by Eva Pohler
“Wow. I bet that wasn’t cheap.”
“I’m hoping to learn something about the ghost girl, like if she’s really a ghost, you know?”
“I get it.”
The first page was the bill for $325.
“What does it say?” Paul asked.
The second page was a letter addressed to her. She read it out loud:
Dear Ellen Mohr,
We have completed our analysis of the samples you sent on September 16th, to the best of our abilities.
We successfully isolated two latent finger prints. We found one on the book using a fluorescent dye stain and an orange alternate light source. After taking a photo of the print, we were unable to find a match in any of our databases.
The second print was taken from the pillowcase using a chemical process involving gold and zinc. We identified the print with a record in the Texas Department of Public Safety database. The record belongs to a seventy-three year-old resident of San Antonio whose name is Robert Forrester. His address is 4327 Alta Vista. His phone number is 210-655-3077. No email address or mobile phone number is provided.
Ellen looked up from the letter. “That must be Bud, that neighbor I told you about.”
“His prints were on a pillow case? That’s odd. What did he do? Go take a nap there?”
“He probably snooped around just like Sue and her mom and I did.” She hadn’t ruled out the possibility that Bud Forrester was doing something wrong.
She continued reading:
As you requested, we analyzed the hair sample in multiple ways to yield the maximum information. These were our findings:
The hair lacks any pigmentation, indicating that its host possesses an acute form of albinism. Hormones and proteins present in the shaft indicate that the host is female in her mid-twenties in relatively good health, though slightly deficient in iron and potassium.
Ellen’s breath caught. Did this mean their ghost was alive? Or did it just mean that the ghost was in her twenties when she died? Ellen thought back to her encounters with the ghost girl. She’d looked more like a teenager, but she supposed it was possible that her thin frame and very pale skin made her appear to be younger than she really was.
“Does that mean she’s not a ghost?” Paul asked.
“I’m not sure.”
Ellen continued reading.
Please note that pigmentation may have been chemically stripped prior to your collection of the sample, rendering our conclusions incorrect. Given other factors present in the shaft, we estimate our results to be 80%-85% accurate.
The hair sample did not contain the living hair root necessary for DNA testing.
Ellen looked up again.
“Oh, so it is a ghost,” Paul said.
“I’m still not sure. I don’t know what that means.”
“Maybe you can call the lab for clarification.”
Ellen nodded. “Or maybe I can find out on the Internet.”
For now, she continued reading.
However, using an electron microscope, we successfully isolated nuclear DNA preserved in the corneocytes of the hair shaft. The DNA confirms that the host is female.
We were unable to match the sample to any records in our DNA databases. We did, however, find an 86% match with a record in the San Antonio State Hospital database, belonging to a current patient. An 86% match indicates that the patient on record and the host of the hair sample are blood relatives. Unfortunately, patient confidentiality precludes us from relaying information about the patient to you in our report.
Air rushed from Ellen’s lungs, and her throat tightened. “The San Antonio State Hospital?”
“Sounds like you’ll be heading over there soon.” Paul took a bottle of barbecue sauce and a pastry brush with him back out to the deck, leaving Ellen with her thoughts.
Could a living relative of the girl—whether the girl herself was alive or dead—be residing in the state hospital at this very moment? She reread the letter. When she came to the end, she read it was signed:
Cordially,
Carl Fromme, Senior Forensic Anthropologist
Later that evening, Ellen sat between Sue and Tanya on the newly reconstructed front porch. It hadn’t yet been painted, but the windows, siding, and floorboards were new, and there were no more holes in the ceiling. They each sat in their witch’s hats in their folding-chair-from-a-bag with Sue’s big plastic cauldron filled with dry ice in front of them. The steam from the dry ice fogged up the porch and looked appropriately eerie in the orange light cast by the string of jack-o-lantern lights they’d hung from the arches of the portico.
