This happens a lot. Paul reaches his limit pretty quickly, especially when he realizes he didn't feel like eating what he asked for, after all. The main difference was this time, we were eating bologna slices outside in his play tower.
"Okay, go ahead and throw the rest of that to the animals," I said.
He climbed down the ladder and began tearing the bologna up, laying pieces down. "I'm making a trail for the animals. Maybe they'll come in my tree house."
I climbed down after him. "One of these days, I need to teach you to make a deadfall trap."
"Can we do it now?"
"You want to learn now? Okay."
I gathered up a couple of sticks and a log, and knelt down near the pine tree. I drove one stick down into the dirt, and carefully propped the log up in the Y-split. Then I picked up one of Paul's plastic dinosaurs. A Triceratops.
"Okay, we need bait. What do you think the dinosaur will eat?"
He handed me a shard of baloney.
I speared it on one of the protruding sticks, and said,"Okay. See, we prop the big log up here. Then we wait. Let a trap do your waiting; it's more efficient. When the dinosaur comes along and tries to get the baloney...." I moved the dinosaur forward, jostling the stick. The log immediately wiggled loose, and came slamming down. I just barely managed to get my hand out of there.
"Cool!"
"That's how you can catch animals if you need to," I said. I put the log back where I'd found it---The last thing I wanted was to come out and find an actual squirrel under it or something. "So remember that."
"Can I have a banana now?"
"I suppose, sure."
I led my family along the outer edge of the soybean field in Wayne Township. I was wearing my grey ghost shirt, and carrying my backpack. Michelle was behind me, and Paul followed up, carrying a bottle of bubbles and a wand and leaving bubbles behind us.
"Should be right up here," I said. "See that place where the trees kind of stick out of the forest? That's it. The Stech-Simcox Cemetery. Long abandoned, created in 1815."
"That's further than you said," Michelle pointed out.
"I didn't remember exactly. It's been about ten years since I've been out here. Mentioned it in the book, though." I walked ahead. Paul had his shirt off and was soaking in the sun.
I saw the fence as I approached. An old metal fence, rusted and damaged. I could see some of the gravestones. The biggest one, which had once been an obelisk, had been knocked over.
"That wasn't like that last time I was here," I commented.
I walked around the outside, and found the way in on the far side. I had no idea how they'd gotten into it in the old days, but now I could get in through a section of fence that had fallen over. I walked among the stones, which were all overgrown and falling down.
"What do you think, little man? Check this place out."
"Boring," said Paul.
"Oh, I don't know, kid." I walked through the small, sad cemetery. "I think it's pretty cool."
"Can we go to McDonald's on the way home?"
"Sure." I took a couple of photos. "We'll get you some food."
I opened my e-mail, and my co-workers popped up. Zoom meetings. Christ, I hate doing everything digitally. On the bright side, I did get to drink a beer in a staff meeting for the first time ever, as long as I kept it in an opaque travel mug.
"We have our guidelines from the State Library," said New Boss on the screen. "We won't be opening to the public for a while, but staff will be coming in on Monday."
Monday. Next week.
She continued,"We'll have to have some desk reassignments, and wear masks. We won't be open to the public for a while yet, and we'll have to prepare for that. Once we do, we'll only be doing book pick-ups in the lobby. Some people aren't going to like that, and we'll have to deal with them. It's going to be difficult with the public for a while. People are still scared. Statistics show that alcohol use is up."
"Interesting," I said, taking a drink of my Corona.
"We'll work out hours and shifts. We're going to have a lot to do. We'll be taking temperatures at the door. I have a non-contact thermometer ordered."
"I already have two of those," I commented. "Ghost-hunting equipment."
Paul came in and climbed up on my lap. He was carrying his chocolate milk.
"Does anyone need a mask?" asked New Boss.
"I could use one," said Holly.
"My wife made me two," I said. "One's got Batman on it. Because nothing symbolizes the pandemic like the guy who wears a mask over everything but his mouth."
"E-mail me with any requests," she said.
Monday.
"Alien patrol!" Paul took off down the sidewalk ahead of me. He was carrying his Green Lantern flashlight. I'd wanted the Green Lantern flashlight, but he'd commandeered it, leaving me with the plain black one.
It was nine PM. Over the summer, Paul and I had gotten into the habit of going out on "Alien Patrol"---A walk along our street to check the skies for UFOs. With school out due to Coronavirus, we'd started taking up the practice again; there was no reason not to.
"What's that sound?" Paul asked.
"Oh, that's the paper factory. They make paper products there."
"Ida says she knows that factory." Paul had lately taken an interest in Ida, the ghost haunting our house. He'd had quite a few conversations with her, and they seemed to have become buddies. Ida was taking the rap for a lot of things lately---Paul had accused her of things like getting into the candy without asking.
"Yeah, this factory was around when Ida lived here. She'd remember it. You want to walk down there?"
"Okay."
I looked up at the sky as we walked. There weren't any UFOs. There weren't even any airplanes, not so much as a Tri-Pacer. Or cars on the street. Aside from the sounds of the factory, I couldn't hear anything. I'd never seen Lock Haven so quiet.
On the up side, if there were any UFOs, they'd be easy to pick out. But it looked like the aliens might be social distancing, which was probably wise.
"The Jersey Devil was seen at this paper factory back in 1909, little man," I commented. "A night watchman saw him."
