Piedmont Porchlight Stories — Mrs. Delphine’s Dixie Boarding House
By sunrise, Piedmont, Alabama was a town in motion.
Not productive motion, mind you,
but the chaotic, over-caffeinated, benevolent foolishness only a Southern town can muster when it thinks the dead need help.
And at the center of it lay:
- a ghost with a purpose,
- a boarding house with rails in the basement,
- a conductor lantern glowing with the heat of memory,
- and a child’s spirit trying to come home.
The Railroad Men Begin Their Cleanup Operation
Cap’n Leland Potts had declared at dawn:
“No supernatural train is gonna run on a dirty track in MY region.”
And that was enough for the men to:
- haul brooms,
- leaf blowers,
- a pressure washer borrowed without permission from the Baptist church,
- and one industrial vacuum Hank swore belonged to the Fire Department.
They lined up beside the Seaboard rails like a battalion of confused janitors.
Virgil pointed at a gum wrapper.
Potts barked,
“REMOVE IT!”
Hank spotted a single pine needle.
“UNACCEPTABLE!”
Fiddlestick removed a pebble so small it coulda legally been classified as dust.
They worked like men fighting entropy itself.
Owen walked past, sipping coffee, and muttered,
“Y’all do realize ghosts don’t need OSHA compliance?”
Potts glared.
“Owen, this is a Class A Spectral Transit Emergency.”
“What does that mean?”
“No idea,” Potts said proudly. “But it sounds official.”
Meanwhile… the Cellar Has Other Plans
While the men cleaned the wrong tracks,
the real rails stirred underneath the Dixie Boarding House.
Mrs. Delphine and Percy were down there again,
lantern light flickering across their faces.
The rails;
the two rusted lines that had no earthly right to be in that cellar
had begun changing.
First, the dust along their edges thinned.
Then the dirt around them compacted tight.
Then they gleamed,
just a shimmer,
like moonlight sliding over steel.
Percy inhaled sharply.
“Delphine…
they’re waking.”
The ghost of Samuel T. Norwood stood beside them,
still as reverence.
He lifted his lantern.
And the cellar air shifted;
warmer,
heavier,
full of something coming closer.
Delphine whispered,
“Samuel… what are you callin’?”
He pointed toward the rails
then held up two fingers.
A small, trembling gesture.
Percy DuBar’s knees buckled.
“A child,” he whispered.
“He’s callin’ the child he tried to save.”
The lantern flared blue-gold.
The First Sign: A Sound Too Light to Be Real
A faint noise rose from the rails.
A soft tapping,
irregular but familiar,
like little feet on hardwood.
Tap…
t-tap…
tap.
Mrs. Delphine pressed a hand to her chest.
“Oh, honey…
that’s a child’s walk.”
Samuel closed his eyes.
His lantern brightened.
Then
a voice.
Not a full voice.
Not words.
But the shape of a voice.
A small hum,
the kind a child might make while holding onto a parent’s hand.
Percy DuBar nearly sank to the dirt floor.
“I remember that sound,” he whispered.
“That night… after the wreck…
I thought the wind was cryin’.
But it wasn’t.”
Mrs. Delphine’s eyes filled with tears.
The tapping grew louder.
Closer.
Then—
something small pressed against the air
near Samuel’s side,
as though trying to step through a doorway that didn’t yet exist.
Back Upstairs: The House Reacts
The Dixie Boarding House shivered.
Not violently,
but in a way that suggested it was rearranging its bones to make space.
Pictures tilted.
Windows fogged.
Room No. 3 glowed faintly.
Upstairs, the front door blew open,
not from wind, but from welcome.
Sadie Mae, bringin’ a casserole, screamed and dropped it.
Across the street, Clyde shouted,
“I THINK IT’S BOARDIN’ PASSENGERS!”
No one believed him.
He was right anyway.
In the Cellar: The First Glimpse
Samuel’s lantern flared so bright Mrs. Delphine shielded her eyes.
The tapping became steps.
Soft.
Careful.
Approaching.
Then a shape shimmered beside Samuel.
Small, slight,
the height of a child of six or seven.
No face yet.
No form yet.
Just… presence.
A little glow.
A tiny outline.
A hand raised
tentatively
toward Samuel’s.
Percy DuBar broke.
“Oh Lord,” he whispered, sobbing,
“it’s the child…
it’s the little one he died trying to save.”
Mrs. Delphine whispered,
“Samuel… what do you need?”
Samuel’s form straightened.
He held the lantern out
between himself and the child
and pointed to the stairs.
Upward.
“Up,” Percy murmured, understanding dawning.
“He wants us to help the child up.
Into the world.
Into the light.”
The house trembled again.
Lights flickered.
The rails hummed louder.
A child’s voice,
very faint,
called out:
“…mama…?”
Mrs. Delphine’s knees buckled.
Percy wept openly.
Samuel T. Norwood bowed his head;
a conductor preparing for the hardest departure of his life.
*****
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.
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