The Ghost of Drowned Meadow, page 7
Morgan had a vivid imagination, but even she struggled to picture a group of uniformed Nazis marching down Port Jefferson’s Main Street. “What were the grown-ups doing at the camp?”
Johnson leaned back and took a sip of his lemonade before speaking. “I imagine some people were just there to dance and drink. There was a traditional German beer hall on the premises, and since many of the older members emigrated from Germany after the First World War, they were probably looking for a comforting reminder of their homeland, and people who spoke in their native tongue. However, there were others, mostly young men, who trained rigorously in firearms and explosives.”
“Like an army?” asked Morgan. “But why?”
The professor leaned toward them, his expression grave. “They were preparing both themselves and the children who went to the camp for what they referred to as ‘Der Tag.’ ”
“Der Tag?” asked Joel.
“It means ‘The Day.’ ”
“The day of what?” pressed Morgan.
“The day they planned to overthrow democracy,” said the professor. “And turn America into a fascist dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler.”
Joseph Klaus did not understand what was happening. He stood with the other boys at the funeral of Tillie Koch, which was held at Camp Siegfried, and listened to Herr Dinkelacker talk about her as though her death had been somehow important to the Nazi cause. He called her a hero and martyr, and said she had brought glory to the German people. But Joseph couldn’t see how that was true.
He looked at Tillie’s dad, who stood beside her casket, face creased with sorrow, his hands clutching his wool cap. Joseph wondered if he saw any glory in his daughter’s death. It didn’t seem like it. And when Joseph looked over at the group of girls who went to the camp, they were all huddled together, fighting back the tears they were not allowed to shed. Yet the boys who stood with him all gazed at Dinkelacker with clear, untroubled expressions. Obviously they believed him.
Once Dinkelacker had dismissed everyone, Joseph nervously approached Tillie’s friend Helen. The older girl stared at the casket with hard eyes.
“Is it true?” Joseph whispered in English. “Was Tillie a martyr for the Nazi cause?”
Helen’s mouth twisted, as though she’d just tasted something unpleasant. “Don’t you believe it, kid.”
Then she turned and walked away.
Soon after, the boys were summoned to stand at attention in the field before Herr Dinkelacker, who stood erect in his pristine Nazi uniform and gave them an icy stare.
“There have been complaints about your behavior,” he said in German.
There were several seconds of silence, during which some of the boys nervously shifted their weight. Joseph thought they should be nervous. After all, it was partly their fault that Tillie had died. Did this mean they would finally get punished? He didn’t like that it took something so sad, but maybe the boys would stop picking on people.
Eventually Dinkelacker continued. “It is natural for you to express yourselves in this way, but you must not be so obvious. Some people have become too soft and Americanized, and they have forgotten what is right and proper behavior for healthy Aryan boys.”
Joseph stared at the camp director, somewhere between shock and horror.
“From now on, I expect you to be discreet. You will take your activities into the woods where others cannot see,” said Dinkelacker. “Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir!” shouted the other boys with obvious relief. Perhaps even eagerness.
But Joseph only felt dread. The bullies had been given permission to carry on with whatever they wanted to do. What would that mean for him, “die heulsuse”?
For the second night in a row, Morgan didn’t experience any hauntings. Was the ghost really gone? Did it only take a little burning sage and some chanting?
“It seems too easy,” said Joel when they met up the following day after school at the ice-cream shop.
“Right?” asked Morgan. “But the last time someone lived in the house, there wasn’t much internet. They couldn’t just do a search online for ghost stuff like I did. Maybe they didn’t know about the sage.”
“It sounds like that old lady you talked to at the shop knew,” pointed out Joel.
Morgan shrugged. “Maybe nobody asked her. She is kind of intimidating.”
“Hmm …” Joel stirred his milkshake with a straw, then took a sip.
“I haven’t even been having nightmares anymore,” said Morgan.
“You were having nightmares?” asked Joel. “You never mentioned that.”
“Yeah.” Morgan thought back to that moment she’d pulled a strand of seaweed out of her mouth and shuddered. “They’re not really something I want to think about, much less talk about.”
“That bad, huh?” he asked.
She nodded.
He tapped the top of his straw thoughtfully. “So do you think the ghost was trying to let you know how he felt?”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way, but maybe.”
“Don’t forget,” said Joel, “that old lady told you there’s no such thing as evil spirits.”
“Just sad ones and angry ones,” said Morgan. “When the professor was telling us about all the awful stuff that happened at the camp, I realized that Joseph might have run away because it was so terrible.”
“Yeah,” said Joel. “He could have been like Vladja in My Secret Dream of a Boring Life.”
Morgan thought about the comparison between Joseph and Vladja for a moment. Vladja was a young vampire who joined the Night Queen’s court in volume five. He was from a kingdom of undead called Nezhit. He fled his homeland because the rulers had been treating their subjects badly, and when he objected to their cruelty, they tried to lock him in a coffin forever. He barely managed to escape, and found protection with the Night Queen.
“I guess the difference,” she said finally, “is that Joseph died before he reached safety.”
