Molly BAnford's Ghost
By
Graybeard Paine
Some of you don’t believe in ghosts, but I know they’re real. I’ve seen a ghost – a real ghost. I even helped fetch a ghost when I was a young man.
My buddies and I were hanging out in front of Jordan’s Hardware, admiring a couple of young ladies, making rude speculations, telling lies and bragging about sexual exploits as young men do. There’s little else to do during summer vacation.
A shiny, white Cadillac pulled up; one of those long ones with the big fins. The driver exited with the grace of a queen from a carriage, smoothed her long dress and adjusted a wide-brimmed hat over her flowing black hair. Her perfect, taffy colored skin contrasted sharply with the cobalt blue of her dress and hat. She was older, but to my mind, a most beautiful woman. I never did find out her name, so I’ll call her Miss Taffy.
Miss Taffy looked at us with piercing eyes nearly the color of her dress. After a moment of silence, she beckoned with a long, thin finger. “Young man,” she said, “I want you fetch some things from the store.” By her accent, I guessed her a foreigner or, maybe, from Louisiana. She extracted a wad of money from a large carpetbag, handed me the first hundred-dollar bill I ever saw, and a list of what she wanted.
Mr. Jordan slowly gathered the items: a sewing needle, a wax candle and ten pounds of rock salt. He didn’t have sewing needles, so he substituted a carpet needle. It took a time for Mr. Jordan to count out change for the hundred-dollar bill. I noticed his miscount gave him an extra dollar from the pile, but didn’t say anything.
Miss Taffy was pleased when I put the purchases in her car. I tried to give her the change, but she told me to keep it. I knew Miss Taffy must be rich if she didn’t even care about that much money. Then she said, “Young man, come along now and show me where the real estate office is located? And don’t worry about the dollar that Mr. Jordan stole from us.” I was surprised she knew about the dollar.
At the real estate office, she insisted on buying the old Banford mansion, even though the realtor tried to sell her every other house on his list. He said the Banford house wasn’t suitable for a fine, young woman, though Miss Taffy was obviously past young womanhood. Miss Taffy knew exactly what she wanted. She paid for it with cash she pulled from her carpetbag.
The Banford mansion was a big house that sat on the bluff north of town; it had a front porch and a rear veranda overlooking the river. Old Sam Banford built it for his bride, Miss Molly, right after he made all that money selling supplies to the army. His beautiful bride was ten or fifteen years younger than he. Old Sam worshipped his wife and tried to give her anything she could want.
For a couple of years, things went well for the Banfords. Sam’s business flourished. The Banfords hosted elegant parties and dances at the mansion. The mansion sparkled. Fruit trees flourished on the grounds and Molly’s rose garden was beautiful. Sam installed a big fountain and pool that Molly wanted. Then Molly gave old Sam a son. People said the Banfords were the luckiest people around.
After several years, the Banford fortunes changed. Bad luck came to the mansion. The young Banford boy drowned in the fountain when he got out of the house unnoticed. Miss Molly blamed herself for insisting on a fountain; Sam blamed her for carelessly watching his son. Miss Molly stopped talking to friends; Sam took to drink and the mansion declined. The roses died. The fruit dropped off the trees. The paint peeled from the house. People heard violent yelling from the house on some nights. And Sam spent more and more of his time drinking at the bar.
About then, a bible salesman came to town. Bible salesmen came around fairly often in those days; some were honorable men, some were not. Anyway, the bible salesman stopped to peddle his wares at the Banford mansion and was apparently stricken with Miss Molly. Instead of leaving town after a day or two, as most salesmen do, he stayed at the hotel for over a week. He called on Miss Molly every day and said he was trying to help that “poor dear soul.” It’s a small town, so lips flapped; men in the bar made rude comments. Sam got drunk and stayed drunk; he was a mean drunk.
Finally, the bible salesman and Miss Molly disappeared and when it was finally noticed, old Sam just said, “She ran off with a bible salesman.” That’s all he would say about the matter. Sam left the mansion just as it was and moved into town. Nobody came asking about the salesman, so that pretty much ended it, until Miss Taffy came to town.
Anyway, Miss Taffy paid for the house, signed the papers, and asked me to “fetch” her to the house. She told me to drive because she didn’t know how to find the house. I thought it strange to buy a house when you don’t even know what it looks like or where it is located, but I wasn’t about to argue; it was the first time I ever got to drive a Cadillac.
The Banford mansion was not pretty. The paint had pealed off, windows were broken, shutters hung astray, shingles were missing and the porch had taken on an unnatural posture. Over the years various lovers parked among the weeds and dead trees. They wrote graffiti love notes on walls and populated the grounds with bottles, cans and other detritus of romance.
