casket.â
âThe rest of me isnât in a box. I want everything together.â
I glared at him. âYou are the most demanding ghost Iâve ever known.â
His eyes crinkled at the edges. âIâm also the nicest ghost youâve ever known. Friendly. Talkative. Willing to share information. Iâd give you the shirt off my back, only you probably donât want it.â
Looking at his coal-smudged shirt, I couldnât help laughing.
âYou could bring the casket up here,â Willie suggested, âthen open it and dump the leg bones in with the rest of me. You wouldnât have to touch them.â
âWhatâll I do with the casket?â
âThrow it away. Keep it as a souvenir. Take it back to the cemetery and rebury it. Who cares? Itâs only an old wooden box.â
Before I could respond, he vanished again.
âI wish you wouldnât do that,â I muttered.
I sat on a boulder to catch my breath and rest my own legs, which felt as if they would fall off any second. I wished Iâd brought drinking water.
I thought about Willieâs casket. If it was wooden, as he said, it might be rotted by now. I might have no choice but to pluck the bones from the dirt.
I wondered how many bones there were. Willieâs knee, leg, ankle, foot, toesâwould they all still be connected?
Grossed out by my imagination, I stood and plodded on up the hill. There were fewer trees now and more rocks. I heard water rushing ahead of me; the river wasnât far.
The trees ended, replaced by rocks and sand, which led to the river. It gurgled over the rocks, shallow at the edges.
As soon as I saw it, I removed my shoes and socks, rolled up my jeans, and waded in. I splashed some of the cold water on my face and rubbed it on my arms.
It was too cold to stay in long. I sat on the rocky beach, letting the sun dry my feet.
âThis is where I used to fish.â
I no longer jumped when Willie reappeared, which shows you can get used to most anything.
âCaught many a trout in this river. Thereâs nothing like fresh trout, panfried over a fire.â He sighed and sat beside me. âI miss eating,â he said. âWhen youâre alive, you donât give it a second thought. Oh, you might wonder whatâs for dinner or look forward to a favorite meal now and then, but you donât appreciate being able to put a fork in your mouth and actually taste the food. I miss Sarahâs bread the most. That woman baked the best breadâcrunchy on the outside, soft on the inside.â
âSometimes my mom bakes cinnamon rolls. Thewhole house smells good while theyâre in the oven.â Suddenly, I yearned for home. I longed to sit at the kitchen table with Mom and Steven, all of us eating cinnamon rolls before they cooled, joking about what pigs we were.
I wondered if Mom and Steven were safe in India. Did Mom enjoy the job? What was New Delhi like? Was the food good?
âThereâs my grave,â Willie said. âRight where the river bends.â
I put on my shoes and socks, then followed him to a patch of ground about thirty feet from the riverâs edge, where a tangle of pricker bushes sent thorny branches crawling over the rocks.
âAre you sure?â
âSarah planted a rosebush there. It blossomed the first few years; then it got scrawny and went wild. Now it looks dead from lack of water.â
Some of the branches were more than an inch thick and covered with thorns the size of Mrs. Strayâs toenails. I wondered if there might be a small saw in Aunt Ethelâs barn.
Iâll need to wear long sleeves, I thought, and gloves. Gloves seemed a good idea, anyway, especially if the wooden box had rotted.
âLetâs go,â Willie said. âWe have work to do.â
âIâm not coming back today,â I said. âItâs too far.â
âItâs only a few miles.â
âEasy for