Second Chance for Eternal Optimism

Cold November air held the small town of Avonlee in a pre-dawn stasis as Woody made his way up Newart street toward the old cemetery. The sun was just beginning to light the sky behind the eastern horizon, adding color to the grey dawn, but it was still too early for anyone of consequence to pay him any mind, and that was exactly what he wanted. Woody wasn’t supposed to be out and he was definitely not supposed to be headed to Saint Cordelia’s Catholic Cemetery without supervision.

But it was a risk he had to take. He couldn’t leave without saying goodbye, and chances to steal away were officially out. The train that would take him to his new home at Bishop Stephen’s School for Boys was leaving at noon and there would be hell to pay if he wasn’t on it. It wasn’t just Ma and Pa that wanted him on it—in fact, for all their wanting, they might want him on it the least compared to Mistress Williams and Sheriff Cooke. Old man Leblanc and the widow Girard hated him too.

Woodrow Martin had made quite a name for himself in Avonlee, and it wasn’t a good one. He was the town’s troublemaker. Any time an incident of some significance occurred, the Avonlee folks could find Woodrow in the middle of it.

When the widow Girard’s horse spooked outside the general store, tipping her carriage and splitting her wheels, Sheriff Cooke found Woody fooling around by the explosive crates. The Tremblay twins went missing for a night and a day, only to turn up down by the creek. The whole town was about to chalk it up to the indiscretions of youth until Old man Leblanc remembered seeing the girls talking with Woody in that very spot right before they went missing.

Woody’s incrimination and the subsequent damage to Leblanc’s sheep pen made him the only practical culprit. It took the townsfolks the better part of the week to round the sheep up. Two were lost to the dogs and one drowned after getting tangled up in some briars down by the river. The sheep would have been the final straw, but since so many were returned without harm and Woody worked for a week and a half to repair the fence, he was given one final chance.

Woody’s final chance was spent on the bell tower. When the old brass behemoth hit the ground with a final dampened ring, he knew there would be no renegotiations of terms for remaining in Avonlee. He accepted his punishment as inevitable. When Pa handed him the train ticket and Ma brought down the moth-eaten old suitcase he hadn’t objected. There was no going back on the decision, even though Woody wasn’t responsible for any of it.

Woody was pretty certain he’d get away with this one last trip. It was Sunday, so anybody already up was either tending to their milking cows or getting ready for morning service. Still, he worried that the crunch of gravel that marked his progress would be the alarm that sent the town after him.

An airy laugh wafted toward him, dancing across the still pillows of fog obscuring the chiseled writing on the gravestones. Woody stopped walking so he could listen.

“Even if they came after you, what else could they do?”

The voice swirled around, as if carried by a breeze, but the morning was still. Woody lifted the rusted latch to the picket fence and stepped into the cemetery, letting the gate swing shut behind him with a definitive thud.

“Ida Grace, you know it makes me nervous when you read my mind,” he called out to the empty space.

“Then you shouldn’t think so loudly!” She scolded.

The bite of her words hit him like frozen air. Woody rubbed his hands together thinking he should have kept his gloves unpacked. As he did, he scanned the grounds, looking for the girl.

“Why are you hiding?” he asked.

Three rows back, where the gravestones changed from old to ancient the fog began to churn. Fog had a way of making things feel gloomy, and some folks thought it was a bad omen, but Woody knew it was just wet air. She was playing with it, giving away her hiding spot.

The fog split down the isle between graves. Every time she did it Woody thought of Moses splitting the red sea. Maybe this was Ida Grace’s equivalent. After all, Moses was a regular man who parted regular water. Ida Grace was mostly air, just like fog.

Footprints indented the dewy grass and then, as if materializing out of what was on hand, the grey and translucent form of a little girl appeared before him.

“Hello Woodrow,” she greeted with a pleasant, but intensely mischievous grin.

Woody forced himself to focus on the smile instead of staring through it.

“Why don’t you ever call me Woody?” he asked.

