Search for the Dead Page 10

  “Yes, we’re fine. Please don’t worry. Do you want to get back to me on when?”

  “Let me look at my calendar . . .” Abby could hear papers rustling—her mother still preferred a paper calendar with large print. “How about tomorrow? I need to run some laundry and get some food in so Marvin won’t starve . . . Tomorrow in time for lunch? Anything I should bring?”

  “Do you have any more family documents? Old photos, or letters? That kind of thing?”

  “Uh, I think I saw some in the attic when I was looking for those documents you wanted last year. There’s not much, you know. My family wasn’t into keeping old things.”

  “I understand. Just bring what you have, and I’ll explain when you get here, okay? Love you, Mom. Give me a call if you get hung up. Otherwise I’ll expect you for lunch tomorrow.”

  Before Rebecca could protest—or ask any more awkward questions—Abby set the phone down carefully. Then picked it up again and hit Sarah’s button. Sarah took a bit longer to answer. “Hey, you’re up early. Everything okay?”

  “As much as it ever is these days. Listen, could we meet today sometime? I found out some interesting stuff from Christine yesterday, and I need to hash it out with someone who knows about this whole thing.”

  “Sure, no problem. Here or there? Or somewhere in between?”

  “Somewhere we can find a table and nobody will overhear us and think we’re nuts.”

  “Why don’t you come here, then? I’ll throw something together for lunch, and if there’s time we can take a walk and admire the pretty fall leaves.”

  “Deal. Does noon work for you?”

  “Perfect.”

  “See you then.” Abby hung up for the second time. The conversations she faced with both women were not going to be simple, but at least she’d get things out in the open with them. And see where that led her.

  Chapter 13

  Despite lunch with Sarah to look forward to, Abby’s mood did not improve. Maybe all those spirits are angry at me? she wondered. But could they really affect a living person? Unless that person was already terrified of the idea of “ghosts” and panicked at the sight of one. She’d never felt anger from any of those she had seen. Or more precisely, they might have been angry or sad or frightened, but those emotions had never been directed at her, as a spectator. Would that change over time, or with practice?

  She cleaned up the few breakfast dishes, then wandered around the house, making a mental list of tasks that still had to be done. It was not short, even if she ignored the outside projects, for which it would soon be too cold. As she went from room to room, she could feel eddies of cold air leaking through the old windows. Some people would say replace them all, with easy-care, efficient, modern aluminum windows. It might save on heating bills, but Ned believed that would be an insult to the grand old house, and Abby agreed. If she got cold, she could put on a sweater the way he did. Or work harder. So, inside there was still woodwork to be painted, and wallpapering to be done. A few tacky modern light fixtures should be swapped out for period-appropriate ones, but she wasn’t about to mess with wiring. She didn’t think Ned would want to either, so one of them was going to have to track down a competent electrician. She thought that Ned had had a new furnace installed when he bought the place, but she should confirm that. And did it need a tune-up? Or at least a new filter? Old houses, especially those that seemed to be perpetual construction sites, generated a lot of dust, and surely that wasn’t good for the heating system. Another contractor to find.

  She meandered into the kitchen. There the appliances were functional but not much more. Ned really didn’t pay much attention to any of it. When he cooked, it was simple food, and as long as the burners worked and the fridge kept things cold, he was happy. She’d like something a bit more upscale, because she enjoyed cooking. In one of the many boxes upstairs, she had quite a few nice pots and pans and knives that really deserved a kitchen. One more thing for the to-do list. Assuming, that is, that she’d be around long enough to enjoy a shiny new kitchen.

