“Somebody ought to clean out that attic,” Mom said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. I was lying on the couch texting my best friend.
“You ought to clean out the attic.”
“Wait a minute. Me? How’d this get from somebody to me?”
“You’re somebody.”
“How about John? He’s somebody.”
“Go clean out the attic.”
I stomped upstairs and pulled down the ladder. When I poked my head through the floor, I found what I expected. A faceful of cobwebs.”
“Argh.”
I crawled back down and got the broom, sweeping wildly at the ceiling and the floor and everything in between. When I had most of the webs down, I looked around.
“Hey Mom! How long’s this stuff been up here?”
She came to the ladder. “I don’t know. Most of it’s from when we remodeled.”
“You don’t expect me to drag this furniture down, do you.”
“No. Just the junk. Vacuum up the dust.”
“What for?”
“I’m gonna make a little get away up there.”
“Little getaway,” I muttere4d. “What’s she need to get away from?”
I stood next to the one ceiling light and scanned the space. I actually remembered most of the old furniture and knick knacks. Over in one dark corner, though, I saw some really old stuff.
“Hey Mom. Where’d this old stuff come from?”
She came to the ladder again. “We didn’t build this place,” she said. “There was some stuff up there when we moved in.”
“And you didn’t even look at it?”
“Nope.”
The old stuff looked more interesting than our old furniture. I turned on my headlamp and headed over there. The furniture looked really old. Maybe we could sell antiques. I swished the dust rag over an old dressing table. When I opened the drawer, I found a dusty, old, leather diary. The lock had rusted through and I opened the book, sneezing until I’d raised a dust cloud.
Careful not to disturb any more dust, I turned to the first page. The date at the top made my eyes pop. October 31, 1868. Wow! I knew my family had owned this house for a long time. this was my great-great-great grandmother Sarah’s diary. She’d written her name in the middle of the page. Sarah Jane Green.
She wrote about watching the workmen lay the limestone foundation. She’s peered at some of the stones and noticed some ancient creature’s imprints. She wrote about watching them level the stones and nail together the walls. She admired the big muscled men who had set the walls on the foundation and nailed the corners together.
I grazed through the diary, absorbing my family stories. Sarah was a young bride when they built the house and she couldn’t wait to move in. In time there were crops and gardens and babies. She had an even dozen, but lost two to scarlet fever. She wrote about burying the tiny coffins and choosing the little stones with the lambs. Her husband lost his arm when a horse reared and trampled him. She wrote about burying the arm under an unfinished granite slab and her husband’s struggle to keep up with the farm work. It was a good thing they had sons.
Near the end of her life, she lived alone in this house. She started noticing things that moved mysteriously. At first she just thought she’d moved them and forgot, but before long she couldn’t deny that something strange was happening. She began hearing footsteps on the stairs at night. One afternoon, she’d been cleaning in her bedroom when she heard the ladder come down and footsteps in the attic.
She decided broad daylight was a great time to confront a ghost. She lit a kerosene lantern and climbed the ladder she’d been sure had been nestled up in the second floor ceiling. She poked her head into the attic. In the far corner she saw her ghost. She described the young female spook in detail. The clothing fascinated her. She was scandalized by the ghost’s short pants and “I can’t believe that woman’s wearing a man’s undershirt. Where would she buy such a thing?”
She described green eyes and hair that looked like a horse tail. “I wonder if she has any idea how to put her hair up. She remarked that the woman wore a silver barrette just like the one she’d lost that winter they’d had so much corn. Snow was coming. Even she helped shuck it and throw it into the crib.
I glanced down at my clothes. A red tank top and shorts. In the faded mirror over the dresser I noticed my ponytail was held by an antique silver barrette I’d found in the corner of the corn crib when we dug out all the layers of dirt. Mom said I could have it, so I’d cleaned it up and polished the tarnish.
This was weird. Did Sarah really see me? Had I fallen into some kind of time warp? How did great-great-great-granny see me more than 100 years ago? I glanced across the attic and there she was, just as real and substantial as I was—just dressed weird.
“You’re a ghost,” she said. she threw her arm up when I looked at her. My headlamp must have blinded her. “What is that light? Are you an angel.
I turned off the light. “No just a regular girl.”
“You don’t look regular.”
“You’re the ghost, Grandma. It’s the year 2018.”
She gasped.
“I think I’m your great-great-great-granddaughter.”
We talked for half an hour. “I have to go.” she said suddenly. She stepped through the hole in the floor onto the ladder. when I looked down after her, she was gone.
