Ghostwriting (23 page)

‘Really?' Phillip smothered his laughter with one hand. ‘You didn't poison him?'

Rhea played up to the insult by swiping her husband's shoulder again. ‘All he had was a few sips of tea. Maybe he has some sort of illness?' she suggested, although the priest had appeared to be in fine health when he'd arrived.

Phillip grinned. ‘Well, with a name like Chuck …'

Rhea bit down on her grin. ‘Stop it. He must cop a lot of that, poor man.'

‘Perhaps he'd do better to change his name to something with less of a stigma attached,' Phillip suggested. ‘Like …'

‘Phillip!' Rhea cautioned.

‘Dick,' he grinned, unable to help himself, ‘Or —'

Rhea clamped a hand over Phillip's mouth; she was laughing too hard to hear any more.

 

That night Rhea woke up feeling cold, but not freezing, for she'd had the foresight to wear a warm tracksuit to bed. The bed was covered in something soft. Switching on the light Rhea found feathers everywhere.

‘What the …?' Phillip woke, blinded by the light
and curious about the feathers he was spitting out of his mouth.

Rhea scampered across the room to find their bedcover had been ripped to shreds, which explained where all the feathers had come from. She held the tattered remains up for Phillip to view.

‘Now that wasn't me.' Phillip pulled on something warm as he moved to inspect the shredded fabric.

Rhea shook her head to agree. ‘But whatever it was, we have it on film.'

They smiled at their own brilliance as Rhea handed over the feather-strewn cover and grabbed the video camera they had set up in their room.

Phillip hooked the camera up to the television, and fast-forwarded through a couple of hours of footage of them sleeping and they laughed at themselves in an unconscious state. Static on the picture intensified suddenly and then washed out the picture altogether.

‘What was that?' Rhea gasped. Phillip rewound back to where the disturbance started and pressed play.

‘There.' Rhea pointed to a dark shadow moving toward their bed.

‘That's nothing,' Phillip scoffed, until the shadow approached the camera and the picture began to break up. ‘Why are we getting ant races? Maybe the film is stuffed?'

When the picture returned, feathers were settling on the bed, the covers were gone, and Rhea awoke.

‘You were saying?' Rhea looked at her husband, who was lost for words. ‘Tell me that that shadow, and our mysterious problem with bed covers, are unrelated?'

‘I don't know what to think,' he replied in all honesty, a bit bewildered by it all. ‘But I'd sure like to know why that priest left in such a hurry today.'

‘Well,' Rhea exhaled heavily, trying not to be alarmist about the events of the last twenty-four hours, ‘as I'm going to have to go into town to buy us a new bed cover, perhaps I shall pay the good Father a visit.'

5. Thought Forms

Rhea bought two bed covers — just in case — and did some grocery shopping, then drove to the local church located at the top of the hill at the end of the main street.

The church itself was empty of people, so Rhea headed around to the private chambers at the rear.

The priest opened the door. He looked very pale, and upon seeing Rhea, he half-closed the door again. ‘Please, this is not a good time.'

This was the last thing Rhea expected a priest to say to anyone. ‘Did we do something to offend you?'
She didn't understand; he seemed almost fearful of her.

‘No, nothing.' Chuck hugged one hand to his stomach, covered his mouth with the other and ran off.

‘Father …' Rhea wasn't leaving before she got some answers. ‘Have you caught a bug? Can I get you anything?'

Rhea could hear him in the bathroom, being violently ill. She felt terrible trying to suck the priest for information, when he was obviously feeling so poorly, but this bedclothes phenomenon was getting worse by the night. What would this evening hold in store? Rhea didn't even want to think about it until she had some idea of what they were dealing with.

The priest emerged from the bathroom wiping his face with a towel. ‘No, on all counts,' he assured her. ‘But you must leave. I am expecting somebody.'

‘Please, Father …' Rhea decided to throw herself on his mercy. Surely no priest could refuse that. ‘You said the other day that our house had a history. If you know anything about strange occurrences taking place there in the past, I need to know about it.'

‘You've experienced strange occurrences?' He was immediately interested.