  All right, Abigail, what’s really bothering you? And don’t pretend it’s paint or appliances. She sighed and dropped into one of the kitchen chairs. The elephant in the room: she and Ned had really never talked about the future. Their future. It was kind of an unstated assumption that they’d be together, and he’d as much as said so the night before, but that was the first time he’d come close to putting it into words. Was this a forever relationship? Did she want to spend the rest of her life with Ned Newhall? She’d been so wrong about Brad—she saw that clearly now—and that made her doubt her own judgment. And this whole psychic thing really threw a monkey wrench into things. If she and Ned . . . split up, how could she live with someone else who didn’t share her weird ability? Who didn’t even understand it? She couldn’t imagine that, but at the same time, a small part of her resented that her choice had been made for her. She’d fallen into Ned’s arms—in this case literally—on a random day and bingo, her future was set in stone. Was she never going to have any control over her own life?

  Snap out of it, Abby! she instructed herself firmly. Instead of whining that she had no job, no prospects, and was stuck here in a drafty Victorian house scraping paint off the woodwork and ancient wallpaper off the walls, while Ned went off to do important science things at his very own company, she should be grateful that she had a beautiful place to live (well, it would be if the renovations were ever finished) and a man who loved her on levels she hadn’t even known existed. Plus he was an all-around good guy. And he had lots of money. What did she have to complain about? Most women would be thrilled to be in her position.

  Maybe some more renovation would help her snap out of her funk. Even if she kept chewing on her grievances while she worked, at least she’d accomplish something.

  Abby managed to finish painting the trim in the second parlor and clean up both the painting equipment and herself in time to present herself at Sarah’s door at noon. Sarah greeted her warmly with a hug. “You hungry yet?”

  Abby followed her into the house, which glowed with generations of hand waxing of the old pine timbers. “Sure. I’ve been painting this morning—almost better than yoga, what with all the twisting and stretching. But I admit I’ll be glad when it’s done. At least I took care of the ceilings first, and kept most of the paint out of my hair.”

  Sarah laughed. “And you’ve got high ceilings! The ones here were easy—I could almost reach them without a ladder. Lunch is nothing fancy—chicken salad, and the last of the lettuce from the garden. And homemade cookies.”

  “Sounds great to me.” Abby sat at the kitchen table and watched Sarah move efficiently around her kitchen, collecting what she needed. “What kind of shape was this house in when you bought it? Anything original left?”

  “You mean, did I start out cooking with a kettle on a crane over a wood fire? Not hardly. More like lousy mid-twentieth century appliances in harvest gold, and—I’m not kidding—wallpaper with green frogs on it in the master bedroom. But we were young and energetic. So are you, right?”

  “I suppose. Sometimes I’m glad there’s so much to do, so I can keep busy.”

  “You still miss having a job?” Sarah said, setting plates with lettuce, chicken salad, and slices of artisinal bread at their seats.

  “I do,” Abby admitted. “I mean, I have a life that many women would envy, but I keep thinking I need to be doing something more useful, helping more people. That’s why I’m impatient to come to terms with this psychic stuff and figure out what I want to do with it.”

  Sarah forked up a bite of the salad and ate it before answering. “Do you think you have different choices, now that you know about it? I mean, you can’t just flip it off with a switch.”

  “Yeah, I think I’ve figured that out. But I don’t know where I fit, or where it fits in my life.”

  “Give it time, Abby. It’ll be easier if you relax.”

  “Easy for you to say, Sarah. You’ve bee
n living with it for decades.”

  “I have, but my process was almost the reverse of yours. I came to it gradually, and let it grow at its own pace. You were slammed in the face with it all at once, without warning. That has to be hard.”

  “Thank you. It has been hard, and I don’t know whether I’m lucky or cursed. Depends on which day you ask me. But I didn’t come over to whine. I wanted to tell you about meeting Christine yesterday.”

  “Go right ahead,” Sarah said, picking up the sandwich she had assembled and taking a big bite of it.

  Abby followed suit, and realized she really must have been hungry. After she’d swallowed, she outlined the meeting and her impressions of Christine, but slowed down as she approached Christine’s pronouncement at the end of their talk. “I was kind of on the fence about how authentic she was, talking to her, until when she was getting ready to leave, she said something that really surprised me.”

  “And that was?”

  “She said, ‘Tell Rebecca that Samuel says he’s sorry.’” Abby stopped there and waited for Sarah’s response. She watched her expressions as Sarah worked out who was who.

