Time for Andrew: A Ghost Story

Andrew is Drew’s great-uncle and the mysterious boy he meets in the attic. When the reader first meets him, he is deathly ill, dying of diphtheria, and desperate to find a way to survive. He looks strangely similar to Drew, so much so that people cannot tell them apart. He uses old-fashioned language in keeping with his upbringing in the early 1900s.

Soon, Drew learns more about Andrew’s personality when he isn’t deathly ill. Andrew is confident, mischievous, and a bit of a ruffian who constantly gets into fights with his cousin Edward. Andrew is courageous according to the standards of his time, taking his corporal punishment without crying and using physical violence to push back against Edward’s bullying. He is great at shooting marbles and believes in his own abilities. He has a tendency to brag about his own accomplishments.

Though he boasts about how he doesn’t cry or show too much emotion, he breaks down when his beloved sister can no longer see him as a ghost. Underneath his rough exterior, Andrew is more emotional than he lets on and loves his family deeply. His experience trading places with Drew allows him to be gentler and get in touch with his own feelings. By the end of the story, he embraces many of Drew’s more emotional and empathetic personality traits.

Hannah is Andrew’s older sister. Warm, friendly, playful, and mischievous, Drew immediately connects with Hannah and grows to love her deeply. She has sparkling eyes and wears her dark hair piled messily atop her head. Her shirt is often untucked, and she is streaked with dirt from climbing trees and running around outside. Though she is expected to be a lady, she resists letting go of her wildness and free-spiritedness. She looks out for Drew, teaching him to play marbles and supporting him as he emerges from his perceived illness.

Drew witnesses the beginning of Hannah’s love story when John Larkin starts coming around. Though Hannah worries that her unladylike demeanor will scare him away, John is clearly smitten and appreciates her free-spirited nature. Drew and Theo notice how Hannah does, in fact, behave more ladylike around him, which ignites their jealousy. Even though he barely knows her, Drew feels possessive of Hannah and wants to spend more time with her away from John. When Andrew calls out to Hannah and despairs that she can’t see him in his ghostly state, the reader can tell he feels similarly about Hannah and loves her deeply.

Drew and Hannah are reunited at the end when an elderly Andrew comes along with her to visit Drew and Blythe at the house. Drew is shocked to see her so frail and bent, with translucent skin and dark purple veins, but soon recognizes her same sparkling eyes. She reveals her open-mindedness, having accepted the impossible story that Drew and Andrew traded places.

Theo is Andrew and Hannah’s younger brother. He looks up to Andrew greatly and eggs him on in his struggle with Edward. Theo is rambunctious and playful, horsing around with Drew and racing him outside.

Through Theo, Drew learns about conceptions of masculinity during the 1910s when Andrew and Theo were boys. Theo is often disappointed when Drew doesn’t stand up for himself or fight back against Edward, Defining Masculinity as physical aggression. He is shocked and embarrassed when Drew cries while Papa beats him with a belt. Drew begins to feel some kind of responsibility to be a role model for Theo and live up to his expectations.

Edward is the main antagonist of the novel. Drew meets him first as an old man, elderly and wheelchair-bound, with a seemingly limited grasp on reality. He takes an immediate disliking to Drew, recognizing how much he looks like Andrew as a boy and conflating him with the cousin he hated from his youth. He is ornery and unpleasant, and Aunt Blythe frequently whisks him away to his room to protect Drew from these fraught exchanges.

In the past, Drew encounters Edward again as a boy and discovers his ornery personality dates back to his boyhood. Edward is a bully, goading Drew on and threatening him while always being willing to run back to his own parents and tell lies to make Drew and Theo look culpable. Through his taunts, the reader learns that there is conflict in the family over who will inherit the house, and Edward’s side of the family wants it. In the present day, Edward still makes comments about how he has the house now and it is his right to make Drew feel unwelcome in it.

The climax of the story occurs when Drew must jump off the trestle to satisfy a challenge from young Edward. Even though another boy drowned from attempting this, Edward shames Drew into participating despite his reservations, and Edward appears to enjoy Drew’s fear and suffering. Despite all his bravado, it is Edward who falls into the water, revealing that he cannot swim well enough to escape the current. Even after Drew saves his life, he is too proud to admit it and put their squabbles aside. He would rather lie and preserve his own reputation than admit that he needed someone else’s help. 

Aunt Blythe is Drew’s Aunt. Aunt Blythe is empathetic and helpful, agreeing to take care of Edward even though he is rude and ungrateful. She oversees the house and attends to various home-improvement tasks. She has liquidated much of the furniture to help pay for renovations and constantly has too much on her plate. Drew loves her and treats her warmly though he is embarrassed that his parents tell her about his fearful and nervous nature.

Papa is Andrew’s stoic and authoritative father. Though he has a gentle spirit and sense of warmth, he demands the boys behave like gentlemen and punishes them when they misbehave. Drew is shocked when Papa lashes him with a belt for fighting with Edward. Papa is very much a product of his time, recognizing this type of punishment as an essential tactic for building character, though he expressly does not enjoy it. He shows some of his underlying warmth when he subtly rewards the boys with good servings of dinner after they confront Edward.

Mama is Andrew’s mother, who Drew gets to know and grows to love during his time in the past. Mama is warm and kind and attends to Drew, worrying about his health and protecting him from overexertion. She defends the boys from Papa’s punishments, asking him to be lenient on account of Drew’s fever and Theo’s youth.