Ellen had brought a bucket of candy, and Tanya had made a pitcher of margaritas. There was just enough of a chill in the air to keep them cold.
As they had strung the lights, carefully hammering in tiny nails in the underside of the newly constructed portico, Ellen had told them about the letter.
Now, as they waited for the trick-or-treaters, they sipped margaritas in the cool night air as they each looked out from the Gold House porch.
After a few minutes, Sue broke the silence. “How much did you have to pay for that report, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Three hundred dollars,” Ellen said. “It was worth it, even if it doesn’t tell us whether the girl is dead or alive.”
“I don’t understand how you can still be unsure about that,” Tanya said. “Why would any living person behave the way she has?”
Ellen shrugged. “I hope to find out.”
“So how soon can we visit the state hospital?” Sue asked.
“We should call them first thing Monday morning to make an appointment.” Ellen sipped her margarita.
“Why wait until Monday?” Sue said. “They’re open on Sundays. We could go tomorrow. I bet my mom could help us.”
“That’s right!” Ellen sat up. “Your mom worked there for a while, didn’t she?”
“Five or six years, I think,” Sue said. “It was toward the end of her career, after she retired from the Methodist Hospital System.”
“What are we expecting to find at the state hospital?” Tanya asked. “The ghost’s mother?”
“Possibly,” Ellen said. “And if the girl is a ghost, maybe finding her mother will give her closure. If she’s a young woman pretending to be a ghost, well, we help her, too. She may be troubled.”
“She’d have to be,” Sue said. “Though, it would be nicer if she were a living person, especially for her mother.”
Ellen found it hard to believe that Sue wasn’t hoping to prove Ellen wrong about the existence of ghosts. “Really?”
“Of course,” Sue said. “Why wouldn’t I? You think I want the girl to be dead?”
“It’s just that after all the trouble you’ve gone through with the séance, and then Tanya and her psychic, well, I thought you’d both be disappointed if we discovered that she’s not really a ghost.”
“I’d be less freaked out,” Tanya said. “Either way, she’s pretty creepy.”
“Not creepy,” Ellen said. “Desperate. Either way, she’s desperate. I may not be able to sense spirits, but I can sense that.”
“I think it’s highly unlikely that she’s still alive,” Sue said. “But I won’t be disappointed if she is.”
Just then, they noticed Bud pushing Millie in her wheelchair across the lawn toward them. Millie was holding a plate in each hand and another on her lap. Ellen and her friends waved.
“This ought to be interesting,” Sue muttered.
“I wish it could just be the three of us,” Tanya said. “Do you think she’ll stay long?”
“We’re about to find out,” Ellen said.
“Oh, look,” Sue said cheerfully. “She did make that pie.”
Bud turned onto the sidewalk and parked his wife in front of the porch beside the steps and bannister. There wasn’t a ramp, and there was no way Bud could lift Millie and the chair.
“Well if it isn’t the three witches of Eastwick,”
Bud said smiling.
“Hello, Millie,” Sue said. “Bud.”
“Hello, ladies,” Millie said. “I didn’t know I should dress in costume.”
“Oh, these old things?” Ellen pulled off her hat. “They’re just for fun.”
“Don’t take it off on my account,” Millie said. “You three look cute. What kind of potion are you cooking in your cauldron?”
“It’s a love potion,” Sue said. “I’m a little bored with my husband.”
“I heard it was the other way around,” Tanya said.
“He’s the one who wanted us to make the potion,” Ellen said with a smile.
They all laughed.
“That’s my exit cue,” Bud said just before he passed a plate of pie to Ellen and each of her friends. “I’ll come back in a half hour, Mill. Sound good?”
Millie nodded. “Thanks, Bud.”
Bud headed back to his house.
“Thank you for the pie,” Ellen said to Millie.
“It looks delicious,” Sue said.
“Would you like a margarita?” Tanya asked. “I brought an extra cup for you.”
