Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance (12 page)

“This place is
creepy when it’s empty,” George said, automatically speaking in a whisper even
though no one was there.

“I like it,” Jimmy
replied.  He had spent many evenings here reading late into the night. 

Jimmy led them to
an inner door located just inside the front door.  He opened that and there
were two sets of stairs.  One set of stairs led up to a banquet hall with an
organ and tables that people often rented for parties and wedding receptions. 
To the right was a staircase that led down.  It was this second set of stairs
that Jimmy headed down, and George followed.  At the top of the stairs, Jimmy
turned on the light.

In the basement
were boxes and boxes of magazines, newspapers and books.  However, it was not
haphazard or disorganized.  In fact, the boxes were stacked very neatly, and
there were computers along the wall that you could use to look up periodicals. 
Jimmy headed there, while George began looking through old green books that
held information about older periodicals that had not been uploaded to the
computer database. 

They worked for
hours. They began by searching for the word “Sapphire.”  They then had to sort
through dozens and dozens of stories about the gemstones; there were few
mentions of people with that name.  At some point, Jimmy was left to keep
looking through periodicals while George began looking through the yearbooks. 
The two of them did not speak much.

Jimmy began going
back one year at a time.  He went much further back than it appeared Sapphire’s
apparent age.  George’s theory that Sapphire was some kind of specter nagged in
the back of Jimmy’s mind.

Jimmy eventually
reached the year 1964, and suddenly the computer archives came up with numerous
local references to Sapphire.  The name Sapphire Lumire popped up.  Jimmy was
intrigued, but the records were so old.  Was this someone related to the
Sapphire that he had met?  Although George had suggested that Sapphire was some
sort of ghost, Jimmy was not quite ready to believe that yet.

“Hey, George,”
Jimmy said.  “I found a Sapphire here, but it’s from 1964.”

George put down
the yearbook he had been looking through and headed over.  He had a puzzled
expression in his face.  George came up behind Jimmy and leaned against the
back of Jimmy’s chair.

Jimmy began paging
through the local paper.  He found the months that seemed to be thickest with
the mention of the name.  Most of the news stories were from the late spring. 
Jimmy scrolled through, letting the pages fly by.  When he reached the month of
May, Jimmy slowed the pace down.  Finally, he stopped on the date where there
should have been a story featuring someone named Sapphire Lumire.

It was blank.

“What the hell?”
Jimmy said.

He paged up and
down repeatedly.  Jimmy frowned and went through the spring archives again. 
Once again, pages of the local, regional, and a few national magazines from
that time purported to contain stories featuring the name Sapphire, but were
blank.

“This is very
odd,” Jimmy muttered.

“It’s like she’s
been erased,” George said.

Jimmy nodded and
slid his chair back and stood up.  “Jesse hasn’t thrown away all of the
microfilm and microfiche in this place yet.  He says he just doesn’t trust the
computers, and I think I see why. It has to be some kind of glitch.”

“Whatever it is,
this is damn weird,” George said.  “Let us not overlook the fact that this
story is more than forty years old.  Kind of lends credence to the whole ghost
theory.”

Jimmy laughed. 
“I’m not ready to go that far just yet.  I am thinking this might be a relative
of hers or something like that.  The name Sapphire seems like it might be a
family name or something, doesn’t it? Have you met many people named Sapphire
before?”

George shook his
head to indicate he had not. He began shuffling through the online periodicals.

Jimmy made his way
to the back of the basement.  The dust was collecting in his nose and he could
sense a sneezing fit coming on.  However, Jimmy was too curious and too puzzled
to worry at that point.  He reached a wooden door at the back of the room and
swung it open.  The musty smell from inside was almost overwhelming.  Jimmy
reached in and flipped on the light switch, and a single bare bulb hanging from
the ceiling burst into life. 

The room was
crammed with boxes, each of them meticulously labeled with month, day, and
year, as well as the name of the publication.  There were two rows of boxes on
either side. There was a larger aisle down the middle. 

