The Pinafore in the Cedar Grove

My childhood summers were steeped in the honeyed light of the Gulf Coast, where the air hung thick with the scent of salt and jasmine. But the house we visited each August, my grandmother’s ancestral home, was another world entirely — a sprawling Victorian relic crouched at the edge of a cypress swamp, its wraparound porch groaning under the weight of wisteria. I loved it with a fierce, inexplicable passion, even as the other kids complained about the mosquitoes and the lack of cable. I was seven when I met Penelope.

She was there on my first day at the grove, a girl about my age, perched on the low-hanging branch of a giant cedar that stood sentinel beside the house. She wore a white pinafore dress, immaculate despite the swampy heat, with a lace collar and tall white socks. Her hair was a shock of copper, braided into two tight plaits. ‘You’re the new one,’ she said, not a question. ‘Want to see the tree fort?’ I didn’t hesitate. I scrambled up the gnarled trunk after her, my skin scraping against the rough bark, while she moved with an eerie, fluid grace. We spent the afternoon building a ‘fort’ from fallen branches and dried moss, and she told me stories of the old house — of a hidden attic room, a subterranean tunnel, and a ghost that only appeared when the moon was full. I was thrilled, and a little scared. ‘Don’t tell your grandmother,’ she said, her eyes glinting. ‘It’s our secret.’

Days blurred into a pattern of sun-drenched adventures with Penelope. We’d trace the patterns in the peeling wallpaper, count the bats in the belfry, and skim stones across the black waters of the swamp. She was fearless, and I clung to her like a shadow. But things began to feel wrong in subtle ways. She’d stop mid-sentence and stare at the house, her face going slack. She never sweated, never complained, and her hands were always cool and dry, even in the midday heat. And I noticed she never left footprints in the mud.

Then came the day she led me into the cellar. It was a forbidden realm, a labyrinth of cobwebbed shelves and rusted tools. In the dim light, she pointed to a heavy oak door, banded with iron. ‘Behind that door,’ she whispered, ‘is the most beautiful room in the world. The sun comes in through a stained-glass window and makes jewels on the floor. And there’s a music box that plays a song no one else knows.’ I asked how she knew. She smiled, a small, tight thing. ‘I’ve been here for a long time.’

I pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. ‘It’s locked,’ I said. She gripped my hand, her fingers like ice, and pulled me away. ‘Maybe some other day,’ she said, and her voice had a hollow ring. After that, she became more elusive. She’d disappear for hours, and when I asked where she’d been, she’d just say, ‘Playing in the attic. You wouldn’t like it up there.’ One day, I decided to follow her. I crept up the creaking stairs to the third floor, where I found her standing in front of a small, round window, her back to me. ‘Why do you wear that dress?’ I asked. She turned, and for a moment, her face was not her face — it was older, gaunt, with sunken cheeks and black sockets for eyes. Then it was her again. ‘It was my grandmother’s,’ she said, and her voice was barely a whisper. ‘She made me wear it.’

Winter came, and with it, the end of our visits. I cried when we left, begging my mother to let me stay, to say goodbye to Penelope. But my mother was firm. ‘There is no Penelope, dear. You’ve been talking to yourself.’ I was inconsolable, but eventually, the grimy city life swallowed the memory.

Years later, when I was eleven, I returned to the house for my grandmother’s funeral. The house was up for sale, and I was allowed one final walkthrough before the real estate agents took over. Dust motes danced in the slanted light. On the third floor, I found the small round window and a faded photograph on the wall. It was of a young girl in a pinafore, with copper braids, dated 1892. My grandmother, at age six. I gasped, and the floorboard beneath me creaked. I looked down and saw a loose plank. I pried it up, revealing a small, rusted music box. I wound it, and a tinkling melody filled the air, a song I’d never heard before. And then I heard a child’s voice, faint, as if from the walls: ‘You came back.’

I ran from that house and never looked back. But sometimes, in the quiet of the night, I hear that music box, and I feel a cool, dry hand on my own, and the faint whisper, ‘Let’s play, for a little while longer.’