The Angel Whispered Danger - By Mignon F. Ballard Page 0,2
why he would. That was almost twenty years ago,” I said.
“What if he never left?” Her brown eyes were accusing, as if I were to blame for allowing a murderer to run loose.
“Josie McBride, I’m not going to let anything happen to you! We’ve gone to Bramblewood every year since you were only a few weeks old. Just remember to stay out of those woods unless an adult is with you and you’ll be fine.”
“Darby and Jon go back there all the time. They say that place is haunted.”
“What place?” I knew my cousin Marge would skin her two boys if she knew they were wandering that close to the river.
“You know—down where that raft washed up a long time ago, but they never found those people who were in it—the ones with the funny names. They drowned, Darby says, and their spirits are still there; he says they’re doomed to look forever for their bodies in the river because they did something bad.”
“Then their spirits must be shy because I never met them,” I said. “And that happened way before I was born.”
“Oh, Mom!” Josie rolled her eyes. She didn’t think much of anything happened before I was born, except maybe the discovery of fire.
“No, really. And I don’t know how bad they were, although people said they did a bad thing. They were supposed to have robbed a grocery store somewhere up near Dobson, but I don’t know if it’s true.”
They were a young couple—hippies, my mother said—and they’d stolen the raft from somebody’s vacation cabin several miles upriver. The girl’s name had something to do with the moon—Waning Crescent, or something like that. Marge used to laugh and say her father must’ve been a weatherman. And the boy called himself Shamrock—only it looked as if his luck had run out.
Earlier we had skirted the city of Charlotte and the land began to rise gently as we approached Statesville. Soon we would be in the foothills, and then the mountains themselves, where cold streams boiled and twisted alongside the spiraling road. In another hour or so we would reach Bishop’s Bridge and home. I still thought of it as home even though I had lived away for more than ten years. Ned and I had married during our senior year in college, and Josie arrived a few weeks before our first anniversary, just in time for the family reunion. I smiled, remembering how excited we were the first time we brought her home to show her off.
“Uncle Ernest is grouchy,” my daughter said, scratching a scab on her knee.
“Uncle Ernest is a bachelor—or as good as one; he’s not around children a lot, and you know he doesn’t hear so well . . . and don’t scratch that, Josie, you’ll make it bleed.”
My great-uncle had been married briefly when he was in his midthirties, I was told, but Bramblewood had proved too isolated for his young bride. I heard Cousin Violet telling Mama once that she thought Ernest was too set in his ways to have married.
“And that Ella made me eat lumpy oatmeal one time, and she’s always burning the toast,” Josie continued, referring to Uncle Ernest’s longtime housekeeper.
“Ella’s old. Give her a break—and she’s Miss Stegall to you. Besides, we’re not staying with Uncle Ernest. We’ll be at Jo-Jo and Papa’s,” I said, using the names she called my parents.
“But they’re not even going to be there! I wish we could go to England with them so we could see Aunt Sara’s baby.”
My younger sister, Sara, expected her first child within the next few days, and my parents had flown over to greet the arrival and help out with the new baby. Sara’s husband was sales manager of a division of a large electronics firm over there, and they lived in a community on the outskirts of London. Mom, who had never been out of the country, was so excited about the baby, she forgot to be afraid of flying all the way across the Atlantic.
“I wish we could be there, too,” I said, “but we just can’t afford it right now. Sara’s promised to send videos, and they’ll be home for Christmas.” Also, if I knew my mother, they probably wouldn’t be able to get the plane off the ground she’d have so many pictures to bring back. This would be their second grandchild after Josie’s birth ten years ago, and it had been a long and frustrating wait, especially after our sad loss.