose is ridiculously beautiful. Long, dark, wavy hair, eyes so brown they’re almost black. A perfect little nose. A tiny waist even her loose peasant blouse can’t hide. I’ve heard rumors that she’s gay, but she’s famously ruthless, so I’ve always steered clear of her.

  “We’re never going to be able to grow the band if we don’t come to stuff like this and meet people,” Cedar says. “All the musicians we know are, like, seventy years old.”

  With his long eyelashes and big green eyes, Cedar’s about as pretty as Rose is, but he’s also got this tough-guy cowboy act—a combination that makes girls watch him everywhere he goes. Even at school, he usually looks like he just walked off the stage at the Grand Ole Opry, and tonight’s no different. He’s got on a black cowboy hat and a black, Western-style shirt with red flowers embroidered on the shoulders and pearly buttons running down the front.

  “I like old people,” Rose grumbles.

  I don’t hear the rest of their conversation because it’s my turn at the counter. But I watch them while I wait for my order. I can’t help but shake my head at Cedar’s outfit, but I also can’t help but smile when he does—I like how his eyes crinkle at the corners. He seems nicer than Rose, even though he hangs out with Jim’s obnoxious son—my stepbrother—Kenneth. They’re both friends with all the boys who drive giant trucks and wear cowboy boots all the time.

  Cedar turns just in time to catch me staring at him, no doubt a dreamy half smile plastered on my face. He winks at me when he and Rose pass by, sending an embarrassed flush straight to my cheeks.

  “Shady,” Orlando says from behind me, making me jump. “It’s about to start. We’re third on the list,” he says, rocking on his heels. “Look, our drinks are ready. Let’s go.” His eyes are bright and happy, his cheeks slightly flushed. His excitement is contagious, and I find myself smiling, despite my nerves. Maybe this won’t be so bad.

  We push back through the crowd and find Sarah shooting eye daggers at a couple trying to take the chairs she’s saving for us, our instruments piled on the table around her. She’s wound up so tight I wish I’d ordered her decaf coffee. “This has to go well,” she says as
she takes her drink from me.

  “It’s going to be fine,” Orlando says. “Chill out, Sarah.”

  “Shady, you’ve got to stay focused. You can’t doze off or go into a daze or whatever you’ve been doing lately. Please,” Sarah adds.

  Weirdly, it’s the “please” that pisses me off. “You can play without me if you want,” I say, crossing my arms. “If I’m not a good enough musician for you.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Sarah says, panic in her eyes. “I just—”

  A bearded man who was handing out coffee a few minutes ago jumps onto the stage. “Hey, everybody, welcome to the Main Street Café Open Mic Night,” he says. Sarah shakes her head and turns away, wringing her hands. Orlando gives me a sympathetic look and throws an arm over my shoulders. The emcee prattles on for five minutes, introducing the judges, reminding us about the recording studio prize. The other musicians around us lean forward eagerly.

  My anger at Sarah was sudden and sharp, but now it’s a knife without a mark. It’s just poking at my insides, needling me. Sarah’s got no faith in me, that’s what it all comes down to. Maybe if I can stay focused tonight, I’ll prove her wrong.

  The first two performances go by in a blur, and then Orlando’s tugging my sleeve and pulling me onstage. So much for keeping my head in the game. I raise my fiddle and look out over the crowd, praying my hands don’t sweat all the way through this damn song. Orlando’s family yells his name and whoops from somewhere to the right of the stage, earning an enormous grin from Orlando.

  Sarah starts playing, and I wait for my cue. When Cedar catches my eye from the crowd, I almost miss it, but then I plunge into the song right on time, closing my eyes in relief. We sound good.

  I relax into the song, letting our instruments and our voices fill me up, up, up. This might not be exactly the music I want to play, but it’s worth it to see Sarah’s head bobbing over her banjo in a beautiful imitation of Gillian Welch’s puppet-on-a-string style. The sight makes me forget her annoyance and my anger. The way she lets go when she plays is gorgeous—focused, intense, but free; she becomes more music than girl.