Wanted: One Ghost (14 page)

Kenneth hadn’t left her any messages. She did send him one, telling him about James having sent copies of documents for Daniel to his attorney in London and the fact she would check into finding Peter Hyman’s records here in Kings Mill. She didn’t have a whole lot to report.

April sighed and logged off of her laptop, watching the small icon lights on the machine fade off as it powered down. Gathering her notebook she turned to leave and slammed into an immovable energy field. Like a mime stuck in a box, she literally found the whole area around her blocked. An invisible barricade held her back, forcing her into a corner.

Panic set in as she pushed against the indiscernible wall with her shoulder, only to have it push back until she was pressed up against the interior corner of her room. She tried to scream for help, but her throat constricted painfully, as if someone was choking her. A vise-like pain pressed against her jaw and her senses became overwhelmed with a fetid stench. If this were a man on the street she would knee him in the groin, but she wasn’t sure what she was dealing with.

Still, she brought her knee up hard as if it was a man attacking her, and the force receded instantly. She wasn’t sure if it was because of her actions or the presence of her mother in the doorway calling her name.

“Did you not hear me? We’ve been waiting for you for ten minutes now. Come on, I’m starved. Bad enough you kept us up late and then slept in until nine-thirty.”

Shaking, chills coursed through her body. April looked around, rubbing her jaw which still ached. She didn’t want to frighten her mother. Whatever happened was gone now. She was fine. Taking the time to register her mother’s ranting, she realized what she was saying. Ten minutes hadn’t passed. No way! She’d only been on the laptop for a few minutes at most.

Her mother came into the room and held a hand to her face. “Are you all right, April? You look a bit pale.” She stopped, looked around, as if listening for something.

“I’m fine, Mom, I just—” Her mother held a finger to her lips and she stopped talking. With Virginia guiding her by the hand they quickly left the room, shutting the door behind them.

Not a word was spoken. Her mother silently moved her down the grand staircase and out of the house. James trailed after them with their coats from the foyer coat tree. Grandma Dottie and Aunt Vickie were waiting outside, sitting in the wicker chairs conversing. They stopped talking as her mother hurried them out of the house and down the porch steps.

Aunt Vickie went back to the door, stopped, looked up at the house and quickly locked the door. Puzzled, she hurried down the front steps, waiting for her mother to explain. Grandma Dottie followed behind knowing something was up. Both women looked to her for an explanation. Seeing the eager retreat of her mother’s pace, April knew this wasn’t the time or place for discussion. James looked at her confused and slightly angry that something had happened to affect both her and her mother so severely. “What’s wrong?” He turned to the other women. “What’s going on?”

Aunt Vickie raised her eyebrow questioningly at him, a hint of a smile forming. “That’s what we would like to know.”

Not sure if she should talk yet, April kept in stride with her mother as they led the way down the street and around the corner to the Town Diner. Her mother’s quiet demeanor and quick pace worried her. April glanced back briefly every few minutes. Still, no one said a word.

The proprietor greeted Aunt Vickie who happily introduced everyone in the party. After greeting several of the locals her aunt knew, they retreated to a private room. The casual, happy attitudes of her aunt, grandmother, and mother evaporated when the waitress left to retrieve their drinks.

“What happened in your bedroom?” her mother leaned over the table. The tension in her voice brooked no argument.

Appalled, her grandmother glared at her daughter. “None of your damn business, Virginia! What happened between April and James last night is between them. They’re both consenting adults.”

“What did you two do last night?” Aunt Vickie asked April as she leaned over the table, smiling, eager for details. James coughed at her aunt’s brassiness.

April sighed. “It wasn’t James. Would you all stop with the sexual innuendos? Your embarrassing me and making James feel uncomfortable.” April looked at her mother. “I’m not sure what happened this morning, Mom.”

“Something happened? When?” Grandma Dottie’s attention moved from her mother to her and back.

James’s glare landed on her as did everyone else’s attention. They all wanted to know what happened this morning. April hated being grilled.

“I’d just checked my emails when I was forced up against the wall. I didn’t see anything but couldn’t move. Then I sensed pain shooting up my neck and jaw as if someone was trying to choke me. I tried to scream for help but I couldn’t speak. So I instinctively brought my knee up. If it was a man I think I nailed him good. He let go but then you showed up, Mom.”

