Finding the Way Back (20 page)

“Have you ever been able to facilitate
something like that?” my mom asked.

“Um, no, actually. But I’ve heard about other
people who have. I only do this part time, you know.” Emmett looked
as if he were feeling a little awkward.

Aunt Shelly folded her arms. “Well, we should
have some idea what we’re doing before we just start hanging around
waiting for a ghost to show up.”

“Listen,” Emmett replied, his voice firm.
“I’ve been around enough to know that something is going on here.
This is not normal. Even when other people are sure they have a
haunting, it’s miniscule evidence compared to this—a brief EVP, a
pen that rolled half an inch across a desk. Here, too many people
have had significant experiences for it to be coincidental or just
your imagination. I’ve never seen a full body apparition. Very few
people actually have. I believe you think you saw your grandmother.
But,” he added quickly and held up his hand to quell any objection.
“It’s not the whole story. I still believe you were pushed down the
stairs, Laney. That much is clear on the video. Do you think your
grandmother did that?”

“Of course not,” I answered without
hesitation.

“All right, then. So who or what did that?
That’s my point. You said this house was haunted from the moment
your grandparents moved in which was before Teoline died. So we
don’t know what’s going on here. And until we do, we need to keep
searching. There’s an answer somewhere at the bottom of all this.
Don’t you want to find out?” He looked each of us in the eye, the
question hanging in the air.

“Okay, I’m convinced,” my mother said. “You
can try again, but this time Shelly and I want to be involved.” She
got up to get another cup of coffee.

“Mom,” I began, but she cut me off.

“Don’t you start with me, Elaine MacKenzie.
We’re coming and that’s the end of it.” And there she went with my
full name again. She was brooking no opposition this time. “Now,
why don’t we go finish what we were doing in the dining and living
room. Everyone could use a good night’s sleep so let’s leave the
next investigation until tomorrow night.”

None of us was up to another round of
bumbling about in the dark, so Emmett agreed to come back the next
evening with his crew and equipment then left us to our work. I was
hoping for a quiet evening for a change. I really needed to go to
bed early. I was so tired I couldn’t even think straight.

We turned back to the work at hand, finding
more treasures and more trash in almost equal amounts. We still
kept finding loose bills and change on the bottom of most of the
boxes. The jar on the kitchen table was starting to fill up
nicely.

I started on the boxes next to the television
set while my mom and Aunt Shelly went through the last of the boxes
in the dining room. Connie left to find packing materials and small
boxes for the items we thought we could sell. If we could clear a
few more boxes out of the way I would be able to get to the
built-in bookshelves and cabinets next to the television.

I was hoping to find some photographs
somewhere. This evening, if I felt up to it, I was going to look
through the bookshelves in the study. That would probably be the
most logical place for photo albums. There had to be something
somewhere.

We continued our work, mostly in silence. I
could tell everyone was getting tired at this point. Finishing up
my last box I yelled, “Three dollars and sixty-seven cents. And
there are some old coins here too.” I walked into the kitchen and
threw the money into the jar. Might have to count up our total
pretty soon.

I took a load out to the dumpster and
stretched in the sunlight. An entire day with nothing more than
Saundra and a spider to make it exciting. I could have done without
Saundra and the spider attack, but at least nothing ghostly had
happened. I hoped our luck would stick with us.

The cable company showed up as I was going
back inside. We would finally be able to go online again—what did
people do without the internet? Plus, we would now have a multitude
of TV channels instead of just four. There might still be nothing
on, but at least it would be a lot more of nothing.

Two men got out of the van. I smiled as I
realized one of them was Dean. “I didn’t realize you were with the
cable company. Or are you just tagging along for fun?”

“Hi darlin’. I told you I had a real job.
This here’s Jimmy, and he’ll do the actual work.”

“Hey,” said Jimmy, who looked about sixteen,
with spiky blonde hair and sunglasses.

