by Kim Hornsby
“Hoist the Jib.”
Chapter 9
I phoned Eve to say I was coming back from the beach, and she told me I’d only been gone ten minutes which sounded strange because I’d spent ten minutes on the beach in 2019, then at least three hours in 1850. Who knew what the rules were for time traveling? I didn’t know anyone I could ask about this stuff.
By the time Hodor and I reached the top of the cliff and started walking across the lawn, Eve was rushing from the kitchen door, towards us. I knew this because the kitchen door closed and Eve called from the stairs, her voice getting closer quickly.
“Anything freaky happen?”
“Yes,” I nodded, my hand on my dog’s harness handle. “But first, do you see a big crow following us?”
There was a moment where I assumed Eve looked around and came to her conclusion. “Not following, but there’s a crow hopping around on the lawn over by the coach house and another one in the trees just north of the house. Nothing airborne. Why?”
I wasn’t even sure I’d heard the crow say, “Hoist the Jib,” and if I did, how impossible was that to have a crow fly all the way to the Oregon coast from Seattle? Unless it was a stowaway in the Marshmallow, our company van, which was highly unlikely.
Over a cup of Darjeeling tea, I told Eve my story of the smuggling operation, along with Jimmy, who had become the Moody Paranormal Investigation team unofficial cook these days and was making something with onions and garlic in it.
“Stevens was a smuggler, and Caspian was trying to stop him.” I took a sip of my now tepid tea. “Caspian had already overtaken a ship and freed the slaves, it sounded like.”
“Smokey blokeys,” Eve said, an expression that I hadn’t heard from her.
“I felt so useless. I wanted to rescue those women in the worst way.” My dear cousin had a reason to feel more passionately about rescuing the women being loaded into the boats, her mother being full Chinese. Although Eve’s maternal grandparents were from China, I had to assume that knowing about the smuggling of Chinese woman as slaves hit Eve square in the heart. “I’m sorry, Eve,” I added.
“You can’t change the future by storming the beach, Bryn. I’m sure it was the pits to watch.” Eve’s voice was small, and I noticed that Jimmy had stopped making noise behind me at the chopping board. I reached for Eve, but she wasn’t in front of me anymore. Footsteps tapped along the floor to the hall and some clunkier ones followed.
I listened, knowing if anyone could comfort my sweet, sensitive cousin, it would be Jimmy, the person who was quickly becoming her confidant.
I waited for Mrs. Hightower to arrive from town while I tried to research shipping activities of the 1850’s on my laptop. I’d called Joan Hightower, the Smuggler’s Cove Museum curator, to ask if she would stop by for a chat that afternoon. I needed answers to my questions about the history of this place.
Joan was super skittish about ghosts and paranormal activity, and unfortunately had seen her fair share of it in our house since we’d made her acquaintance, but I suspected as the friend of the former owner of Cove House, she knew more than she’d let on.
The door opened and I heard Joan’s high-pitched voice calling into the vastness of the main foyer. “Hellooooo…?”
“I’m in the salon, Joan.” She called the room with the piano “the salon,” probably because that was what it was actually called in old-timey days. I was hoping that Joan’s visit today would produce info on Stevens or his lover, the gorgeous Jacqueline.
Joan’s footsteps tapped across the hall tile into the salon.
“Thank you for coming,” I said from my chair at the fireplace. I was trying to take the chill off from sitting down on the beach. We burned a lot of wood in this big joint trying to keep the heating bill down. Carlos was having another few cords delivered later that afternoon and was outside clearing a spot at the side of the house.
“My pleasure,” Joan said with no conviction whatsoever. “I found some information about Stevens.” The chair creaked under her weight as she sat down nearby.
My face was turned towards the fire, enjoying the warmth on this rainy day. The early morning sun had retreated behind a thick covering of dark clouds that were causing sprinkles of precipitation outside. I knew this from Eve’s recent description. “What did you find?”
