A Curious Tale of the In-Between
4/5
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About this ebook
Pram Bellamy is special--she can talk to ghosts. She doesn't have too many friends amongst the living, but that's all right. She has her books, she has her aunts, and she has her best friend, the ghostly Felix.
Then Pram meets Clarence, a boy from school who has also lost a parent and is looking for answers. Together they arrive at the door of the mysterious Lady Savant, who promises to help. But this spiritualist knows the true nature of Pram's power, and what she has planned is more terrifying than any ghost.
New York Times bestselling author Lauren DeStefano is beloved by critics and readers alike, and her middle grade debut is lyrical, evocative and not to be missed.
Lauren DeStefano
Lauren DeStefano is the author of The Internment Chronicles and the New York Times bestselling Chemical Garden trilogy, which includes Wither, Fever, and Sever. She earned her BA in English with a concentration in creative writing from Albertus Magnus College in Connecticut. Visit her at LaurenDeStefano.com.
Read more from Lauren De Stefano
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Reviews for A Curious Tale of the In-Between
37 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pram has always been a little different. She was born dead - her mother committed suicide and doctors were able to save Pram. She's kind of straddled the world of the living and the dead. Her first friend, Felix, is a ghost. When her concerned aunts decide to send her to school she meets Clarence, who recently lost his mother. The two seek out spiritualists. One of them takes an interest in Pram, an interest in her powers, and soon her very existence is on the line. I read Far Far Away immediately before this book and there are many similar plot points. A quick read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A charming tale that doesn't shy away from its darker themes.
Pram (short for pragmatic) is an orphaned girl being raised by her two maiden aunts in a home for the elderly. The aunts hope that Pram will live up to her name, unlike her late mother, who killed herself before Pram was born.
Little do the aunts know that Pram's unusual circumstances have given her the ability to talk to ghosts. Her best friend is a ghost named Felix, who hangs out down by the pond.
But when Pram belatedly starts school, she makes friends with a living boy, Clarence, whose mother is also dead. Clarence's desire to make contact with the ghost of his mother leads the two children to an unsavory world of spiritualists, and into danger...
I think that this story would appeal to fans of Neil Gaiman's 'Graveyard Book.'
Many thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are solely my own. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a scary book about a girl named Pram who can speak to ghosts. An evil witch notices her powers and tries to make Pram use the powers to help the witch.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pram was born alive after her mother died. As long as she can remember she has been able to see and talk to ghosts. Felix, her best friend, is a ghost. Finally, at school, she meets a living boy named Clarence. His mother has died. Pram would like to locate her father; Clarence wants to see his dead mother. Together they meet a psychic named Claudette Savant who claims to be able to help them both.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Review courtesy of Dark Faerie TalesQuick & Dirty: An unusual girl who finds it easier to be friends with ghosts than the living.Opening Sentence: Pram died just before she was born.The Review:It is not often that I read a Middle-Grade book, but A Curious Tale of the In-Between was the perfect comeback; it was both thought provoking and easy to understand. A curious tale is told from Pram’s perspective, a girl who can see spirits due to her extraordinary birth. Her mother committed suicide whilst pregnant but Pram was saved and raised by her two very odd aunts.Pram took a fork to her cake, bitter with herself for having said something so strange. Death made people uncomfortable; her aunts had taught her this. The elders made people uncomfortable, too, and that’s why they were left with her aunts to be cared for.The only ones that made Pram uncomfortable were the living.Pram is the perfect young protagonist, she knows she’s unusual but she’s not afraid of her ‘gift’ and is very smart for her age. Although her aunts want Pram to be ‘normal’ above everything else, I found that they were the weird ones. They home-school Pram, give her desserts for breakfast and lunch and run a ‘Halfway to Heaven Home for the Ageing’ so most of Pram’s time is spent either with ghosts or old people. The aunts know that Pram is too mature for her age yet they refuse to give her the answers she deserves to know in the aim of protecting her. They should know she’s too curious for her own good but their quirky habits were endearing.He didn’t like the way the woman stared. It was his belief that most people were