Shaking my head, I said, “I knew her youngest son some from school, but that’s all.” Glancing at Delia, I added, “You?”
“Just in passing,” she said. “Why?”
Daddy pulled the biscuits from the oven. “When her kids were very little, she used to bring them for the library’s story hour every day like clockwork. She’d wanted them to learn to love books and knew she couldn’t give them the skill of reading. She was illiterate.”
It took a moment for that to sink in before it became very clear why Jenny Jane hadn’t responded to the note I’d written. It wasn’t because the stroke had affected her brain even after death . . . it was because she never had the ability to read in the first place.
That struck me as terribly sad, and my heart ached for her.
“I offered to teach her how to read more than once,” Daddy explained. “But after a time, you have to learn to let go in the face of refusal and let people keep their pride. She did right by her kids, ensuring they had a proper education. Her oldest daughter, Moriah, became a librarian in fact.”
“Mmmmrrhh!” Jenny Jane exclaimed, surging forward.
“No!” I shouted, shooing her back.
She stopped suddenly, then tentatively crept forward before halting again. “Mmmrrrh!”
“Moriah?” I asked her.
Slumping visibly, she nodded. She rested her arms atop each other and made a swinging motion.
No, a rock-a-bye motion.
“A baby?” I asked.
Yes.
“What baby?” Delia asked.
“Moriah’s baby?” I guessed, looking at Jenny Jane.
Yes!
“Does Moriah have a baby?” I asked my father.
“I’m not sure,” my father said. “I can ask around.”
“We don’t have long to find out.” I couldn’t help but feel the pressure of the approaching deadline. The ghosts would be sent back to their graves Tuesday night.
“I’m on it.” He kissed my forehead and set the bacon and griddled potatoes on the table. “I’ll make some calls when I get to the shop today.”
“I can ask around town, too,” Delia said. “Someone around here is bound to know something.”
A strained voice came down the stairs. “Is it safe to come down yet?”
“Define safe,” I called back.
“Ghost-free?” Mama said tentatively.
I glanced at Jenny Jane, who hadn’t budged. “Yes, it’s safe!” Then I said to Delia and Daddy, “What Mama doesn’t know won’t hurt her none. You want to stay for breakfast?” I asked my cousin.
“I’ll grab a plate,” Delia said with a grateful smile. “Smells wonderful, and I’m suddenly starving.”
Mama came tiptoeing into the kitchen, whipping her head this way and that. In her hand, she held a bottle of room deodorizer at the ready, apparently in case a ghost was in need of a good freshening with a lavender-and-vanilla scent.
Laughing at her antics, I set out some napkins and moved aside all the Ezekiel house papers.
Delia leaned over my shoulder. “What’re those?”
“A long ghostly story,” I said.
“No more ghost talk!” Mama ordered, sliding into a chair and setting the deodorizer next to her juice glass. “I’ll lose my appetite, and ain’t no one here wants that. I get a touch cranky when I’m hungry.”
Daddy gave her a double stack of waffles. “A touch?”
She swiped his arm playfully. “Go on with you.”
Delia leaned in and whispered to me, “A ghostly story, you say?”
Reluctantly, I nodded. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”
As she reached for a biscuit, she smiled and softly said, “Welcome back, Carly Bell.”
? ? ?
An hour later, my parents had said their good-byes, I’d cleaned and put up the breakfast dishes, and Delia was upstairs taking a nap in the guest room. By the time she had finished eating, she could barely keep her eyes open, and I’d insisted she stay and rest a bit. Roly and Poly were keeping her company.
Before he left, I remembered to tell my daddy to expect a visit at the shop today from Mr. Butterbaugh. Both Mama and Daddy had chuckled about Eulalie’s reaction to her date with the caretaker and promised to keep an eye out for any potential suitors for my aunt. I’d also sent Daddy off with all the papers Dylan and I had copied at Haywood’s house. If there was anything fascinating in all that information, Daddy would ferret it out in no time.
I hadn’t received any updates from Dylan, and I was starting to get nervous. His being upset about what was going on with his mama made me upset, too. Which had nothing to do with me being an empath and everything to do with being in love.
Parked on my couch, tucked under an afghan, I searched the Internet looking for anything and everything about Avery Bryan.
It was proving to be a futile search. It was as though she was a ghost herself.
I truly had enough of those in my life already. Jenny Jane was staring out the front door, and Virgil had returned and was now camped in front of a window. Fortunately, both were a good distance away from me, so I physically felt relatively normal for the time being.
Haywood still hadn’t returned. His avoidance of me was odd, considering the time crunch we were under.