“You don’t ever have to leave.”
Janine blinked several times and stared at him in astonishment. Then she nodded slowly. “Whoa.” Her smile changed, became one of surprise and wonder.
To his own surprise, David laughed. “Too fast. I know. But it’s hard not to think in terms of picking up where things left off. I know it’s not that simple.”
“A conversation for another time, though,” she replied earnestly.
“I hope.”
“Definitely.”
“I do love this place. So many old homes seem musty and, y’know ... haunted.” She hesitated on that last word, and seemed almost unsettled by it.
David understood what she meant, though. The house felt alive, still, not drab and withered like a lot of homes from times past.
In this case, he thought, it isn’t the house that’s haunted.
It’s me.
Even as the idea came into his head, he understood that it was meant to be a joke, something to make light of what he had experienced, to amuse him.
Instead, he shivered.
The neighborhood where Ruth Vale lived with her husband, Larry, was a haven for the wealthy. Ruth enjoyed the money and privilege; she enjoyed the freedom it brought, and the ability to surround herself with things of beauty, to liberate her from the more mundane things that most people took regretfully for granted: cleaning the house, washing the car, doing the laundry. Yet there were drawbacks as well. Nearly every day she walked up and down the streets of her neighborhood amidst enormous homes with no visible life within. Curtained windows, perfectly groomed yards, and no sign of humanity, most of the people hiding behind the gates of their castles.
The result was that Ruth did not very much enjoy being home. With all that she and Larry had, all the luxuries there, and the beauty of their surroundings, she would rather be in her Manhattan office. On the weekends, she and her husband kept busy. She walked, and gardened, and they entertained whenever possible.
More often than not, she thought about Janine, and wondered just when the distance between herself and her daughter had grown so wide and deep. They were always so tentative with one another now, and Ruth had no idea how to fix that.
Her mind was filled with bittersweet musings about her daughter when she finished her walk late that Sunday morning. Her red sweat suit seemed almost garish in the staid environs of Scarsdale, but she relished its outrageousness. Energized, despite the bit of melancholy she felt, Ruth jogged up the front steps and opened the door.
At the back of the house, Larry poked his graying head out of the kitchen. He held the phone against his ear, a troubled expression on his face.
“Look, Hugh, thanks for the call, but Ruth just walked in. Why don’t we talk tomorrow about the Judson thing? Thanks.”
As Ruth unzipped her sweatshirt, her elevated heart rate slowing to normal, her husband clicked off the phone and let it dangle in his hand. He had showered while she was gone, but not bothered to shave, and he ran a hand across the gray and black stubble there. Larry was aging, but with his wavy hair and Tom Selleck mustache, he was still a handsome man. At the moment, however, he only looked sad.
“What happened? That was Hugh Beaumont?”
Larry hesitated only a moment. He hefted the phone in his hand as if weighing it.“He was watching the news this morning up in Boston. Spencer Hahn was murdered last night.”
Ruth brought a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. “Oh, Lord,” she whispered. “Oh, Jesus, not now. Why now?”
Eyes still closed, she felt her husband’s hand on her shoulder and fell into him. His strong arms encircled her and Ruth laid her head on his chest. A long sigh escaped her.
“Hey. Not that I wish that on anyone,” Larry said softly, “but if anyone had it coming to him—”
“I don’t care about that son of a bitch,” she snapped.“I hope he rots in hell. I’m just thinking about Janine.”
Ruth opened her eyes and looked up at him. Larry nodded in understanding, but she wasn’t sure he did understand. He was a good man—a bit stiff, but kind and genuine. Yet he and Janine had never really bonded, so Ruth did not believe Larry could feel what she was feeling.
“She still hasn’t really come to terms with losing her baby,” Ruth insisted. “I think she never had a memorial service because she’s trying to avoid reality. Maybe she hated Spencer for what he did, but she loved him once; he was the father of that baby. Even if she hated him, she’s got to feel like her whole world is falling apart.”
Larry seemed thoughtful a moment. He put one hand on her shoulder and massaged gently.
“You should go back up there.”
Ruth shook her head. “She doesn’t want me there. I just get on her nerves. And we can’t ... it seems like we aren’t able to really communicate anymore. Everything has to have other things weighing on it.”
“Maybe,” Larry agreed. “But maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s all right for you to get on her nerves and for her to get aggravated at you. If that’s what your relationship is, that could be what she needs right now. So you drive her crazy. You’re her mother. That’s your job. And even if you exasperate her, she loves you.”
Taken aback, Ruth blinked and stared up at him. Then a small smile fluttered across her face.
“That’s about the sweetest, smartest thing you’ve ever said, Mr. Vale.”
“Why, thank you, Mrs.Vale.”
Ruth kissed him quickly, then headed for the stairs. “I’m going to Boston.”
Behind her, she heard Larry as he retreated into the kitchen.“Why didn’t I think of that?”
On the bank of the Mystic River, Janine stood just a few feet behind David and stared at the water. They had driven over in her car, of course, because his was totaled. Now, having seen the skid marks and broken glass and the ravaged riverbank where his car had flipped and nearly tumbled into the river, Janine was even more unnerved, more horrified than she had been that morning when she had learned of the accident.