“I’m actually a supervisor,” Dean continued.
“But when I saw your address come across my desk I decided to run
out and help. I figured my unique expertise might come in handy on
this project.” He winked at me before picking me up in another big
bear hug and spinning me around. He sure was ‘huggy’, but it felt
natural. I blushed as I pressed up against his six-pack abs. I
wondered if he might need to take off his shirt sometime during the
visit.

“I was hoping it was going to be a quiet
afternoon,” I said. “But we could come up with something freaky if
you like.” I felt myself blushing as I realized what that sounded
like. I really wasn’t very good at this flirting thing. Fortunately
he didn’t seem to notice.

We walked into the house and I showed him to
the study. “Connie, come tell us where we want the internet to go,”
I called out.

“I don’t really care,” she said, stepping
into the room. “I’m just excited to have—oh. Um, hi, Dean.” She
stuttered mid-sentence when she saw him. I watched Connie with
interest as she ran a hand through her curls and brushed a few
loose strands behind her right ear.

“So you couldn’t keep away, huh?” she asked
flamboyantly. We must be too much fun for you,” she said, and gave
him a hug.

I left them to figure out the wiring and went
to check on our mothers. They looked a bit wrung out when I saw
them. Aunt Shelly was listlessly dropping items into a box and my
mom was just sitting back staring into space. “Hey, you two, you’ve
been working like demons, why not go home? You can have tomorrow
off if you think we can handle it. Come back in the evening when
Emmett and crew come over.”

The sisters looked grateful. “That’s actually
not a bad idea,” my mother said, sitting up taking a last look
around.

“I think we will leave tomorrow up to you
two,” Aunt Shelly said. “You can call us if you have any questions.
Connie is really a better judge if things look valuable.”

After they left I started wiping down the
wooden furniture. It was amazing how much better it looked after
just a little dusting. I pulled out the old vacuum we had found in
the corner. It was a deafening old Kirby, but it still worked.
There was even an attachment for the cushioned furniture. After
vacuuming the sofa and chairs I felt like I could sit on them
without having dust mites carry me off. The newly polished and
vacuumed room gave me a renewed feeling of accomplishment. With
just a few inroads made, the house no longer felt quite so
overwhelming. When I thought of all we’d done in just a few days I
was overjoyed. Continued progress like this and we could move on to
the remodeling soon, or at least the planning stages of it. Then
the real mess would begin in earnest.

I could hear Connie and Dean laughing while
they came up from the basement. “How’s it going?”

“We’re coming along great,” Dean said walking
into the kitchen. “Actually, someone had installed cable here
before. It looks like he had it turned off in the last few years
but the cables were already in place and everything so we’ll have
you two up and running in no time.”

“Really? That’s great. I never thought our
grandfather would have had cable.”

“Yep. We’ll leave a box here with you, then
I’ll head back to the office with Jimmy and we’ll get you ‘turned
on’ in no time,” he said with a grin.

“Funny. I don’t care what you do, just so I
get HGTV.”

After Dean and Jimmy left, I ran up to get
some clean sweats. Connie was in her room looking through her
suitcase when I popped in to chat. “Hey, I’m going to take a
shower. I feel disgusting. Then do you want to eat dinner while
sitting on the couch and watching TV? Maybe Dean will have the
cable working by then. I’m so excited to have more channels. Mom
put some soup in the fridge and I think there is some salad left.
I’m really not in the mood to either cook or go out to eat.”

“Sounds like a plan. Do you need me to go to
the basement with you?” I wasn’t sure if Connie was serious or
teasing but part of me didn’t want to go to the basement alone.
That was the trouble with being grown up. You had to face things
alone and pretend to be brave.

“I don’t think so. I’ll bring my flashlight
and leave the door at the top of the stairs open,” I answered. I
walked out of her room and grabbed another load of laundry as I
went down. My clothes were filthy with all the housecleaning. I
still hadn’t picked up any more clothes from my mom’s house, and I
would run out soon.

Feeling refreshed and clean we headed to the
couch with our freshly warmed soup and salads. Our moms had also
left a delightful loaf of freshly baked bread.