“You were attacked in your bedroom?” James’s eyes rounded on her.

“A man attacked you in my house?!” Aunt Vickie blanched, placing her hand on her own throat. “Oh, dear Lord!”

“That’s it! We need a thorough cleansing of the house!” Grandma Dottie slammed her menu down.

Her mother nodded in agreement. “I heard it, April. There was a presence in the room with you. And not very friendly.”

“Who did this to you?” James demanded. His jaw tightened with the same rage April saw in his eyes.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything.” She didn’t want to get him all riled up. Besides, how could anyone fight an invisible entity?

“You will not be alone in the house any more. I will be at your side at all times.” His fingers clenched into fists, turning the knuckles white. “I will set up a cot in your room to make sure you are safe at night.”

“You’ll do no such thing. This is ridiculous, James.” April rolled her eyes, trying to make light of the situation.

“Yes. Why set up a cot? You could just share the bed. It’s big enough,” Grandma Dottie smirked with a knowing look in her eyes.

“Mother!” Her mom gasped, peeking up from behind the large menu.

“Oh please, Virginia. She’s nearly thirty years old and I’m not getting any younger. I would like to see a great-grandchild someday before I move on. She’s definitely not a virgin anymore. Besides, no one her age is.” Dottie turned to James to explain the sexual relationships now.

April wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. She hid behind the menu, pretending deep interest in her choices of food as her grandmother gave her research subject details about sex after the age of the ‘sexual revolution.’ Even another ghostly encounter would be welcomed over her grandmother discussing sex with James Addison.

“I see. Well, things have changed a bit,” she could hear James say to her grandmother.
Dear God, let the topic go away!

Thankfully God answered her prayers by sending the waitress back right then with their drinks. Unfortunately, James picked back up on the topic when the waitress left.

“This Jason person never asked for your hand in marriage though he took your innocence? Did your father not call him out?” James interrogated. He’d turned his body towards her, leaning casually on his elbow, with eyebrows raised as if he were a trial lawyer, and she was the nervous witness on the stand.

“Oh, Jason wasn’t her first,” Aunt Vickie added ever so helpfully. “Didn’t you and Scott Barnes take a trip up to the family cabin in Deep Creek Lake your freshman year at Frostburg?”

“Not now, Aunt Vickie,” April groaned, placing her head on the table and covering her ears as the two elderly sisters discussed her past sexual relationships as if she wasn’t even there.

Lifting her head from the Formica table top, April glared from her grandmother to her aunt. “Can we possibly talk about something else, like what we need to do now?”

James’s lips thinned into a grim line. Was he appalled by her past relationships? Did he think poorly of her now? Was he one of those types who held double-standards when it came to men and women and their sexual escapades? But then, it shouldn’t bother her. The more information he had, the more he could understand she wasn’t an innocent and could handle anything he might dish out when it came to sex.

The waitress blessedly broke the tension when she placed a basket of jams, margarine, and syrup in the middle of the table and took their order.

“Okay, back to the topic at hand,” her mother said, fixing her coffee. “We need to figure out what happened in the time frame April was up in her room.”

“I wasn’t up there for long, Mom, a couple of minutes at most.” April took a sip of her orange juice. “Just long enough to check my emails.”

Her grandmother shook her head cautiously. “No dear, you were up there much longer. From the time I told you to meet us downstairs to when your mother went up to get you—we’d been waiting for nearly fifteen minutes.”

Looking around the table and seeing the nods from the others she shook her head in denial. “Fifteen minutes, no. That’s impossible.”

“Did you notice anything at all? Could you see a different reality or sense a change in your surroundings?” Aunt Vickie asked.

“No, just the invisible box I seemed to be in and the sense of someone’s hands on my throat. I smelled rot and decay but, I don’t know, it could have been my imagination.”

Aunt Vickie nodded. “I say there was a warp in the realms.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions, Victoria, realms can’t manipulate time,” Grandma Dottie scoffed.

“No, but strong energy levels can,” April’s mother piped up.

All the other women looked to her as if she’d lost her mind. This wasn’t something Virginia Branford would offer up. She tended to avoid all talk of the paranormal.

“You two have told me for years how strong levels of spiritual energy can manifest into different realms from a ghostly perspective. Who’s to say April can’t do the same from this realm into the next?”