“Oh, no thank you. I can’t drink alcohol with my medication. But thank you. That was nice of you.”
“Have you seen much of our ghost girl?” Ellen asked her before taking a bite of the pumpkin pie. “Bud said she was hanging out more at your place.”
“Yes, we have. Nearly every day. I really hope she doesn’t plan to stay.”
“I bet once the construction workers leave, she’ll migrate back over here,” Sue said. Then she added, “Oh, this pie is really good.”
“Thank you” Millie said. “It’s my mother’s recipe. And you’re probably right about the ghost.”
“Have you ever wondered if she might not be a ghost?” Ellen asked.
Tanya rolled her eyes, and Sue furled her brows, as if to say Ellen shouldn’t have asked the question.
“I have,” Millie said. “She looks real enough, even if she is white as a ghost and always wearing a white dress, and this and that. I have wondered if she might be a con artist or something. But she doesn’t seem to be getting anything out of it, if she’s pretending. I don’t see a motive. And Bud is convinced she’s a ghost, so I suppose that has settled it for me.”
Ellen’s brows lifted of their own accord, and she gave Sue a knowing look. Maybe Bud knew something and was keeping it from his wife. She recalled one of her first theories—that somehow Bud was holding this girl under his control.
“What do you know about the patients who used to live here?” Tanya asked. “Anything?”
“I don’t know much about the patients,” Millie said. “But one of the nurses became good friends with my mother back when I was a teenager. She used to come over and tell us things, and this and that.”
Ellen’s back straightened. “What things?”
“Well, Barbara used to complain a lot,” Millie said. “She wanted to quit, but couldn’t afford to, so she put up with the doctor.”
“Put up with him?” Tanya asked.
“The doctor wouldn’t allow some of his patients to move at all,” she explained. “The nurses had to do everything for them—turn them in the night, bring and empty bed pans, and clean each patient several times a day, and this and that.”
“I can see how that would get tiresome,” Sue said.
“The thing she hated most was what the doctor called organ stimulation,” Millie said in a softer voice.
“What was that?” Ellen asked.
“Some organs were easier to stimulate than others,” Millie explained. “Barbara had to massage their abdomens and their lower backs and this and that.”
“Like message therapy?” Tanya asked.
“I suppose, but she said this was different. They did massage therapy on the muscles, but organ stimulation targeted the kidneys, the intestines, the stomach, you know, the organs.”
“I see,” Ellen said.
“That wasn’t the worst part,” Millie said softly. “My mother didn’t know I was listening, but once I heard Barbara say she had to help the doctor stimulate the patients’ sex organs, too.” Millie didn’t say “sex organs.” She mouthed them.
Ellen’s jaw dropped open. So her mother had been right. “Did the doctor have sex with them?”
Millie nodded. “According to Barbara.”
“That’s horrible,” Tanya said, gaping.
“What prevented him from getting his patients pregnant?” Sue asked. “They didn’t have the pill back then.”
“Apparently, the doctor tracked their ovulation cycles, but it seems he made mistakes, and this and that.”
“Or he put his urges before his medicine,” Sue said.
“Barbara hated it,” Millie said. “I don’t know how she went on with it.”
“Well, we know how the doctor went on with it,” Tanya said. “Maybe his whole practice was just a way to take advantage of helpless women.”
“I don’t think so,” Millie said. “Barbara gave me the impression that he really cared about curing his patients—that he felt he was doing the right thing.”
Ellen wasn’t sure what to think, or what to say, but at that moment, two little princesses—Elsa and Anna from Frozen—turned up the sidewalk carrying bags of candy. They were followed by a smiling woman in her sixties.
“Hi, there, Ida,” Millie said. “Are these your lovely granddaughters?”
“Yes, they are,” Ida replied. She pointed to Elsa. “That’s Haley.” She pointed to Anna. “And this one’s Kylie.”
“You girls make beautiful princesses,” Millie said.
“What do you say, girls?” Ida prompted.
