A Minister's Ghost by Phillip Depoy Page B

gentle expression filled with love. The fire’s glow gave the eerie impression that the face was constantly changing features, shifting, looking around at everyone. It was clearly alive.
    â€œIt’s Judy,” Lucinda whispered.
    The girls had not carved a demon or a devil, but one of the kindest faces I’d ever seen, apparently the perfect image of their favorite babysitter, Judy Dare, a little person from Chattanooga who lived in Blue Mountain. I’d met her once at Lucinda’s church, barely four feet tall, beautiful. The jack-o’-lantern that depicted her face was not a contrivance to scare away evil spirits, it was a hand-carved tribute, a labor of love; a sacred object designed to invite saints and angels. It was a work of art.
    We stood transfixed. None of us could believe what we were seeing. Judy’s orange face smiled, winked, sighed in the flickering light.
    â€œWell,” Pastor Davis said finally, “you girls really did something here.”
    Tess lit the candle inside, and Cousin Judy’s face radiated the joy of life, beamed like the soul of a real woman.
    Lucinda rubbed her eye and sniffed.
    â€œThis is just like those girls,” she managed. “Everybody else was trying to see who could make the scariest, the meanest—that wouldn’t even occur to them. All they’ve got in them is love and kindness. They carry on so about Judy; they still visit her all the time. I mean, look at that little face.”
    I think I put my arm around Lucy then, or maybe I just had the impulse to.
    Ordinarily the winner of the pumpkin-carving contest would have been shouted out by the judges, rejoined by much cheering. That year everything was quiet. Pastor Davis fished in his coat pocket and simply handed over the paper that gave the girls their prizes.
    There was a lot of smiling all around.
    Lucinda got the girls to stand with their carving in between them. She took a quick snapshot. Everything went slowly back to normal: the pie booth sold pumpkin pies, caramel apples were stuck on sticks,
girls held hands with their boyfriends; the sun began to set. Everyone took a turn walking by the Judy pumpkin.
    After the sun slipped past the horizon, a chill wind came up. It suddenly blew over the large sign in the school yard, and everybody began to gather things up, in a hurry to get home.
    â€œMight rain,” Pastor Davis offered as he passed us, helping his son carry the fantastic devil head to their truck.
    â€œJudy is the girls’ babysitter, right?” I asked Lucinda as we headed for my pickup. “Do I remember that correctly?”
    â€œYes.” Lucy nodded. “They call her their aunt, but she’s really just a neighbor, lives on the same street as they do.”
    â€œI have met her, haven’t I? She’s the one you introduced me to at your church.”
    â€œI believe it was at a church dinner once,” she told me, nodding.
    â€œCan you believe I barely remembered that?” I fumbled for my car keys. “You’d think I would remember a little person at that church.”
    â€œJudy’s shy. Probably why she isn’t here tonight. Sometimes even when she’s around, you don’t notice her, which isn’t hard to imagine, little as she is.”
    â€œI hope she sees this pumpkin, though.” I opened the passenger door. “The carving, I mean. Don’t you think she’d be flattered?”
    â€œI can’t imagine she wouldn’t be,” Lucinda said, climbing into the cab, “but I don’t really know her.”
    Thunder rattled the sky, and thick, cold globs of rain began to pelt my truck. I got in quickly, cranked the engine. In the rearview mirror I caught sight of several men, Skid included, making sure the bonfire was out. Beside them I saw Tess and Rory carrying their little cardboard box, running, laughing, stumbling toward their little orange Volkswagen parked under a chestnut