Joan cleared her throat and I took that to mean she needed a moment to compose what she was about to tell me. I was quickly becoming an expert on Joan Hightower’s afflictions. Her clicking of the tongue was disapproval, a quick intake of air through her nose was surprise and so on.
“According to the story, Stevens went to prison for illegal shipping practices that included smuggling more than just furs to China. On the return voyage, some of his ships brought back opium and Chinese slaves to be sold in San Francisco, where his shipping practices were based.”
I sat forward. I hadn’t thought of opium.
“Stevens was first charged with too many passengers on his ship the SS. Angeles in 1850, which opened an investigation to discover he was using three of his five ships to bring opium to the Americas.”
“And slaves,” I said. “Chinese women.”
“We aren’t sure if it was only women, but the charges mentioned slaves in the overcrowded ship.” Joan clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “You see,” she said, “when the Gold Rush started, Chinese men sailed to the west coast of America to try their luck at getting rich. Based out of San Francisco, they did not bring wives for their three-year visit. That made Chinese prostitutes in demand. Remember,” she said, “that women were thought of as chattel in China in those days. Prostitution was a thriving business during the Gold Rush. Being a prostitute or concubine was a career choice for some women but many who sailed to America were slaves bought at auction in Asia and promised to households in America. The youngest girls became servants until puberty. Many were forced into prostitution after puberty.”
“I get the picture.” I cleared my throat, hoping the words wouldn’t defy that I’d seen some of these young girls and women recently on the beach outside and was feeling sick about their fate. “And Stevens was part of this?”
“Yes, he was a big part of it. He bought this house and beach specifically for the bay. The big ships from Asia would anchor, bring the slaves in to the beach and be distributed to smaller ships and taken to San Francisco.”
“When did the Gold Rush begin?”
“Gold was discovered in Colona, California in 1846 and at that time the town of San Francisco went from about 200 settlers to 36,000 in the next few years.”
Joan was in her element, passing along old-timey information. Caspian’s parents had been part of the two hundred, I supposed, and I wondered if they hated the Boomtown San Francisco became with the influx of everyone looking to make a buck.
“Would you like a cup of tea,” I said. It was our custom when Joan visited to have Eve make us tea and as soon as it arrived, something always frightened Joan into leaving. I didn’t think our tea set was haunted but her exit took place two or three sips into her tea. Although I wasn’t ready for her departure, it seemed rude to not offer her anything.
“That would be lovely,” Joan said with a note of resignation in her voice. I phoned Eve because it was more refined than yelling at the top of my voice through the big house and because I wasn’t even sure where Eve was. She usually had offered tea by now.
“Tea for two?” Eve answered her phone.
“Are you in the house?”
“I’m in the kitchen watching the kettle boil for your tea.”
“You are psychic,” I smiled. I ended the call and announced that tea was on its way.
“Your Caspian Cortez did not work for Stevens, but his ship, Isabella was contracted out to Steven’s business in San Francisco frequently. He carried cargo for Stevens.”
I hated to ask because Caspian had told me already that he had nothing to do with smuggling and went after one of Stevens’ ships to free the women, but I
wondered what information Joan might have. “Did the Isabella…?”
“No, not as far as our records show. The Isabella made several runs from San Francisco to the Sandwich Islands and Asia but was never found with slaves or opium.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding. “I think Captain Cortez was about to expose Stevens to the authorities when he died.”
“Interesting,” Joan added.
Eve arrived with the tea, but we continued talking as our cups were handed to us. By now, my cousin knew how we liked our tea. “Joan is telling me about Stevens’ indictment for carrying slaves and opium.”
Eve set the tray down and joined us. “Despicable scumbag.”
“That’s one way to put it.” I took a sip of my very hot tea and cursed that I’d have a burned tongue all day. “How long did Stevens serve in prison?”
Joan slurped her tea daintily nearby. “He died in prison of an infection within a few years.”