“I can’t wait to go through the built-in
cabinets and hutch, can you?” Connie asked sinking into the couch.
“By the way this room looks amazing.”

“Thanks. If I had the energy to stand I would
be digging through them as we speak. Right now, I just want to sit
here on the couch and not think of anything more.” I set my soup on
the coffee table and dug into the salad. After all the days of
eating poorly, the salad was delightful, fresh and light.

We discovered the cable was working, and I
enjoyed flipping through all the new channels on the television
between bites. I soon realized there was nothing new to watch. I
came upon a nineteen forties screwball comedy on a classic movie
channel. “Finally, something fun to watch. I wish I had grown up in
that era. I realize there were a ton of bad things about it that
people like to forget, but I really hate all this ‘reality TV’.
Whose reality? All it does is encourage people to embrace really
bad behavior.” I spilled some soup down the front of my shirt as I
tried to balance both my bowl and the piece of bread.

“True, but then people look back at the
eighties now with fondness and I doubt they were that great. Back
in the fifties, the man could backhand a woman and a mother could
smoke with a child in her lap. Things are never nearly as cool as
people like to think later,” Connie said.

“You’re right, I’m sure they aren’t. At least
the movies weren’t only about graphic sex and the actors dressed
really well.” We both laughed.

“That I can get behind. Let’s start on your
bedroom tomorrow. I’m looking forward to going through the closet
when we can get to it. It looks like Grandfather kept everything.
I’m hoping he still has Grandmother’s clothes.”

“Ooh, I didn’t even think of that. I love
vintage clothes. Now I can’t wait to get up tomorrow.”

When the comedy on TV ended we went upstairs
and decided to leave some lights on in the living room again. We
also agreed to stay together in Connie’s room again. There was
strength in numbers, plus I was really starting to feel close to
Connie. “It would be nice if we didn’t have to worry about ghosts.
It’s weird. A few days ago, I never would have believed it. Now I’m
so used to the idea I just talk about it offhand.”

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could resolve
whatever the problem is, like Emmett said?”

“Yeah, it sure would.” We both fell asleep
quickly.

I awoke once in the night and thought I heard
music playing quietly downstairs. I opened my eyes and listened,
but the house was silent. I decided I must have dreamed it and went
back to sleep.

Chapter
Twenty-Two

The sun was flooding the hall with light when
I awoke. A feeling of well-being pervaded the house after our full
night’s sleep. Two nights with no interruptions, maybe we were
getting past the occurrences, and whatever we had stirred up was
quieting down.

Connie was up and showering when I came down
to the kitchen. Everything seemed to be in place, everything quiet.
I could almost believe we had imagined the strange events of the
past few days.

After my morning coffee and day-old donuts I
decided to open some windows and air out the house. It was a
beautiful spring day with sunshine and a brisk wind. Going to the
double-hung windows in the dining room, I unfastened the lock on
one and tried to open it. This one seemed wedged tight. I hated old
windows. It wasn’t painted shut but it probably hadn’t been opened
in ten years or more. I banged against the sashes and tried again.
It reluctantly started to creep up. A slight breeze swept through
the opening, disturbing the fine coating of dust that had resettled
on the dining room table I had dusted yesterday. I stepped around a
little desk to try the window next to it and found it in the same
condition. My, there was a lot of furniture cluttering the room.
Even though we cleared out the boxes we didn’t have anywhere to put
the extra furniture.

Moving around a dresser and small table I
walked over to the hutch and peered inside the glass doors. Covered
in dust despite being inside the cabinet, a myriad of objects
filled the interior. Beautiful china, old steins and glass
figurines were all crammed together with no space in between. Some
of the items I knew had value from my ventures through antique
stores all my life, but the other items I had no clue about. It was
probably safer for the objects to just stay where they were until
we had time to clean and sort them. Perhaps the family would want
to keep some of the pieces as keepsakes and others could be
sold.