cruel, or at the very least something of which to be suspicious, especially adults. Pram didn’t share in this belief, and that worried him.There were few things more dangerous than trust.As Pram gets older and her ‘imaginary friends’ don’t disappear, the aunts fear for her sanity and send her to school so that Pram can spend more time with kids her age. At school Pram meets Clarence, a lonely boy with piercing blue eyes, who is mourning the loss of his mother. I loved how Pram’s two best friends were a wandering ghost and a lonely boy. Pram helps both of them with her friendship but more importantly, they helped her too. Felix helps Pram in life threatening situations and keeps her company when she is most alone, whilst Clarence helps Pram understand her abilities and realise that the company of the living isn’t too bad either! Both friendships were equally important and I loved how this was portrayed.“They’re making me go to school,” Pram said. “I don’t think it’s a very good idea. I’ve read about how cruel kids can be.”“Are you afraid they’ll be cruel, or that being around them for too long will make you cruel?” Felix said.The situation with Lady Savant was rather scary, especially when Pram moves further into the spirit world. For a short while I even wondered whether Pram could make her way back and whether it would be best for her to move on with the dead!To conclude, this is an excellent story for younger readers, with a great balance of a paranormal storyline, action and suspense.Notable Scene:Pram was inside of her, already dead. But doctors aren’t put off by the finality of death. They believe it can be negotiated. If they can pull the right strings at the right time, they can make dead things breathe again. So Pram lived after all.FTC Advisory: Bloomsbury provided me with a copy of A Curious Tale of the In-Between. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I got a copy of this book through NetGalley to review. Previous to reading this book I had read DeStefano’s Chemical Garden series which I really enjoyed. This book is written in DeStefano’s beautiful writing style and is mostly a ghost story.Pram was dead before she was born. Her mother committed suicide while she was still pregnant with Pram, but the doctors were able to revive Pram. Now Pram lives with her aunts and has the unique ability to see ghosts. In fact her best friend is a boy named Felix. Then Pram’s aunts decide she needs to go to school and while there she meets the quiet Clarence whose mother has just died. Clarence can sense that Pram is special and asks her to help him search for a way to talk to his mother’s ghost. Their search leads them to a spiritualist named Lady Savant. The Lady Savant promises to help, but she knows the true power Pram has and what the Lady Savant wants to do with Pram is scarier than any ghost could be.This is a middle grade novel that deals a lot with death. So just a heads up there is discussion of suicide, depression, madness, and (of course) death throughout. DeStefano explains in the foreword that she wrote this book to help one of her young nieces (I think it was a niece) deal with the death of a loved one. There were some elements of this book that reminded me a bit of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.Pram (whose full name is Pragmatic) definitely reflects her namesake. She is very intelligent and quickly realizes that she is the only one who sees ghosts, she knows it’s not normal and knows that she needs to be careful or people will think she is crazy. Meeting Clarence is a relief for Pram because he is so very interested in tracking down ghosts that he sees Pram as special and interesting.I absolutely adored the friendship between Pram and Clarence; they are so kind and understanding and supportive of each other. They both need each other so badly and their friendship is so important. Clarence is desperate to find his mother’s ghost and Pram is desperate to figure out where her father is. Felix is a wonderful character as well and adds an interesting twist to the story. He’s a young boy who doesn’t want to remember his life and that’s an interesting thought. Maybe sometimes these ghosts of Pram’s are happier as ghosts than they ever were alive, which is sad but thought-provoking.This is both a story about coming of age and about friendship. At the beginning of the book Pram is constantly trying to find where she belongs, but as the story continues she finds out maybe she’s been searching too hard. There are some parts of the story that might be a bit scary for younger children in the middle grade age set. The idea of a parent killing themselves can be a shocking one for some kids. The fact that Pram is kidnapped and hurt is also a bit scary.Overall I really enjoyed this book, it was a sweet ghost story. It’s a quick read and has some wonderful discussion on friendship as well as an excellent coming of age story. I loved the ghosts and Pram’s power and am excited to see how Pram uses her developing powers in future books. I would definitely recommend to those who love bittersweet ghost stories.
