Seduction of Souls (2 page)

Before
RayeAnn knew it, Bryn was turning her key in the door.

“Hey, how was your night?” 
RayeAnn sat back in her desk chair for the first time in several hours, feeling the muscles in her back protesting at being in the same position for so long.  Stretching out, she spoke.

“Great.  There was a meeting in the banquet room tonight
, so tips were good.  I know I shouldn’t say this too loud, might get jinxed, but I love that job.  It’s so much fun to meet new people and flirt with the pudgy bald guy no one else pays attention to.”  Bryn plopped onto the couch, as she always did, and grabbed the remote for the television.

“Let me go out on a limb here and guess you got lectured by your mother again today about the direction of your life.
”  RayeAnn put her hands on her hips and let out a huff of disgust.  “How you’re such a smart girl, too smart to work at a nowhere job, blah, blah, blah…”

“Bingo.  She’ll never understand or accept that college just isn’t for everyone.”

“True, but she loves you in her own degrading way.  She never did understand you, even in high school.  Cripes, you two even fought about what color backpack to buy.  You’re total opposites, but you love her anyway.”

“Oh yeah, I love her, I just don’t like her very much.”

“And she loves you enough to never give up on you, you lucky gal, you.”  Laughing, she brought the cold bowl of popcorn over to Bryn on the couch.  “If you’re going to put on those fake shows you recorded, I’m leaving.  Because of you I had the weirdest dream in the bathtub tonight.”  She stood with her hands on her hips, giving her friend the evil eye she was famous for.

“What did I do?  I wasn’t even here.” 
Speaking despite a mouth full of popcorn, she began to choke and coughed until she grabbed the bottle of water RayeAnn held out.

“It was all that fake ghost talk.  It was like I had this out
–of- body experience or something.  Anyway, it creeped me out, so of course I had to start my research to distract myself.”  Her body involuntarily shutddred at the memory. “I’m going to bed.  Hopefully I’ll sleep and not remember a thing.”

“Nighty, night.” 
Bryn waved her fingers goodbye, not taking her eyes off the television screen as eerie music began to fill the room.  Snuggling deeper into the lumpy cushions of the couch, she grabbed the throw off the back and settled in for a night of fright. The anticipation she felt for the rush she got from being scared had nothing on the real thing.

CHAPTER 2

Sweat poured out of her while her breath came in uneven gasps even as she tried to scream.  Was this real? 
Bryn rubbed her eyes roughly. Then peeked through her spread fingers again. She trembled from head to toe as she looked at the young woman in the sunny, calico print dress.  Tears streamed down the girls contorted face.  The sorrow as she held her arms out to Bryn, pleading, made her cold all over. 

“Wh…what do you want?  Go away!”  Her voice came out in a small squeak.

“Help me.  Please, I beg of yo
u
.”
  The apparition clutched at her heart.

“I can’t.  You’re not real.  Go away now. Shoo.”  Bryn made a shooing motion with her hands toward the apparition.

“I assure you I am most certainly real.  My name is Charity Meriwether and I require your assistance, for I am a lost soul.  Look for me in your tomes upon the table.  There you shall see.”

Then she was gone, disappearing into one long line of vapor right before Bryn’s eyes.

She sat there, stunned and staring into space when
RayeAnn came stumbling into the room.

“What’s wrong?  I thought I heard you talking to someone.  You look terrible, are you all right?”  She stood by the couch in her tank top and shorts pajamas, waiting for a reply.  When none came immediately she touched Bryn’s arm gently before speaking again.

“Honey, you’re scaring me a little here.  Answer me.  What’s wrong?”

“Promise not to laugh?”  Her pitiful eyes looked up as they fill
ed with tears.

“Promise.”  She made the sign of the cross over her heart and held up her hand as if taking an oath.

“I saw a…I guess you’d call it a…ghost.  I don’t know any other way to describe it.  It was a young girl, late teens maybe, in a pretty long yellow calico dress.  She looked just like you, Raye.  The spitting image, except her hair was longer and in a bun at the back of her neck.  She told me her name was Charity Meriwether and that we could find out more about her in your books on the table.  It was soooo sad.  She said she was a lost soul.”  Now tears freely streamed down her cheeks. 

“I believe
, that you believe, you saw what you say.  Don’t you think maybe those television programs you’ve been watching might have something to do with this?”

Saying
the words didn’t in any way appease RayeAnn’s nerves, knowing her friend had seen the same person she had seen earlier in her bathtub dream.

“No.  This was real.  When she was done talking she, like, evaporated into thin air.  Poof, and she was gone.  I can still smell her.  Do you smell the
lily of the valley in the air?”

RayeAnn
took a deep breath, thinking she would humor her obviously daft friend, but stopped suddenly when she realized that she did smell lily of the valley.  Moving around the room now and sniffing wildly, she realized that the smell was strongest near her desk.  Placing her nose directly on the stack of books, she sniffed each one individually.  Satisfied that the smell wasn’t coming from any of the ancient books, she turned back to her friend.

“Come on Bryn, this is insane.  You and I both know there
are no such things as ghosts, spirits, orbs and any other supernatural stuff.”

“Then how do you explain it, huh?  Please, enlighten me.  I’m all ears.”  She spread her arms out wide, signifying her openness.

When a book from the bottom of the pile suddenly flew across the room both women went running into the bathroom, slamming the door behind them as they screamed and held each other in fear.  She clamped her jaws so tightly they ached, but she could still feel them chattering.  Together they stood and listened for sounds from the living room.

“Hear anything?” 
RayeAnn whispered

“Just you
, breathing.”

RayeAnn
released her death grip on Bryn. 

