"She defended you." I spoke the words as gently as I could, hoping she saw the understanding in my eyes. "She defended her mother from a monster."
Rosemary stared at me for a long moment then nodded several times. "Yes." Her throat convulsed with restrained sobs and after drawing in several deep breaths, she managed to speak. "Grace stabbed him in the heart with a knife." She made a sound of disgust. "To be honest, I was surprised he even had one."
I drew Rosemary into my arms, holding her trembling body, rocking her gently. "She did what she had to do. Grace does understand that, right?"
"Yes." Rosemary let out a short, hysterical laugh. "She was glad of it. Grace was never sorry about what she did. But the town ... some of the people..." Her voice trailed off into bitter thoughts.
"Some people are born just to make other people's lives miserable. But we aren't all like that. Surely not everyone thought badly of you and Grace."
"He hid it, you see." Rosemary was suddenly quite calm. "Everyone thought he was so nice. Very few people saw the side of him that Grace and I saw. But she and I ... we saw what no one else ever did." Her hands tightened into fists. "I didn't complain about him or tell anyone what he did because the few times I let something slip, he'd somehow find out and he'd be ... he'd get so mad. I couldn't risk it. I had Grace to consider. She needed to be protected. So I couldn't tell anyone the truth." Her eyes closed for a moment and then I watched as her body began to relax. She was coming to peace with it all.
"I wanted to take the blame but Grace wouldn't let me." Her eyes squeezed shut as she went on with her story. "They took her away. Put her in a correctional facility. She was there for almost a year pending trial. She was found not guilty of course but the town ... they weren't quite so forgiving."
"How old was she?"
"Fourteen. The same age I was when my own father died." Her eyes lifted to mine. "It's like she has replayed my life all over again."
Karma. Rosemary was stuck in this negative circle of karma and more than anything I hoped to end it so she could get on with her life and be happy. Truly happy. "Rosemary, you've done a great job with Grace. Her aura is not tarnished with sorrow or bitterness. Even with the loss of her baby ... she is a fighter. She's a strong young lady and she's that way because of you."
Rosemary blinked, looked at me, blinked again. For a moment I wondered if she was going into some sort of mental withdrawal but then she said quietly. "You think my Grace is strong?" She stood up and faced the cabin with an air of purpose. "I've had enough of this." She marched up to the porch and inspected it with a shaking head. One end was now resting on the ground and many of the wood planks making up the decking were splintered and unsafe to tread. "There's a door in the back going into the kitchen. I've a trash can in front of it but we should be able to get in."
I gave the lake another slow sweep before chasing after her. Where in the heck was Grace?
Rosemary shoved the door several times until it opened enough for us to slip through. The kitchen was in shambles. So was the living room. The stuffing was pulled out of the couch and chair, their springs poking up everywhere. The kitchen table and chairs were smashed. The spirits were quite thorough with their destruction.
As shocked as I was, I couldn't help but feel a tiny sense of satisfaction as well. Maybe this would be the catalyst needed to get Rosemary off this island.
"Oh my dear." Rosemary stepped over the mess, glass crunching beneath her slippered feet, and made her way to the living room. Her crochet basket lay on its side, the yarn it had contained now a tangled mess and strung everywhere. Rosemary knelt next to the toppled rocking chair and stared at the mess around her with a look of total detachment. She was emotionally shutting down on me.
I closed my eyes and focused on sending a wave of healing energy out into the room. If nothing else, perhaps I could at least get rid of the negative vibrations pulsing around us. "There's no need of you doing this to her. What do you want anyway?"
Rosemary reached down and picked up the infuser she had used to make my tea. It lay among the scattered remains of my mug. She stared at the infuser for a long, contemplative moment then turned and threw it out the window, smashing it through the glass. Anger bubbled up from within her building to a degree so heightened that the air around her crackled with energy and her aura glowed red with her fury. She turned and headed for the bedroom and I followed at a careful distance, not wanting to be too close in case she turned on me.
