The House on Hallowed Ground

by Nancy Cole Silverman

  The second crumb was Denise. She called my cell phone as Wilson drove the Rolls past the school and stopped for a light at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Ventura Boulevard, just blocks from Wilson’s home.

  I answered the phone and accidentally put it on speaker. My arthritic fingers, not very adept at pushing small buttons, did this more than I care to admit.

  “I need a favor, Misty. I’d do it myself, but I’m at an open house and I can’t leave.”

  Wilson scowled at the sound of his sister’s voice.

  “What do you need?” I asked.

  “That book on the coffee table you showed me yesterday. The one about historic Hollywood homes? I need you to bring it to me. I’ve got a client coming by who says she grew up in the Pink Mansion. I thought it’d be fun to show her the book. My open house is just two doors down from Wilson’s. Could you bring it?”

  I glanced over at Wilson, his jaw tight, his hands even tighter on the steering wheel.

  I put my hand over the remote speaker, and whispered, “Better me than her coming to us. Unless, of course, you want your sister coming in and combing through your things.” I knew the answer to that and told Wilson not to worry. I took my hand off the speaker. “Not a problem, I’ll bring it by. See you in a bit.”

  Heather and Allen Jefferies were meeting with Denise when Wilson and I arrived at the open house. The three of them were in the kitchen, and Heather recognized me immediately when I walked in. Wilson, true to his nature, remained sight unseen and made himself at home behind the counter.

  “I know you. You’re...you’re—somebody famous.” Heather snapped her fingers in an effort to recall my name.

  “Misty Dawn.” Denise took the book from me and laid it on the kitchen counter.

  “Right.” Heather tapped her husband on the shoulder. “The psychic. I used to see you on one of those afternoon talk shows my mother used to watch.”

  “And this,” Denise opened the book and pointed to a photo of Zoey’s house, “is the house Heather grew up in.”

  There it was, like it had been dropped from the sky right in front of me: breadcrumb number three.

  Heather leaned over the book. “Oh my goodness. That’s it. Is it still pink? That’s how we described it to everyone. The Pink Mansion with the big tree in front.”

  “It’s still pink,” Denise said. “It’s been repainted several times. Different owners, different colors, but Zoey,” Denise made air quotes around the name, “liked its original coloring and that people called it the Pink Mansion. From what I understand she’s restored it, much as she could. So, yes, it’s pink again. And the tree’s still there as well.”

  Heather studied the photo. “I never knew it was so special. To me, it was just a house my father bought back in the late seventies with a great backyard and plenty of room for us kids. Hum...” She paused and tapped her finger on the window on the far left-hand side of the house. “And that...that was my bedroom. It’s funny looking at it now. I used to think that house was haunted.”

  I glanced up at Wilson then looked closer at the photo. The front of the house had only three windows. Two on the right side of the house, arched windows that opened onto the long gallied entry inside, and a third window on the left side of the house, opposite the center atrium. All of them in the photo looked black, but there was something different about the window Heather pointed to.

  “Haunted?” I asked. “Do you remember why you thought so?”

  “Oh, it’s silly,” Heather tapped the page with the tips of her fingers, “back then, I had an imaginary playmate. At least that’s how my mother described her, but to me, she was as real as you and me. She’d visit me, and we’d play for hours.”

  Without moving my eyes from the page, I stared at the window as though I might will myself to see behind the glass and into what was once Heather’s bedroom. “And what did you play?”

  “Dolls,” Heather said. “Like most little girls. I loved my dolls, and we used to have tea parties. I remember I had this elaborate tea set, white with little pink roses on it.” I flashed onto the small teacup Zoey had pulled from the basket beneath the stairs inside the Pink Mansion. Another breadcrumb. “I’d set it up on a table with my favorite doll in the backyard beneath this big weeping willow tree. She’d come for tea with her doll, and we’d play for hours. We had such fun. I really believed she was real. Even today I think of her as though she was.”

