by Graham West
We all stared at her.
“Why do you say that?” Jack Staple asked.
Josie shrugged. “Those eyes—it’s a classic symptom. My sister’s cousin-in-law had it.” She looked perplexed. “Why? Who’s this supposed to be?”
“Just a drawing of someone,” Staple replied casually.
Josie caught on. Her expression altered as she recalled the things I’d told her. “Well, tell her she needs treatment,” she said, recovering admirably.
None of us had any appetite, and Josie left us with an empty pad.
“This is good!” Tint said. “Amelia had a medical condition.”
“I’ll check it on the web,” Staple said, writing down the word hyperthyroidism in his notebook and emptying his glass. “I have work to do, gents.” He stood and picked up the notebook, holding out a hand to my daughter. “Lovely to meet you, Jenny.”
Tint waited until Staple was out of earshot. “Jack’s a good man,” he said softly. “And quite charmed by your daughter,” he told me. He smiled at Jenny. “Understandably.” He took another sip of brandy. “He has always been sceptical when it comes to the paranormal, but he is a fair man. He never dismisses anything, so don’t be afraid to talk to him.”
Jenny flashed a brief, polite smile. “I won’t—thanks.”
“In the meantime, I shall study your books while Jack tries to trace your ancestor.”
“Good old Josie,” I said.
Tint nodded. “I wonder sometimes how much influence the spirit world has on our daily lives. Do they—can they interfere?” He glanced over a Josie, who was sharing a joke with a regular over the bar. “If she had arrived a few seconds later…”
“You think Amelia wants something?” I asked.
Tint nodded. “Restless spirits are restless for a reason.”
Jenny exhaled and closed her eyes. “But why me? Why did it have to be me?”
***
The next two days dragged on endlessly, and on the third, Jenny and I decided to treat ourselves to coffee at a new bistro that had opened up by the local shops. We took the fifteen-minute walk with our mobile phones on vibrate in case we missed a diverted call.
The coffee shop served light lunches, cakes and a rich variety of drinks that left us confused.
“What about the Columbian?” Jenny suggested, tapping on a line of the menu.
“Might be too strong—I’ll settle for a cappuccino.”
A young girl, fresh out of school, took our order and smiled sweetly.
Jenny grinned mischievously as the girl walked away in her short black dress and black tights with pink bows on the heels. “Well, ain’t she just cute enough to put in an apple pie?” she said in a perfect American accent.
I smiled. “Ain’t she just!”
The smile died on Jenny’s face. “I haven’t had a dream for two nights,” she said. “In fact, I’ve not had a really bad nightmare since you moved in.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
But it seemed to bother my daughter. “It’s as if…” She paused. “Well, when you’re there, she doesn’t come to me.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Kind of. But why would the spirit of a woman be frightened of you?”
I shrugged.
“Maybe it was all in my head.”
Jenny looked downbeat. It was time to change the subject.
“Hey,” I said, looking over her shoulder, “chin up, kid. The cute kid’s back with our coffees.”
The girl’s tag told us her name was Helen. She smiled again. “Enjoy your drinks,” she squeaked, placing the bill on the table. Jenny was right. The kid really was good enough to eat.
“Girls didn’t look like that in my day,” I said as she left.
“Don’t be perving, Dad. She’s the same age as me!”
I hated that word perving. Kids overused and misused it every day, but Jenny wasn’t being too serious, so I playfully slapped my own wrist and let it drop.
Jenny grinned. “Well, I’m not sure I should tell you this, but there is a girl sitting in the corner, and she keeps looking over at us.”
“Really? What does she look like?”
“About my age—brunette. She’s pretty…dark eyes…”
“And she’s looking at us?”
“Yep.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, she’s not staring but keeps looking over here, so she’s either a lesbian or she’s really into older men.”
I laughed, resisting the urge to turn and look, but then quite suddenly, Jenny’s eyes widened.
“It’s my phone,” she said, reaching into her pocket. “Hi! Jenny here.”