The blankets were pulled from her bed, the mattress shredded and most of its stuffing pulled out and tossed about the room. The closet door hung precariously from one hinge and everything inside it was now scattered everywhere. The box of papers I'd snooped in was emptied into a pile in the center of the room. The newspaper with the article about Grace and Rosemary was spread open beneath our feet. Rosemary looked down at it and then began to search through the mess. I wondered what she was looking for and then she found another newspaper that wasn't quite as old as the others, not as yellowed in any case. She picked it up and stared at it for a long moment, her face white.
Although my heart pounded in hard painful thumps and my legs shook unsteadily, I managed to make it across the room, coming to a stand next to her. "What is it, Rosemary?"
She hastily folded the paper, putting it behind her. But not before I managed to see Grace's picture.
"What does it say?" But didn't I know already? A sick feeling dropped like a rock in my belly and I clutched at my midsection in an effort to calm myself. Bile rose in my throat and I turned away wanting out of this awful place. Though I wanted to get outside, my legs felt like rubber and walking was difficult. I moved as if plowing through sludge and somehow made it back to the living room.
The devastation around me looked like it had my dream. So it was a premonition after all. This is what I'd seen when I thought I woke up this morning. I should have realized that it was a warning. But I was still learning this spirit world stuff and who really knew it all anyway? It was a constant, the learning.
"They thought I killed her."
Rosemary spoke behind me and I grabbed the back of the tattered sofa to keep from sinking to the floor. The strength was draining from my legs and I prayed for the energy I was going to need to see this through. Whatever this was. I finally managed to turn around, though I had to lean against the tattered sofa for support.
"Why would they think that?"
"We came here, as I told you, when Grace got pregnant. But then ... well, you know what happened."
"But I don't know it all do I, Rosemary."
She shook her head as tears filled her eyes. "No."
Did I want to hear anymore? Not yet. I pushed away from the wall and headed for the kitchen door. I needed to be out of this cabin. Now.
"Where are you going?"
"Out."
Rosemary grabbed my arm. "Out where?"
I pointed to the open door. "Out there. I can't stay in here anymore and neither can you." I grasped her hand, holding it firmly in my grip. My legs might be weak but my hands were not. "You can't stay here anymore."
I tugged her along and she came with me willingly enough. The argument was hardly won, though. I knew it was premature to think I'd scored any sort of victory at this point. It was going to take more than a wrecked cabin to convince Rosemary it was time to leave.
When we made it out into the cool air, I was not in the least bit happy to see the fog already rolling in. Not that it mattered where Grace was concerned. She would not be coming. Not in a boat anyway.
Chapter 8
As soon as we stepped outside I knew right where we needed to go. Holding firm to Rosemary's hand, I started up the slope toward Angel's grave.
"Where are you going?"
"You know where we are going, Rosemary." She tried to tug her hand free but I tightened my grip and turned to give her a reassuring look. "It's going to be fine. You are going to be fine."
Rosemary's gaze passed over my shoulde
r, darkening with pain as her gaze connected with the grave atop the hill. "I don't want to go up there."
"Why?"
"I don't ever go up there. I don't know why I took you there."
"Because you know I am here to help you, Rosemary. You trust me." I stopped just a few feet from the rosebush, gently pulling my reluctant companion alongside me. I wrapped an arm across her bony shoulders and rested my head against hers. "Let's face this together."
"I can't." Rosemary's body began convulsing with silent sobs and I gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze.
"She comes to see you because she loves you. You see that she's fine. She's okay. Do you understand?"
"No."
She was a stubborn one. How to make her see that the truth in this situation truly was going to set her free? Rosemary's ghosts would be put to rest if she was at rest. I understood that much. Now to get her to see it. "Tell me what happened, Rosemary."
There was a long tense silence and then Rosemary seemed to deflate. She let out a long breath, her shoulders sagging along with her crumbling resistance. As her body relaxed against me, I knew the fight had just gone out of her. She pulled away and dropped to her knees next to the angel, plucking at the dead grass around it.