“Does that make him sad or angry?” wondered Joel.
“Maybe both.”
They were quiet for a moment. Morgan took a slow sip of her egg cream, while Joel continued to fiddle with the straw on his milkshake.
Then suddenly he said, “We should go to Yaphank.”
“Huh?” Morgan gave him a baffled look. “Why?”
“Don’t you want to see where it all happened?” he asked anxiously.
“But Camp Siegfried isn’t even there anymore, right?” asked Morgan.
“No,” admitted Joel. “Apparently it’s just a regular community called German Gardens now. And they changed the street names too, of course. So there’s no more Adolf Hitler Street.”
“Then what would be the point?” asked Morgan.
Joel frowned. “I don’t know … I just want to make sure, I guess.”
“Make sure of what?” asked Morgan.
“I don’t know!” For some reason Joel seemed upset. He kept twirling his straw in the milkshake, and his lips were pressed into a thin line.
“Okay, okay. Jeez, relax,” said Morgan.
He sighed. “Sorry. I guess because I’m Jewish, this whole thing really freaks me out. And I thought maybe if I faced this fear … you know? Like …” He shook his head. “It’s a dumb idea. Never mind.”
“I didn’t realize you were Jewish,” said Morgan.
“Come on.” He raised an eyebrow. “The name Joel Applebaum wasn’t enough for you?”
She shrugged. “I just never thought about it. Anyway, I guess it makes sense that Nazi stuff would freak you out even more than me. Did you have any family in the Holocaust?”
“Yeah.” His expression was oddly neutral, so Morgan couldn’t really tell how he felt about it.
“Sorry,” she said.
He gave her a wan smile. “Thanks.”
She wanted to ask more. She’d never talked to anybody who’d had family in something like the Holocaust before. But it felt like he really didn’t want to talk about it. It was clearly something that bothered him a lot. She felt a little guilty for bringing it up, so she changed back to the original subject.
“If you really want to go to Yaphank …”
He shook his head. “No, it was a dumb idea. Forget about it.”
“Okay …”
Was he just saying that because he was embarrassed and didn’t want to drag her along? She didn’t know. There felt like a strange separation between them. Like he was holding back in a way he hadn’t before. She wondered, was it because he was Jewish and he thought there were things that she’d just never understand?
Were there things that she would never understand?
This new distance between Morgan and Joel made her feel lonely in a way she hadn’t since before that first night they’d talked at the ice-cream shop. He was basically her only real friend. Although that friendship had been built around the ghost problem. Now that she seemed to have solved it, would they still hang out? She wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like she normally hung out with boys. And he didn’t even go to her school.
She had another night free of haunting, so that was good at least. The ghost really did seem to have taken the hint and left. Although something about that bothered her … Maybe she was a little disappointed that there hadn’t been some big anime-style showdown with the supernatural. Well, she was no anime hero, so that was probably for the best. And now she could focus on trying to make friends with the girls at her school.
The opportunity came even sooner than she’d expected. It was a Saturday afternoon, and her mother decided to drag her to the grocery store to “air out the offspring” as she liked to put it. Morgan’s mother was one of those active types who didn’t really consider reading all day to be doing something. She also claimed that Morgan was a “big help” who made the trip to the store “so much faster,” but Morgan was unconvinced. She and her mother would split the shopping list in half—“divide and conquer,” her mother called it. It made sense in theory. But in reality, any time Morgan saved was probably spent trying to locate her mother in the ridiculously large grocery stores that were apparently standard on Long Island.
It was while she was lugging her basket of groceries around the store, looking for her mother, that she ran into Piper. She was standing in the back of the store by the restrooms.
“Hey, Piper.” Morgan thought that she was probably the least intimidating of the three girls, since she wasn’t as aggressive as Hannah or as cool as Tressa.
Piper smiled in that anxious way of hers. “Oh, hey, Morgan.”
This was the first time one of the three girls had called her by name, and she thought that might be a good sign.
“Are you here shopping with your mom too?” Morgan asked.
“Huh? Uh, no, I’m with—”
“Hey, new girl.”
The voice came from behind Morgan, but there was no mistaking that harsh, competitive tone.
“Hey, Hannah.”
Morgan had been hoping to chat with Piper alone, but she tried not to show her disappointment as she turned to face the other girl.
Hannah grinned at her in a way that looked almost malicious. Then she said, “How’s your creepy weirdo boyfriend?”
Morgan stared at her, alarm rising in her chest.
“Hannah …” mumbled Piper. “You promised you wouldn’t …”
“I’m just curious,” said Hannah, her expression oddly triumphant. “It’s been so long since I’ve talked to Joel Applebaum that I thought I’d ask his girlfriend how he’s doing.”
“Joel is not my boyfriend!” objected Morgan, trying not to show the panic she was feeling.
“No?” Hannah asked, not looking convinced. “That’s funny, since Piper saw the two of you practically making out on your ice-cream date yesterday.”
“We weren’t on a date, and we definitely were not almost making out,” insisted Morgan.