Jimmy, muttering
to himself, began walking down the rows.  He finally came to the right year and
the right publication.  Lifting several boxes and moving several more out of
the way, he finally opened the right box and Jimmy began lifting smaller white
boxes out of the larger brown cardboard one.  He finally found the box he was
looking for, grabbed it and headed back toward the door.  Once there he took a
left and found an old covered microfilm machine.

Jimmy checked to
make sure that the machine was plugged in and still worked.  When he was
satisfied, Jimmy threaded the microfilm and sat down at the controls.  This end
of the room was even dustier than the other one had been, and Jimmy’s eyes were
starting to water.  He barely noticed as he sped up the machine, the print and
photos rushing by in a black and white blur, until he found the right month. 
Jimmy slowed the machine down, the photos and print now crawling past.

“What the hell?”
Jimmy muttered, his eyes wide.

The month that had
the story he wanted was gone.  It appeared as if the microfilm had been spliced
and then hastily taped back together.

“George,” Jimmy
said.

George took a
moment before sliding his chair back and making his way toward the back of the
room.  Jimmy turned and watched him come.  George had a strange look on his
face.  George was always the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve. 
Currently, George’s face was a mixture of confusion and concern.  Jimmy knew
that meant that George was trying to work things out, but nothing was adding
up.

“It’s just that
one edition,” George said.  “All of the rest of them are there.”

Jimmy pointed to
the screen.  “It looks like someone went through the microfilm, cut out the
edition on here, and taped the damn thing back together.  It’s a half-assed job
at best.”

George and Jimmy
stared at each other for a while.

“What does this
mean?” George said finally, after the silence had stretched out to a point that
both of them were getting nervous.

“I have no idea,”
Jimmy replied.  “I mean, I hate to state the obvious, but it seems like someone
is covering something up.”

“But why?  What
the hell have you stumbled onto here, Jimmy? And what does it have to do with
the pretty young thing you spent last night with?”

Jimmy held up both
his hands palms up and shrugged.

George paced for a
moment. “You and I need to visit Tabitha at the newspaper, sooner rather than
later.”

Jimmy nodded. 
“She’ll still have archives, right?  The fire wouldn’t have destroyed them all
and the people who removed this article on the microfilm wouldn’t have
eliminated the issues at the newspaper, right?”

“If they have,”
George said, “then we’re in some very big trouble.”

Jimmy felt a chill
run up and down his spine.  Who the hell was Sapphire? More to the point,
what
was she?

“We can go
tomorrow,” Jimmy said, “provided I survive the day, of course.”

There
was a lot of talk between George and Jimmy the rest of the afternoon as they
put things back in order.  Jimmy carefully locked the place up and they drove
back to Jimmy’s house.  Jimmy said goodbye to George, unloaded his bike from
the trunk, and then went into the house.

Jimmy’s mother was
asleep on the couch, and Jimmy decided it was best not to disturb her. 
Outside, the sun was going down and night was approaching.  Jimmy felt a
mixture of excitement and nervousness.  He wondered if, somehow, Sapphire might
appear at his window or get a message to him that she wanted to meet with him. 
At the same time, Jimmy was terrified of what he was going to encounter the
following day.

Just the thought
of running into the football players made Jimmy’s stomach tie up in knots.  He
wondered if he would be able to get any sleep tonight.  More importantly, Jimmy
wondered how he was going to get through Monday.  There were only so many
places to run, and the school was just not that big.  At some point, if the
jocks wanted to find him, they were going to be able to find him.  And when
they found Jimmy, they were going to beat him within an inch of his life, and
then maybe take the rest of that inch.