Miss Taffy had me park directly in front of the house. I carried the purchases into the bleak interior and helped rearrange the musty furniture at her command. When all was arranged, she turned to me and asked, “Are you a virgin?” I was alarmed because this is not a question normally asked by a beautiful older woman.
I answered affirmatively, which was not what I could admit among friends, especially since they all claimed to be doing things I hadn’t done yet.
Miss Taffy said, “Good, I can generally tell.” She explained that she needed a virgin for what we’re doing.
“What are we doing,” I said. I hoped my alarm didn’t show. I was nervous.
“I’m sorry, young man, I thought you knew,” she said, “we’re going to fetch a ghost.” I got more nervous. I wasn’t afraid of ghosts. I didn’t even believe in them. But I was in a falling-down old house, with a crazy lady who had a thing for virgins, and night was coming on. I admit it; I was scared and wanted to run.
Miss Taffy looked at me so hard it felt like her eyes could see into my soul. She said, “Don’t worry young man. Ghosts mostly don’t hurt people; they are just looking for something that’s missing.”
She continued, “All you have to worry about is the Devil; he likes to hang around ghosts because people afraid of ghosts will promise anything.” She handed me a silver dollar and told me to hold it over my heart. She said, “Silver keeps the Devil away.”
Darkness crept into the house like a thief. When it was completely dark, Miss Taffy placed the lit candle in the middle of the floor. Then she built a fire in the fireplace. When the fire was blazing brightly, she took out an old piece of paper, drew three crosses on it and brought it to me. She told me the middle cross was the cross of Jesus. She said, “You do believe in Jesus don’t you?” I wasn’t real sure, but I said, “Yes.” I was afraid not to. I’d do anything the crazy lady wanted me to do.
Miss Taffy took hold of my hand and stuck my finger with the needle. A drop of my blood fell onto the cross of Jesus and instantly I was forced back on the musty old couch. I couldn’t speak, or even move. My hand clutched the silver dollar to my heart and my mind started praying. I couldn’t move, but I could see everything as clear as in daylight. God, I was scared.
Miss Taffy kneeled down before the candle, holding the paper in her hands, singing a language I didn’t understand. It was a beautiful song and I felt something trying to pull the silver away from my heart. I knew the Devil was trying to break my hold. I fought him with all of my strength.
Suddenly Miss Taffy’s carpetbag started squirming and a snake poked its head out. I watched in horror as the snake started growing. It circled Miss Taffy, its head reared up almost as high as her shoulders; then it disappeared into the fireplace. Miss Taffy stopped singing, said some strange words; magic words I think. Then she threw the paper into the fireplace and clouds of smoke came out of the fireplace as if the flue was blocked.
She grabbed a big handful of the rock salt and flung it on the fire. The fire blazed red and green and blue and then it died. From the fireplace came singing, clear, pure notes like the ones Miss Taffy had sung.
I was cold and sweating, my hand clutched the silver dollar to my heart. I fought the tug on my hand. I was scared, so scared I couldn’t even scream. But I couldn’t stop watching.
Of a sudden, the singing ended; there was a banging clatter in the chimney and a skull rolled out of the fireplace. It stopped exactly where the candle burned. Miss Taffy said to me, “She’ll come now. Don’t say anything.” She needn’t have worried. I was too scared to make a sound.
After a time that seemed like forever, but must have been only seconds, the ghost came right through the wall. The ghost was a woman dressed in a long, filmy white dress, like a wedding dress. She was a beautiful, young woman, if you can say that a woman with no head is beautiful. The ghost walked directly to the center of the room, picked up the skull, placed it in the crook of her right arm and walked away through the wall.
After the ghost had left, Miss Taffy thanked me with another hundred-dollar bill. Then she told me to walk on home saying, “I have to punish a murderer now. I don’t want you to see it. Don’t take that silver dollar away from your heart until you’re safely home.”
That night I slept like a baby till the sun came up. I thought I dreamed it all, until I realized that I still had the silver dollar clutched in my hand. No one would believe I had seen a ghost, so I kept quiet all these years.
Strangest of all is that very night the old Banford mansion caught fire and burned to the ground. Firemen cleaning up the last of the embers found some bones where the veranda had been. Turns out there were two skeletons, a man and a woman. The woman’s skull lay right inside the crook of her right elbow. Nearby, they found an old suitcase full of moldy old bibles and religious tracts.
That same evening, old Sam got terribly drunk celebrating sale of the mansion. When he left the bar at closing, he wandered into the road where a big white Cadillac ran him down. The police knew who hit him, but could never find Miss Taffy or the car. And, they never did find old Sam’s head. It must be stuck on the front of the Cadillac. And, that’s why I hold my silver dollar tight to my chest every time I go past that old cemetery.