  “Rebecca’s your mother, I know. And Samuel is?”

  “My mother’s grandfather, the one who ran off to Montana after his baby son died. My mother never knew him. Heck, his own daughter never knew him. But how on earth would Christine even know any of this? She doesn’t know me or my family, and I found out what happened to Samuel only recently—it would be a real feat to find any documentation on such short notice.”

  “So you think this means that Christine is for real? That Samuel is in fact a spirit and wants to communicate?” Sarah said, with no hint of skepticism.

  “Does that sound ridiculous?” Abby asked her. “I mean, I could claim that Christine put on the same cheesy act that mediums have been trading in since the mid-nineteenth century. Ooh, there’s a spirit here and he wants to talk to you. Cue the dim lights and spooky noises.”

  Sarah looked down at her plate, pushing a lettuce leaf around. “Do you want to believe her or expose her as a fraud? What’s your gut telling you?”

  Abby hesitated, then said, “I think I want to believe her. Psychic me wants to have friends to play with, ones I don’t have to explain everything to. But that doesn’t mean I’m not suspicious.”

  “You’re still wrestling with the rational you, who was brought up to believe that all this kind of thing was hogwash.”

  “Exactly. So right before I called you I called my mother and asked her to come see me. I think it’s time I brought her into the loop. I don’t expect any real surprises, and she’ll probably tell me I’m being silly, but if there’s any chance she’s got this thing, I need to know now.”

  Sarah nodded, looking up again. “I understand. Did she agree to come?”

  “Yes. She’ll be here tomorrow.”

  Sarah hesitated before asking, “Do you want me there?”

  “No, I think I have to do this myself. But thank you for offering. Maybe you two can get together after she’s heard what I have to say.”

  “That’s fine. Do you think your mother has any of this ability that you have? Suppressed, maybe?”

  “I really don’t know, but I can’t think of any time in the past that I noticed something like that. Until we were on the Cape, at least. Not that I was looking for it, back when I lived with my folks. Heck, I didn’t even know this paranormal stuff existed then. But what has me wondering now is why Samuel wanted me, or someone like Christine, to apologize to her. He knows that my mother exists, and who she is. Why didn’t he just go to her, if she has even a little of the ability? Or doesn’t he think he can communicate with her?”

  “Maybe,” Sarah said carefully. “But it’s a pretty generic message. He could just as easily have said, ‘Tell her I’m happy now.’”

  “Maybe. But we do know that he had something to apologize for, something big that he might well have regretted. And he never had a chance to say that to his wife or his daughter.”

  “Why not?” Sarah asked. “Aren’t they all together in the great beyond? They could have patched things up by now.”

  Abby hadn’t even considered that. “Well, I don’t know, maybe. But maybe he thought somebody among the living should tell Rebecca, even if the others already know. Do you think that in this perfect happy afterlife, his wife has forgiven him?”

  Sarah laughed. “You’re asking me? I don’t have a clue. You’ve done more organized reading than I have, or at least more recently.”

  “I suppose. But reading all the texts, original or analytical, makes me sad. There were and still are so many people who seem to believe their loved ones are out there somewhere and they can communicate. They want to believe.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Abby stared at Sarah. “I don’t think I’ve ever lost anyone that I seriously cared about—I’ve been lucky. I guess I’ve always believed that once you’re dead, that’s it. Maybe there’s a soul or something that goes on, but I don’t expect to be having conversations with them. Does that sound harsh?”

  “It’s not for me to say. Humans have invented all sorts of ways of dealing with death and whatever follows. I can’t claim any one of them is right or wrong. Or maybe they’re all right and it’s just the terminology that’s different between religions.” Sarah stood up and began gathering up the china. “Listen, we’re getting pretty heavy here. What do you say to a walk? We’re right on the edge of Minuteman National Park, and I for one could use the fresh air.”

