“What do you mean?” Julie tilted her head.
“The way the woman’s looking at the artist, you just know they were deeply in love. And I think one of them probably died too young. It’s almost like, I dunno. Like someone poured a lot of emotional energy into this painting.”
Julie scrunched her nose. “Isn’t that the Raeburn?”
“That’s what the guy said, but it isn’t.” She explained the signature and style not being a match. “It’s close, but this is a Mendelson.”
“Oh, isn’t that the guy who painted almost exclusively women’s portraits?” Julie scratched her head. “I remember reading somewhere about it. Sticks out because it was so sad. The last painting the guy ever did was of his wife. He had some disease or something and knew he would die, but didn’t tell her.”
“Did he die young?” asked Mia. “Or did he marry a much younger woman?”
“I have no idea. Why, you think this is that painting?”
“Could be.”
Julie fiddled with her phone while Mia packed away her supplies for the day. “Okay, I was wrong. Says here that this Mendelson guy painted his wife’s portrait only a few months before she died. The poor woman caught a stray bullet from two idiots dueling in a field near her house. According to this article, he fell into a deep depression and never did another painting. He kept the portrait of his wife, and supposedly talked to it all the time thinking she could hear him.”
“Wow.” Mia blinked.
“Holy crap, what are you psychic or something?”
“Hah. Probably just a good guess based on her expression, though Adam thinks I’m sensitive.”
Julie made ‘wee-ooo’ creepy noises while waving her hands around. “You just totally freaked me out. Wait, you read that article already and you’re playing with me.”
“I didn’t, but I’m also neither trying to freak you out nor prove I have ESP. So, take it as a coincidence.”
“Right…” Julie walked backward a few steps, pointing at her. “One hell of a coincidence.”
Mia faked a smile as her thoughts went back to that moment in her bathroom. Someone had been terrified, someone else, furious. After seeing those small footprints earlier, she couldn’t help but think that the kid had been the one hiding in the bathtub. A sick sort of sorrow twisted around in her stomach, wondering how long some poor child had lived in fear of their father before the unthinkable happened.
With a sigh, she finished packing up and headed home.
Mia parked her Tahoe in the driveway and started to get out before remembering to put the parking brake on due to the incline. As soon as she pressed down on it, a mild twinge of pain washed over her left foot.
“Damn. Did I bruise the bone or something? Don’t remember dropping anything on my foot. Must’ve stepped wrong.” She rolled her ankle around a few times, stretched her toes, and gingerly put her weight down on that leg—no pain. “Huh. Weird.”
She shut the door, then turned toward the house—and stopped short under a heavy wave of dread. The place didn’t feel warm and welcoming like ‘home’ should. It also didn’t exactly fill her with the urge to run away and never return. An inexplicable notion of ‘not quite right,’ as though she looked at a house seconds before a lava flow obliterated it, kept her standing there for a minute or two.
“Okay, this is…” She sighed. “That painting was pretty messed up. Maybe Adam’s right and I am sensitive.
The instant she entertained the idea that her husband’s insistence she had some degree of psychic talent could be true, something moved in the middle upstairs window. Mia gasped and grabbed her purse tight to her chest, staring at the curtain. Her imagination filled in a small person watching her from the window and randomly darting away.
Unsure how to feel about anything, Mia walked up the stone footpath to the porch and went inside. No particular mood hung in the living room. Her happiness at having a much shorter commute took over, and she managed to smile on the way upstairs to her room.
“Adam?”
No one answered.
She checked her phone, and sure enough, she had a text from him that he expected to be home soon. Telling him about the painting could wait until dinner conversation, so she replied to let him know she’d arrived home safe, then tossed the phone on the bed. After changing into a T-shirt and sweat pants, she grabbed the phone and headed downstairs.
The pancake mix remained on the floor as they’d left it. Now barefoot, Mia made a footprint beside the ones theoretically caused by a ghost. Hers, other than being larger, appeared cleaner with almost no mix wherever her skin touched the floor. The smaller footprints didn’t completely clear the tiles.
“Of course. I have physical substance. My skin picks up the powder.” Mia brushed her foot off, then took a few close-up photographs of where she made a sample print.
That done, she gathered the supplies to cook dinner, going for the salmon filets as they wouldn’t last. She set them in a baking pan flanked by asparagus and drizzled olive oil on it before adding minced garlic and some parmesan.
While shaking the cheese onto the tray, a faint chill moved up behind her along with the sense of not being alone. Mia froze, holding the canister over the food. She found her nerve and twisted to look back. No one stood behind her.
She glanced around nervously. “Hello. I have no idea if you’re here or not, or if I’m imagining it all. But, if you’re real, my name is Mia.” When her gaze settled on the pancake dust, she gasped.
Another small footprint had appeared beside the one she made, not ‘walking,’ but a deliberate placement beside hers.
