Ophie's Ghosts: "The Trolley Car"–Chapter 14

Most were happy enough with what they understood of their liminal existence and did not seek help from seers. But a good number of ghosts wondered if Ophie could end their suffering. They wanted nothing more than to be seen, after all.

After Mrs. Caruthers’s fit, the doctor ordered her to be kept on bed rest, and even gave Cook a tincture to be added to her tea.

Never look them in the eyes; always be respectful; remain humble; remember that they are good, fine people; don’t make folks angry; never run around by yourself; be careful, be careful, be careful.

If Richard fired her, Mama would be cross, but more than that she would turn that look of disappointment and sadness upon Ophie, and feeling the weight of her mother’s unhappiness upon her skinny shoulders always made Ophie’s belly roil.

What was a bit more shocking was the ghost of a man seated behind the desk, deeply engrossed in some business only he could know.

She knew that even if Richard smiled all the time and spoke to the staff kindly, he could wreak just as much havoc on their small lives as his mother could, if Ophie were to upset him.

Ophie registered the change in Richard’s demeanor immediately, and she bobbed a curtsy even though Richard had said it was unnecessary.

As Ophie arrived back in the empty kitchen, she started to think that perhaps she had misunderstood the intricacies of life for the hired help of Daffodil Manor. There were the regular set of whispered rules that governed the lives of colored people when they were around white folks, but there was also another set of rules between the domestics, as Cook liked to call them, and the people they worked for.

And as things returned to a semblance of normalcy, Ophie began to wonder more and more about the life and death of the mysterious Clara.

Even though Cook had offered many more times for Ophie and Mama to stay in one of the rooms in the empty servants’ quarters, Mama continued to refuse.

As Ophie began her search for Clara—the ghost had to be somewhere, even dead people couldn’t just be nowhere—she found the occasion to venture into the unused portion of the manor she’d spied before but never explored.

There was even a massive and chilly attic, though it gave Ophie such a sense of foreboding that she abandoned it completely.

In the library, Ophie discovered a finely dressed white man speaking with an unseen partner about the rights of the African. His garb placed him from at least the previous century, and as he argued with whomever it was only he could see, he began to flicker, and before long, he was completely gone.

She stood and stumbled a few steps before she collapsed onto the floor, making horrible retching noises, convulsing violently before falling still.

She didn’t want to risk waking the old woman fully and inciting her anger, but Ophie desperately needed to know more about Clara, and this might be her only opportunity.

Mama was snoring fitfully in the bed now, and so Ophie slowly pushed the covers aside, put on her slippers, and tiptoed out into the hall.

The family left this one room for Aunt Rose alone; even the cousins, in all their audacity, would not cross the threshold uninvited.

The family left this one room for Aunt Rose alone; even the cousins, in all their audacity, would not cross the threshold uninvited.

“Well,” Aunt Rose said, taking a deep breath and letting it out on a sigh, “some places, it’s because that’s where folks died, and most ghosts, especially if they died in a bad kind of way, can’t seem to get themselves unstuck. People are like that, you know, living or dead. A bad thing happens, and they get bogged down in it, unable to move on.”

Aunt Rose paused as she mulled over her next words, and Ophie’s heart seized painfully, guiltily.

Ophie did as her aunt said, meeting the elderly woman’s eyes in the dimly lit room, the kerosene lantern making the shadows behind her jump and dance so that the moment felt infinitely more ominous than it was.

So instead, she just nodded and gave her great-aunt a chaste kiss on the cheek.

Dust motes danced in the light, the brightness setting off the dark, heavy wooden desk that dominated the room.

But the haints there were skittish and faded away before Ophie could even ask them anything.

The little girl in the wing chair was gone before she could even get a word out; the man who argued with another unseen man turned toward her and dissipated the moment he saw her, dashing Ophie’s hopes and leaving her frustrated enough to stomp her foot.

“I swear,” the woman exclaimed as Ophie slipped inside of the dining room, “Agnes Riley would not know a well-cut seam if it hit her upside the head. Did you see that monstrosity she wore to the Callahan ball? Simply horrid!”

His appearance unsettled Ophie, but it wasn’t because he wore no shirt or shoes or even that he was grievously injured.

All the unspoken rules that Ophie and her kin abided by in order to stay safe, this sad boy was a stark reminder that every single one existed because colored folks had once been property, and that some people still saw them as nothing more than that.

All the unspoken rules that Ophie and her kin abided by in order to stay safe, this sad boy was a stark reminder that every single one existed because colored folks had once been property, and that some people still saw them as nothing more than that.

There was an old wooden rocking horse, the paint faded and covered in a thin layer of grime, and a jack-in-the-box that played a discordant harmony when Ophie turned the handle before sending a mournful clown up and out of the box, bouncing wildly.

A tendril of unease curled through her, but she swallowed and pushed it down.

The thought niggled at Ophie as she set down her bucket and began to wipe at the windows, the water sloshing a bit as she worked.

As for Richard, he was a fine, upstanding person, as Mama and Cook were always saying. Fine, upstanding people, despite a number of faults that Ophie could see, did not commit murder.

Clara’s expression sobered.

Ophie pulled one out but got through only a few lines before her face flushed, and she folded the paper hastily and put it back.

Besides, she didn’t need to finish reading the letter to know that Richard and Clara had definitely been in love. No one wrote a sappy letter like that unless they were.

After the doctor had dropped off a second bottle of medicine meant to keep Mrs. Caruthers calm for at least another week, Ophie made a habit of pocketing the cookies left on the tray, returning it to the kitchen before taking the purloined sweets up to the attic for Clara.

“And you had a hankering for some more snickerdoodles, I reckon,” Cook said, giving her a wink.

Being cool and unruffled was the hallmark of a good detective, so Ophie was the same, even as her heart pounded.

"Share what?" Ophie said, and Cook laughed, loud and boisterous.