Fourteen

The “Welcome to Possum Hollow” sign listed the population as 2,412. Several churches had their names and addresses on the same sign, as did a few civic organizations. It was an attractive town, with broad, tree-lined streets, stately homes, and a thriving downtown area complete with half a dozen recognizable fast-food restaurants, service stations, stores, banks, and lawyers’ offices.

They drove by a high school with a sign out front that proudly proclaimed “Possum Hollow High School, Home of the Fighting Possums, 2002 Regional Champions, 2A Basketball.”

Two blocks beyond the school, they saw the public library.

“Just what I was looking for,” T. J. said. He pulled into the parking lot and stopped. “All right,” he said, “let’s get some answers.”

The library was very much like small-town libraries everywhere, perfumed with the slightly musty aroma of thousands of shelved books and awash in mote-filled sunbeams that splashed in through the high, cloudy, windows. It had wide-plank floors and three long reading tables. Its connection to the twenty-first century was evidenced by the three computer stations.

An attractive woman with short gray hair sat behind a U-shaped counter just inside the door. The name tag on her blazer read “Mrs. Norman.” She looked up and smiled a greeting at T. J. and the others as they approached her desk.

“It’s always nice to see an entire family visit the library,” she said. “May I help you find a book?”

“No, ma’am, but you might be able to give us some information,” T. J. said.

“I’ll try.”

“Mrs. Norman, are you familiar with a house called Gracehall?”

“Yes, of course. It’s the Ragsdale house.”

T. J. smiled and looked over at Madison. “Well, that’s a relief. I was beginning to think that we had lost our minds.”

“Is there an Amishlike community nearby?” Madison asked.

“Amish?”

“Yes, you know, people who still live as if they are in the nineteenth century.”

“Oh, I know who the Amish are, but there is no Amish community here.”

“Well, they aren’t actually Amish. They just live as the Amish do.”

Mrs. Norman knitted her brow. “I don’t know of any group like that around here.”

“Well, then, is there a group of reenactors, someone who might re-create Christmases of the past?” T. J. asked.

Again Mrs. Norman shook her head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Why are you asking?”

“We’ve just come through a very interesting Christmas experience,” he replied, “and I think we are beginning to let our imaginations run away with us.”

“We didn’t imagine Gracehall,” Madison interjected.

“Oh, you visited Gracehall?” Mrs. Norman asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, Gracehall would certainly be an appropriate place to visit at Christmas.”

“Oh?

Why is that?”

“They say that Judge Ragsdale’s Christmas parties were the biggest thing in the county. Each year he invited a houseful of guests to spend Christmas with his family. It is said that he took great delight in playing Saint Nicholas for all the children, providing all of their gifts at his own expense.”

“Yes, that’s it!” Madison said. “We just spent Christmas with Judge Ragsdale and his family.”

“Oh, I hardly think that is possible,” Mrs. Norman said, chuckling. “Judge Ragsdale has been dead for over a hundred years.” “Oh!”

Madison gasped. She squeezed T. J.’s arm.

“We have put the judge’s house on the National Registry for Historical Homes. The historical society is trying to raise money for its renovation. It will be as beautiful as it ever was when we’re finished.”

“Oh, well, then that explains everything,” T. J. said. “They’re using another house like Gracehall as a bed-and-breakfast, and someone is portraying Judge Ragsdale.”

“No, that can’t be it, T. J. We went back to Gracehall, and it was all run down.”

“That wasn’t the same road,” T. J. said. “You said yourself that it looked different. The historical society must have created a replica of Gracehall as a means of raising money.”

Mrs. Norman said, “Oh, no, there’s nothing like that. And I would know, because I’m secretary of the historical society. But we are selling cookbooks to raise money for the restoration.” She pointed to a display of books on the counter to her left. “Would you like to buy one?”

“What? Yes, I’ll buy one,” T. J. responded distractedly.

While T. J. and Madison were talking to Mrs. Norman, Timmy and Christine had been looking around the library. Now Christine came running back.