Though there were still some clouds in the sky, it had mostly cleared, and the sun shone in patches down upon the river.The wind blew, making the surface of the water choppy. Janine walked up behind David and slid her arms around him; she laid her face against his back.
“I feel lucky,” she whispered.
Slowly he turned, took and held her hands, and gazed down at her. “Lucky? How’s that?” he asked, his eyes doubtful.
“Somebody ran you off the road last night. Could have killed you.” She smiled. “Killed your car. But you’re right here with me still, no worse for the wear.”
“Takes a licking and keeps on ticking,” he replied, smile uncertain.
“Hey, I’m being serious; no talking about licking.”
“No innuendo intended, I promise. Not today.”
Janine nodded. “Not today. Anyway, I’m just glad you’re all right. Now, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” He squeezed her hands reassuringly, but his eyes flickered past her to the roadside, just a short way up from where he’d been driven off the pavement.
“What are you looking for down here?”
David flinched as though she’d pinched him. “What do you mean?”
“The police have been here,” she explained, a deep frown creasing her forehead. “The car’s been towed away. The drunken loony who did it is long gone. So why are we down here?”
He shrugged, glanced away, then met her gaze with a grim cast to his features. “I don’t know. I almost died right here. When they took me to the hospital, I was so shaken up that I almost felt like I left something behind. I needed to walk away from it. Does that make any sense?”
“A little,” Janine replied, though it really did not. What was important was that it made sense to him.
“I feel like I touched something here, like I came close to seeing whatever’s waiting for me when the end really does come.”
She swallowed hard, but found her throat was dry. His wor
ds made sense to her now, but a little too much sense. Ever since she had lost the baby, and almost died herself, she had felt somehow disconnected from reality. She shuddered, despite the sun.
“Can we go?” she asked, offering him a tired smile. “Why don’t I buy you lunch?”
“I like that plan.”
David turned to take one last look at the rushing river, and Janine stood beside him, an arm around his waist. He shook his head and muttered sounds of amazement at his narrow escape.
Janine glanced up at the opposite bank of the river, and she stiffened. A lone man stood at the water’s edge, amidst the trees that lined the Mystic. The man stood perfectly still, as though a scarecrow had been erected by the water. It was quite a distance across the river, but she could see that he had a long beard. His face was very pale and he seemed to be staring at them.
She froze.
It’s him! she thought in a panic. From my dream.
But after her initial reaction, she narrowed her gaze and studied the figure more closely.Though she could make out very little about him, he was clearly flesh and blood, and not some dreamlike specter.Those had been dreams. Janine considered herself an intelligent woman, and she realized that her half-formed impressions of the eerie man from her dreams would automatically be altered by seeing someone in real life who reminded her of those dreams.
Still, the way he just stood there and seemed to stare ...
“God, he’s creepy.”
“Who?” David asked.
She glanced at him. “That guy on the other side. Gives me the creeps.”
David stared across the water, his gaze scanning the opposite bank. Then he shrugged. “Guess I missed him.”
When Janine looked again, he was gone.
Though he might have slipped behind a tree or something, she was forced to wonder if he had ever been there at all. It worried her to think that the answer might be no. She knew that she had been more than a little unstable lately, that the baby’s death had been affecting her in a lot of ways she didn’t want to deal with, but hallucinations would be very bad. In her exhaustion and her grief, she knew she had heard things that probably weren’t there. But this was something else entirely.
A niggling thought wormed its way up inside her head, but she pushed it away, refused to listen to the frightened dream-voice in the back of her mind. The one that said it had to be a hallucination because David didn’t see him.
But what if it wasn’t?
CHAPTER 10
On Monday morning, an hour before the first bell would ring, Hugh Charles sat in his office and read over the notes he had prepared for the week’s theology lessons. His window was open and the curtains were pulled back. Though the breeze that blew in was cool, the sun was bright and warm, the sky a vibrant blue, and the scents of spring almost intoxicating.
A small radio played on the bookcase in the corner, upon which also rested a leafy green monstrosity that would soon need a bigger pot. The tinny melody that came from the radio’s speakers was old Motown, and it made him think of spring days just like this one from thirty-five or forty years before. He loved Motown.
His right foot tapped against the leg of his chair in time with the music, and he hummed softly to himself as he turned his attention to his plans for the final exam in theology.
Someone rapped on the frosted glass of his door.
Father Charles looked up to see David Bairstow and Annette Muscari standing in the corridor. The priest was alarmed by how pale David seemed, and Annette’s worried expression only furthered his concern for the teacher.
“Have you got a minute, Father?” David asked.
“Of course. Come in, please.”
David glanced at Annette and she squeezed his hand, then looked into the office, her eyes guarded as they always were around him. “I’ll see you later, Father.”
“All right, Annette. Don’t forget, you promised to speak to that student for me.”