Mia stared at the new footprint, the overt playfulness of it causing her to choke up. She took a few breaths to calm down. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
No response came.
I’m talking to thin air. Am I nuts? Adam does it all the time, but I don’t have one of those little recorder things. She smirked at herself and slid the baking tray into the oven. A soft thump came from the living room. Curious, Mia padded out of the kitchen. Motion pulled her gaze to the rug.
Halfway across the dining room, small depressions in the carpet approximated footsteps, but they didn’t compress much, not even enough to recognize the shape of a foot… merely that something moved.
Barely breathing, Mia crept after the trail, staring intently at the point where the rug pile dented. It continued into the living room, curving to the left toward the sofa. She started to smile at the innocence of it when a much darker energy gathered in the little hallway by the toilet closet. A distinct sense that something malevolent glared at her locked every muscle in her arms and legs rigid. The entity felt as though it gathered strength for an imminent attack.
Bing-Bong.
Mia screamed at the sudden, loud doorbell.
An oldish voice outside also cried out in surprise.
The negative presence vanished, and with it, the paralytic dread.
One hand over her chest, Mia headed to the door and pulled it open, revealing a rather surprised Pastor Weston Parker. He still wore a blue button down shirt and khaki’s but had added a cloth boonie hat.
Mia’s mood darkened, but she caught herself before making a comment. Though he probably shared the same ideology as her parents, this particular man hadn’t yet done anything to her personally.
“Sorry for startling you, Mrs. Gartner.” Weston offered an apologetic smile. “Didn’t notice you at Sunday Service.”
“Probably because I wasn’t there.” She smirked.
He drew a breath, shaking his head. “I understand you may have had some bad experiences in the past, but I think you really ought to consider getting right with Him before it’s too late.”
She tapped her foot. “Since I don’t know you, I have no idea what your personal goals are here. However, regardless of the theoretical existence of any sort of god or gods, I don’t trust any person telling me what they think said theoretical deity wants. If there i
s something up there, or multiple somethings out there, they’re more than welcome to contact me in person. A true god wouldn’t need a mortal to do his talking for him. Only cults need people to do their dirty work.”
Weston shifted his jaw side to side. “I realize you’ve got your opinions on religious folk. And darn sure there’s quite a few people out there who misuse the name of the Lord to deceive people. What matters here is your and your husband’s souls.”
She glanced back over her shoulder upon catching a noticeable waft of garlic from her dinner. “I still think that if a supposed loving god had any intention of ‘saving our souls,’ he’d do it whether or not we spent a couple hours on Sunday singing off key in a fancy little building. If his love-slash-protection is conditional, then it’s not coming from a position of benevolence. Do this thing or the bad stuff that happens to you is your fault sounds like an abusive spouse—or the mafia—not a heavenly being.”
“Mrs. Gartner, I don’t think you’re taking seriously the amount of danger you’re in.”
She smiled. “I take it about as seriously as the notion that there’s a Jewish zombie up in the clouds who will protect me if I telepathically tell him how much I love him, but if I don’t, he’ll let all sorts of evil happen to me because he loves everyone. Or, can you explain to me why this god of yours cares so much about the souls of a young, suburban married couple in upstate New York but all those starving people in third world countries are on their own?”
Weston set his hands on his hips and stared down.
Mia bit her lip. “Sorry. That was a little harsh. I appreciate your concern, but I still think if any benevolent god was going to offer my soul his protection, he’d just do it without being asked. That’s what parental figures do for their children… they protect them without being asked. If you had a three-year-old, and he was running around near traffic, you wouldn’t just stand there watching him zoom in front of a UPS truck because he didn’t ask you to save him from being run over. You’d keep a hold of him. All you religious types keep talking about ‘love,’ but the minute someone doesn’t conform to some arbitrary set of rules, all that love goes straight out the window and supposed families rip themselves apart.”
“I apologize for upsetting you.” Weston lifted his gaze from the porch. “All I ask is that you don’t judge everyone based on the actions of a few people. Please think about what I said. This house has a dark past. The Devil has his eye on it.” He tipped his fishing cap. “Have a good rest of your week.”
“Drive safe.”
She hovered in the doorway, watching him amble off to the road and hop in his Jeep Cherokee. A smallish dog sprang to life in the back section, separated from the rear seat by a wall of cage-like mesh. The—possibly bichon—barked and yipped happily, tail wagging.
“That guy is too persistent.”
Mia shut the front door and walked back to the kitchen. She eyed the little side hall to the toilet closet, still worried that something there might want to hurt her. Her train of thought regarding dinner had derailed, but salmon and asparagus really didn’t need anything else as a side. It also had a bit more time before being done. She started to head for the living room to sit, but froze, staring at the countertop.
Her missing hairbrush sat beside the can of parmesan cheese.
