Read an Excerpt
Billy Creekmore
A Novel
Chapter One
The Strange Circumstances of My Birth and How I Came to Be Raised at the Guardian Angels Home for Boys
Folks say I'm bound to be unlucky in life, for I was born at midnight on a Friday, the thirteenth of December, and Peggy says it's certain I can commune with spirits. But I ain't never seen any ghosts, not even my own mother, and wouldn't that be the ghost I'd see if I could?
Peggy put down her knife to give it some thought. "Maybe she figures you won't recognize her. After all, you were only hours old when she died."
"Or maybe she's a fearful ghost who won't come to me since I'm what killed her. Now, don't shake your head, Peggy! I know what folks say! I heard Mrs. Beadle tell you."
"I don't believe it, Billy, and I don't want you to, either."
But I did.
The midwife who delivered me is sister to Mrs. Beadle, so the story was common knowledge. My birth alone nearly killed my mother, but it was the shock of me that did her in. It was 1895, the coldest winter in West Virginia's recorded history. I entered the world as the clock struck twelve, silent and limp, my eyes closed. Then, as the midwife slapped some life into me, I started speaking. And it warn't gurgles or babbles either, but real words. I raised a finger and pointed into space saying, "There! There!" my eyes shut, like I was stuck between worlds. It was unsettling and eerie, such a frightening thing to see that it stopped my mother's heart. My pa, wild with loss, fearful and distressed, ran out in the night and never returned.
"What about your pa?" asked Peggy. "Do you ever see the ghostof your pa?"
"My pa's not dead. At least he warn't at Christmas. He sent me a picture postcard."
"Well, where is he then?"
"I don't know. He travels about and sends me a postcard every now and then."
"How sad, Billy!" Her face puckered up, and her eyes got wet. "Oh, but it's not right to abandon your child, no matter how brokenhearted you might be!" She turned back to her chopping. Pieces of carrot flew about, and she moved quick and graceful in the kitchen despite her great size. I had risen before dawn to drink some tea and have a little talk. We were buddies, Peggy and me.
"Tell me, Billy. What was on the postcard then?"
"Picture of a paddleboat on the Ohio River. But that ain't no clue to where he's at. I get picture postcards from him once a year or more, all showin' sight-seein' type things—a suspension bridge, train station, a statue in a park. . . ."
"Does he leave an address for you to write him back?" asked Peggy.
"Nope. But he always writes the same thing—'with love from your pa.'"
"Oh!" said Peggy in a voice sharp with pain, just like she got pricked with a pin. She pulled me into her arms to rock me back and forth like a baby. I quick set down my tea so I didn't scald us. "Imagine leaving your only son in an orphanage while you rove about seeing the glories and curiosities of the world!"
One of the buttons down the back of her blouse popped off, and it was hard to breathe, being squeezed so tight in her doughy arms. Otherwise, I'm sure I'd have cried with her at my pitiful state. I was ten years old, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to be held and loved every now and then. I was alone in the world, my mother dead, my father traveling about in places unknown, too filled with mourning and dread to raise me as his son.
In time Peggy let up on me, but before she did, she held me at arm's length and looked me plain in the face.
"Do you see spirits, Billy? Any at all? Do they talk to you?"
I shook my head. Truth be told, I was afraid of having the gift of communicating with spirits. It's what killed my mother and made my father leave. "Sometimes I sense 'em, though," I admitted to Peggy. "I'll feel my skin tingle right here," I said, touching my temples, "and it's almost like they're hoverin' off to the side, just where I can't see, but I ain't never seen one. Sometimes I pretend to see 'em when I don't. But please don't tell no one I said so."
"I won't," said Peggy in a worried voice, "but one day they'll come to you, and until then you better stop pretending. Telling lies about seeing spirits is an awful sin."
"I know," I said. "But I don't think God minds if I tell a story to give folks something to think about, or else to save myself from Mr. Beadle. Remember how bad he hurt Herbert Mullens?"
"Heavens, yes, poor lamb," said Peggy. Then she crossed herself and moved her lips. Herbert was just a sparrow of a boy, slight and twitchy, only six years old when Mr. Beadle tore into him for dropping a basket of eggs. He was so scared, so injured by the beating, that he stopped talking and had to be taken to the home for children who are deaf and blind and otherwise can't find a way in the world. Peggy said a quick prayer for him, as was her habit whenever she heard of Mr. Beadle thrashing one of the boys. No doubt she'd be praying for him later on. After she cooked our breakfast, she walked all the way to Albright to go to mass, for she was Catholic, and couldn't go to our chapel.
"Whatever your reasons, Billy, don't get used to lying. You'll be lost if you do. Promise God in your prayers that you won't lie no more."
"I will, Peggy," I answered. I looked at her long as I could, but shifted my eyes to the ground as soon as she went back to her cooking. I couldn't bear to tell her that praying didn't make no sense to me, at least not the prayers the preacher and the Beadles made us say.
Billy Creekmore
A Novel. Copyright © by Tracey Porter. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