Book preview
A Curious Tale of the In-Between - Lauren DeStefano
Author
CHAPTER
1
Pram died just before she was born. It was a brutally hot August, and the dogwood tree was parched. Its white blossoms had gone weary and brown without rain. The nurses pitied it. In fact, that was how Pram’s mother was discovered. A nurse filled up the janitor’s mop bucket with fresh water, and she went outside to water the dogwood tree, as unconventional as that might have been.
Instead, the bucket fell at her feet, and the water spread around the parking lot, never quite reaching the grassy island that contained the tree. For there was a woman hanging by the only branch that looked sturdy enough to support her weight. She was almost too unreal to be a woman at all, if not for her pregnant stomach.
In the next instant, there was a gurney and shears severing the rope, hands easing the woman down with great care as though she could be saved. Pram was inside her, already dead. But doctors aren’t put off by the finality of death. They believe it can be negotiated. If they can pull the right strings at the right time, they can make dead things breathe again. So Pram lived after all.
Pram, orphaned right at the start of her life, was inherited by two very practical aunts. They ran the Halfway to Heaven Home for the Ageing out of their two-hundred-year-old colonial house. According to Pram’s books, aging
was misspelled, and Pram noticed only when she first learned to read. She climbed on a chair and scratched the unwanted e from the sign with a black crayon and was promptly scolded. The crayon mark was scrubbed down to a dull scar.
Pram wasn’t told the story of her birth. But even as a very small girl, she felt deep in her chest that she was alive and dead at the same time.
Pram’s aunts had no idea what to do with a little girl, much less how to love one. They did give her the very best things they could think of: a name, for starters. Pram was short for Pragmatic, because after much deliberation, they agreed it was a sensible name for a young lady. It was also a trait her mother had lacked.
They gave her a bedroom in the attic. It overlooked the pond where her mother had liked to swim, and had bright daisy wallpaper, and teddy bears that wore dust hats and dust sweaters. For dessert she was often permitted slices of cake with whole strawberries inside. They gave her a plaid jumper, and Aunt Dee ironed the pleats while Aunt Nan starched the white blouse that went under it. They shined the pennies in her loafers, and they gave her stacks of books to read. Sometimes the books had missing covers or torn pages because they had come secondhand from the charity store in the church or they had been left on the doorstep. It was a small town and everyone knew that Pram liked to read. Before she was six, she had reenacted the great works of Shakespeare with her button-eyed dolls. She would recite Ophelia’s final words aloud and pretend to drown herself in the old claw-foot tub.
It was all this reading that made Aunt Dee and Aunt Nan overlook Pram’s eccentricities. She was just imaginative. Plus, she entertained the elders. She performed for them, and always with a flair for the dramatic. The elders treated her as a sort of pet, asking her to sit with them and read, brushing her hair, offering her cough drops (as that was the closest thing they had to candy). They shared their watercolors with her during arts and crafts, and asked the aunts to tape her pictures on their bedroom walls.
It wasn’t until the boy came around that the aunts began to suspect something was wrong.
Pram first spoke about the boy during an evening bath. She was five at the time.
Aunt Nan dumped a cup of water over Pram’s white hair, caramelizing it. I’ve made a friend,
Pram said. A boy named Felix.
Have you?
Aunt Nan said, lathering Pram’s hair more roughly than Pram would have preferred. A grandchild of one of the elders, then?
I don’t think he is,
Pram said.
Where was he?
Aunt Nan asked.
In the pond,
Pram said.
In the pond?
At first. Then the wind picked up a bit, and the light on the water changed, and he came out of it.
Is this something you’ve read about in one of your books?
Aunt Nan asked.
No,
Pram said, scowling as her hair was scrubbed by her aunt’s chubby fingers. She could sense that she wasn’t going to be believed.
If you see this boy again,
Aunt Nan said, tell him that pond’s not for swimming. It startles the fish.
What is it for, then?
Pram asked.
Thought. Out of the tub with you now. It’s bedtime.
