Ghost in the Garden

After sunrise, when the fog was still hiding in wispy corners and before the factory whistle had even sounded, Ruthie and I crept down the stairs, past the sleeping dogs, and out the back door.  We were headed for the other side of Uncle Willie’s back pasture where the cows rarely went and the grass grew wild and free with rabbits and wildflowers.   Not far past where the open field gave way to a patch of woods, there was a path that led to into the trees and at the end of the path, a small stone house with a thatched roof sat in a circle of sunlight.  It was here that Miss Sherise, Miss Clara’s younger and very solitary sister, lived and tended her many gardens.

It was hard to imagine how two sisters could be more different.

Bless my soul, I’d heard Nana say, If them girls bein’ kin don’t beat all.

Oh, ay-uh, Aunt Pearl had agreed, Like night and day.

I allus did like Cole Porter, Aunt Vi, half asleep and near to dreaming had added and Nana and Aunt Pearl had exchanged amused glances.

Apart from an ironclad (some said stubborn) self-sufficiency, there was precious little linking the two women except for blood.  Clara – sort, squat, plain-spoken and solid as a rock – was out and about often, usually chatty and collecting all manner of friends, active in the Baptist church, always welcoming and willing to lend a helping hand.  Sherise, loathe to leave her little plot of ground, was tall and slender with an almost ethereal aura.  She always wore a hooded white linen robe and went barefoot no matter the weather and on account of being born a mute, was sometimes rumored to be a flower-gathering ghost.  She grew all manner of herbs in brightly painted window boxes and kept a neat row of tomato plants in pastel ceramic pots sitting by the door.  Clara was earth tones and neutral, substantial and predictable.  Sherise was primary colors and flowers everywhere, a sprite who followed rainbows.  She was also a weaver, keeping a half dozen sheep for their wool and shearing them once a year, turning wool into fabric and fabric into apparel and throw rugs and skeins of colorful yarn for knitting baskets all over the island.  To Ruthie and me, sheep shearing sounded different and exotic, well worth the risk of stealing out on this misty summer morning.

When we reached the stone house, the fog was still burning off and Miss Sherise was walking through the wildflowers, a woven basket over one arm and her white robe flowing behind her.  She looked not quite real, I thought to myself, a trick of the light and the still hanging remnants of the fog, I knew, but even so I couldn’t help but think that she looked like an apparition, like the spirit lady Frenchy Comeau used to see, all glowing and soft edged.  When she heard us, she turned and gave us a beaming smile, pointing to the sheep and making scissor gestures with her free hand.  We nodded and she beckoned us closer.  She wasn’t young anymore, I realized, but there was a timelessness to her that I’ve never forgotten, something that came from the inside and had to do with a life of silence and isolation – or so I imagined anyway – but romantic illusion or reality, she was, standing there among the flowers, the absolute essence of beautiful and for a few breathless seconds, I felt frozen, as if I’d suddenly grown roots.  It wasn’t until Ruthie pinched me that I came back to myself and stumbled forward.

What I remember most clearly is the sheep, how they stood so patiently, calm and clear eyed and somehow knowing that no harm would come to them.  Sherise’s hands were agile, moving swiftly and gently over their thick fleece coats in short, precise strokes.  She would finish each one and give them each a light slap on their hindquarters and they would trot off, kicking their heels in a kind of dance, proudly high stepping through the patches of flowers.  Ruthie and I collected the wool in scratchy burlap bags – surprisingly heavy, we thought – and toted each to the finishing shed.  It wasn’t the great adventure we’d hoped for but it was a good way to spend a summer day and when we were done and washed up, Miss Sherise had cold milk and freshly made gingersnaps ready.  When we headed for home, we each had a brown paper sack of vine ripe tomatoes, two shiny, new quarters in our jeans and a good feeling.  We left Miss Sherise as we’d found her, gliding through her gardens with a basket on her arm, picking flowers and looking just a little magical.