I walked up and down the rows of graves, arguing with myself as I searched for the spot where Willie’s leg was buried.
I didn’t find it. I did find Florence’s grave, though.
FLORENCE HODGE
BELOVED DAUGHTER, SISTER, AND TEACHER
“Ethel misses you, Florence,” I whispered, “and Steven remembers you fondly.” I thought, so does Willie, but I decided not to mention him.
Of course, I didn’t believe Florence could hear me, no matter what I said to her. If Aunt Ethel was right, Florence was now perched on the porch rail. If Willie was right, Florence had moved on and was an angel by now. Either way, she wasn’t lying under the sod, listening to me. Still, it seemed natural to talk to her.
I retraced my steps, reading each marker carefully, still searching for Willie’s leg. I was about to give up when Willie appeared beside me.
“There it is,” he said, pointing at a flat marker about four by eight inches big that I hadn’t noticed at the edge of the graveyard.
“It’s about time you showed up,” I said.
I knelt beside the marker he pointed to. It was far smaller than the others, and grass had encroached along the edges, giving it an uneven look. I bent to brush a fallen leaf from the marker and saw W.M.M. etched on the top.
“No wonder I missed it,” I said. “I was looking for your name or the nineteen-oh-three date.”
“Didn’t want my whole name put on. Only my initials.”
“What’s your middle name?”
“Michael.”
“That’s my middle name!”
We smiled at each other.
“Will you do it?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Willie. I could get in big-time trouble if I’m caught.”
Visions of being grounded for a year floated through my mind. On the other hand, I had no friends in Minneapolis yet, so what did it matter if Mom and Steven took away phone privileges and made me stay home all the time?
I considered discussing the situation with Aunt Ethel—but she hadn’t been able to see Willie when Florence did and had never believed the tree house was haunted, so she probably wouldn’t believe that I saw him now. Or, if she did, she’d make me stay away from it.
Most actions that are against the law are obviously wrong—things like shoplifting or arson—and I’d never, ever do them. This was different. Digging up Willie’s leg was probably illegal, but I didn’t think it was immoral. I thought it was the right thing to do.
“I’ll be your lookout,” Willie said. “I can warn you if anyone’s coming.”
“I hope I won’t regret this.”
“You’ll do it?”
“I’ll do it.”
A grin spread across Willie’s face, making him look lit up from the inside. “Go get a spade. You can dig right now.”
“Not so fast. Before I dig up your leg, I need to know where I’m going to take it. Once I have it, I’ll want to get it buried again as quickly as I can.”
“Follow me. I’ll show you where I’m buried.”
Oh, man. It’s so bizarre when he says stuff like that. I hoped I wasn’t making a huge mistake.
“How far is it from here?” I asked. I was already a long way from Aunt Ethel’s house, and my legs were still sore from the bike ride to Carbon City plus all the hiking I’d done.
“It’s two or three miles up the hill. There’s a gravel road that fishermen use.”
I considered.
“It’s all downhill going home,” Willie said. “I went there yesterday after you left, so I know I can find the place.”
Despite my aching legs, I decided it was better to go now than to put it off another day. I followed Willie out of the cemetery.
He led me up the road toward Aunt Ethel’s house. She needn’t have worried about safety; no cars came along. We continued past her driveway, where the road narrowed. It soon became a gravel road impassable by anything other than an off-road vehicle. The average school desk would have fit in some of the potholes. I picked my way around them, hoping I didn’t slip and fall. If I injured myself here, I wouldn’t be found for months.
Having only one leg didn’t hinder Willie at all. While I stumbled up the rutted road, he glided over the surface without ever touching it. Twice he disappeared. He was like a patch of fog, here one minute and gone the next.
Once when he was visible, I said, “I’m not sure I’ll be able to do this. I had hoped I could ride a bike to the cemetery. After I dug up your leg casket, I planned to tie it to the bike, then ride the bike to where the rest of you is buried. Forget that plan. I’ll never be able to ride a bike up this road. It’ll be a tough walk carrying a shovel and a small casket.”
“You can leave the casket. Just bring the bones.”
“No way. I’m not opening up that coffin and taking the bones out.”
Willie snorted, as if to say, Huh! What a wimp. “They’re only bones. They won’t bite you.”
