Ghost Letters Read online

  Kipling let out an impatient whimper.

  “Why’s he pointing at that mailbox?” said Nargis. “Do you think there’s something inside?”

  “Maybe.” Gil shrugged. “He sure smells something.”

  “Why don’t we take a look?” Nargis suggested.

  She lowered her bike to the ground and stepped over the handlebars. Climbing up the side of the hill, Nargis opened the mailbox to peer inside. Almost immediately, she recoiled, wrinkling her nose.

  “Gross! That’s totally disgusting …” Nargis made a face. “It stinks … Take a look!”

  Gil wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what was inside the mailbox, though he climbed up beside Nargis and leaned over to see what it contained. The stench was both sweet and rotten at the same time, like a combination of lilacs and rancid cheese, an odor of perfumed decay. But worse than that was the source of the smell—a skeleton’s hand, cut off at the wrist.

  “Whoa!” said Gil, stumbling back in horror. “Omigod, that’s sick! Let’s get out of here!”

  4

  Versification

  In the Name of the Empress of India, make way,

  O Lords of the Jungle, wherever you roam,

  The woods are awake at the end of the day—

  We exiles are waiting for letters from Home.

  Let the robber retreat, and the tiger turn tail—

  In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail!

  “Doggerel,” muttered Prescott Finch to himself as he set aside a well-thumbed copy of Rudyard Kipling’s verses, “but poetry nonetheless.”

  He turned back to the half-written stanzas scrolling out of his Remington. Prescott had used the same typewriter for forty-five years—an ancient portable, with a battered case. Everyone else was using computers now, but he still composed his poems on a typewriter. Lifting the paper, he read over what he had just written:

  A letter goes undelivered,

  Words written but unread.

  We always blame the postman …

  By air, by sea, by snail

  “Let the robber retreat, and the tiger turn tail—/ In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail!” Prescott recited under his breath. Kipling’s rhyme and rhythm stuck to his mind like chewing gum on the seat of your pants.

  The postman knows his route

  Names, numbers and address

  His own words didn’t sound right, even as a first draft. Impatiently, Prescott stripped the half-written page from the typewriter, crumpled it into a ball, then fed another sheet into the roller, lining it up carefully.

  He started again:

  Trudging out of history, one slow stride at a time,

  He shoulders a mailbag full of letters unreceived,

  Lost missives, postcards gone astray, an errant rhyme.

  Sore of foot, numb-kneed, the postman seems aggrieved.

  Outside his office window, Prescott could see afternoon sunlight filtering through the last yellow leaves on the hickory tree at the edge of the lawn. Farther off, in the distance, lay the warped surface of the Atlantic reaching toward a clouded horizon. Prescott’s eyes drifted up the curtains and across the wall to a black-and-white photograph in an oval frame. It was a portrait of an elderly woman. She had gray hair pulled back in a bun and wore a black dress over a high-collared lace blouse. Though her features were sad and wrinkled, there was a melancholy beauty about her, and her eyes seemed to be searching for something, or someone, beyond the camera.

  Just then, the kitchen door banged and Prescott heard footsteps running through the house. His fingers were still touching the Remington’s keys when Gil burst through the office door with Kipling on his leash.

  “Grandpa!” Gil could barely talk, after running all the way. “Grandpa. We found something …”

  “What?” said Prescott.

  “There’s an old mailbox in the town dump … Kipling found it … When we opened the mailbox, there was a skeleton’s hand inside.”

  Gasping for breath, Gil leaned down and pressed his stomach to get rid of a stitch in his side.

  “Hold on,” said Prescott, rising from his chair. “Easy now!”

  In his excitement, the dog had wrapped the leash around Prescott’s leg. While getting himself untangled, he noticed a girl standing awkwardly in the doorway.

  “This is Nargis,” said Gil. “She lives down the street. We both saw the hand …”

  Prescott nodded in Nargis’s direction, then asked, “Are you sure it’s a skeleton?”

  “Yeah,” said Gil. “I think we should call the police.”

  “Slow down a moment,” said Prescott. “It’s not some kind of practical joke, is it?”