"She developed a fever. I knew it was bad and needed help but ... but she fought me until she was no longer conscious of what I was doing." Tears slid in a slow trail down Rosemary's trembling chin. "I managed to get her in the boat and took her to shore. But I didn't know what to do once I got there. I waved down a passing car and asked them to get her to a doctor. They took her without delay and I never saw her again until she started visiting me on the island."
I knelt next to her. "Do you know what happened to her?"
Rosemary shook her head, denying the question. But her eyes told me she did indeed know and once I acknowledged what she could not, she fell sobbing into my arms. "She died didn't she? My beautiful daughter died."
My throat clogging with sympathetic sorrow, I held Rosemary close and rocked her. But even as I did so, my mind was reeling. So what did this mean? How long has Rosemary been living on this island and surviving on supplies brought to her by a ghost? How was it even possible? I'd heard of objects appearing from "nowhere" during séances and certainly things appeared and disappeared in haunted houses but I'd never heard of people surviving off supplies brought regularly by a ghost.
The ground beneath me felt solid, Rosemary felt solid. She was a warm, sobbing body next to me and she felt quite real. Everything felt real but none of this made sense. Unless Rosemary actually did have a boat hidden somewhere and got her supplies herself, then the only explanation left was something I couldn't accept. Was I dead and stuck in what was becoming a never-ending hell hole for me. Had I stumbled into Rosemary's hell?
My personal belief of hell was that we experienced what we imagined it to be once we crossed into spirit. Those who lived a life to which they don't believe they deserve reward (meaning heaven in most cases) created for themselves a sort of hell, a purgatory of their own making. Rosemary blamed herself for both Angel's and Grace's deaths. She also blamed herself for her husband's demise. So she exiled herself here as punishment for her believed sins. Somewhere along the line, Rosemary lost touch with her reality and became lost in her illusion. And now those who loved her were trying to get her to see the truth of the situation. They wanted to get her out of here. And since I was here with her ... did it mean I was dead too?
Tears filled my eyes at the very idea of it and my heart expanded, swelling with grief.
"Grace is dead?"
Rosemary's voice was so faint I almost didn't hear her. Squeezing my eyes shut, I fought to get a handle on my emotions. The only way to figure out this situation was to not bury my head in the sand of illusion and lies. Whatever the truth, I needed to prepare myself to accept it.
Rosemary's troubles all stemmed from her refusal to see the truth and I didn't want to go down the same path. To see the light, one had to seek it. In the light was truth and I was not going to stay in the dark anymore.
"Yes, Rosemary. Grace is dead. But her spirit lives on. You see her almost every day. You must realize that in truth, in actual fact, she is not dead at all."
"My imagination."
"You are so good at imagining her that even I can see her and interact with her?"
Rosemary pulled away and looked at me, a frown deepening the lines in her forehead. "You have seen her haven't you?" She stood up and using the sleeve of her sweater, she wiped the tears from her face. "But if Grace is a ghost, then who are the ghosts that I can't see?"
"People who love you, Rosemary. And, unfortunately, those who don't." I pushed myself to my feet and lifted my t-shirt to my face, wiping away my own mess of tears with an impatient hand. Crying was not going to solve anything. Though it was a necessary part of the body's cleansing process, I wasn't crying to relieve sorrow. I was crying out of fear. And fear blinds the eyes. I didn't want to become like Rosemary - lost in the dark.
"I don't understand."
I looked at her and wondered. A quick glance around and everything looked as it should. If we were indeed on "the other side", then why did it all look the same? Did we just cross from one reality into the exact replica of another? And when did it happen?
The answer to that zipped through me in a flash. When I fell and hit my head. The fall must have killed me. Oh God! What about Kade? How was he going to deal with this?
"Damn it!" Anger welled up and I started walking, needing to do something to expel some of the energy that came with it. "This is so unfair!"
Rosemary chased after me, plucking at my arm whenever she managed to get close enough to do so. "Why are you angry? Tell me what's going on, Tess."