“I had the strangest dream last night,” she began.  “I saw a young girl in a calico dress
, picking flowers and dancing in a large field.  When she spotted a man watching her she ran home.  The girl was terrified,”  RayeAnn said. 

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”  Bryn yelled.
  “This is far more than a coincidence, Raye.  Stuff like this is a sign.”

The
y sat facing each other in the empty bathtub, drawing the shower curtain just in case an entity decided to eavesdrop.  Both of them whispered as if someone were listening in on their conversation.  They whispered back and forth for hours, hashing and rehashing all the possibilities.  Was someone playing a practical joke?  Maybe the books were possessed?  Possibly a shared dream?  Did the popcorn bring on weird dreams?  Anything was possible.  Eventually both of them fell asleep in the bathtub, still facing each other.

Sunlight streamed into the tiny window of the bathroom, waking Bryn, who took a deep cleansing breath to steady her nerves.  Then shook RayeAnn awake. 

“What the…” 
RayeAnn looked around the bathroom and down at the tub.  Her eyes widened as though she remembered what had happened last night.  She grabbed Bryn’s hand and together they silently stepped out of the tub, clutching each other before turning the handle of the door and peeking through the tiny crack.  RayeAnn had no idea what to expect, so she wasn’t taking any chances.  After last night anything was possible.  She paused and listened intensely before opening it all the way.  The only thing out of place was the flying book from the night before still sitting on the floor of the hallway.

Too afraid to touch it,
RayeAnn nudged it gently with her toe, her body poised to run at the slightest sign of trouble.  Bryn clutched her arm in a death grip, staying well behind her.

“Ouch!  Lighten up there, sister.  It’s not going to bite you…at least I don’t think it will.  Do you think I should pick it up?”  She chewed her bottom lip nervously as she continued to stare down at the book.

“Umm, I guess you should. I’m pretty sure Charity wants us to look inside and find out her history.”

RayeAnn
shook her hands nervously, trying to release some of the tension from her body and stalling for time.  Taking a deep breath and holding it, she suddenly snatched the book up, holding it tightly to her chest. 
Step one accomplished
.  Now all she needed was the nerve to open it up.  She let her breath out in a slow stream.

“Well, so far, so good.  Why don’t you make some coffee and I’ll start searching the book.  The sooner we get this over with the better.”

“Deal.”  Bryn rushed out of the room at a dead run, not bothering to look back.

Turning the
brittle pages of the book slowly and carefully, she read each page thoroughly.  Afraid the pages might crumble in her fingers, she wondered if she should be wearing gloves while looking through it.  Some of the writing was too faded to read, but she was able to get the gist of most sentences well enough to gather the information she needed.  Halfway through the book she found the name Charity Meriwether mentioned as a guest at one of the holiday parties at another home.  Apparently her family was quite well off, her father a pillar of the community.

Nothing further was mentioned of her for the rest of this registry.  Rubbing her eyes
, RayeAnn looked down at the now cold cup of coffee Bryn had brought her earlier.  She put the book down, then crawled back to her room to grab a little more sleep. Except now sleep wouldn’t come with her mind whirling about with all the information she had just found. Resigned to her fate, she grabbed another registry and read the entries, smiling as the old pages crinkled when she turned them.  She found nothing more about the illusive Charity Meriwether.  On the plus side, she hadn’t found a death record with her name on it.  It was silly to be relieved by that, since obviously the woman had died, or else how could she come back as a ghost and haunt Bryn and her?

Okay, at what point had she begun to think of the haunting as being normal
, as if it were a perfectly common occurrence not only for her but for Bryn, too.  She ran as many possible scenarios through her mind as she could think of, rejecting them one after the other when she noted a flaw.  When no answer came, she plotted her research plan of attack, making a list of reference books to check as well as getting her hands on a map of the area from that time period.

What had started out as a fluffy, fuzzy little human interest article had now turned into a major research project. 
Great.  Just what I don’t need, more work
.  But when she thought about the sadness in Charity’s eyes as she begged for help, RayeAnn knew she had no choice but to follow through.  She forgot for the moment that she was supposed to be a hard hearted, facts only, investigative reporter clawing her way to the top.  Right now she needed a little more shut eye, not more worrying about another ‘visit’ from her friendly neighborhood ghost.  She lay back on the couch, too tired to drag herself back to her room, and she fell asleep immediately.

CHAPTER 3

THREE MONTHS LATER

Frustration throbbed throughout
RayeAnn’s body.  Unable to locate any more records about Charity Meriwether, she now had to face the fact that it was time to throw in the towel.  It went against everything she was about, but she had no choice.  Neither she nor Bryn had heard a peep from their wayward ghost, and she needed to get back to a more productive and realistic story.  She had managed to keep up with her work, but barely.  That wasn’t the way she liked to do things.  For her it was all or nothing.  Now she had to opt for nothing.  What other choice did she have?

Pounding at the door of the apartment startled her out of her little pity party.  She checked the peephole
, then opened the door to a uniformed messenger from the same company she sometimes used.

“Hi, may I help you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I have a package for RayeAnn Trenton.”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Please sign here for the package.”  He thrust a beat-up clipboard at her and waited for her to sign with the attached pen.

These
people never brought good news. She gave her shaky signature and passed the clipboard back to him, pausing to wipe her sweating palms on the front of her jeans before he could hand her the large manila envelope.

“Thank you, ma’am.  Have a good day.”

She stood by the door, staring at the package, afraid to open it, yet not knowing why. 
Maybe just too many old clichés from the classic horror flicks
.  She loved the classic Bella Lugosi, Lon Chaney and Vincent Price films that she had watched over and over again as a child. 
Enough stalling.  Open the stupid package.