  “Do you remember what she looked like?” I glanced over at Wilson. If he had seen the ghost, I needed him to listen carefully so that we might compare notes later.

  Heather tapped the tips of her fingers lightly against her lips. Clearly, she was trying to recall a memory, dimmed but not forgotten. “It’s been a long time, but like I said, I still think of her as real. From what I remember she was small or smaller than me anyway. I was six, and I think maybe she was about four. Mostly I remember she had these long, pretty blonde braids. French braids I think, and freckles.”

  “Did she have a name?” I asked.

  “Lisa something, maybe? I’m not sure. But I do remember she had a lisp. She had lost her front teeth and couldn’t say anything with an ‘s’ sound, and when she said her name, it came out like Litha or something like that.”

  There it was, another breadcrumb. My eyes met Wilson’s. “Alicia Mae?” I asked.

  “Ahh! You are psychic.” Heather put her hand to her heart. “How did you know that?”

  “Misty knows lots of things.” Denise picked the book up off the counter. A subtle clue she was anxious to show the house and not divert her client’s attention with talk of ghosts any longer. “And I’m sure, Heather, if you’d like, she’d be happy to do a reading for you. She lives a couple doors down the block, in my brother’s old house. The Craftsman on the corner.”

  “Could you?” Heather fisted her hands and tapped her knuckles together excitedly. “I’d love that. My mother tried to convince me I had imagined her. She said all young kids have make-believe friends, and Lisa was mine. If we hadn’t moved away when I was six, I think she’d still be with me.”

  I left the book with Denise and started back down the walk to the cottage with Wilson close behind me. When we got home, two things happened almost simultaneously, both of them revealing.

  First, Wilson sneezed soon as we walked in the door. A clear indication he was still new to his limboed state. Newer shades often maintain a lot of their former physical ailments like allergies, indigestion, or headaches until they’re closer to their final transformation. And second, my cat reacted most unusually. Rather than scamper off, as I had expected her to when Wilson entered the room, she approached him. With her tail up and a soft meow, she bunted against his leg. A sure sign things had begun to change between the two.

  “She sees me?” Wilson pointed to the cat and sneezed again.

  “She does.” I put my bag on the entry table and walked into the living room.

  “But Heather Jefferies didn’t. I stood right next to her, and she couldn’t see me. Yet she saw Alicia. How is it she could see Alicia then, and not me now? And that damn cat of yours she sees me too.”

  “Animals and small children, Wilson. They see things differently.” I took a seat in the chair where the cat had been napping. “Children because they haven’t been taught not to. That is until they make the mistake of telling their parents about their invisible friends, and adults convince them their visions are nothing more than make believe. We all have intuitive talents. We’re born with them, but by the time we reach adulthood, most of us have been taught not to trust them. In a sense, it’s bred out of us. As for animals, they see because they can. Once they realize you’re part of the household, they cease to be surprised by your existence. You’re just another being in their presence.

  Wilson took a seat on the back of the couch, back to his thinking position. Feet on the cushions, elbow on
his knee, chin in his hand. “Heather described Alicia as though she had just seen her. Exactly as I saw her at Zoey’s house today. Small. Blonde. And missing her two front teeth.”

  “Ahh.” I raised a finger. Wilson hadn’t mentioned what happened when he left me at Zoey’s and gone in search of our ghost, he had been pensive and elusive on our drive home. “So you did see Alicia Mae today?”

  “Of course I did. You asked me to go looking for her, and I found her.”

  “And?” Wilson paused. Back to his thinking position. “Did you speak to her?” I asked.

  “No. She saw me, but she avoided me. I was in the hallway, outside Zoey’s bedroom, and she ran right past me. Like she might be afraid of me.”

  “She’s a child, Wilson. What did you expect?”

  “I’ve no idea. Children have never been my thing. I’ve always thought of them as someone else’s problem, and childhood a necessary sloppiness we all pass through until we arrive at who we are. But I will admit there’s something special about this one.”