She listened for a moment. “Yes, he is. Just a moment.”
She passed me the phone. “It’s Jack,” she mouthed.
Staple had news. No, he hadn’t found an Amelia Root yet, but he had discovered that the hyperthyroidism not only caused bulging eyes but also tremors and high anxiety.
“That might explain the violent shaking Jenny described,” he said.
“Sure.”
Jack sounded perplexed at my lack of enthusiasm. “But don’t you see? Jenny could not have known that there was a link between the bulging eyes and the shakes, so she could not have dreamed it, either. It certainly adds weight to the theory that Amelia Root did exist and had a very real medical condition.”
I covered the phone with the palm of my hand. “Jen—is there any way you might have read about hyperthyroidism in school sometime?”
Jenny shook her head. “No. I’ve heard about thyroid problems cos some girl in our class had it and dropped three stone after she started on the drugs.”
I returned the phone to my ear. “You’re right,” I said. “Thanks for calling.”
“No problem. I’ll be in touch.”
We paid, up and left, and I turned to catch a glimpse of the girl in the corner. As Jenny said, she was pretty. Our eyes met briefly before my daughter ushered me through the door. “Come on, Dad. She’s too young for you.”
***
Over the following weeks, Jenny slept soundly, although she woke crying one morning after dreaming that she had been pushing Hanna on the garden swing, but even with red-rimmed eyes, my daughter looked a whole lot healthier.
I had moved back in to my own bed with a degree of trepidation, wondering if the nightmares might begin again. They didn’t. Jenny started to laugh again. We watched some reruns of the old classic comedies with a monster meat pizza from the local takeaway sitting in a cardboard box between us as we began to talk about the rest of our lives—as if the bad times were behind us. But we were merely resting at an oasis, ignorant of the storm brewing on the horizon.
Sebastian Tint called one morning and invited us for ‘a spot of lunch’. Jenny agreed reluctantly, having indicated that she would rather hold any meetings on neutral ground, but Ricky the German Shepherd swung it. Jen adored dogs, and Ricky bounded up to my daughter as if he sensed that she would be putty in his paws. He gave me a cursory lick—an indication that I was welcome—but it was clear my daughter was his new best buddy.
Tint laughed and waved us into his front room. Jenny followed behind me, to be met with a scene from a historical TV saga.
“Guess you think you’ve just stepped out of a time machine,” Tint said with a smile, reading the expression on Jenny’s face.
My daughter was as tactful as ever. “It—it’s lovely.” She eyed the wall of books that faced her and then spotted the typewriter. “Cool! How old is that?”
Tint seemed genuinely pleased that a young girl should be interested in his antiques. “Whoa, I’d say at least seventy years. I’ve had it for fifty.”
Ricky was sitting at Jenny’s side, waiting patiently for more attention. He raised a paw, catching my daughter’s hand, and all interest in the time-warp room and its contents was lost.
Tint laughed. “He loves the ladies,” he said, beckoning us to sit. “Such a Romeo!”
We sunk into the brown leather settee as Sebastian disappeared.
“This place is amazing,” Jenny whispered. “I bet he’s read every one of those books…”
The old man caught me perusing his library when he returned, minutes later, with a tray of tea and an assortment of biscuits. “Half a century of stuff,” he said, following my gaze. “You can’t beat the smell and feel of a book.” He placed the tray on a Queen Ann coffee table—the sort that fetched a fortune on The Antiques Road Show. “Jack doesn’t bother—say’s they’re too expensive. He seems to rely on the internet. Just types in a word on that…what’s-its-name—bubble or something.”
“Google,” Jenny corrected.
“That’s it. Well, we have many interesting discussions about the merits of both forms of research and learning, but we never come to any sort of agreement. Once an old dinosaur, always an old dinosaur!” Tint smiled at Jenny. “I’m guessing you’ll be a computer girl?”
She smiled and nodded. “But I like books, too.”
The old man looked impressed. “You read much?”