Pram dutifully performed her evening rituals and climbed into bed.
The attic had one small, circular window that seemed to align with the moon on clear nights. The daisies on her wall had gone silver; the button eyes of her bears and dolls stared with astonishment as the shadows of trees bounced across them.
There was something about trees that made Pram especially sad.
CHAPTER
2
Every September, there came a knock at the front door that carried a certain authority. Pram knew who it was. So did the elders—some of them, at least. The others merely played along when she hid at their feet, thinking this was another of her games.
When the knock came late in the morning, Pram hid under Edgar Frump’s wheelchair. It was a gamble, she knew, as Edgar was not especially lucid. But he was closer than the dining room table, which wasn’t crowded enough to hide her. The tablecloth had been removed after a prune juice accident just moments before.
I’m not a dog house, child,
Edgar said. And you’re not a poodle.
Please,
Pram said. If I’m caught, I’ll be taken away. Please.
Edgar straightened his blanket across his legs, hiding her. Since you said ‘please’ more than once.
Aunt Nan’s steps were thunderous as she came down the hall.
Aunt Dee was lighter on her feet, but she fidgeted. Of all the mornings,
she said. The house looking the way it does.
Aunt Nan opened the doors of the china cabinet and retrieved the pile of textbooks and notebooks. She hastily spread them on the coffee table, nearly spilling a cup of tea that sat near the edge.
The knock came again, and the aunts stood shoulder-to-shoulder and drew a deep breath in tandem. Pram watched them through a part in the blanket, and in their nervous gestures she could see that they loved her.
The door was opened by Aunt Dee’s bony fingers—fingers that went about smoothing her apron an instant later. In came a gust of chilled fall air. Three leaves—a red, a brown, and a spotted yellow—swirled across the scuffed floorboards. The schoolmarm’s polished black shoes crushed all of them with their first steps into the house. Pram held her breath.
Can we fix you some tea?
Aunt Dee said.
Let me take your coat,
Aunt Nan said.
The schoolmarm, Ms. Appleworth, grunted in response. For a woman who taught so many children the English language and put such emphasis on proper enunciation, she spoke very little. The aunts fussed and stumbled as they led her to the coffee table.
We were just about to sit with Pram for her morning lesson,
Aunt Dee said.
You only give lessons in the morning?
Ms. Apple-worth said.
No, no, lessons all day,
Aunt Nan said. It’s toast with jam, lessons, a break for lunch, and lessons until dinnertime.
This was a lie. Pram’s lessons were scattered throughout the day. She often did her schoolwork alone by the pond. Sometimes she didn’t do it at all; she read things that were not on the lists, things that weren’t supposed to be for young girls, things that were frowned upon and long out of print.
Pram, dear,
Aunt Nan called. Ms. Appleworth is here.
Pram could feel her heart within her ears. She thought it strange that she had one heart capable of filling two ears with noise. She often thought the extra heart belonged to her late mother. She knew that the dead hid pieces of themselves in the world. They buried organs in the living. They stuffed memories into trees and clouds and other innocuous things. It wasn’t very often that Pram accompanied her aunts into town, but when she did, she could sense these sorts of things. In shop windows she would see the laughing reflections of the dead. She heard whispers in automobile engines. She could never see these memories clearly, and they disappeared when she blinked, but their existence comforted her. She knew that death was not truly the end and that there was always something left.
Pram!
Aunt Dee called, a little too hysterically. She cleared her throat. Don’t be shy now.
Shy?
Ms. Appleworth said. If she’s unaccustomed to visitors, some time in a classroom would do wonders.
The aunts presented a hasty argument. It was guilt and pity that brought Pram out of hiding. She adjusted the pleats of her plaid jumper and hoped it was neat enough to make up for the calamity that was her morning hair.
Ms. Appleworth was as gray as her skirt and vest and hair. She was a drawing that hadn’t been colored.
Hello, Pram,
she said.
Six times twelve is seventy-two,
Pram blurted. I can spell ‘arithmetic’; would you like to hear?