“No wonder Jackie is one mean bitch,” Eve said. “She never got him back.”
“Stevens’ lover, Caspian’s wife, Jacqueline,” I explained to Joan who’d had firsthand experience with our mean ghost when Jacqueline inhabited Eve’s body and played the piano, nearly frightening Joan out of her mail order catalogue ash-blonde wig.
“Yes,” Joan said. “I remember Jacqueline. There is nothing much in the historical records of her because Stevens had a wife and children in San Francisco and Jacqueline was his mistress in this house. She pretended to be Stevens’ cousin.”
I hadn’t told Joan I’d been time traveling all over the 1850’s and wasn’t sure I was going to. I liked getting information from her but wasn’t sure I’d trade her what I knew. Joan was keeping secrets from me. I knew this without a doubt. As a psychic I felt it and from the timing of her departures, her nervousness, and her fear of saying too much, I was positive Joan had something she wanted to tell me but couldn’t. If I ever wanted the museum curator to leave, I had only to bring up the idea that she might be lying. Then, up she went and out the door before I could flick out TapTap to see her to the door.
We talked about the California Gold Rush as we drank our tea, a safe subject, and when she calmly decided it was time to go, I walked her to the front door with the help of TapTap. On our way to the door, I sang softly, as was my way when making the sweeping arcs of my cane and tapping.
“I see a little silhouetto of a man, got a goose, got a goose, can he learn to do the tango. Thunder road and lighting, very very fighting.”
Joan was out in front talking to Eve about the bakery in town. By the time I got to the Galileo part, we’d reached the door and Joan was putting on her raincoat. I felt it was a great time to scare my guest away with a delving question.
“Thank you for the visit, Joan. Before you leave, I have one more question.”
“Yes,” she squeaked in her ‘I know what’s coming next’ voice.
“The woman who nursed Caspian when Jacqueline stabbed him in the mural bedroom… do you know anything about her, or did Belinda speak of her at all?”
I felt Joan’s uneasiness across the eight feet of separation. “Not really. Belinda said someone other than Jacqueline was a guest in the house at that time and had nursing experience. She stayed on at Stevens’ request to help. In those days, Portland society believed that Stevens was a gentleman and he enjoyed a pristine reputation as a well-received businessman.”
“I wonder what society thought of his cousin, Jacqueline.”
“I imagine she was simply his cousin, managing the house. I doubt anyone thought she was the lover, especially because she was married to Caspian Cortez.”
That threw a new light on the story’s lampshade. “The woman who nursed him…was she married or … ?” I wanted to say pregnant.
“I don’t know but I can try to dig a bit. I believe she was from Portland high society, possibly a friend to Jacqueline.”
I wanted to open my mouth and tell Joan exactly who Rachel was but held my lips together with the knowledge that I should wait to see what Joan came up with.
Letting a cat out of the bag too early might cause Joan to clam up.
Chapter 10
The next night, the three of us, four if you included Jimmy Big Ears, my secret nickname for him, and five if you included my mother who didn’t want to be left home alone with ghosts, had a case to investigate. Joan had referred us to a friend of hers, a couple who owned a whiskey distillery with an old house on the property, where they lived. We’d agreed to do a spirit check in the house where strange activity occurred frequently.
According to the couple, their house had a child ghost who opened and closed doors, turned the TV up loud and moved objects. He’d been seen once in the window when Mrs. Baker was walking from the distillery to the house late one night. The boy had stood at the window of an upstairs bedroom watching her. That prompted them to ask Joan if she knew of a death in that house, which led to Joan telling the Bakers about us.
The case was exactly what I needed that week—a distraction and a case we could easily upload to keep our show on the air. I’d lost interest in doing these investigations recently with all the time traveling taking over my life, something I was not about to mention on the show. Caspian’s coming and going and the information that I was his granddaughter had taken the wind out of my sails. The YouTube show seemed secondary to the fact that I was sleeping with a family member.
