CANDLES BURNING Author:TABITHA KING AND MICHAEL MCDOWELL Again the voice came, soft and fumbling, addressing Mama and ignoring my reply and me. — I am looking at a chair, Roberta Ann, that chair right behind you-my mama did the bargello on that chair. So where on earth did you get it? Because I know that chair burned up. It burned up in 1942. Are you in Mama's house again, Roberta Ann? — "No!" Mama... more » cried. "It's 1958 and this is Pensacola Beach!"
It's Banks, said Mamadee's voice, and this is a house that burned down, due to your carelessness with candles, before Calley was born. So if you are here, then you are dead-both of you-and I'm glad...
"She doesn't mean that," Mama whispered hotly in my ear. "She doesn't wish we were dead".
"Why are you glad we're dead?" I asked Mamadee. Because then, Calley, you wicked little witch-Mamadee laughed, the same laugh she used to laugh when she read in the morning paper that someone she did not like had died before she had- because then< Calley, I will not have to warn you about what's going to happen to you....« less