Eva moves the furniture, by Margot Livesey

Twenty years prior to Livesey’s recent The boy in the field, which was one of the better books I’ve read recently, she published this short, affecting “ghost” story.  Eva’s mother, who survived the 1918 influenza, was weakened by it and dies giving birth to her only child.  Her grieving husband, David, enlists his unmarried sister Lily to come live with them and help raise Eva.  A solitary child, when she is about five years old, Eva is startled one day to be approached by “the woman” and “the girl,” people only she sees.  Through the years, the “companions,” as she thinks of them, will make many appearances, sometimes saving her from something, other times causing disruption or pointing the way to future life decisions she makes.  Are or were the companions real?  Is Eva a conduit for poltergeists?  It’s a gentle book, written in the same wonderful style that permeates The boy in the field.  Oddly affecting and recommended.  229 pp.