“So she stayed here while everyone else was fighting. He talks about his younger brothers, and his father, all joining in the Confederate efforts,” Nan said. “And he thanks her for staying here, and for helping the spirits to cross.”

“I know. That’s exactly what we need, isn’t it?” Dax asked. “Now you can attach those letters to the nomination form and send it on in.”

Nanette nodded, but she was frowning, Dax noticed, and when she looked up, her green eyes were glistening, on the verge of tears.

“What is it?”

“We can’t use these,” she said solemnly. “I know you’ve worked hard to find them, and I’m really feeling terrible about going back to bed knowing that you stayed up all night going through them. But we can’t use them.” She leaned over the table to look in the box. “But there are more here, right? I’ll keep going through them this afternoon. Maybe there’s something in there that we can use.”

Dax was dumbfounded. He had dates, battles, the name of their ancestor who was fighting and the name of his wife at home. What more did she need? “Why can’t we use them?”

“Because he talks about the ghosts in every one of them,” she said. “If we send these as verification of-” she looked at the name on the letter “-Clara Vicknair living here during the Civil War, the committee will read the contents, and they’ll learn that she was helping ghosts cross over. Whether they believe it or not, the next thing you know, everybody and their grandmother will be traipsing out here to see the haunted Vicknair place.” She shook her head. “We can’t do it, not with these. But maybe there’s something in there that doesn’t talk about the ghosts? Something that can be dated to the Civil War too?”

Dax could feel his frustration peaking. “Ever thought that maybe Grandma Adeline intended for us to use these? I mean, she’s the one who said what you were looking for was in the attic. Maybe it’s time to bring our ghosts out of the closet, so to speak. Would it be so bad if people knew? Especially if it helped us get on that register? That is the goal, right? And obviously, Grandma Adeline thought she was sending us in the right direction to achieve that goal.”

“I can’t believe that. She protected the family secret, like everyone before her. If what we need is really in these letters, then we haven’t found it yet.”

“Fine,” Dax said, standing and taking his cup to the sink. “But I can’t read any more letters now. I’ve got to get ready for work, and then I’ve got a full day visiting doctors.”

Her chair squeaked as she twisted to look at him. “Did you find anything to help you with your problem? Anything about what’s happening with Celeste?”

“Not yet.” He stared out the kitchen window at the cane fields and wished Celeste was here to see the beauty of the sugarcane. Next week, the cutting would begin as they went through grinding season. Then the massive eight-foot stalks would be chopped to the ground, and the stubs burned to prepare the field for replanting. It was an incredible, exhilarating process, and he wanted to share that with Celeste. He wanted to share lots of things with Celeste…if he could get her back. Unfortunately, not one line in any of the letters he’d read throughout the night gave him any indication how to make that happen.

“Well, we haven’t finished all of the letters yet,” Nanette said, evidently deciding on optimism as her method of handling their new dilemma. “I’ll start on them after school, and I’ll follow your lead here and make a pile of the ones that may help us for you to go through. Jenee will be here this afternoon too, so she can help.”

“That sounds good,” he said.

“You are going to sleep for a few hours before you try to drive all day, right?” she asked, shifting into her protective oldest-cousin role.

“Yeah, I’ll catch a few hours before I start.” He knew he was too tired to drive, and he could sleep four hours and still be on the road by ten. He’d let Nanette and Jenee tackle the rest of the letters this afternoon. Maybe they’d find something and have it waiting for him when he returned. If he was lucky. “Let me be lucky,” he said softly as the cane reeds blurred together in the field. He squinted, thinking that he really was exhausted if his eyes couldn’t even focus. But then, the air sounded different too, as if he could hear the reeds moving against each other in a soft, sweet cadence.

Dax leaned his head closer to the window to listen, then he unlatched it and pushed it open, trying to see if he could hear the song again. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“The cane, moving. It sounds like-” he heard it again, crystal clear “-someone singing, maybe?” Then, as the sound intensified, Dax made out a few of the words. “Something about the leaves in the fall, fluttering to the ground.”

Nanette moved from the table to stand beside him. “I don’t hear anything. Are you sure it’s the cane, or are you hearing a spirit?”

Dax closed his eyes and definitely heard a song, and a little girl singing it. “You’re right. It’s a little girl.” He opened his eyes. “I’ve got another ghost coming.” He typically heard ghosts for a day or so before their arrival, which meant that by tomorrow or the day after, he’d likely have another little girl spirit that would need his help crossing. And maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t come alone.

9

ON THURSDAY, three days after he’d found the letters in the attic and had first heard the little ghost singing, Dax steered his car along the darkened curves of River Road in an effort to get to the plantation, and to the assignment that he felt certain was waiting for him in the sitting room. Although he’d been anxious for the spirit to arrive, since he assumed her coming meant he might see Celeste again, he hadn’t minded that it took her a few days to find her way to the Vicknair plantation. In the past three days, he’d crammed in a visit to each and every doctor’s office on his route, even though that had meant sixteen-hour workdays, in order to justify taking some time off if Celeste reappeared.

And he truly believed if there was any way she could make it back through with his new assignment, she would, particularly if Grandma Adeline was willing to help.

He turned the Beemer into the driveway and the little girl’s song grew so loud within his head that he had to concentrate to navigate the gravel road ahead. He’d left the house while it was still dark this morning, and it was dark again now, but he’d accomplished his task, clearing his schedule to allow several days to help the young spirit, and to, hopefully, spend time with Celeste.

The big, bold branches of the magnolia trees lining the driveway swayed slightly with the breeze from the levee, and the song in Dax’s mind seemed to mimic their movement, chiming in about the colorful leaves of autumn. Her voice, a lyrical tinkling, echoed from the trees, and Dax wondered how the young spirit had died.

He’d expected to see her sooner. It didn’t usually take this long between the time he heard the spirits and they arrived needing help. However, on occasions when a child was on his or her deathbed, he had heard the songs, or laughter, or tears of the final days. He assumed that to be the case now, and he prayed the young girl hadn’t suffered as she died.

Where the driveway circled around a majestic oak, he noticed that in the past few days, the big tree had lost the majority of its leaves. Though still towering and formidable, it looked different with the missing foliage, no longer the picture of life, but of barrenness, of the way it felt to be alone.

The way Dax felt without Celeste.

“Let her come back with this ghost.”

Moonlight spilled freely through the bare branches of the tree and cast snakelike shadows on the ground. The powers that be often sent signs before a spirit’s visit, a hint of what was to come with a medium’s assignment. He hoped the eerie vision produced by the massive oak wasn’t a sign that this assignment wouldn’t go the way he wanted.