Ida Grace tilted her head, her unruly plaits swishing past the puffy shoulders of her Sunday dress. “Because that’s not your name, Woodrow,” she said.

“I told you, it’s a nickname. Didn’t anybody you know have a nickname?” he asked.

Ida Grace plopped down on a nearby gravestone and lost herself to contemplation. She kicked two mud-caked shoes against the stone as she thought and mud few in every direction. Ida Grace had once told him that when she was alive, she wanted to be a boy, so she spent all her time getting into mischief like her brothers. That was why, as a ghost, it was easier for her to control things that made messes, like mud and water… and grains in the silo on the Gilbert’s farm.

“I can’t remember,” she said.

“Well I guess it’s no matter anymore, because I’m not going to be around to call anything after this morning,” Woody said. Not wanting her to read his expression he shoved his hands into his pockets and looked down at where some of the mud sprayed onto the bottom of a nearby gravestone. He tried to make himself think really hard about the mud, so she couldn’t read the rest.

Having no more mud to fling from her ghostly shoes, Ida Grade returned her attention to Woody. She disappeared from her perch and reappeared standing on the grass in front of him.

“They can’t really send you, can they?” She asked.

She placed to icy hands on his arms, sending a chill through him and forcing him to look up. Their eyes met, and for a second, Woody thought that maybe she wasn’t transparent anymore. Seeing the hurt etched on her face made him ache.

“I’ll be able to come back for Christmas, and for a couple of weeks in the summer maybe too,” he offered.

“Why just maybe?” She asked.

Woody fussed at the stone until the mud ground into the d on Beloved Anders. He wished goodbyes didn’t have to be so hard.

“Pa said that only the kids that have good citizenship get to come home in the summer,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, eyes dropping with his to the caked mud.

They were quiet for a beat. Woody abandoned the gravestone, plopping down to peal apart a few blades of grass. A rush of cold air passed through him, stealing his breath when Ida Grace plopped down soundlessly on the grass beside him. Unable to play with the grass, she picked at the frayed edges of her dress.

“Maybe it won’t be that hard to stay out of trouble without me?” she suggested.

“Oh yeah?” he asked.

Ida Grace perked up. “That’s right. You almost never get in trouble on your own.”

Woody considered her words. “Well, it was your fault that the Tremblay girls disappeared…”

Ida Grace crossed her arms across her chest. “You know good and well that they didn’t disappear! They were only lost in the west woods and too scared to go home,” she huffed.

“Why were they lost Ida Grace? Who brought in the fog?” He teased.

“You were the one that told them the ghost story and tricked them into running scared!” She retorted.

“It was your ghost story!”

“You mean it was a ghost story about me!”

Woody snorted.

Ida Grace smiled.

“I think you’re right. It will be easier to not get into trouble without you,” Woody said.

“I think it’ll be easier to not get into trouble without you,” Ida Grace said.

“True. You won’t have anyone to trick into opening the firecracker crate!” Woody jabbed.

“Oh yeah? Well who’s going to stand up for you if you have a teacher like Old man Leblanc?” she asked.

“I didn’t ask you to do that!”

“You didn’t have to ask, that’s just what friends do!” she yelled back.

It was true that Woody hadn’t technically done any of the things that he was getting sent away for, but Ida Grace wasn’t completely responsible either. She wouldn’t have lit the firecrackers if he hadn’t made fun of her for not knowing how cool they were. The Tremblay girls never would have gone into the woods in the first place if he hadn’t told them the story then teased them about being scared…. And Leblanc? He deserved to have to chase his sheep for a week after what he’d said. Even the bell tower was a joint endeavor.

“I’m sorry Ida Grace,” Woody said.

“Me too,” She consented.

They sat together on the wet grass, almost touching if it weren’t for Ida Grace being a ghost.

“It’s going to be tough to be so far away,” Woody said.

“Is there any part of you that’s even a little excited?” Ida Grace asked.