  “No way. It’s real,” said Gil.

  Nargis added, “Just the bones of the hand with no arm attached. And it smells really bad.”

  5

  A Moving Finger

  Sikander is surprised to see the calligrapher writing in English. Most of the poems Ghulam Rusool transcribes are written in Farsi or Urdu, with the script flowing from right to left. Today, however, the calligrapher pens the verses from left to right. Edging closer, Sikander peers over the old man’s shoulder, curious to see what he is writing with the magical ink. Urdu is Sikander’s mother tongue, but he has taught himself English with the calligrapher’s help. He also has a friend named Lawrence, the son of a tea planter, with whom he speaks English. Sikander scans the verses on the page as each word emerges from Ghulam Rusool’s pen.

  Awake! For Morning in the bowl of Night

  Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

  And Lo! The Hunter of the East has caught

  The Sultan’s turret in a Noose of Light …

  The moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

  Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

  Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it …

  When the calligrapher finishes writing these stanzas from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, he takes a green glass jar full of sand and dusts it on the page to blot the ink, shaking it slightly. Pouring the sand back into the jar, he chooses a blank envelope from his writing desk and addresses it with ordinary ink. Ghulam Rusool folds the single sheet of verses and slips it into the envelope. After gluing the flap shut, he seals it with red wax, melted over a candle flame. Using his signet ring, the calligrapher leaves the impression of an eight-pointed star.

  Once all of this is done, he hands the envelope to Sikander, along with a silver four-anna coin, and tells him to run to the post office and mail the letter immediately. Hurrying down the lane, the boy feels an important urgency, knowing the letter contains a vital message for someone far away. He often posts letters for Ghulam Rusool’s clients, but today there seems to be a greater purpose in his step as he dodges through the crowded lane, pushing past fruit vendors and donkeys, loiterers and women shopping for spices.

  The Central Post and Telegraph Office has always been a mysterious and marvelous place for Sikander, with high arched ceilings and a counter that he can barely reach. It seems as if the post office is a link with the world outside of Ajeebgarh, places Sikander can only dream of visiting. China. Persia. Africa. Europe. America. Behind the polished brass grille sits a clerk with spectacles balanced on the end of his nose. As Sikander hands the letter over to him, the clerk glances at the clock on the wall.

  “Twenty-two minutes past four,” he says with a smile. “You got here just in time … Eight minutes to spare.”

  “And what if I’d been late?” asks Sikander with a grin.

  “I would have told you to come back tomorrow.”

  “No, sir. This letter must go today.”

  “And it will,” says the clerk, putting the envelope on the scale and raising his eyebrows. “A first-class letter to Cairo … Two ounces … Four annas.”

  Sikander hands over the coin and the clerk takes a pair of two-anna stamps from his drawer, both with pictures of the maharajah of Ajeebg
arh, and affixes them to the envelope. Then with a decisive gesture, he thumps the ink pad and the envelope to cancel the postage.

  “How long will it take to reach Cairo?” asks Sikander.

  “Let’s see … At six o’clock tomorrow morning it will travel by train on the Himalayan Mail. After thirty-six hours, the letter will reach Bombay and be put on a ship to Suez. A couple weeks’ voyage … Then from there, I suppose it goes by camel to Cairo. Three weeks altogether … four at the most.”

  Thanking the postal clerk, Sikander stares up at the high ceiling and imagines himself riding the train from Ajeebgarh to Bombay, then boarding the ship and sailing across the Arabian Sea, and finally climbing onto a camel to travel over the sand dunes to Cairo.

  As he leaves the Post and Telegraph Office, Sikander decides to take a shortcut home. Crossing the railway bridge over the Magor River, which flows through Ajeebgarh, he climbs down the steps to the water, where washermen are pounding laundry on the rocks. Continuing along the riverbank, Sikander passes a couple of boats tied up near the shore. The Magor is a dark green color with a sluggish current that drifts between muddy banks where buffaloes wallow in the backwaters. A few miles below Ajeebgarh, the Magor joins a much swifter river called the Arun that eventually runs into the Ganga. From there the water pours out into the Bay of Bengal. Sikander has often dreamed of climbing into one of the boats, cutting the ropes free, and drifting from one river to the next, until he reaches the sea.