Jimmy wasn’t a
fighter.  The only fighting he had seen was in movies and comic books. Up until
the night of the dance, Jimmy had never been in any kind of face-to-face
conflict.  Once, when he was a freshman in high school, the kid at the locker
next to him had challenged him to a fight.  Thankfully, Jimmy was friends with
the quarterback of the freshman football team, who had the locker on the left. 
The quarterback had told the kid to back off and told Jimmy not to worry about
it, and that if the guy bothered him the next day to let him know. 

These days,
however, Jimmy had no one to protect him, his football player friend having
long since moved away.  The new crop of football players were more
stereotypical of the kind of bullying jocks you always saw in movies.  They had
immediately seen Jimmy for the quiet, nerdish, bookworm that he was.  It was
like blood in the water to a bunch of hungry sharks.

Jimmy walked
quietly into the kitchen, found the makings of a sandwich and indulged.  He ate
quietly over the kitchen sink, barely tasting the bread and meat.  Jimmy stared
out the kitchen window and into the backyard.  There was nothing going on out
back except for the dimming light and the back lawn.  For the first time Jimmy
realized he rarely spent any time there in the yard.

Jimmy’s mind was
racing. He had no idea what he was going to do tomorrow; he would be up all
night, at this rate.

Still, what if
Sapphire came?  Would she come to the window?  Would she still be wearing the
same dress?  Was she a regular, normal girl, or was she a ghost, or something
else?  What was going on with the archives at the library?

Jimmy decided that
he would visit Tabitha tomorrow and let her know what was happening.  Hopefully
she would be able to lead him to the newspaper archives and they would be able
to find the missing stories.  After that, Jimmy figured he would pay a visit to
Jesse.  Jesse would want to know what had happened to the archives.  Jimmy
figured the man would be outraged.

Jimmy reached into
the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk.  He was tempted to drink from it
directly, but his mother would have a fit, and he had already done enough to
upset her.  So he grabbed a glass from the upper cabinet to the left of the
sink and drank some milk before setting the glass and his plate in the sink. 
After that, Jimmy decided that his bedroom was the place to be.  He was tired,
but also worried, anxious, and hopeful about Sapphire.

Jimmy entered his
bedroom and took off his shirt. He lay back on his bed and stared at the
ceiling, trying his best to stay awake, but eventually the events of the day
took their toll on his mind.  Jimmy closed his eyes, telling himself that he
was only going to close them for a minute, but he was soon sound asleep.

Jimmy’s
alarm went off and his eyes flew open, staring at the ceiling and
breathing hard.  At first he was surprised that he had managed to sleep at all,
but then he felt a complete and total sense of panic when he realized it was
Monday, and that he was likely to get his ass handed to him before the day was
over.  Jimmy had a moment to wonder if he would end up riding in an ambulance
or if he’d have to ride his bike, while bleeding and broken, to the ER.

With a groan,
Jimmy crawled out of bed.  He shuffled into the bathroom and stood at the sink,
staring at himself in the mirror.  His hair stood up all over, and his eyes had
dark circles beneath them.  Jimmy sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. 
All that succeeded in doing was make his hair stand up even more.  After a
while, Jimmy decided that he looked like a very scared young man and nothing he
could do was going to make himself look tougher. 

Jimmy turned on
the shower and waited until the water got so hot that he could barely stand
it.  Then he stepped inside and let the water wash over him.  He decided that
it would be OK if he took a little longer than usual, as it might be the last
shower he ever got to experience.  When the water began to transition from
boiling hot to lukewarm, Jimmy decided it was time to get out.  Jimmy stepped
out and dried himself off.  It was while he was drying his legs that he noticed
that both the muscles in his legs and his hands were shaking. 

When Jimmy got out
of the bathroom, he noticed how quiet the house was.  His mother must have
already left for the morning.  Jimmy sighed, that was a bad sign as she had not
said goodbye to him like she always did.  That meant she was still mad and not
only was he going to have to fight his way through school, he was going to
probably have to spend the evening fighting his own mother.  The only question
Jimmy had was would he be fighting her in the living room or looking up at her
while laying in a hospital bed after the jocks had put him there.