“Thank you,” they each said softly.
“Ida, I’d like to introduce you to the new owners of the Gold House,” Millie said. “This is Sue, Ellen, and…I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”
“Tanya,” Tanya said as she dropped handfuls of candy into each girl’s bag.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Ida said. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Thank you,” Ellen and her friends said.
“Can you girls thank them for the candy?” Ida said to her granddaughters.
“Thank you,” they said.
“So I heard you ladies are planning to flip this house,” Ida said. “Is that right?”
Ellen nodded. “Our plan is to restore it and go from there. We’d like to somehow preserve its history.”
“We’ve thought about operating a bed and breakfast,” Tanya said.
Ellen scraped the last of the pie crumbs into a neat little pile at the center of her plate. “I’d rather turn it into a museum about the rest cure, but that’s a pipe dream.”
“A museum would be lovely,” Ida said. “Much better than a zoo.”
Sue crossed her arms and rested them on her belly. “We may just make it museum-like. We found photos of the patients who used to live here, and Ellen is going to paint portraits from them.”
Ellen blushed. “If I can pull it off.”
“She can,” Sue said.
“Sounds really wonderful,” Ida said. “I’ve always wondered about this house. When my husband and I moved in fifteen years ago, it was already abandoned.”
“I didn’t realize the house’s history was so important to you,” Millie said to Ellen. “You should talk to my mother. She probably knows a lot more than I do, since she lived next door all her life.”
“Oh, could we?” Ellen asked. She wondered how coherent Millie’s mother was.
“That would really be helpful,” Sue said.
“Well, it all sounds marvelous,” Ida said. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Nice meeting you,” Ellen said as the three turned and walked away.
Once they had gone, Ellen turned to Millie and said, “Ida seems nice.”
“Yes, she’s one of my best friends.”
Ellen had wanted to ask more about the Robertsons, but their conversati
on was interrupted when a black Camaro pulled up in front of the house. Ellen wondered if a car load of trick-or-treaters would pile out. Then the windows were rolled down, revealing people dressed in costumes. They didn’t appear to be parking or to be getting out to collect candy. They stared at Ellen and the others, like they were waiting for something.
Ellen stood up to get a better look just as an egg hit the column in front of her. Several more eggs came toward them. Millie, who couldn’t move fast enough, cried out as she was slammed with one and then another.
“What?” Sue cried out.
“Oh, my gosh!” Tanya shrieked, jumping up and taking cover behind a column.
“This is ridiculous,” Ellen muttered.
Poor Millie. She was covered in raw egg, and her cheeks, visible in the orange Halloween lights, were as red as apples.
“I’ve got your license plate number!” Ellen shouted to the people in the Camaro. “I’m on the phone with the police.” She was bluffing, but they didn’t know that.
“Screw you, witch!” one of them—just a kid—hollered back, and the car was filled with laughter.
“Should I call 911?” Ellen asked the others.
“Can you really see their license plate?” Sue asked. “I can’t make it out. It’s too dark.”
“No,” Ellen admitted.
“Call the police anyway,” Tanya said.
“It won’t do any good,” Millie said as another egg fell into her lap and broke open.
Just then, from out of nowhere, the ghost girl rushed past Ellen from the front porch toward the black Camaro. Her white hair, skin, and dress were iridescent beneath the nearly full moon. The girl screamed a shrill cry as she charged the vehicle full of teens. She waved her arms and jumped up and down, as though she was about to take flight. The driver shouted something incoherent, drowned out by a car full of terrified shrieks, before pulling away and driving off.
Ellen stood there between her two friends gawking from the front porch. Goosebumps had broken out all along her arms, and the hair tingled at the back of her neck. The figure looked more ghostly than ever. Ellen began to think that maybe the girl was a spirit, and if spirits were real, well, Ellen had a lot of thinking to do. If spirits were real, that opened up the door to a host of other things she hadn’t been able to believe.