‘Oh, yeah.' She emphasised her words by raising her brow. ‘And I believe you've experienced at least one instance yourself?' She was guessing their dark shadow had given him a scare.

Before Chuck could respond, he rushed off to the bathroom to be sick again.

‘Sweet Jesus have mercy,' he mumbled as he went, having had as much as he could stand. ‘I'll never do something that stupid again, if Max would only get here.'

There was a knock at the door, which Rhea took the liberty of answering.

‘This is a pleasant surprise,' said the round-faced, aging fellow, who sounded like he might have been English, although his speech was also tinged with an Australian accent. ‘I was expecting a sick priest,' he explained.

‘You're a doctor?' Rhea backed up to let him in.

‘Of sorts,' he replied on his way past. ‘The name's Maxwell, but most Aussies call me Max.' He shook her hand.

‘I'm Rhea Garrett.' She returned the introduction. ‘We've recently bought —'

‘Yes, I know.' He sounded intrigued, but as the priest sounded like he was dying, Max pointed to the bathroom to indicate he'd best go tend his patient. ‘What has been done to you, my lad?'

‘Mrs Garrett should leave,' the priest insisted.

‘Why?' Max reasoned. ‘I think she'll need to hear the prognosis. Tell me what happened?'

Rhea didn't enter the bathroom, but stood out in the hall listening to the priest's story, and what she heard was deeply alarming.

‘I tried to protect myself with prayer, but it seemed to have no effect on the ghost whatsoever.' Chuck panted in exhaustion, pleased to have managed to tell his tale without being sick again.

‘That's because I suspect you weren't dealing with a ghost, but rather a thought form,' Max deduced.

‘What's a thought form?' Rhea finally stepped into the doorway, unable to curb her curiosity any longer.

‘A thought form is associated with psychic phenomena.' Max, who was seated on the side of the bath, began his explanation. ‘It is a pocket of energy endowed with a degree of intelligence by its originator and with some of the originator's personal qualities as well. That is why the presence seemed female to you.' Max looked at the young priest, who was now drinking a herbal brew which Max had mixed up and was clutching a large crystal to his stomach which Max had also pulled out of his bag of tricks.

‘So, because the thought form presented itself as female to Father Chuck, we know a woman created it,' Rhea summed up.

‘Actually, we know via the local legend that a scorned woman is the source of the trouble in that house,' Max explained. ‘Does she not know this?' He looked to the priest for an explanation. ‘That's the whole reason you went up there in the first
place. And I had told you not to go.'

‘I know.' Chuck was frustrated by the fact. ‘But the entity caused me such a scare, I just had to get out of there. But, please,' the priest encouraged his friend, ‘feel free to do the honours now.'

When Rhea had heard the tale, her first reaction was that of anger. ‘And the real estate agent didn't see fit to mention that our house was cursed!' She took a deep breath as she realised that their insurance probably wouldn't cover damage resulting from thought forms. ‘This farmer's name was Phillip, you said?'

Both Max and the priest nodded.

‘And the girl who cast the curse. Her name was …?'

This query made both men frown, but it was Max who had a stab at remembering. ‘N something. Nadine, Nicole … no.'

‘Natalie,' Rhea suggested and Max clicked his fingers.

‘That's it, Natalie … how did you know?'

Rhea just shook her head, her mind too busy processing the information to be bothered with an explanation. ‘So how does one exorcise a thought form?'

‘Oh, you don't want to exorcise a thought form. That would only make it stronger, like Chuck's prayer did,' Max advised. ‘You need a very experienced psychic to return the energy back to its
rightful sphere of activity.'

‘Where the hell am I going to find a psychic?' Rhea baulked at the idea, until Chuck referred her to Max.

‘Oh, no.' Max declined. ‘I don't do that sort of thing any more.'

‘You're a psychic?' Rhea was shocked by this news, and stared at Chuck. ‘You're a priest and you go to a psychic for healing?'

‘Yes.' Chuck didn't see what was wrong with that. ‘I wasn't always a priest, you realise. I grew up in these parts and I know that Max is the greatest authority on psychic phenomena around, as he used to belong to one of those secret orders that studied occult matters.'