  “I believe you’re right about that. And if I might make a prediction, things that bothered you as a mortal, like your allergies and attitude about children, the longer you remain in your limboed-state, the less they’ll bother you. In fact, you may even grow to enjoy them.”

  Chapter 10

  I wasn’t at all surprised when the phone rang early the next morning. I knew before I answered it would be Zoey. She sounded elated.

  “The ring’s missing, Misty. I did exactly as you told me. I left it on my dressing table last night, and when I woke this morning, it was gone. Gone! Just like you said it would be. The ghost took it, I know she did.”

  I envisioned Zoey in her nightgown, dancing around her dressing table, elf-like, that she had made contact with the little ghost. I closed my eyes and tried to envision Alicia Mae, and wondered if she was doing the same thing—delighted to have had the ring returned—but the vision wouldn’t come.

  “Is Chad with you?” I asked.

  “He’s in bed,” Zoey whispered. “I told him you didn’t think the ghost would harm me. He still doesn’t believe the house is haunted, but he was happy not to spend the night at a hotel.”

  “And you didn’t see or hear anything last night?” I asked.

  “No. I was exhausted after everyone left yesterday. The shock of Lacey’s death and the house being turned upside down was more than I could take. But, after talking with you, I decided you were right, the ghost wasn’t here to hurt me, and I took a sleeping pill. This morning, with the ring missing, I’m beginning to think it’s like Detective Romero said, Lacey’s death was just an accident. A terrible, terrible accident, but nothing more than that.”

  I didn’t want to alarm Zoey, but there was something about the word accident that didn’t sit well with me. I wanted to get back into that house to see if I might pick up something more on Lacey’s death and why Alicia Mae, after all these years, was still in the house. I asked Zoey if it would be okay if I came by again.

  “I was going to ask you. I’m not due back at the studio today until three p.m. Could you come by about eleven? There’s so much I want to ask you. We really need to talk.”

  By the time Wilson and I arrived, Zoey wasn’t alone. Three cars were parked in the drive, and I could hear the sound of people talking and laughing as I walked up the stone steps to the house. Before we reached the front door, I suggested Wilson continue his search to find Alicia Mae, this time outside beneath the big willow tree where Heather had said she and Alicia used to have their tea parties. I wanted to talk with Zoey inside the house, alone.

  Chad met me at the front door. He was dressed casually in sweatpants and a black T-shirt with skulls on it. I wondered if he had any idea as to the significance of skulls. Most young people find them little more than provocative jewelry accessories. I found it oddly ironic. In ancient civilizations, the skull was considered to be a symbol of the recurring cycle of life and death, particularly the rebirth of the spirit. I doubted Chad was wearing the shirt out of any kind of respect for Lacey’s passing, but I thought it a nice touch and said as much as I entered the house.

  Chad looked down at his shirt as though he had forgotten what he was wearing and grunted. “Yeah, whatever.”

  Behind him on the couch, exactly where I had seen them yesterday, were Zac and Kelsey and next to them, another couple I didn’t know. Chad introduced them as Joel, Lacey’s cousin and Nora, Joel’s girlfriend. “I thought we ought to have friends in. Didn’t think it was a good idea for the house to be empty at a time like this.”

  Before I could offer my condolences, Zoey entered and went immediately to Joel and Nora and greeted them tearfully, then took my hand and introduced me. “I assume Chad introduced you to my friend, Misty Dawn, she’s—”

  “Zoey’s psychic,” Chad picked up a pack of cigarettes off the coffee table, lit one, then sat down on the couch and put his feet up on the table. “Zoe’s convinced the house is haunted.”

  “Misty’s here to help me, Chad.” Zoey flashed Chad a look that, had it been on the cover of one of the tabloids, would have been labeled, “Trouble in Paradise.”

  “You’re a psychic?” Nora’s eyes flashed wide. “Can I have your card? I’d love to talk to you sometime.”

  I fished through my bag for a card and handed it to her. “Whenever you like,” I said.