  He stops to watch a white-necked stork standing in the shallows of the river, its long beak ready to snap up a fish. Just then, Sikander catches sight of something blue at the water’s edge. Going closer, he sees a bottle sealed with a cork. To reach it, he has to wade into the river, and the stork flies off. Picking up the bright blue bottle, Sikander finds it is empty, except for a scrap of paper rolled up inside.

  6

  The Yankee Mahal

  Leaving Kipling at home this time, Gil and Nargis climbed into Prescott’s car—a battered Volkswagen that rattled and shook. Instead of crossing the park and scrambling through the fence, they drove around to the other side of the town dump, and parked next to the recycling center and mulching station. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around. Nargis led them through the gate and down a dirt track to Trash Hill. Prescott had brought his walking stick, but he didn’t really use it, except to poke a hole in the rusty remains of the old refrigerator as Gil and Nargis nervously approached the mailbox.

  “There it is,” said Gil.

  “A perfect place for junk mail,” Prescott joked. He didn’t seem convinced about the skeletal hand.

  Nargis asked, “Who’s going to open it?”

  “Go ahead,” said Gil.

  “Why don’t you?” she said with a nervous smile.

  Gil looked across at his grandfather, who nodded encouragingly. Reaching out his hand, which was shaking badly, Gil flipped the mailbox open. For a moment nobody moved. Then Nargis leaned down and squinted. There wasn’t any smell.

  “It’s empty,” said Gil.

  “That’s impossible.” Nargis echoed his surprise.

  “But the hand was here just half an hour ago. I swear we saw it,” said Gil, staring into the empty mailbox, then looking back at Prescott. “Grandpa, you have to believe me. It was a skeleton’s hand. The bones were a yellowish white and it smelled awful.”

  “It’s true,” said Nargis. “It was really gross!”

  Prescott nodded and shrugged, a skeptical frown adding to the wrinkles on his face.

  “Sure,” he said. “Maybe so.”

  • • •

  When he had first arrived in Carville, a week ago, the last thing Gil expected was to have anything unusual happen. Staying in a musty old house overlooking the sea wasn’t exactly the choice he would have made for himself. But nobody seemed interested in his opinion, particularly since he’d just been expelled from school. Both his parents traveled all the time for work, and there was nobody to stay with him at home in Connecticut. This was the main reason Gil had been put in boarding school in the first place. Two days after he was thrown out of McCauley Prep, his mother had to leave on a business trip, and his father had driven him up to Prescott’s house.

  As their car pulled into the driveway, Kipling had barked at them but came up wagging his tail and sniffed Gil’s hand. Prescott greeted his son-in-law with an awkward handshake. The two men had never seen eye to eye. When Prescott invited them inside, Gil’s father thanked him but said he needed to get back to New York to catch a flight. Warning his son to “behave yourself and make up for what you’ve done,” Gil’s father drove off.

  “He’s a busy man, your dad …,” said Prescott, tugging at his moustache to hide his disapproval.

  Gil looked at the old man with an uncertain smile. Prescott was close to seventy, but his shoulders carried his age lightly. He picked up one of Gil’s bags and led him to his room at the far end of the house, up a flight of stone stairs. The bedroom was a large, gloomy space with a tilted wardrobe and bookcases filled with murder mysteries. The one window looked out into the woods.

  Setting the suitcase at the foot of the bed, Prescott put a reassuring arm around his grandson’s shoulder.

  “Don’t worry,” he said in an understanding voice. “Your mother probably never told you this, but I was kicked out of McCauley too. It isn’t the end of the world.”

  Gil glanced up with surprise. “Why were you thrown out of school?” he asked.

  “We’ll talk about that later,” said his grandfather. “Now, I imagine you’re thirsty. How about some tea?”

  Gil had been to the house a couple of times before. It always reminded him of a medieval castle with heavy stone archways and turrets supporting a slate roof. After passing through several doorways, down a long hall, they came out into the kitchen, which was much brighter than the rest of the house. On the counter was a plate of cookies.