Hannah gave a big dramatic shrug. “I’m just taking Piper’s word for it. Are you saying she’s lying?”
“M-Maybe I misinterpreted …” muttered Piper, her eyes downcast and her pale face turning red.
Morgan wheeled on her, the panic turning to anger. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but we’re definitely not dating.”
“But you are hanging out with the creepy weirdo, then?” Hannah’s eyes gleamed, like a predator going in for the kill. “You guys are like BFFs or something?”
“No, we were just …”
She couldn’t use the history project excuse because Piper and Hannah were in her history class. So she’d either have to tell them about the whole ghost Nazi thing, or else lie. And right there in the middle of a grocery store, with Hannah smirking at her, the ghost Nazi thing seemed pretty ridiculous. It was likely to earn her the nickname Mrs. Creepy Weirdo.
“Look …” she said, feeling her way through an idea. “My mom kind of made me do it. He’s the only other kid our age on my block and she said I had to be nice to him. So when he asked me if I wanted to go get ice cream, I kind of had to say yes.”
“Hmm …” Hannah’s eyes narrowed, like she wasn’t sure whether to believe this. And with good reason. If she knew Morgan’s mother, she’d know this was not something that would ever happen.
Piper bought it immediately. “Your mom made you hang out with him? That’s horrible!”
“Well, it’s not like I had anything better to do.” That part, at least, was true.
Hannah still looked suspicious. “So you’re telling me that—”
“There you are, Morgan.”
All three of them turned to see Morgan’s mother pushing a grocery cart toward them. Morgan realized this could be a potential disaster if Hannah decided to question her mother about this supposedly forced ice-cream hangout. She needed to get out of there before that happened.
“Hey, Mom, here’s the rest of the stuff.” She quickly put her basket of groceries in with the rest. “Let’s go.”
Her mom looked over at Piper and Hannah. “You want to introduce me to your friends?”
“Oh, uh …” Morgan looked over at Piper, who was somehow able to look both embarrassed and quietly judgmental, and Hannah, who looked like she was still trying to find a hole in Morgan’s excuse. The Mrs. Creepy Weirdo label would not be so easy to escape.
Basically, just as she’d feared it might, guilt-by-association with Joel had killed her social life.
Morgan put on an indifferent expression and shrugged. “This is Piper and Hannah. We’re just classmates. Can we go?”
Thankfully her mother seemed to pick up on the tension and didn’t push it any further.
“Well, girls,” her mother said with that forced brightness she reserved for uncomfortable situations. “Have a great day!”
“You too, Mrs. Calvino,” Piper said. “See you at school, Morgan.”
“Sure,” said Morgan. “See you around.”
Once they were out of earshot, her mother murmured, “What was that about?”
“That,” said Morgan, “was another doomed attempt at making friends in Long Island.”
“Ah,” said her mother.
When Morgan and her mother got home, she couldn’t quite settle down. The scene in the grocery store played over and over in her head, each time just a little more embarrassing. The thing was, she’d always known something like this could happen. But over time, she’d gotten so comfortable with Joel that she kind of forgot. He’d texted her to meet at the ice-cream shop after school, and she’d been bored, so she said yes without even thinking about it. Dumb.
Her mom got a work call soon after they arrived home, and her dad was in his studio, so Morgan was on her own with her anxious misery. She tried to read but couldn’t focus. Even watching TV couldn’t hold her attention. Eventually she ended up sitting on the balcony with a can of coconut seltzer, staring moodily out over the water.
Joel: You want to meet at the ice cream shop?
Morgan looked down at the text message. It was almost exactly the same as the one from yesterday. But this time she wasn’t going to automatically say okay. What reason did they even have to hang out anymore? The ghost was gone, case closed.
Morgan: not feeling ice cream tonight
She hadn’t wanted to be completely rude, so she’d made it sound like it was just tonight. But really, when would they ever hang out again? Maybe he’d just stop asking …
Joel: ok
Morgan wondered if that was it. But a few moments after she put her phone down, it pinged again.
Joel: The new Infamous Motley movie is in theaters this weekend. You want to see it tomorrow?
That was actually a tempting invitation. She wasn’t a hardcore Infamous Motley fan, but she’d watched the first season of the anime and it was pretty fun. And there was always something special about seeing an anime movie in a theater with a bunch of other anime and manga fans. It could be a fun, boisterous experience, with everyone cheering the protagonist on. At least, that’s how it had been in Brooklyn anyway. She had no idea how it was out on Long Island.
But as much as she wanted to go, if Morgan was spotted in the movie theater lobby with Joel, that would squash any remaining hope of making friends at Port Jeff Middle.
What should she tell him, though? He already knew she liked the show, so she couldn’t pretend she didn’t. She could just say she was busy, but then he might ask with what, and then she’d have to keep digging in deeper on the lie. She didn’t want to lie to Joel. She could just tell him straight up that she didn’t want to hang out with him, but she couldn’t think of any way to say that without sounding horrible.
In the end, she simply didn’t respond.
Later that night she checked the Night Queen chat server. Everyone was raving about the Infamous Motley movie. Including Madison.
