| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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WHO KISSED JOE?
The house in that year, 1924, viewed from the deeply rutted dirt road, was partially hidden by ancient live oak trees, though most people who passed knew it was there. The weathered grey clapboards of the house looked as if they had never been painted.
Not much traffic along the road except other farmers making rare trips to and from town. Everyone knew the place and the grandparents who lived there alone since children were grown and gone. The old dog didn't even bark when neighbors passed, just wagged his stump of a tail, seemed to identify them in his own mind, and returned to his bed under the porch.
To Joe, who was always a light sleeper, the night seemed different, somehow. He didn't know just what made it seem strange. From his bed he looked out through the lace curtains over the open window to see the big harvest moon peeping over the wood to the east.
"October," he mused. "Must be about Halloween. Don't suppose the goblins are stirring."
He wasn't a superstitious man. Been in the country all his life. Never anything out in the arms of Nature that scared him. He lay on his back wondering at the brightness of the moon, noticing the leaves of the willow tree near the window rustling faintly in the breeze, casting weird shadows to blend with the lacy pattern of the curtain. As he watched, they grew more agitated until the drooping, swaying branches were like slender dancers swaying to some music heard only by themselves. The lace curtain billowed inward keeping time with the dancers.
Joe reached over to touch his wife, thinking of showing her the dancers, but he remembered that she hated to be awakened when he was restless. He tried not to move too much. He turned his gaze from the lighted window to the black rectangle on the wall toward the foot of the bed, made by the door into the dark hallway leading to the kitchen. It was a long face of midnight blackness keeping watch on the lighter bedroom, daring the moonbeams to invade that domain.
The blackness of the door seemed to beckon. He knew that he would never be able to get back to sleep without a drink of water--which meant he'd have to enter the darkness. Darkness didn't really bother him. He didn't even need a flashlight.
No one else was in the house. He knew every step, every floor board that would feel cool to his bare feet--the ones that would make a low groan at his weight. No use putting it off longer. Maybe others would see restless spirits in the moonlight and ghosts in the darkness, but Joe knew night didn't hide things that were unseen in daylight. He put his feet to the floor without even wondering what might be under the bed ready to grab his ankles with bony, fleshless fingers.
Through the door, into the dark hall he walked, wondering if Maggie had left a snack out for him. Sometimes she did, right there where the oil lamp waited with matches by it handy for lighting. Everything was so in customary places that Joe, with years of practice, could put his hands right on them with no uncertainty.
Just before the entered the kitchen, when he had his hand on the doorjamb and stood for a second to make sure of his orientation, it happened. Smack! Someone planted a big wet kiss on his cheek. He flailed his arms, reaching for the person--thinking it had to be Maggie playing a trick on him--but no one was there. Nothing! He had been kissed-- but no one was there to kiss him.
Joe forgot his thirst and made his way back to the bed room. Maggie was still sleeping, her face turned toward the window, her greying hair spread about her face. He sat on the edge of the bed wondering. He remembered how he had teased Maggie when she told him last week of seeing someone in the house one night while he was gone for the doctor for a neighbor. Maggie claimed a woman stood in front of the dresser brushing her hair. When Maggie screamed, the woman simply vanished. Maggie was convinced it was the same ghost her mother saw years before, the ghost of Jenny. Jenny was that woman who was murdered in the cabin down on the creek.
Trying to convince himself that the kiss never happened, Joe sat there on the edge of the bed, until a sudden deliberate movement out the window drew his eyes. There waving at him was a woman in a long white dress. The echo of a wavering laugh came to him, teasing him.
It came to him-- or did he think it? The ghost of Jenny was out practicing for Halloween. Quickly covering his head with the sheet, he knew he did not want another kiss. He rubbed his still moist cheek against his pillow, but the sensation of the kiss lingered.
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Dieletta Hickey Watson, in her book about family, told about a ghostly kiss. I borrowed the idea from her. Have a safe, happy Halloween.