“You know, Mom, the best time for me is when we’re moving in the car. I like it when we’re between the places we’re coming from and going to.”
“Don’t you miss your friends, or sleeping in your own bed?”
“Sometimes. But right now we’re not in New Orleans yet and it’s kind of great that nobody else knows exactly where we are. Where are we, anyway?”
“Comin’ up on Pass Christian, honey. Remember once we stayed in a house here for a week when your dad had business in Biloxi? An old two-story house with a big screened-in porch that wrapped all around the second floor.”
“It’s where I trapped a big brown scorpion under a glass and left it there overnight. In the morning the glass was still upside down but the scorpion was gone. You let it go when I was asleep, didn’t you, Mom?”
“No, baby, I told you I didn’t. I don’t know how it got out. And your dad was away that night in New Orleans. It was a real mystery.”
“I like that we don’t know what happened. Maybe there’s a ghost living in the house who picked up the glass, or somehow the scorpion did it with his poison tail.”
“This part of the Gulf Coast always seems haunted to me. If the scorpion had gotten out by itself, the glass would have fallen over, or at least moved. As I recall, it was in exactly the same place the next morning when we looked.”
“What kind of ghost do you think lives in that house?”
“Oh, probably the old lady who lived there all of her life. Someone told me she was almost a hundred years old when she died. She never married, and lived alone after her parents passed away.”
“What was her name?”
“Baby, I don’t remember. Mabel something, I think. There was a story about a kidnapping involving the woman. I can’t recall exactly what happened, but she had been kidnapped when she was a child and held for ransom. The family was quite wealthy. It was a famous case.”
“Did the police catch the kidnappers?”
“I guess so. Oh, wait, Roy, here’s the sharp curve in the highway I hate. I always forget when it’s coming up.”
“You’re a great driver, Mom. I always feel safe in the car with you.”
“You shouldn’t ever worry when we’re driving, baby. Now, look, the road stays pretty straight from here on. Yes, the men who kidnapped Mabel Wildrose—that was the family’s name, Wildrose—were caught and sent to prison.”
“Did they hurt her?”
“Something bad happened, but it was strange. Mabel Wildrose was nine years old when she was kidnapped.”
“The same age as me.”
“Yes, your age. They cut off some of little Mabel’s hair and sent it to her parents.”
“She must have been really scared.”
“I’m sure she was. But other than that, I don’t think she was harmed. Her parents paid the money and the cops found Mabel wherever it was the kidnappers said she would be.”
“You said the men were caught.”
“Uh-huh, in New Orleans, when they tried to get on a freighter bound for South America. There was one crazy part of the deal I remember now: The men had left her wrapped in a blanket, and when they were caught trying to board the boat at the dock in New Orleans, one of them was discovered to be carrying Mabel’s clothes, including her shoes, in his suitcase. The man had polished the shoes and asked the police if he could keep them with him in his jail cell. He was a nut.”
“I wouldn’t want to be kidnapped.”
“Baby, nobody’s going to steal you. Everyone knows who your dad is. They wouldn’t want to get into trouble with him.”
“What if they didn’t want money? What if someone wanted to keep me?”
“It won’t happen, Roy, really. Don’t worry.”
“One day I thought I saw a ghost in the house in Pass Christian, but I don’t think it was Mabel Wildrose. It was too big to be her. I was lying on the floor in the front room, playing with my soldiers. It was rainy and kind of dark and cold, and a shadow ran through the room and went out the door. I didn’t really see it, it was more like I felt it. The screen door flew open and banged shut behind the shadow.”
“Probably only the wind, baby, blowing through the house.”
“It might have been the ghost of one of the kidnappers, maybe the guy with Mabel’s shoes. Do you think they’re dead now?”
“Who, honey?”
“The men who stole Mabel Wildrose when she was nine.”
“Oh, they’ve been dead a long time. They probably died in prison.”
“I’d stab someone with my knife if he tried to take me. I’d try to get him in the eye. Probably Mabel didn’t have a knife on her, huh, Mom?”
“I doubt that she did, Roy, but sometimes there’s not much you can do to stop a person, especially if they’re bigger than you.”
“I’d wait until they weren’t looking and then stab my knife in their eye and run away. They wouldn’t catch me if I got outside.”
“Forget about it, baby. Nobody is going to kidnap you.”
“Sure, Mom, I know. But I’m gonna keep my knife on me anyway.”