  “But not now. She’s here to talk to me.” Zoey grabbed me by the arm and hustled me off to the kitchen where we could be alone. On the counters were bags full of food Zoey said Chad had ordered from the local deli to sustain them through the mourning process. “I don’t know that I need all this food as much as I need for you to look under the stairs and tell me if you see my mother’s ring. I didn’t have the nerve to look for it myself this morning, and I can’t wait any longer. Just tell me if it’s there.”

  While Zoey busied herself unpacking food and arranging it on platters to take to the living room, I opened the small doorway to the closet beneath the stairs. Inside it was dark and stuffy, and I tripped over a small, three-legged stool as I felt around. The basket Zoey had shown me yesterday wasn’t there. Aside from the stool, an old area rug, and a bucket full of rags, the closet was empty.

  “I’m sorry, Zoey. It’s not here, and the basket’s gone as well.”

  Zoey stopped arranging the platter of cold cuts and looked at me quizzically.

  “Gone? Everything?”

  I nodded.

  “But where? Did she move them? Has she left?” Zoey shook her head as though she was having trouble comprehending. “Please tell me she’s not gone. I was beginning to like the idea of her being here.”

  I was about to explain how ghosts can move their cache with little or no effort. That it didn’t necessarily mean Alicia Mae was no longer here, when Chad entered the kitchen.

  “Excuse me, Zoey.” Chad’s face was colorless. “Detective Romero’s here. He says it’s important.”

  I followed Chad and Zoey back to the front door.

  “Zoey?” Detective Romero stood in the entry with a clipboard in his hand. His demeanor more harried than his previous visit. His skin more sallow. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we need to talk.”

  “What’s wrong?” Zoey shrugged a shoulder. Clearly, she had no idea why the detective had returned.

  “I’m afraid I’ve bad news. It looks like whoever broke in yesterday knew what they were doing. Probably gloved-up. Must have known the security code and bypassed the alarm. The security company doesn’t have any record of it going off, and none of your neighbors claimed to have heard anything. And unfortunately, our forensics team wasn’t able to lift any prints, just yours and your fiancé’s.”

  Zoey half-laughed and leaned over to me and whispered, “Yeah, maybe that’s because ghosts don’t leave prints.”

  “I’m sorry?” Detective Romero looked a
t me. “I didn’t get your name the other day. You’re?”

  “Misty Dawn,” Zoey said. “She’s a friend of mine. And a psychic. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?”

  I handed Romero my business card. He looked at it, back at me, and ran his eyes up and down my body as though he were scanning me for contraband. Another time he might have asked to search my bag for drugs and would have found a zip lock bag of herbs I carry. All quite legal in California. Fortunately, he passed. Which didn’t disappoint me.

  “So, you’re Misty Dawn. The famous clairvoyant. The same Misty Dawn who worked with the FBI a couple years back. The one who found that college girl who’d gone missing.”

  “That and several other cases,” I said. “Most weren’t so well publicized.”

  “Huh.” Romero tapped my card against his clipboard. “Never much believed in stuff like that myself. But ’round the station, a lot of guys think you’re the real thing. Don’t see how you’d be much help with a case like this though.”

  “Case?” Zoey wrinkled her brow. “What case, Detective? I thought you were here to tell us about the break-in.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not the only reason I’m here, Zoey. I didn’t come back to talk with you about the break-in. I’m here because the coroner told us Lacey was hit on the back of the head. Her death wasn’t accidental. We’re investigating a homicide.”

  Zoey gasped and stepped back. “I don’t believe you. That’s impossible. It was an accident. You said so yourself. Why would someone kill Lacey?”

  “Miss, I think you should sit down.” Detective Romero pointed his clipboard toward the couch.

  “No. No, I don’t want to sit. I want you to tell me why you thought my best friend accidentally drowned in the spa two days ago, and now you don’t think so. Explain that to me.”

  “Like I said, the coroner did an autopsy and found evidence Lacey was hit on the back of the head. And—” The detective took a beat. A bit too rehearsed I thought. I had seen it before when investigators wanted to unsettle a potential suspect.