"Maybe we'll see the Jersey Devil!"
"Maybe."
"Is that him?"
"I think that's just a stray cat."
We walked peacefully down Shamrock Street, and then turned back up onto South Fairview. Paul and I headed back up to the house.
He handed me his flashlight and darted for the TV. I put the flashlights on the counter where they belonged, and heard a noise---A sound like something being knocked over, but nothing was moving.
I did what I always do when this happens.
"Ida? That you?"
You get used to it.
I don't know what possessed me to check my cell phone. I almost never do. Like most other electronics, I hate cell phones---I'd refused to upgrade from the basic phone I'd been using for the past decade. But the next afternoon, while Paul took a nap, I remembered that I might need to renew my service soon.
So I dug it out of my pack and turned it on, and found a two-day-old message. Resurrection Casey. I stepped out on the porch and gave her a call back.
"Hey!" Casey said on the other end. "How's it going? You know you sent me bus fare during a stay-at-home order, right?"
"Use it for anything. Buy lunch. I don't care. How you been?"
"Pretty good. All my classes are online at the moment. I hate it."
"I don't blame you."
"Been keeping busy a little. Looking into a UFO sighting near Walnutport. Hoping for a dogman, but, you know, they're rare."
"Yeah, I get you. I haven't even seen any UFOs. Been doing some stay-at-home ghost hunting. We've had a lot of Ida activity recently."
"No kidding?" Casey knew the story of my house; she sounded interested.
"Yeah, been hearing some noises and stuff. I don't know if it's the pandemic....I been trying to develop a candlelight vigil plan with some of city council....Been doing some video tours for the library, and I did one of my place and talked about Ida's story. Maybe it's that."
"I guess that could do it," Casey mused.
"Hey. I better get going. Kid's gonna wake up any minute."
"Good talking to you," said Casey. "You stay safe."
"You, too."
I'd taken to making weekly grocery store trips, not necessarily easy when you're on a bike. Also not easy to stay six feet away from people when everyone recognizes you as the ghost hunter from the newspapers, and wants to come up to you and chat. The mask helped some.
I carried the bags into the house and dropped them on the table. Paul came into the room as I was unpacking.
"Did you get more gumballs for my gumball machine?" he asked.
"Bad news, little man," I said. "I couldn't find any gumballs. For a while, your machine is gonna have to tun on...." I held up the package. "M&Ms!"
His eyes lit up. "I love M&Ms!"
"I know. Let's fill it up."
We took the M&M package into the middle room, and I poured them into the coin-operated gumball machine that he'd gotten for Christmas. I heard a noise near the top of the stairs, a board creaking. I saw Paul turn and look.
"Yeah," I said. "I heard it, too."
"It could be Ida!" Paul said.
I checked the floor; all three dogs were downstairs with us, presumably waiting for an M&M to drop. Paul said,"Let's go check!"
We walked upstairs. There was nothing there that we could see; it's often that way with ghosts. Paul said,"I think she's in my room. Let's check!"
"Just a second." I walked into my office. On the back of the door hung my LHPS vest, and I got my laser thermometer and my EMF detector out of the pockets. I turned to Paul. "Which one do you want?"
He snatched up the thermometer.
We entered his room, looking around. I'd taught Paul a couple of years ago how to use the thermometer, and now that he was in kindergarten, he could even read the numbers. "Sixty-four," he told me, moving the laser around the room.
"That's about right." I ran the EMF wand around the walls, checking for fluctuations. On the north side of his window, it went off, flashing the red light and beeping erratically.
"Did you do that?" Paul asked me.
"No. And there's no reason it should be going off. There shouldn't be any wires in this wall." I ran it around the rest of the window, up and down the wall, and it stopped dead. "Hunh."
"I think we found her!"
"Well, I did just release a video tour of this house, and I talked about her a lot. Maybe she likes that."
"I think she wants M&Ms," said Paul.
"Do not go leaving M&Ms around your room for the ghost."
"Dad." Paul, age five, rolled his eyes at me. "Everybody loves M&Ms."
"Back in just a second." I hit the car door as my wife parked the Prius by the side of the cemetery lane. In back, Paul was climbing out the door.
Together, we walked up the hill. The stones of Highland Cemetery towered above us. As it got steeper, I took his hand.
"Right there, little man," I said. "Under that tree."
We walked to the tree, the family plot of the Yosts. I stood with Paul over the small stone that I'd paid to put there.
"Can you read it, buddy?" I asked.
Paul sounded out the letters.
"I...da. Ida."
"That's right, buddy." We looked down at the grave. "This is where Ida's buried. This is her stone."
At nine PM, I got a candle out of the junk drawer. You know the junk drawer; every household has one in my experience. I'd personally picked up the habit from my grandmother, who'd taken the Great Depression a little too much as inspiration, and never thrown away anything that might become useful. I'd been slowly passing the concept on to Paul as we made fishhooks out of can tabs, fish traps out of bottles, and camp stoves out of cans.
I walked out onto the sidewalk. The sun was going down to the west. I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, and then lit my candle and held it high.
Down the block, I saw another candle light up. And further down, a few others.
I watched as the lights went up on my street. All across Lock Haven, others were doing the same thing. I held my candle, connected with my city.
There was hope.
There's always hope.
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