Page 7 of Nothing Less than Magic
When the Forty-Niners arrived, they set out to dig deep shafts along streams and riverbeds. They toiled for days in the hot sun, panning for gold in the silt deposits of the riverbed. It was backbreaking and dangerous work, and Charles didn’t know how much longer he could ask his family to put up with the squalor and violence of the camps.
But then one day, it happened. Charles struck gold. At first, it was small flakes that he found at the bottom of his pan. Then, with a pick and shovel, the flakes grew to lumps and eventually nuggets. The others in their group calculated that it was a small fortune, enough to buy land, build a house, and raise livestock. Enough for a good life.
But three days after Charles staked his claim, bandits murdered the couple and little William while the trio slept, and stole their gold.
Deciding that mining was too dangerous, the other twelve families wound up settling in a verdant hamlet in Bear Valley, selling supplies and food to a new influx of prospectors. They called their new town Ramsey to honor their murdered friends. But when the specters of Charles, Jane, and William haunted the prospectors at night as they worked the goldfields, the town simply became known as Ghost.
The name was reaffirmed in 1883, when the gold was depleted and residents abandoned the place for greener pastures, literally making Ghost a ghost town.
It wasn’t until after World War II and California’s housing shortage that a small developer from Sacramento decided Ghost was the next frontier and began building modest homes for returning GIs and an influx of immigrants. Just an hour away from the state capital and rich in agricultural land, Ghost attracted a new fortune seeker.
And the Gold Rush lore of the Ramsey murders has only added to the town’s mystique. Tourists flock here for the sole purpose of coming face-to-face with Charles’s or Jane’s ghost or to hear little William wailing in the middle of the night.
That’s why I’m not surprised that there’s no parking in the lot across from Main Street. Halloween is only a week away, and I suspect visitors want an early start to getting their Ghost on. In the past, Austin and I avoided Ghost around this time of year for this very reason. If we wanted crowds, we could get them in San Francisco.
I find street parking a couple of blocks away and make my way to Main Street, joining the clusters of people window-shopping and eating at the restaurants. Two years ago, the city got a state grant to turn Main into a pedestrian-only street. And while it makes driving through town a bit convoluted, I have to say it’s a nice touch. Now, café tables and market umbrellas spill out onto the street, and in summer, there’s live music on the weekends.
For Halloween, it’s safe to say Ghost goes for broke, judging by all the decorations. I marvel at the jack-o’-lanterns hanging from the streetlights and the orange and black luminarias that line the rooftops. Someone gussied up the communal firepit to look like a witch’s cauldron and replaced the old wooden benches with straw bales.
But my favorite so far has to be the scarecrows that dot Main Street. According to a placard, each of the town’s civic organizations is responsible for creating its own original one. I wander down the street, examining each display.
The Cattleman’s Association did a cowboy. Cute, but not terribly original. The local 4-H club made one completely out of garden vegetables, which seems to defeat the purpose of a scarecrow. But still, clever. The Kiwanis did a ghost, because someone had to. But it’s the Soroptimists for the win. Their Minion scarecrow blows it out of the park and looks just like the animated character from the movie.
I head to Flacos for a carne aside burrito. Austin and I didn’t eat out much when we came up on weekends, opting to cook at home. But when we did, we always went to Flacos, a hole-in-the-wall taco shop that makes better burritos than the places in the Mission District, which are famous for their burritos. I think it’s the fact that at Flacos, they don’t put rice in the burritos, which in my opinion overwhelms the rest of the ingredients and adds a texture that doesn’t really need to be there. But I’m hardly a food critic. I’ll pretty much eat anything that’s put in front of me.
As soon as I walk in the door, I’m flooded with memories of Austin. How we used to hold hands as we walked along Main Street. How we used to share a basket of chips, even though every time we went, I would emphatically announce that I was swearing off chips. How we used to laugh at the weird folk dolls on the wall and make up names for them. “That one looks like a Hazel,” Austin would say, to which I would respond, “What does a Hazel look like?” “Like that.” He would point to the doll, and we would bust up laughing.
It wasn’t like any of it was the stuff of romance novels or swoony rom-com movies, but it was us. And I liked us. I loved us.
And yet, I have to wonder if I imagined that we were a better couple than we really were. If maybe there were signs that I somehow wasn’t enough and that Austin had tired of me. Because I certainly hadn’t tired of him. I loved him as much as the day we met, the day my old boss set us up on a blind date. We both laughed about it later, because who goes on blind dates anymore? But there we were at a British-style pub at Fifth and Mission, eating bangers and mash, complaining about our college loans, and planning how we were going to pay them off. By the time he walked me home, I was smitten. By the time he called me the next day, I was hearing wedding bells. And by the time we set a date, I was convinced we’d be the couple to beat all the odds. And look at us. We didn’t even make it to the seven-year itch.
If Lolly was still talking to me, she’d have herself a good, hard laugh. So perhaps it’s for the best that she and I are no longer speaking. But the thing is, I miss my baby sister. I miss her even more than I miss Austin. And that’s a lot.
We used to be two peas in a pod. When we were kids, our late mother even dressed us the same. Even though I’m three years older than my sister, people always mistook us for twins. Not anymore, I’m sure. Now, we live in two different worlds. And the only thing they have in common is that they’re a long way from the modest San Fernando Valley neighborhood where we grew up. Far from the idyllic life we once had before everything blew up.
I take my burrito to go, because I don’t want to eat alone, which is ridiculous, because I eat alone nearly every day. Half the time at my desk at the office, the other half when I’m traveling on a speaking circuit. It’s either a hotel restaurant or room service. Today, it’s in my car.
Afterward, I swing by the grocery store and buy enough food to last the two weeks I’m staying. If I’m forced to eat alone, I’m going to do it in the comfort of my own home.
On the way out of the market, a woman with two youngsters in tow stops to smile at me. “Hey, Chelsea, you up for the weekend?”
I think she’s mistaken me for someone else, because I don’t know her from Adam. Then I remember that she said my name.
I stutter, “Yes, I am” as I try to figure out who she is. I’m positive I’ve never seen her before.
“Well, it’s great to see you.” One of the kids, a boy with a mop of red hair, starts to pull her toward the cereal aisle. “Let’s grab coffee if you have time.” The boy drags her away before I can respond.
My whole way home, I rack my brain to figure out where I know her from, eventually concluding that my lack of recall has got to be short-term memory loss from head trauma. I worry that I may have serious neurological ramifications that weren’t detected by the MRI the night of the accident and make a mental note to book an appointment with a specialist.
I don’t give the exchange another thought as I keep my eyes on the road. The cabin is only ten minutes from town, but today the drive feels longer.
The days are getting shorter, and in a few hours it’ll be dark. I’d like to get everything put away and have a fire going before the sun sets.
My mind shifts to tomorrow, the twenty-fourth anniversary of my parents’ death.
For the first time in a long time, I wonder what Lolly is doing, whether she’s thinking about tomorrow, too.
Chapter 3