That won’t be necessary,
Ms. Appleworth said. Though I’d be interested to hear about your lessons. Do you enjoy learning?
This question felt like a trick, and Pram wasn’t sure how to answer. Sometimes,
she said. When it’s something in which I’m interested.
Ms. Appleworth raised her eyebrows. Most children wouldn’t know not to end their sentences in a preposition. How old are you now, dear?
Eleven years and twenty-six days,
Pram said.
She’s very bright,
Aunt Dee said. "She can recite the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet from memory."
Pram would have added that she knew all the multiplication tables, but she could see that it wouldn’t matter. Ms. Appleworth was looking at her the way others had looked at her in the past, when they realized she wasn’t quite normal.
It was the preposition, Pram thought, angry with herself.
Thank you, dear,
Ms. Appleworth said. You may run along and do your chores.
Pram didn’t have any chores, but she went and collected the breakfast plates and brought a soapbox to the sink so that she could wash them.
Her aunts were having a long discussion with the schoolmarm, and Pram had washed the dishes twice before she heard the front door open and close.
Hands dripping, she walked down the hallway, clenching and unclenching her fists, splashing the walls.
Boo,
Edgar whispered as she passed his wheelchair. He was no longer lucid.
Pram stood before her aunts for a few seconds and then raised her eyes. I’m sorry,
she said. I tried.
You haven’t done anything to be sorry about,
Aunt Dee said, but she was wringing her apron. Aunt Nan was frowning.
I’ll have to go to school,
Pram said. Won’t I?
For now,
Aunt Nan said.
Pram felt sick. Why?
she asked.
You’re getting older now,
Aunt Nan said. Ms. Appleworth doesn’t think it’s fair that a girl as bright as you is being taught by the likes of us.
You’re great teachers,
Pram said, although she knew that she was being generous. Her aunts could barely keep up with her arithmetic worksheets, and they didn’t know the definitions of nearly as many words as Pram did.
Aunt Dee leaned toward Pram and patted her cheek sympathetically. Ms. Appleworth just wants you to have a good education. That’s her job, you know: to make sure that children are getting a good education. You’ll start on Monday, and we’ll see how it goes.
The air inside the house had grown thin. I’d like to go outside now,
she said.
Brush your hair first,
Aunt Dee said.
And your teeth,
Aunt Nan said.
Pram trudged upstairs, her feet feeling twice as heavy. When she returned downstairs, her aunts presented her with toast and more jam than they’d usually allow. It was the best that they could do.
She wasn’t hungry, but she understood the gesture and she ate the whole slice.
Once outside, Pram ran as fast as she could through the fallen leaves. She ran until she reached the pond; she sat at its edge and stared at the green water until her eyes felt heavy with tears.
The others will make fun of me,
she said.
A cloud blocked the sun, then moved away from it, as though playing a game with the light.
What others?
Pram wiped at her runny nose. Felix,
she said as the boy sat beside her. You startled me.
Why are you crying?
he said.
I wasn’t.
You were so.
He turned his head to the pond and blew, and the reflection of the leaves turned gold. Pram blinked, and they had changed back to normal. She giggled, and Felix smiled with triumph.
They’re making me go to school,
Pram said. I don’t think it’s a very good idea. I’ve read about how cruel kids can be.
Are you afraid they’ll be cruel, or that being around them for too long will make you cruel?
Felix said.
Both, I suppose.
Pram touched the pond with the heel of her foot. Have you ever been to school?
No,
Felix said. But I always thought it seemed fun.
It won’t be,
she said. It won’t take the other kids long to realize I’m strange.
I don’t think you’re strange,
Felix said.
Pram fell back into the grass, sighing. You’re a ghost,
she said. You’re strange, too.
A little rude to bring it up like that,
Felix said, lying beside her. I still have feelings.
I didn’t mean it that way,
Pram said. I’m sorry. But don’t you see? The other kids will catch me talking to myself and ridicule me.
You aren’t talking to yourself,
Felix said, reaching up his arms and arranging his fingers like a picture frame. The clouds took on the shape of dancers; from somewhere far off,