I swung around, pinning her with my stare. "What's going on? You want the truth finally, Rosemary? You think you can accept it now, Rosemary?" When she gave me a slight nod that said she wasn't really sure about that tentative yes, I threw up my hands in exasperation. "Isn't it obvious, Rosemary? We are dead. Dead, dead, dead!"
Rosemary's face whitened to a chalky paste in color and she swayed on her feet. "But ... but how?" She pressed her hands to her cheeks. "I don't feel dead." Her hands then reached for me, squeezing my arms enough to make me wince. "You don't feel dead."
I swung away from her and continued to the cabin. "How much you want to bet the front porch is fine now?" We walked around to the front of the cabin and sure enough, the porch was no longer a broken, sagging mess. Nor were the windows shattered. I waved a hand and felt hysteria rising out of control. "You see, Rosemary? Do you see that, Rosemary?"
While poor Rosemary stood there staring in shock, I picked up whatever rocks I could find and threw them with as much force as I could muster. "How could you do this to me, Sheila? I trusted you!"
The quiet of the island, the stillness of the lake and the pounding of a heart that was not really pounding filled my ears. I felt betrayed. After everything I went through with Mike's death and coming to terms with it and then fighting the evil in my home ... why did it come to this? All that just to freaking die?
"Who is Sheila?"
I almost forgot about Rosemary and swung around to look at her. She seemed so calm next to me. But then she'd been dead a lot longer than me, she was used to the situation.
"Who is Sheila?" she asked again.
"My spirit guide." And then I started laughing because it seemed like such a joke now. What kind of guide lets something like this happen without helping me through it? I mean ... she didn't even meet me when I crossed over! Tears filled my eyes again. No one did. "Oh, Mike. Now I know what you meant."
"Mike is your husband, right? Is he here again? "
I heaved a sigh then sucked in a deep breath ... which was weird because if I was dead, did I really need to breathe? I held my breath as an experiment but within a few short seconds it became quite obvious that I still needed air. So what did that mean? Did we just trade one life for more o
f the same? How awful was that? And now I didn't even have Kade.
"But you have me."
Mike's voice spoke from behind me, his breath tickling my ear he was so close. I swung around and took a step back. "Am I really dead?"
"Do you want to be dead?"
Scowling with annoyance, I glanced around for Rosemary. She stood staring at me as if I was the crazy one. But then, maybe I was. "Can you see anyone besides me, Rosemary?"
"No. Do you?"
Her voice was guarded. She obviously thought she was dealing with someone who was losing it. The sad truth of the matter was just that. I truly was losing it. "I can see my husband Mike. He's standing about a foot away from me."
Rosemary's gaze searched the area around me, even squinting with the effort. She finally shook her head. "I don't see anyone. Maybe he's just haunting you."
Do ghosts haunt other ghosts? Obviously they did. Look at Rosemary's situation? "Tell me what's going on, Mike."
"You tell me, Tess."
I had it with his pompous lawyer ways, trying to get me to do all the talking. Giving me nothing in return. "You were always good at that, Mike. Turning things around on me, making me question my own beliefs, my choices and my preferences."
"Because I never questioned my own convictions, Tess. But you were always questioning yours, weren't you?"
Agitated and restless, I ran my hand through my hair, considering his words. "I was always concerned about your needs. I'm thoughtful that way."
"But to the expense of your own? You now resent me for that, Tess, but I never demanded anything of you. I asked and you complied without argument. It used to frustrate me to no end. It made me wonder if you really believed all the stuff you said you believed."
Mike stood tall and vibrant, the epitome of health. He'd always been in good shape and death hadn't taken any of that away. Though I loved him still, I didn't feel the connection we once shared. There was no driving need to please him, no desire to be in his arms.
"We are not attached here, Tess. Attachment is an emotion for the physically living. They need it to function in their world. Over here ... we are self-sufficient and suffer no needs. But we do love. That doesn't stop. I still love you, Tess, and that's why I'm here."
Rosemary's Ghosts (Tess Schafer-Medium) Page 14