Woody popped a stout blade of grass into his mouth, working the end the way he’d seen the farmhands do. He liked the way it stalled the conversation long enough for him to really think of an answer. After a good amount of quiet had filled the cemetery Woody shifted the blade to the side so he could speak.

“It might be nice to go to a place where nobody looks at me like I already messed up,” he said.

“Like a second chance,” she offered.

Woody liked the sound of that. It had been so long since someone in Avonlee had thought something good about him that he’d quit trying.

“Maybe I’ll get my grades up and go to University,” he suggested.

“You gonna be a fancy doctor?” She asked.

“Naw, I want to be a lawyer—or a judge. That way I could make certain nobody got unfairly accused for something they didn’t do,” he said, letting the blade fall from his mouth.

Ida Grace caught it with a gust of wind. The blade danced atop the fog until she placed her hands under it. It remained suspended for a moment, as if she were holding it, before falling to the ground. She turned to him, studying the contradiction of his earnest expression with his unruly hair.

“That sounds right for you, but you would also make a good doctor.”

“I could be a doctor,” he agreed, “but it’s not worth it.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re already dead,” he said.

If ghosts could blush, then Ida Grace would have. Instead, she disappeared, then reappeared at the base of a nearby spruce tree. Woody scanned his surroundings, then rose to join her.

“I’m glad you’re going to have a second chance. You’re going to be a great lawyer,” she said, passing her hand through the low hanging branches.

“Maybe you can have a second chance too,” Woody suggested.

“How? I’m already a ghost.”

“I mean without me here to get you in trouble,” he said. He wanted to reach out for her, give her the hope she’d given him.

“I guess maybe so, but it won’t be any fun,” she said.

They stood together at the base of the tree with the cemetery at their backs as the sun turned the grey sky blue. Woody needed to head back before Ma went to wake him for church and discovered him missing. In the light of day Ida Grace would disappear.

They might never see each other again. Though the school promised Christmases and summer holidays, Woody knew there would be complications— schedules, apprenticeships, Pa’s reluctance to welcome him back…

They turned toward each other, knowing their time was short. Neither one of them wanted to say goodbye.

Without warning Ida Grace burst into tears. Her sadness mingled with the fog.

“I’m going to miss you Woodrow!” she sobbed.

“I’m going to miss you too, Ida Grace. You’re my best friend.”

On impulse he reached out as if to bring her into an embrace. She reached for him and their bodies merged.

A thrilling chill swept over Woody. His arms and legs buzzed as if there were an electric current running through him.

What’s happening Ida Grace?

I don’t know, this has never happened before!

Are you… inside of me?

I think so. I’m sorry, I’ll get out.

She stepped back and Woody felt her go. Woody studied her fading form, his mind racing.

“Were you… haunting me?” he asked.

“That must’ve been it,” she said. “But I’ve never haunted a person before. Just Avonlee.”

“You said you can’t leave Avonlee before because that’s where your soul imprinted, right?” he asked.

“That’s right,” she agreed.

“What if your soul imprinted on me?” Now Woody was certain he was right.

Ida Grace’s eyes widened at his suggestion. He continued.

“How else could you haunt me unless that were true?”

“I suppose it must be,” Ida Grace conceded.

“You can come with me,” Woody blurted.

“What?” she asked.

“Come with me to boarding school,” he repeated.

“You mean it?” Ida Grace asked. She burst into the air with excitement, then wafted back down like a spent leaf at the end of fall. “But what about your second chance? Won’t I just ruin it like I did in Avonlee?”

Woody hadn’t thought of that. His heart sank.

The sun was almost up. Ida Grace was fading into the light.

“You won’t. We can both have a second chance—together,” Woody said, suddenly filled with resolve.

“Are you certain?” Ida Grace asked.

“I’m certain. But you better hurry before we both spoil it.”

They reached for each other and merged again. Woody felt the same buzz as before. He lifted his hands. They appeared completely normal, but he knew she was with him. He could feel her.

They’d have their second chance together.