“A little.”
“Modern or classics?”
“Both. We did Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights in school. I loved them. The language was so, so graceful.”
Tint nodded. “It would be foolish to suggest they were better times. The wealthy lived well in those days, just as they do now—but the poor…that was different.” He poured the tea into china cups “We have a greater social conscience these days, it seems.”
I didn’t wish to enter into a debate with such an educated man, but I thought about the Kirkland Estate and the human scum it spewed out. Then I thought of the leniency of the sentence those kids had received and the pious look the judge wore when Josie gasped and voiced her disapproval. Don’t question me, woman—I know what I’m doing!
Jenny guessed what I was thinking and flashed me a sideways glance. Academics, eh? What are they like!
Tint passed us the plate of biscuits. We politely took the plain biscuits, leaving the mouth-watering chocolate assortment. “I’ve taken a look at your notebook,” he said to Jenny, returning the plate to the table with a clatter. “The sketch was very interesting.”
“Any conclusions?” I asked.
Sebastian nodded his head slowly, inviting us to take our cups. “Help yourself to sugar.” He retrieved a hefty tome from the lamp table beside him. “This is not quite as old as it looks.” He patted the cover. “It’s called The Science of the Soul, and it’s by an American professor called Edwin Colbert.” Tint gazed at the book reverently. “A fine man whom I had the pleasure of meeting ten years ago. It’s a signed copy.”
Jenny and I were waiting.
“Anyway, he says that if you believe in the soul, then you must believe in life after death, and if you believe in life after death, naturally, you believe in spirits.” Tint paused. “Therefore, the only argument is: do we believe that we can communicate with them? Of course, my summary of the book is just that. Colbert uses science as well as many well-documented cases to back up his arguments. It is quite compelling.”
“So…” Jenny said,” where do I fit into this?”
Tint flipped the book open to a well-thumbed page. “It could be spirit attachment.”
“Attachment?” I repeated, voicing Jenny’s thoughts.
Tint nodded. “It is not the same as spirit possession, and occurs often when the person—the living person—is in a vulnerable state. In other words, they are open. It is rather like having a stalker, only the stalker is a spirit and therefore can have a greater influence on the subject, because you can hardly lock your doors and call the police, can you?
“Dreams are an ideal vehicle for these spirits, according to Colbert. And that would seem to be confirmed by your own experience.”
Jenny looked at me. Should we tell him? I was reading her mind.
“The thing is,” I began, almost as if it were to be a confession, “Jenny hasn’t had any dreams for over two weeks now.”
Tint’s eyebrows arched. “None at all?”
Jenny shook her head.
Tint glanced down at his book. “Mmm.”
“Is that unusual?” I asked casually.
The old man didn’t answer for a while. We sat waiting, listening to the ticking of the old clock over the fireplace.
“It may not be,” he said slowly. “But I am surprised.”
It was difficult to know what a man like Sebastian Tint was thinking. Had Jenny been released? Had the spirit of Amelia Root flown, finding another victim?
“During this time…” Tint was choosing his words with care, “you felt alienated from your father—is that right?”
Jenny nodded.
“And now, peace has resumed?” I saw the faintest of smiles on the old man’s face.
“Sure. We’re okay,” Jenny replied.
“Did the nightmares stop after or before?”
Jenny frowned.
“Before you made your peace,” Tint clarified.
My daughter thought for a moment. “It was after.”
Tint looked like a man who needed another couple of days with his book. “Jack Staple called yesterday,” he said finally. “He said he had drawn a blank—his words. There’s no record of an Amelia Root in your ancestry—no record of anyone with any medical condition that might cause bulging eyes or violent tremors.”
Tint seemed to be apologising, almost as if he, too, was starting to doubt. “We have to reassess this.”
“You mean, I’ve been imagining everything,” Jenny said defensively.
“No. But we may have to consider that she is not in your ancestry.”
“Then what does she want with me?”