“Mama, come look!”

Madison and T. J. followed Christine over to a glass display case. Inside were several artifacts, all neatly labeled: photographs, a pair of glasses, a brooch-watch, several books, and a doll. It was the doll that had caught Christine’s attention.

“Mama, it’s Britney,” she said, pointing.

“It does look like Britney, but it couldn’t be, honey. Look how old that doll is. There are little crack lines all through her face. Britney didn’t have those.”

“It is Britney,” Christine insisted.

“Madison,” T. J. said quietly. “Look at the name on that school.” He was pointing to a photograph in the case. The sign on the building in question read “Emma P. Ragsdale Elementary School.”

“Oh, that is our tribute to Miss Emma.” Mrs. Norman had joined them at the display case. “Possum Hollow is very proud of her. She was a wonderful teacher who got all sorts of national recognition for excellence. In fact, she was my teacher when I was in the fifth grade.”

“Miss Emma?” Madison said, astounded.

“Yes. Oh, I know, it probably sounds funny to call an old lady Miss Emma, but she never married, and that’s just the way people do it around here. Except her students, of course—we called her Miss Ragsdale. Funny you should be asking about Gracehall, Miss Emma was the last one who actually lived there. But since she died, oh, thirty years ago now, nobody has lived in Gracehall. That’s why it got to be so run down.”

“You are saying this woman, this Miss Emma who died over thirty years ago, was the daughter of John and Sylvia Ragsdale?”

“Yes.”

T. J. looked puzzled, angry. “If what you are saying is true, then I think my family and I have been the victims of a very elaborate hoax.”

“That’s what it has to be,” Madison averred. “But they didn’t ask for money. And we had a wonderful experience. It makes you wonder why they would have gone to such trouble.”

“Mrs. Norman, do you have any pictures of Judge Ragsdale?” T. J. asked.

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact, we do.” She went into the back of the library and began rummaging through a file folder.

“T. J., do you really think this was all some kind of practical joke?” Madison asked.

“What else could it be?” he replied.

Mrs. Norman returned with a manila folder. “We have several pictures. Here’s one of the judge with his second wife, Emma’s mother.” She removed the picture from the folder and handed it to them. Just then the telephone rang, and she excused herself to answer the call.

The photograph was typical of many such portraits taken at the end of the nineteenth century. It showed a man sitting stiffly in a chair, with a woman standing beside him, her hand on his shoulder, both gazing formally at the camera.

“T. J., look!” Madison pointed to a brooch on the woman’s blouse. It was a golden treble clef with a small stone inset.

“It’s them!” T. J. gasped. “It’s really them!” He turned the picture over. The inscription on back read “Judge John and Mrs. Sylvia Ragsdale, Christmas, 1893.

” “T. J., this can’t mean what I think it means, can it?”

“You mean, did we somehow go back to 1893?”

Madison’s nose crinkled incredulously. “It just isn’t possible.”

“Wait, I want to check something.”

He led Madison back over to Mrs. Norman’s desk, just as she was hanging up the phone. She looked up at them with a broad smile. “Did the photograph help you any?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Mrs. Norman, are your computers connected to the Internet?”

“Oh yes, of course.”

“I wonder if I could use one of them.”

“Why, certainly. Those three are here for the use of our patrons,” she said, gesturing. “Number three is already logged on. Help yourself.”

“Thank you.”

“What are you going to do?” Madison asked, as T. J. sat down at the computer.

“Last night, and the night before, the moon was full, right?” He typed in some words and clicked.

“Yes.”

“I’m doing a search for lunar phases. There must be a site that will show them for every year.” The screen came up, and T. J. glanced over the results. He selected an address and clicked on it. When the site came up, he clicked on the current date. “Look at the moon phase for last night and the night before,” he said.

“Why, it’s just a sliver.”

T. J. clicked on December 24, 1893. “Now look.”

Madison gasped. “No. It can’t be!”