  Abby still had questions, but Sarah had a point. She really should take more time to smell the roses, or in this case, admire the blazing leaves that New England was famous for. “Good idea. I think I spend too much time stewing about all of this, even while I’m working on the house.”

  “Yes, it’s hard to turn off your brain, isn’t it?”

  They retrieved their jackets and walked out Sarah’s back door. For a while they ambled with no particular goal, stopping now and then to admire a particularly bright tree, or a cluster of mushrooms in the litter under the trees. They startled a few squirrels, busy collecting nuts. The sound of the main road faded behind them.

  “Do you ever see them? Feel them here?” Abby asked.

  “You mean, those colonists who fought off the British along here? Or the British themselves? Not really, or not personally. If I hear a gunshot, I think it’s someone hunting illegally, not taking potshots at a Redcoat. Is that what you mean?”

  “I guess. If you’re truly sensitive to these spirits, how do you manage to filter them? There are so many, everywhere. Or is it up to them, rather than you?”

  “Abby, I don’t know. I just take what comes along.” Sarah paused. “How much of this have you talked about with Ned?”

  “Some. Not all. He’s not as new to it as I am, but he’s repressed it for so long . . . He’s much more comfortable with the science side of things. I think he wants to find some solid evidence, something physical that he can point to, to prove we’re not all crazy. At the same time, I think the idea of taking time off, not having a structure in place, kind of scares him. He likes to keep busy. Can you see us sitting on a beach somewhere, doing nothing?”

  Sarah laughed. “No, I can’t. But I never expected him to become a manager, an administrator. The science part makes sense—he was always curious, and he liked to find answers. But at the same time, he was always a rather self-contained child, in part because he was impatient with kids who were, well, slower on the uptake than he was. I used to wonder if that was why he saw Johnnie. There weren’t a lot of kids his age around when we moved into the house, and I thought maybe he’d created an imaginary friend to play with. It didn’t occur to me that Johnnie was real, or had been real. You know what I mean. But I never tried to talk Ned out of it, whatever it was.”

  “You never ran into the rest of Johnnie’s family in the house? They must have been hurting too, when he died.”

  “If they were there, I
wasn’t tuned to their wavelength, I guess. Maybe, just maybe, I used to catch a glimpse of something or someone out of the corner of my eye, in the dark corners. Like the hem of a woman’s dress, or her apron. But I never came upon her face-to-face.” Sarah stopped, then perched on the trunk of a fallen tree. “Any house has its own ghosts, you know. They belong to the house, not whoever happens to be living there. I’m sure your house has a few.”

  “We haven’t met—yet. You know about the ancestors in the cemetery, behind?”

  “I think you’ve mentioned them.”

  “Sometimes I see them walking there, from a window. I don’t go running out to chat with them, but I know they’re there. But they don’t belong to the house, but to the cemetery.”

  Sarah fell silent, leaning back and looking up at the leaves and sky. Abby still felt twitchy. She checked her watch: two o’clock. Enough time to get some research done, maybe. Having Rebecca around would cut into that time.

  “Sarah? Would it be terribly rude of me to take off now? You can stay here and enjoy the day if you want, but there’s some stuff I wanted to look up in a library—yes, one of those with books, not online—and I won’t have the time once my mother gets here.”

  “You don’t need to ask my permission, Abby. We’re family now, in more ways than one.” She stood up. “I’ll walk back with you.”

  “Thanks, Sarah. I’ll let you know how things go with Mom.”

  Chapter 14

  Abby had told Sarah she wanted to do some library research, which was true, but at which one? She liked doing research; she’d always been a good and thorough student. She knew she had a good mind, and she wanted to do something that made a difference. She’d loved teaching, because little kids were like sponges, ready to soak up anything and everything. It was all shiny and new to them, and they didn’t make judgments—at least, not yet.

  Now she had a personal stake in the research she wanted to do. And she knew she was in the perfect place to do it, because the ground in Lexington and Concord and the environs was saturated not only with ghosts but also with the emanations of great minds. Abby snorted: she was getting silly. What or who should she be looking at?