  Gil sat down as his grandfather opened the refrigerator and took out a jug of tea. Filling two glasses with ice he poured the amber liquid over the cubes. Though he hated tea, Gil didn’t want to say anything to Prescott, who squeezed a wedge of lemon into each glass.

  “Two spoons of sugar or three?” his grandfather asked.

  “Just one, thanks,” said Gil, hoping he wouldn’t gag.

  “Here you go,” Prescott said. “Have a cookie.”

  Still dazed from his journey and the dizzying ride up the coast, Gil felt a little sick to his stomach. But when he took a cookie and tasted it, he realized that he was hungry. The gingery sweetness crumbled on his tongue, and it was gone before he knew it. After this he helped himself to another, which went down just as quickly.

  Kipling edged closer to the kitchen counter, his nose snorting expectantly and his mouth slobbering. Prescott gave him a cookie from the plate, then told him to get lost. Gil’s tea sat untouched until the ice cubes had almost melted. Raising the glass at last, he sniffed the fragrance, surprised at how different it was from the soapy, dishwater smell of the tea his mother made at home. Cautiously, he tried a sip and the flavor startled him. It actually tasted good. Gil closed his eyes and took a large swallow.

  “Darjeeling. Orange pekoe. First flush,” his grandfather said. “Made with rainwater so it doesn’t ruin the taste. You know this house was built with tea and ice.”

  “What do you mean?” said Gil.

  “My great-granduncle—your great-great-great-granduncle—Ezekiel Finch made his fortune as a Yankee trader, shipping tea from India to America,” said Prescott. “He also used to ship ice from America to India.”

  Gil gave his grandfather a skeptical glance.

  “It’s true. The ice came from the pond on the other side of the hill. This was long before there were refrigerators. During winter, Ezekiel hired teams of men to cut the frozen surface of the pond into rectangular blocks, which they hauled down to the harbor on horse-drawn sleighs. The ice was covered with sawdust for insulation, and loaded into the holds of
clipper ships. Half of it melted by the time they reached India, but the ice could still be sold to English colonials living there, so they could have cold drinks in summer.”

  Gil took another sip from his glass and listened intently as Prescott continued.

  “The cargo of tea that Ezekiel brought back from India weighed much less than ice, so his ships needed ballast. Most sea captains filled the holds of their clippers with rocks to keep them on an even keel. When they returned to New England, the ballast stones were thrown into the harbor or onto shore. All along the coast of Massachusetts you’ll find rocks from India, China and other countries around the world. Instead of discarding the ballast stones, Ezekiel decided to store them. Once he had enough, he built this house and called it the Yankee Mahal. But Ezekiel never really lived in this house. Soon after it was constructed in 1840, he sailed for India and never came back.”

  “Why did he do that?” asked Gil.

  “Nobody’s really sure, but the story is he fell in love with a woman who rejected him. Ezekiel went away brokenhearted to a lonely exile in the East. Our ancestor was a colorful character. Everyone’s heard of Paul Revere and his midnight ride,” said Prescott, “but not many people know that Ezekiel Finch delivered an equally important message to the people of Boston.”

  “What kind of message?” said Gil.

  “It was during the War of 1812. In those days, Carville was still known as Hornswoggle Bay, and a British navy frigate sailed in to blockade the harbor. Ezekiel Finch was only ten years old at the time. His father was the harbormaster, and he wrote a letter to the governor, warning him that the British were coming. Ezekiel didn’t have a horse, but his family owned a mule named Sally. Taking the letter and jumping onto Sally’s back, Ezekiel rode all the way to Boston in less than three hours. The letter he carried is preserved by the Carville Historical Society. They also have one of Sally’s horseshoes on display.”

  “Why isn’t he famous like Paul Revere?” said Gil.

  Prescott shrugged. “I guess it’s just the way history gets recorded. Some things are remembered and others are forgotten. Paul Revere probably wouldn’t be as famous today if Henry Wadsworth Longfellow hadn’t written a poem about him. You remember how it goes: