Sheila Connolly - Relatively Dead 02 - Seeing the Dead (26 page)

“Uh, sure, fine. What did you want to talk about?”

Helen glanced around nervously, but there were no other researchers in the room, and it was late enough in the day that Abby thought it was unlikely that any more would be arriving. Helen sat. “I almost didn’t say anything, but the more I thought about it, the more I figured I should. Feel free to laugh at me if you want, because this is really weird.”

Abby was mystified. “Go on. And I’ve heard some pretty odd things myself.”
Particularly in the last six months.

“Okay.” Helen stared at her hands, which were twisting around as though they had a life of their own. “You said you were here two weeks ago, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. That time I called ahead to make an appointment so I could be sure someone would be here, but I didn’t say what I was looking for. Why?”

“I remember your call, and I was going to meet you here. In fact, I’d already arrived and opened up, when there was one of those minor emergencies at home and I had to leave in a hurry. Everything turned out fine, but afterward I realized I had left the door unlocked, I was in such a rush.”

“Okay,” Abby said cautiously. “But Esther was here. I just assumed she was keeping the appointment. Wasn’t she supposed to be here?”

“Well, that’s the problem, you see. Uh, Esther hasn’t been
anywhere
for quite a while.”

Why was Helen having such a problem spitting this out? “You mean, she’s been confined to her home?”

“No. She died six months ago.”

Oh. Oh, no.
Abby’s head swam, and she noted her own response to that news with interest.
Never had that happen before, nope. Wow.
“But I spoke to her! We talked. She knew why I was there. I even paid her!”

Helen, having spit out the worst of her news, eyed her with something like pity. “Can you describe the woman you saw?”

“She introduced herself as Esther Jewett—that was the first time I heard her name. She was old, short—kind of hunched over, with osteoporosis. But her voice was strong. I remember thinking she could have been a hundred.”

Helen nodded. “Esther was ninety-four when she died. She’d lived in Littleton all her life, and generations of her family before her. She volunteered here for years, and knew more about the history of the town than anyone else I’ve met. Strong woman, knew her own mind. But she’s dead.”

“Would someone have impersonated her?” Abby asked, grasping at straws.

“I can’t see why. And there aren’t that many women of that age in town, and none who would know our collections well. I can’t explain it.”

Abby thought for a moment. What the heck—by now Helen had probably already labeled her either crazy or a liar or both. “Has anyone else seen Esther since she … passed?”

Helen’s eyes widened, the whites showing. “You mean, you think she’s a ghost?”

“Helen, I don’t know. What I do know is that I talked to an elderly woman, and she pointed me toward the right documents. Other than that she left me pretty much alone. Do you happen to have a genealogy for her family here?” Abby said, surprised that she managed to keep her voice steady.

“Of course. Esther did one decades ago. You want to see it now? I mean, you look kind of pale. If you want to leave and come back another day, that’s all right.”

Abby suspected that Helen would be happy never to see her again. “I’m fine, really. I’m just trying to make sense of what you’ve told me. I talked to Esther here two weeks ago, but Esther couldn’t have been here. Did she have children? A sister?”

Helen shook her head. “No, Esther was the last of her line. She’d outlived every relative she knew about.” She stood up. “Let me get you her family tree.”

Abby was glad to have a moment to sort out her chaotic thoughts. It couldn’t be. She was used to seeing the dead now, but had she really had a conversation with one of them? She tried to remember the details of her visit. The door had been open when she arrived—Helen had said she left it open by accident, so Esther hadn’t had to open it. Could ghosts move objects? Esther had certainly looked solid—but where was it written that ghosts had to be transparent? Then Esther had directed her to the town records—in a part of the building usually off limits—but the books had already been on the table, so Esther hadn’t needed to move them either. Abby had paid Esther—but Esther had asked her to leave the money on the table, rather than taking it from her. So as far as Abby could remember, Esther had not touched or moved anything while Abby was there. But they had talked to each other; they had carried on an actual conversation. This was not an echo of the past, this was here and now. And Esther was dead.

“Here we go,” Helen said, laying a sheaf of papers in front of Abby. “I’ll give you a minute to look it over, and if you want, I can give you a copy. But then I really should be closing up.”

“Sure. I’ll be quick.” Abby was pretty sure Helen wanted to get rid of her. She wondered if she would be allowed back in the building.

She pulled Esther’s genealogy toward her and started leafing through the pages, but she was pretty sure what she would find, and it didn’t take long. Esther was descended from Thomas Perry, son of “her” Henry, by his first wife. And Henry was the grandson of a witch.

“Did you want a copy?” Helen interrupted her yet again.

“Yes, please. Oh, can you tell me where Esther is buried?”

“Certainly—the cemetery just across the highway, outside of town. I’ll get you those copies now.”

The cemetery she
hadn’t
seen, not the one she had. It figured. And she’d have to go directly by the property where Henry and Reuben had lived. It all made sense, in a crazy way.

26

After accepting the copies from Helen and paying her for them, Abby went out the front door of the building—which Helen slammed shut behind her—and sat down on the granite steps, her legs suddenly weak. Two weeks ago … after she’d seen Henry Perry on the green. Was that what had brought Esther out? Out from where? Of course, Esther didn’t have any sort of schedule, so she could have popped out whenever Abby showed up. Had she been waiting for her? Would she have tracked Abby down if Abby hadn’t visited the historical society? What was Esther’s range? Could she go anywhere she wanted, or was she somehow tied to Littleton? What were the rules for this ghost business?

She shut her eyes, the better to recall the woman she’d seen. She hadn’t sensed anything out of the ordinary. She’d seen what she expected to see: a living breathing woman, although she’d been older than Abby had expected. Obviously Esther had been the right person to talk to, since she knew the Perry family history inside and out, and had pointed Abby in the right direction. Had Esther somehow engineered Helen’s absence? That seemed ridiculous—more likely it was just a lucky coincidence.

Why was it that every time she thought she had a handle on things, the universe threw another curveball at her? She was okay with seeing flashes of dead people, if she interpreted it in terms of residual energy. That made sense to her. They had left an imprint behind that for some reason she could “read.” And it seemed that the imprint faded after her first sighting, like the electricity had been discharged. But Esther was a different case altogether. She’d been right there in front of her, talking to her, like any ordinary human being.

When she’d sat down on the steps, she’d felt too shaky to think of driving. After a few minutes Abby felt steadier, and she knew what she had to do: go look for Esther, even though that sounded absurd, even to her. The only place she could think to look was the cemetery where Esther had been buried. She knew where the highway was, and Helen had said the cemetery lay just beyond it. It should be easy to find.

Once in the car Abby concentrated on driving slowly and carefully; she couldn’t afford to dwell on what she had just learned or what she might find at the cemetery. The cemetery was, as she had expected, no more than a mile or two away. When she reached it, she turned into the driveway and parked near the entrance, since she had no idea which way to go.

The cemetery was built on a low hill, rising up from the road. The older stones appeared at the nearer end, which meant that Esther would be closer to the top. Would her grave even be marked? Had whoever buried her been waiting until the ground thawed in the spring to install a stone? Or was there no one left to see to it? No spouse, no children. Just lots of ancestors. Were they here? Or had this site been chosen because there was no room left at the older cemetery in town?

Abby started walking up the hill. It was getting late, and the sun was already low in the sky, off to the west. Abby didn’t think it mattered much: seeing Esther didn’t require physical light. She reached the top of the hill and turned around, looking at the graves spread out below, raggedy lines of them running down the hill. She could hear the sound of traffic on the highway, not far away. A lone car passed on the road in front of the cemetery. Abby shut her eyes.

“I wondered when you’d show up,” a voice said from behind her. Abby opened her eyes and turned around to see Esther standing there, dressed as she had been the last time Abby had seen her. It was less appropriate here outside, but then, Esther couldn’t feel cold anymore, could she?

Here goes nothing,
Abby thought. “Hi, Esther. You were expecting me?”

“I thought you’d figure it out. I certainly gave you enough hints. You want to sit?”

“I think I’d better.”

