Revived Spirits by Julia Watts

interstate before. Is she scared?”
    “No, she loves it. She’s looking out the window and saying, ‘ Whee !’”
    “Like a dog hanging its head out the car window?” Mom says. “I always like to imagine they’re saying ‘ whee .’”
    Since we don’t travel much, we make a lot of noise when we cross the Tennessee state line. Mom starts singing “The Tennessee Waltz,” then Granny chimes in with “Rocky Top,” and all of a sudden I’m glad Adam’s not with us right now because if he were, I’d be embarrassed.
    “What are they doing?” Abigail asks.
    “Singing songs about Tennessee.”
    “Oh, is it like a parlor game?”
    “Yeah,” I say. “Except when you’re in a parlor you can get up and leave. In a car you’re trapped.”
    Even though Adam didn’t get to go on the trip, he’s with us in one way: in the set of directions he printed up for us from the Internet. The directions are supposed to get us from the front door of our house to the front door of what’s left of Minnie Belcher’s cabin, and the farther we get from home, the gladder I am to have them.
    Mom must be glad too, because as she turns onto a not very clearly marked road, she says, “Thank Adam for these directions. If I didn’t have them, we’d probably be halfway across Virginia by now.”
    Needmore , Tennessee, is well named because there needs to be more of it. It’s even smaller than Wilder, with just one stoplight. There’s a tiny post office, a run-down gas station and a mom ’n pop grocery store. And that’s it. “Wilder seems like the big city compared to here,” I say.
    “Yeah,” Mom says. “At least we merit three stoplights. Okay, the directions say we turn right at this next road.”
    “We do,” Granny says. “I can feel her. She knows we’re coming.”
    “How does she know?” I ask. “Did you send her a message or something?”
    “No,” Granny says. “She knows because her Sight is strong. It was strong in life, and it’s even stronger in death.”
    “I can feel her, too,” Abigail says. “But it’s strange. I can feel her drawing us there, but I can’t tell what her intentions are. If she wants us there like a lady wants a guest in her home. Or like a spider wants a fly.”
    I decide not to share this last bit of Abigail’s message with Mom.
    When we reach the last step of the directions, we’re at the end of a hollow on a gravel road. “I guess it’s time to get out and walk,” Mom says. “The cabin’s supposed to be on the bluff over there.”
    “The Tennessee-Virginia state line’s around here someplace,” Granny says, opening the car door. “Some folks say she built her cabin to set in both states. When she was wanted in Tennessee, she went to the Virginia side, and when she was wanted in Virginia, she just stepped over into Tennessee.”
    “We’re going to need the flashlights out of the trunk,” Mom says, apparently choosing not to comment on this tidbit. “Mother, are you going to be all right walking out here?”
    “You know me, I’m as sure-footed as a mountain goat,” Granny says. “And besides, the walk’ll be easy because I feel her pulling me to her. It’s too late to turn back now.”
    Except for the beams of our flashlights, the only light comes from a sliver of moon in the black, starless sky. An owl hoots in a tree, and somewhere in the distance a coyote howls. I hope it’s far enough in the distance that we don’t run into him or any of his friends. What if Minnie is leading us not to her, but to danger? The woods are home to coyotes and bears as well as deep, dark holes that would be impossible to see at night. I swallow hard. “What if—?”
    Granny grabs my hand. “What if we’re too lily-livered to even try this? Then you and Abigail will lose each other forever.”
    “You’re right,” I say. I tighten my grip on Abigail’s mirror. “Let’s go.”
    Climbing the side of the bluff wouldn’t be so bad in the daytime, but in the dark