However, I had mouths to feed and fans to please, so I rallied and accepted the job. It was close, easy, and might even be fun.
We piled in the Marshmallow and drove through the rain twenty-three miles south to the Rocky Point Distillery where business closed up for the night at ten p.m. After a talk with the Bakers and a tour of the old house, we proceeded to look for the ghost of a little boy who was usually present in the middle of the night, walking the halls, opening doors, sometimes crying.
My costume was a pair of black leather pants with studs up the side, and a long black flowing shirt with strips of chiffon trailing off the sleeves like wings. My hair was shoulder length these days and Eve had done beach waves, the ends colored teal blue. Apparently, my makeup looked bizarre with one side of my face decorated with jewels like a Mardi Gras mask and the other side like I was going clubbing with friends. Eve said it looked, “Tres mondo,” and thinking that meant good, I’d thanked her for taking art classes throughout her childhood and teens.
I felt the spirit of the child as soon as I walked inside the house. He was young, confused, not harmful, but in need. “Are you searching for your parents?” I asked. Spirits of children often are. They’re miserable as ghosts, in need of play and companionship. And love.
The evening’s investigation was standard, almost boring for a time traveler and I was ashamed I felt this way about contacting a ghost. We first made contact when the ghost pushed a book off a table in the den, where I sensed him the strongest. I wanted something tangible for our audience to see besides me saying I felt the child. Although my fans trusted me, our ratings were higher when the audience could see something for themselves. We hadn’t filmed the book falling, only that it was now on the floor, so we pulled out the equipment, using the teddy bear that measures levels of electro-magnetic activity, heat, and voices. Right away, Boo Bear got some great readings that we showed on camera. Although we didn’t see the ghost, I felt him move from room to room almost playing hide and seek with us. Poor little thing.
Two hours into the investigation, I was in the dark dining room with night vision goggles. Jimmy was out in front of me filming while Eve and Carlos wandered through the rest of the house with Eve narrating her journey. At the head of the dining room table, I felt the child’s presence with a very cold patch of air on my left arm. “Are you lonely, little boy? Why don’t you leave here, find your Mama?”
It was then I was given the clear impression that the child’s body was buried in the backyard and he couldn’t leave. Apparently, my eyes rolled back in my head a
t this point and when I recovered, I had the location of the boy’s skeleton near a tree on the property. The father had accidentally killed him according to what I was getting. “You need us to find you so you can move on,” I said, heading for the back door of the house.
With Jimmy following, camera rolling, we traipsed across the yard to the tree I’d described, and I hit the trunk with TapTap. I held out my arms and walked around the area to locate the grave of the little boy. “Right here. Phone Eve and have her bring the couple who own the house.”
We left the distillery an hour later with a great episode filmed, including the Bakers saying they’d have someone excavate the spot tomorrow and give the child a proper burial.
We didn’t accept payment if the client let us film and this job was no different, but on the way out, Mr. Baker gave Carlos a bottle of his finest and told him to enjoy it with the rest of us. My mother absconded with the bottle, Carlos said, and held it like a baby all the way to the Marshmallow.
It was getting increasingly difficult to pretend to be sighted in these sessions and on the way back from the distillery, I told everyone I was thinking of revealing to my fans that my sight came and went. “Maybe, soon,” I said. There was a ghost hunter with his own show on the Travel Channel who wore a big mask in older buildings because of asthma brought on by allergies, so I believed that my blindness might be accepted as long as my viewers got the same great shows they were used to. “I’m thinking of what to say in my big reveal, how to play it,” I said to them on the drive home.
“That’ll be your downfall,” my mother warned.
“Let’s talk about this tomorrow,” Eve said, maybe not wanting my mother in on this plan.
The next day. I decided that I would tape a segment explaining my loss of vision and how it comes and goes depending on the presence of our house ghost. Once I had my wording figured out, I’d be ready, and we’d upload it for our show next week. This week, we had our episode from the distillery.