Annette nodded and turned to walk off. Father Charles watched as David came tentatively into the office. He seemed unable to decide where to put his hands, and they fluttered into his pockets, then up to scratch his head, then down to his sides. His eyes were equally restless, taking in all of the office, and yet none of it. The teacher’s demeanor concerned the priest greatly. He was very fond of David Bairstow. If he had a friend on the faculty, other than Sister Mary, of course, it was David.
“I heard this morning about your accident,” Father Charles ventured.
David stiffened.
The priest gazed at him. “Sister Mary had heard about it from Lieutenant Garney. Though she said the word was you were none the worse for wear. Why do I have the feeling that might not be completely true?”
“Father, I ...” David shuffled his feet a bit.
“Sit down, please. You wanted to talk, David. I’m sorry if I’ve put you off track.”
A kind of sadness seemed to sweep through the teacher, but Father Charles thought there was more to it than that. Not just sadness, but anxiety, even fear, a kind of emotional static that resonated in the man like the sound of the ocean in a seashell.
“I got scratched up a lot, a few bruises, but I’m all right. The car isn’t going to make it, though.” David smiled for just a moment, unconvincingly, then turned away.
Father Charles waited. In a way it was much like confession. Sometimes a gentle prodding was required, as though the other person needed permission somehow, but he never pressed.
After a moment, David sighed and sat up a little straighter in his chair. As though he had regained some lost determination, he gazed directly at Father Charles.
“Do you believe in ghosts, Father?”
The room was silent then, save for the crooning voice of Smokey Robinson on the radio and a few chirping birds outside his window. Father Charles stared at David and attempted not to allow his expression to change. It was the last question he would have expected.
He picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk as he studied David’s expression, wondering what had prompted such an inquiry.
“Well, the Church believes—”
“I’m not asking what the Church believes,” David interrupted. “I’m asking what you believe.”
Father Charles leaned back in his chair and put his hands up under his chin, fingers steepled in an unconscious expression of prayer or concentration, or perhaps both.
“During my time in seminary, I saw several things that I would be hard-pressed to find a nonsupernatural explanation for. Do I believe in ghosts? Let’s say I’m inclined to believe, but I’m still formulating an opinion.”
With a long sigh, as though something that had been dammed up within him had broken free, David shuddered and put a hand to his face. He nodded slowly. Then, though he spoke haltingly, pausing to find the right words every few moments, he told a most extraordinary story that began with the death of Ralph Weiss and concluded, at least for the moment, with his car accident two nights before.
Throughout David’s story, Father Charles listened without comment, save for a nod now and again that he added only to encourage the man, in a sense to give permission for him to continue. Again he was reminded of confession. When David finished, he seemed tired, and yet somehow refreshed.
“You haven’t talked to anyone about this?” the priest asked.
David shrugged. “Janine, a little, but not the ghost part. She thinks this Jill looking like she does is a coincidence. But last night I looked at the yearbook I dug out of the library, Father. It isn’t a coincidence. Maggie Russell’s been dead a long time, but this Jill? She’s a dead ringer.”
The teacher uttered a little morbid laugh. “Bad choice of words, huh?”
Again the priest allowed his thoughts to drift, turning the story over in his head. It was far from the craziest thing he had ever heard. Though he had never witnessed an exorcism, he knew older priests at the seminary who had. Their tales were chilling. Ghosts, however—that was something else.
He had been vague with David, but this was not the first time he had run across a ghost story. Some of them had even turned out to be true.
“You think I’m crazy?” David asked.
The words were not bitter, but sad and anxious. Father Charles looked into his eyes and saw the earnest faith and hope in them, and a sudden dread filled him.
Sometimes the stories were true.
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” the priest said. “But I do think we need to talk more about this. To investigate a little more, find out what’s really happening. I’m a priest, David. No one needs to convince me of the existence of supernatural power. As a Catholic, I believe in one God, and yet historically that is a relatively young theory. I believe in angels and demons and in heaven and hell. That’s what they teach you in the seminary. I had a proctor there, though, who had some other theories that he expressed outside the classroom from time to time. He suggested, more than once, that perhaps all of those things are just part of this being we call God.”
“Where do ghosts fit into that? Lost souls? Spirits revisiting Earth from heaven or before going on to their final rest?”
The priest laughed lightly. “You have a lot of faith in my ability to provide answers, David. The problem is, no one can. You know that. Those sound like reasonable possibilities given the other things we believe, but who can say for certain? What I will say is this: Ghosts, if they do exist, have never been known to drive cars. They’re also not generally known to be corporeal enough to attend birthday parties where they eat and drink and bump shoulders with flesh-and-blood people. I’m troubled that this one ... manifestation ... appears to be Steve Themeli. If these things are real, we’ll have to find out what they are, and why they’re preying upon you.”
The grateful expression on David’s face evaporated after a moment, and he frowned. “What about Mr. Weiss? I saw him at least twice, maybe three times. And he wasn’t flesh and blood.”
Father Charles glanced out the window. On such a perfect day, with reality so tangible, it was odd to be having this conversation. And yet he knew well enough that humanity defined reality by its experience, by its five senses, and there was far more to the world than that.
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