Esther pointed toward a bench along the one-lane road that led up the hill, and Abby walked over and sat. So did Esther, which puzzled Abby. Was she just being courteous? Or was it a habit from the last days she’d been alive?

“Look, I’m kind of new at all this, and I don’t know how it all works. Forgive me if this is rude, but you’re dead, right?” Abby said.

“I am. Died in October last year. I can’t tell you what they put on the death certificate—probably heart failure—but I died of old age, pure and simple. It was my time.”

So no murder, no violent death—and nobody to grieve for her. “Why are you here?” Abby asked.

“Damned if I know. No, I am not some mystical messenger sent from the Great Beyond to tell you something important. I’m just here.”

“Here for me? Or here in general?”

“Nobody else has seen me, if that’s your question. Didn’t really expect it—I’ve outlived most of my relations. I figure you’re family, though. Am I right?”

Abby nodded. “If you go back a few generations, yes. That’s what you wanted me to find at the historical society, right?”

“Yes.”

“You knew where I’d be?”

“Once you got here. I couldn’t see you before you got to Littleton.”

Well, that answered one of her questions. “So you can’t leave here?”

“Look, young lady, I don’t know all the rules any more than you do. I was born in this town here, I died here. This is what I know. Why would I go anywhere else?”

Abby shrugged. “I don’t know. So is there something you want to tell me, or are we just chatting?”

“Guess I wanted you to know I was here. It can get lonely.”

“What, you don’t see everybody you’ve ever known? Or at least the ones from here?”

Esther shook her head. “Like I said, I’m new here. It’s not like everybody who ever was is milling around, and we all stop and have tea and swap gossip now and then.”

Abby thought a moment, trying to figure out the most important questions to ask a ghost sitting next to her on a bench. She wasn’t going to touch “Is there a God?” or “Are there angels?” “Did you see … others like you when you were alive?”

“Dead people, you mean? Maybe. When I was young … But nobody believed me anyway. When I got older, I said to myself, what the hey? If they want to visit, let ’em come. Caught some glimpses, maybe.”

“Relatives or strangers?” Abby prompted.

“My pa, my grandpa, a few others. Some I knew, some not. No strangers. Nobody famous or important either—George Washington hasn’t stopped by.”

That confirmed what Abby had guessed. “You told me to look back up the Perry line.”

Esther looked at her then. “I did. What’d you find?” Her look challenged Abby.

Abby returned the look. “John Perry, who died in Cambridge in 1692. Was that the one you were thinking of?”

“You’re smart—I’ll give you that. They called him a witch.”

“They called a lot of people witches around that time. Were there any? Real ones, I mean?”

“Hard to say. I wasn’t there, no matter how old you think I am. I never met one, face-to-face, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

“Was John Perry a witch?” Abby said.

“What do you think?” Esther replied. “Whatever the heck ‘witch’ means.”

If she was forced to give a description at that moment, Abby would have to say “someone who has powers that most people don’t, which scares people.” Abby shelved that question for further thought. She tried a new tack. “Did you ever meet other people who could ‘see,’ the way you and I can?”

“Maybe, but nobody ever talked about it. You?”

“Yes. More than one now. People still don’t talk about it. But so far it’s only people seeing their own family members, like you.” Abby was seized with regret that Ned could never share this conversation, could never ask the questions Abby was trying to put together now. What would he want to know? “You think it’s something in the blood? Something passed down through the generations?”

“That’d be my guess, but I can’t say for sure. But here you are, and you’re blood.”

“I guess so.” Abby fell silent and realized she was getting cold. She hadn’t dressed for sitting in a cemetery at dusk, talking to a ghost.

“Will you come back, to talk to me like this?
Can
you come back?” she asked at last.

“To talk to you? Maybe. Like I keep saying, I don’t know how all this works yet. You got any more questions, you’d better ask them now.”

For the life of her, Abby couldn’t think of anything else. Esther had told her she thought this phenomenon was hereditary. She thought she’d seen members of her own family, and guessed that there were other people with the same ability, but she’d never asked them directly. She hadn’t had to come to terms with being “different,” because she’d ignored whatever it was, much as Ned had. It seemed to be a fragile gift.