The moon phase was full.

As they drove west on I-40, returning to Nashville, the entire family rode in silence, trying to grasp what they had just experienced.

“Hey, kids, I’m going to call Grandma and put her on the speaker,” T. J. said, breaking the long silence. “You can tell her we had a nice Christmas, but don’t say anything about all the rest of it, okay?”

“Why not?” Christine asked.

“I think that what just happened to us . . . whatever it was . .. was just for us,” T. J. said.

“I agree,” Madison said.

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Timmy said. “If I did, they’d think I was nuts.”

Madison laughed. “Yes, there is that to consider.”

T. J. dialed his mother’s number, and the phone rang through the car speaker.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mom,” T. J. said. “We’re on our way back home, and I just thought I would report in and let everyone say hi.”

Madison, Timmy, and Christine exchanged Christmas greetings with T. J.’s mother, and then she asked where they had spent Christmas.

“We were in the mountains, not too far from Crossville, near a little town called Possum Hollow.”

“Did you say Possum Hollow?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now, that is an interesting coincidence.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your grandmother was born in Possum Hollow.”

“What? I thought Grandma was from Chattanooga.”

“Well, she was. But my grandparents were on a train coming back from a visit to St. Louis when my grandmother went into labor with Mama. They had to leave the train at Possum Hollow and find a doctor. It was a good thing they did, too, because the baby almost died.”

“Wait a minute,” T. J. protested. “Why haven’t I heard this piece of family history before?”

“Well, it’s not the sort of thing that comes up every day,” his mother replied. “I haven’t thought about it in years.”

“So what was wrong with Grandma?”

“She wasn’t breathing. My grandma said that the doctor started breathing in the baby’s mouth right away and saved her life.”

“Breathing into her mouth? I didn’t know they knew CPR in those days.”

“Well, I just know what she told me. If you want the whole story, you can read the personal memoirs Mama wrote several years before she died. I’m sure it’s all in there.”

“Mom, do me a favor, would you? Could you look it up now, and see what other details she tells?”

“Right now? Well, all right, but it may take a few minutes. I hate for you to use up so much time on your car phone.”

“I’ve got plenty of time,” T. J. said.

In a moment she was back on the line. “There really isn’t any more than what I’ve already told you . . . except that she tells the name of the doctor . . . it looks like Dement, no . . . Dermott, that’s what it is. Dr. Dermott Duncan of Possum Hollow.”

T. J. felt goose bumps, and he looked over at Madison. The reaction in her face mirrored his own.

“T. J., are you still there? Did we lose the signal?”

“I’m still here, Mom,” T. J. said.

“I wondered, you were so quiet for a moment.”

“I know. Listen, I’d better pay attention to what I’m doing here. We’ll stop by to see you before we get home.”

“Okay, you drive carefully now.”

“I will. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

They rode along quietly for another moment. “Madison, do you realize that if we hadn’t done what we did, if Dermott had died, I might not even be here now?”

“Yes,” Madison replied in a barely audible voice.

“He knew.”

“Who knew what?”

“Judge Ragsdale knew our names. He knew about our problem when we arrived. And he knew that we had it settled before we left.”

“But how could he have known?”

“As he said, this whole thing was God’s plan. The judge was merely an instrument of that plan.”

Madison reached across the console and gave T. J.’s hand a squeeze.

He squeezed back. “It really gives meaning to the part of our marriage vows where it says, ‘Whom God hath put together, let no man put asunder.’”

Madison looked at him, seeing something, someone different. “It gives us an awesome responsibility to make sure this works, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does,” T. J. agreed. “And we will make it work. Do you want to know how I know?”

“How?”

“Because my mind keeps going back to something Judge Ragsdale said to us just before we left.”

“What was that?”

“Through God, all things are possible.”

“I’ve no doubt of that. But I just wonder why He chose us. . . .”

“Because, I asked Him to,” Timmy said as he flipped the ball into the wooden cup in his hand.