Piedmont Porchlight Stories — Mrs. Delphine’s Dixie Boarding House

Mrs. Delphine wasn’t the kind of woman who dug into old records for fun.
But, she was exactly the kind of woman who’d do it out of pure-dee ol’ determination.

And now that she knew the ghost had initials,
S. T. N.
She wasn’t about to let them lie quiet and mysterious like a rattlesnake sunning beside a porch step.

“Well,” she muttered, pulling her sweater tight, “if the dead won’t tell me, the paperwork will.”

Part I: Delphine Marches Into the Archives

The Piedmont Town Archives were tucked into the far corner of the Piedmont Journal’s basement; an area so dim and dusty you could practically hear time coughin’.

She switched on the lamp, squinting at the shelves stacked with:

• Bound newspapers
• Ledger books thick as encyclopedia sets
• Railroad rosters
• Property deeds
• And a clerk’s desk that hadn’t been clean since Truman was in office.

She set the ghost’s lantern, still faintly glowing, on the table.

“Alright, child,” she said to the air, “you led me to STN. I’ll find the rest.”

The lantern gave a little flicker, like a shrug of encouragement.

She dug in.

For hours, she flipped through:

• 1920s Seaboard employee rosters
• Accident reports
• Conductors’ logs
• Obituaries
• Train schedules
• Even the Baptist church bulletin archives (“Those women wrote down everything. If someone as much as sneezed in 1938, they put it in print.”)

Names rolled by:

• Thompson
• Neal
• Simmons
• Tubbs
• Norris
• Tate
• Sabin
• Norwood
• Noles

But none matched the initials S.T.N.

She pressed on.

At one point, she muttered, “If y’all ever digitize this mess, Lord strike me down,” and the ghost lantern flickered sympathetically.

Part II: She Finds Something… Almost

It was late afternoon when she stumbled on a brittle, yellowed page tucked between two ledgers.

The heading read:

SEABOARD RAIL—INCIDENT REPORT – 1934

“1934…” she murmured.
“Ghost seems from the thirties, don’t he?”

She scanned it eagerly.

Conductor: F. J. Miller
Engineer: Harlan R. Pike
Brakeman: J. B. Whitt
Switch Operator:
S. ———

The rest of the line was smeared beyond recognition.

Her heart thumped.
Her fingertips tingled.

“That’s him,” she whispered. “It’s gotta be him.”

And below that?

Status: Station Relay Failure
Outcome: One fatality.
Name: ———— (ink bled through; unreadable)

“Oh, honey,” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes.

But before she could read further, the lantern brightened suddenly.

FLASH.

She gasped, shielding her eyes.

The page fluttered, slipped from her fingers.

And when she picked it up, the ink had run clean off the lower portion.

Vanished.

Like the ghost didn’t want her to see it yet.

She sat back, breath unsteady.

“Alright then,” she whispered. “One step at a time. I hear you.”

Part III: Meanwhile… the Railroad Men Lose Their Minds Entirely

While Mrs. Delphine was doing actual historical work,
the railroad men were workshopping theories louder than an election debate out behind the depot.

Cap’n Potts slammed a rolled-up timetable on the table.

“Gentlemen,” he announced, “we’ve deciphered STN and have reached the correct conclusion.”

Spoiler: they had not.

Theory #1: “Spectral Track Navigator”

Hank Bailey declared,
“He ain’t a conductor. He’s a GPS for ghosts!”

Virgil nodded solemnly.
“Makes sense. Dead folks need directions, too.”

It did not make sense.

Theory #2: “Southern Transitional Nebula”

Fiddlestick, who had been reading Popular Mechanics again, explained:

“STN’s gotta be a space phenomenon. Maybe he’s cosmic.”

Potts stared at him.
“Fiddlestick… this ghost ain’t cosmic. He’s tidy.”

“Can’t a cosmic ghost be tidy?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

Theory #3: “Society of Transcendental Navigators”

Ellis Pruitt looked around, whispering:

“I think he’s recruitin’ us into a supernatural union.”

Hank sucked in a breath.
“A… union?”

Fiddlestick fainted again.

Theory #4: “Signal Tower Nomad”

Potts slapped the table.

“That’s it! He used to live in a signal tower! Probably wanders around lookin’ for misplaced lanterns!”

No evidence had ever existed for this.

But Then… They Come Up With the Worst Theory Yet

After a long and deeply unproductive silence, Virgil stood, eyes wide.

“Boys… STN stands for…
‘Switchman Turned Nowhere.’
He’s lost.
Literally and spiritually.”

Everyone gasped like he’d discovered penicillin.

Potts nodded dramatically.

“That’s it. We hafta help him find his ‘somewhere.’”

Hank scribbled it down.

“Switchman Turned Nowhere.”

The final, official wrong conclusion.

The men marched out, ready to “bring the ghost home” …
wherever that was.

Part IV: The Lantern Responds

Back in the archive room, the lantern pulsed gently.

Mrs. Delphine looked at it.

“Well,” she said, drawing a long breath, “I found your accident. I found an S. I found a station relay. That means you were tryin’ to stop somethin’.”

The lantern flickered once.

She nodded.

“And someone died.”

Two flickers.

She steadied herself on the desk.

“But why won’t you tell me your name yet?”

The lantern dimmed.

Soft.
Sad.
Waiting.

And from the cellar,
faint as memory
came the sound of wheels rolling over rails.

Not loud enough to startle.
Just enough to remind her

the ghost was building toward something.

Something soon.

*****

New Yesterdays can be found at: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.