James snapped his fingers. “Perhaps this is what happened to you Sunday when you came out to the mill site, why my workers and I could see you in our past realm.”

“Excuse me?” April’s mother looked up from her coffee cup at James and then at April. “What is he talking about?” She looked for answers from the other two women yet they showed the same perplexed, inquisitive, what-didn’t-you-tell-us look in their eyes. “April May Branford—” her mother’s warning threatened to explode.

She hated it when her mother used her full name! It was never a good thing, and she was beyond getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar, especially in front of James.

Now she had four sets of eyes trained on her, waiting for her answer.

April sighed. “It was a fluke. I was exploring the property and had some allergy issues causing me to hallucinate—like I did that time in Jamestown,” she explained. “I got scared and as I was leaving witnessed a scene from James’s time. I didn’t think anything of it until he mentioned having been able to see me that day.” She wasn’t going to tell them about what she’d witnessed at the manor house ruins. They would go ballistic on her! Like they were about to go ballistic on her now.

“And when did you tell me about this?” Aunt Vickie asked with slight irritation. “I asked you to tell me everything, April. Everything is important in order to find out what your true gift is. You can’t discount anything, not a single iota of information.”

“I didn’t think it was really important at the time.” She looked up with remorse, knowing now what affect it might have. “I didn’t want you to think I was crazy or…”

“…or suffering from the family curse?” her mother added.

The other two women sighed with a hint of frustration.

“Well, I think we need to check out this mill site. I would like to get some readings on it, personally,” Aunt Vickie said to change the delicate subject.

Turning to James, April touched his hand. “Are you okay with going back there, James? I know it’s going to be different now the mill is no longer there.”

“It’s no longer there?” He looked around the table. “What happened to it?”

The women all looked to one another. “You don’t know?” Vickie asked.

He shook his head slowly, looking towards April. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. She really didn’t want to reveal the truth to him, but someone had to. “James, it burned down in a fire only a few weeks after your death. Everything was destroyed. No one knows how or why.”

He shook his head. “No. Daniel wouldn’t have let anything happen to the mill.”

Vickie reached over and patted his hand. “I know this is difficult for you to take in, James. Records show it happened during Sunday mass while everyone from the mill was in church…everyone except Daniel Smith. But he was never found in order to be brought in for questioning.”

“Ridiculous! Are you assuming Daniel had something to do—? No, not Daniel. I could imagine anyone but Daniel.” James’s finger punctuated his statement on the tabletop. “Daniel loved the mill as much as I did, even more at times.”

“There is no record stating who was accused of the crime. We can’t jump to conclusions, Aunt Vickie, anymore than to say James committed treason. Its hearsay and legend until all the facts are in place.”

James’s hand tightened around her fingers. She looked worriedly into his eyes.

“I need to go there, April. I need to see what is left of my land now.”

***

The trip back to the manor ruins seemed quicker this time. Grandma Dottie walked over and read the marker. April knelt down to remove debris from the plaque. Looking up from her task, she noticed Aunt Vickie meditating. The older woman closed her eyes and placed her crystal to her brow, one of the most common chakra centers in the body in psychometry. She turned three-hundred and sixty degrees and began to walk trance-like into the overgrowth of field beyond. Not knowing what to do, never experiencing her aunt’s ability, April looked to her grandmother for guidance. A subtle nod told her to go ahead. Throwing the dead foliage to the side, she followed her aunt.

Watching her walk around with her eyes closed scared April. The woman could fall and break her hip or something. Her aunt didn’t seem at all bothered by her lack of sight and made her way through the tall grasses and weeds on her own as well as or better than most with their eyes opened. She was used to using all five physical senses; sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste all working in conjunction with each other—or separately if needed. April tried to catch some essence of the spiritual world surrounding Vickie but gave up as she realized this wasn’t her gift. Instead, she quietly followed.

She didn’t want to speak and pull Aunt Vickie out of whatever hold possessed her, but she motioned for the others to follow. Her aunt walked uninhibited into the middle of the great field. Peace and contentment lined her face like a child enjoying the warmth of the sun bearing down on her. Then she stumbled, falling to her knees and clutching her head momentarily, in concentration. April wanted to help her but her grandmother stopped her with her hand, letting the moment pass.