‘You're a witch?' Rhea was even more surprised. ‘I mean, a warlock?'

‘No, no.' Max objected to the misconception and Chuck had a chuckle at his old friend's expense. ‘I'm glad to see you're feeling better,' he snapped at the young priest, before turning back to address Rhea's query. ‘When I was a century younger,' he exaggerated, ‘I belonged to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Order has done much investigation into occult and magical practices, which I found all very interesting, but also dangerous, and potentially damaging in the hands of those out for personal gain. As I felt many people in the Order were studying occult doctrine for the wrong reasons, I withdrew from their company and
moved out here to Australia.'

Rhea was fascinated by the explanation, as Max seemed such an intelligent fellow and not at all the magician type. ‘So, if you can't help me with this, Max, can you recommend someone who can?'

Max thought seriously a moment and then shook his head. ‘You see, you've got a couple of real big problems that prevent you from getting rid of this particularly nasty thought form. My advice is sell the place and move elsewhere.'

‘We can't, we've invested too much.' Rhea panicked, knowing this news would break her husband's heart, not to mention the large hole it would leave in their bank account. ‘What are the problems?' Rhea urged Max to tell her, although he seemed doubtful that she really would want to know. ‘
Please.
'

‘Well, for a start, the originator of the thought form is no longer living and as time on the inner planes functions differently to here, it's going to be a little difficult to return the thought form to it's rightful sphere of activity. Its source has transcended elsewhere.'

‘Oh.' Rhea understood about half of what he'd said.

‘Secondly, since the way in which the curse was first banished from the house was crude and inappropriate —'

‘An exorcism,' Chuck interjected for her information and Max grinned in gratitude. He had
been trying to not offend the guest.

‘The thought form withdrew from the house as requested by the priest, only to spread out on to the property. You see, thought forms have no spirit, no inner knowing or connection to mass consciousness. Therefore, they do not understand human concepts of good and evil, of God or light. So it's no good telling a thought form to return to God or hell, or to enter the light, if the originator did not believe in these things. Thought forms know only that which they were designed to do, that for which they were spawned. They cannot be reasoned with, as a ghost or a spirit can be. The priest did manage to make the thought form dormant, but it did not leave. You opened a doorway for the entity back to physical world expression when you extended your house.'

‘I wish someone had told us that before we renovated.' Rhea was feeling really depressed now. ‘What was this thought form designed to do?'

‘Well, thought forms can be empowered by certain elements.' Max considered her case. ‘Thanks to Chuck's experience we know this thought form has a strong influence over liquids. It also had a sea water smell, you said?' Max looked to the priest and he nodded. ‘Natalie drowned at sea so that smell seems to support our suspicions that she was the instigator of the thought form. It also suggests that she actually cast this particular thought form as she was dying, rather than it belonging to the curse that was cast on
the house before Natalie left here for America.'

‘According to the tale, nothing weird did happen until after she drowned,' Chuck informed them.

‘Tell us of your experiences, Rhea,' Max invited. ‘They might give us a few more clues as to the nature of the beast, wherein we might find a weakness.'

Rhea was more than happy to spill her guts on the whole affair and when she cited every instance of strange phenomena that she was aware of, it sounded rather a lot. She left out the fact that Phillip and she were having sex when the door slammed in the kitchen; she merely said they were having a smooch.

‘Sounds like this female thought form might have a bit of a crush on your husband,' Max suggested, and the priest nodded and agreed that most of the behaviour sounded as if it was jealousy-motivated.

Rhea gasped, covering her mouth with both hands and shaking her head, not wanting to accept this new explanation.

‘Or perhaps it thinks Phillip Garrett is Phillip McLevy,' the priest suggested. ‘If the exorcism put it to sleep, wouldn't the present just feel like the next day to the entity?'

‘Quite possibly.' Chuck's reasoning impressed Max, but he wanted to get back to the subject of elements. ‘The entity has a strong earth presence if it can move objects — like the bedclothes — and that would explain how it opens and closes doors with
no accompanying wind.'