“I can still change my mind, you know.” I kicked a small stone to one side. “I don’t have to do this.”
He stopped gliding. His expression looked the way I’d felt when I heard Mom say I couldn’t be on the summer baseball team. “You promised,” he said. “You told me you’d help me.”
“Oh, all right, I won’t back out, but let me do it my way. The leg stays in the casket.”
“The rest of me isn’t in a box. I want everything together.”
I glared at him. “You are the most demanding ghost I’ve ever known.”
His eyes crinkled at the edges. “I’m also the nicest ghost you’ve ever known. Friendly. Talkative. Willing to share information. I’d give you the shirt off my back, only you probably don’t want it.”
Looking at his coal-smudged shirt, I couldn’t help laughing.
“You could bring the casket up here,” Willie suggested, “then open it and dump the leg bones in with the rest of me. You wouldn’t have to touch them.”
“What’ll I do with the casket?”
“Throw it away. Keep it as a souvenir. Take it back to the cemetery and rebury it. Who cares? It’s only an old wooden box.”
Before I could respond, he vanished again.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I muttered.
I sat on a boulder to catch my breath and rest my own legs, which felt as if they would fall off any second. I wished I’d brought drinking water.
I thought about Willie’s casket. If it was wooden, as he said, it might be rotted by now. I might have no choice but to pluck the bones from the dirt.
I wondered how many bones there were. Willie’s knee, leg, ankle, foot, toes—would they all still be connected?
Grossed out by my imagination, I stood and plodded on up the hill. There were fewer trees now and more rocks. I heard water rushing ahead of me; the river wasn’t far.
The trees ended, replaced by rocks and sand, which led to the river. It gurgled over the rocks, shallow at the edges.
As soon as I saw it, I removed my shoes and socks, rolled up my jeans, and waded in. I splashed some of the cold water on my face and rubbed it on my arms.
It was too cold to stay in long. I sat on the rocky beach, letting the sun dry my feet.
“This is where I used to fish.”
I no longer jumped when Willie reappeared, which shows you can get used to most anything.
“Caught many a trout in this river. There’s nothing like fresh trout, panfried over a fire.” He sighed and sat beside me. “I miss eating,” he said. “When you’re alive, you don’t give it a second thought. Oh, you might wonder what’s for dinner or look forward to a favorite meal now and then, but you don’t appreciate being able to put a fork in your mouth and actually taste the food. I miss Sarah’s bread the most. That woman baked the best bread—crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside.”
“Sometimes my mom bakes cinnamon rolls. The whole house smells good while they’re in the oven.” Suddenly, I yearned for home. I longed to sit at the kitchen table with Mom and Steven, all of us eating cinnamon rolls before they cooled, joking about what pigs we were.
I wondered if Mom and Steven were safe in India. Did Mom enjoy the job? What was New Delhi like? Was the food good?
“There’s my grave,” Willie said. “Right where the river bends.”
I put on my shoes and socks, then followed him to a patch of ground about thirty feet from the river’s edge, where a tangle of pricker bushes sent thorny branches crawling over the rocks.
“Are you sure?”
“Sarah planted a rosebush there. It blossomed the first few years; then it got scrawny and went wild. Now it looks dead from lack of water.”
Some of the branches were more than an inch thick and covered with thorns the size of Mrs. Stray’s toenails. I wondered if there might be a small saw in Aunt Ethel’s barn.
I’ll need to wear long sleeves, I thought, and gloves. Gloves seemed a good idea, anyway, especially if the wooden box had rotted.
“Let’s go,” Willie said. “We have work to do.”
“I’m not coming back today,” I said. “It’s too far.”
“It’s only a few miles.”
“Easy for you to say. I’m the one climbing up and down hills. All you do is float.”
“It won’t take long. You can get the tools you need, dig up my leg, bring it here, bury it, and be home in time for supper.”
“No. If I tried to do all of that today, we’d both be dead.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“If I can still move tomorrow, which I seriously doubt, I’ll do it early in the morning.”
“I’ve already waited more than a hundred years,” Willie said. “It won’t kill me to wait one more day.”
I groaned at his joke.
“Thank you,” Willie said. “Thank you for helping me.”