Tint smiled sympathetically. “That’s what we need to find out. But I’ll be honest with you, Jenny. If these dreams have stopped, and you’re no longer vandalising churches and leaving messages on the fridge door, I’d say a prayer of thanks to God and be done with the whole thing!”
It made sense. Anyone in their right mind would have nodded in approval, yet I felt betrayed. I was hooked into this whole thing, wanting the answers. Now, it seemed, Sebastian was throwing in the towel. Did he think Jenny was making the whole thing up? Was she merely craving attention? Was that why he asked if the dreams had stopped after we had made our peace?
If Sebastian had not thought that then Jack Staple certainly did. He called the following day to tell me the search was dead. He had explored every possible branch of history and given up. “If she’s not in your ancestry, we have no way of tracing if she actually existed,” he told me. “Although it is possible that her birth was not recorded—it may have happened but we can’t be sure.”
When I mentioned that the nightmares had stopped, he sounded cold. “Maybe she’s getting the attention she needs.”
The comment winded me, almost literally.
As if Staple had realised that I might have been offended, he added, “I’m sorry, that sounds heartless. Jenny’s a lovely girl—been through a hell of a lot. You both have.”
“Sure,” I said weakly.
“I wanted to find this Root woman, more than you’ll ever know. So if you get anything more—you know—info that might help find out if she—”
“Exists, “ I said curtly.
“Well…yes.”
“Then I’ll contact you. Thanks for your help. Goodbye!”
I left Staple hanging onto the receiver at the other end, slamming the phone down hard and storming into the kitchen with the anger boiling up within me. I stood for a moment, my hands resting on the breakfast table, unaware that Jenny had crept up behind me. She wrapped her arms around my waist and told me not to worry. It was over. I should have treasured the moment, believing that we could now get on with our lives. But neither of us could possibly have known what lay ahead.
Chapter Fourteen
The respite lasted two more days. We shared a takeaway from the local Chinese and
watched a Ben Stiller comedy on DVD. Jenny took herself off to bed just after eleven; I stayed up for an hour longer, staring at the flickering shapes on the TV screen. My eyes were closing, and I began to drift into another world—a world in which Elizabeth and Hanna had slipped beneath the grasp of the Grim Reaper. My little girl played happily in the back garden while my wife sat flicking through the pages of a magazine. During those moments, I believed it was the past twelve months that had all been a dream and I had woken from a peaceful afternoon nap to find that life was good. The sun was shining. The nightmare was over.
That’s when I heard the scream.
I raced up the stairs, taking three steps at a time, and shouldered Jenny’s bedroom door. The dim light from the bedside table threw a shadow across the wall. Jenny was standing by the bed. If she had been lying down, I would have thought she was dead. Her face—indeed her whole naked body—was white.
I stood, frozen. “Jenny!”
She opened her eyes—eyes that were wild and unblinking. Instinctively, I took a step back, knowing that she wasn’t awake, and reached behind me to quietly close the door. My heart raced. Despite the coldness I’d felt in my bones, perspiration was running down my back.
“You want me?” she hissed. “I’m just meat to you! Meat!” Her eyes were so full of hatred.
“Jenny! You’re dreaming!” I shouted as loud as I could.
My daughter blinked and collapsed back onto the bed, motionless.
I waited, afraid to leave, afraid to take a step closer. Then suddenly, she looked up at me, a flicker of recognition in her eyes.
“What…what are you doing here?”
There was no anger in her voice, only confusion. “You’ve been dreaming, babe. Get back into bed.”
That was when she realised she was naked. “Oh my god!” she screamed, pulling the duvet around her. “Get out! Please…just go!”
Amelia Root was back.
***
I waited for Jenny to appear the following morning, my eyes heavy from lack of sleep and my face thick with stubble. I took several gulps from a carton of fresh orange juice to drown the taste of stale coffee and scanned the local free paper to fill the time. The words on the pages failed to filter into my consciousness, but I’d become accustomed to reading things that my brain could not process.