7
Bedtime
Monday, August 27, 2012
Thoughts of students flew around in Adam’s head on the ride home.
He had three classes, each an hour and forty-five minutes, plus an official ‘office time’ of 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. to meet with any students that had additional questions or required help. Paul, his undergraduate teaching assistant, shared much of his interest in the paranormal. Considering it had been the first day of class, no one showed up with questions at office hour, so the two of them had swapped ghost stories—and run late.
As he usually did at the start of a school year, he mentally categorized the students who stood out: the ones he expected to excel, the ones he figured would struggle and need a lot of support, and one or two he expected to be problematic. Those usually fell into either overt troublemakers, or the sort of person who complained to the administration over every little thing.
Content with how his day had gone, he smiled the whole trip to the house—though he did need to use the Garmin to find his way at least to Minstrel Run.
Ehh, couple weeks and I’ll be able to drive this in my sleep.
He narrowed his eyes at a distancing green Jeep with a fluffy white dog in the back window.
“Great. What the heck does he want now?” Adam rolled his eyes.
While he didn’t share Mia’s active contempt for religion, he considered himself a skeptic. The psychology of it sometimes bore alarming similarities to cults, especially wherever the people craved authoritarian leadership and became hostile in the face of dissent or any perceived lapse of complete belief. Also, there remained a rather astounding lack of proof. He prepared himself to fully accept any deity that showed itself or created phenomena science couldn’t explain. Until someone presented peer-reviewed studies proving the existence of a god or gods, he regarded religious people as either victims of fraud or perpetrators thereof. He had to admit a little jealousy at how the vast majority of people in the country readily accepted the ‘truth’ of a deity without any proof more compelling than someone saying it existed, but start talking about ghosts or psychic powers and everyone demanded mountains of evidence. Sometimes, the same people who laughed at him over ghosts and called his proof fake also completely believed in ‘god’ without any corroborating evidence.
“Ugh. Okay, maybe I am as bad as Mia.” He pulled the Sentra into their enormous driveway, parking to the right of the Tahoe.
Eager to spend a few hours running around the house with a digital recorder, he hopped out and jogged up the walkpath to the porch.
“Mia?”
“Hey,” came a soft voice from the kitchen.
He sniffed at something fishy-veggie in the air with a load of garlic. “Ooh, that smells amazing. I’ve got a short day tomorrow, so I can cover dinner.”
Mia didn’t say anything.
Adam crossed the living room to the arch and hurried past the dining room to the kitchen, where Mia sat at the table, staring at a hairbrush she turned around and around in her hand. “Oh, hey, you found it.”
“It was on the counter.”
“Weird.” Adam removed his light jacket and draped it over another chair, then put his briefcase down by the door.
“No, I mean one minute it wasn’t… the next, it’s there.”
He rounded the corner of the table to stand in front of her. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a ghost in this house. And it’s probably a kid. That’s depressing as hell.”
“It is.” Adam took a knee and embraced her. “And as sad as it is, there’s nothing we can do about it but try to make contact. If we have an actual intelligent spirit, maybe we can work out a way to communicate.”
“The spirit is smart. Look at the pancake dust.”
Adam gave her another squeeze, then let go and stood. “That has to be your footprint.”
“Look next to it. After I did that for a size comparison, the ghost stepped there, but only there. Like he or she was playing.”
“That’s amazing.” Adam’s grin widened with awe.
Beep.
Mia set the hairbrush on the table.
“I got it. You prepped it.” Adam winked. He took the tray out of the oven and distributed the contents evenly over two plates. “This looks phenomenal.”
She chuckled. “It’s not exactly difficult to dribble stuff on a tray.”
While they ate, Mia told him of her ‘psychic impression’ on the painting at work. It fascinated Adam, but he couldn’t use it for any of the papers he wanted to write since none of the conditions had been controlled or even documented prior. That didn’t stop him from trying to squeeze every last detail out of her a
nd listening with the eagerness of a kid hearing a campfire story.
“They say it’s possible for items to soak up emotional energy. Did you have any visions or anything when you touched it?”
“No. Nothing like that. Only a general feeling. It’s not psychometry.”
He grinned.
“Yes, dear, I do listen when you talk about the weird stuff.”
Adam chuckled, then told her about meeting Paul and his mutual interest in all things paranormal. Other than that, his first day at the school had been pleasant if unremarkable. “I’m not the least bit psychic, but I have a good feeling about the place. I’d like to say I’m going to be there for a long time.”
“Don’t taunt fate like that.”
“Fair point. Well…” He gestured at the footprints. “Being there for a long time doesn’t necessarily require I remain alive.”
Mia almost dropped her fork. “Please don’t joke about that.”
“Sorry.” He cringed. “So what did that priest want?”
“He’s a pastor, not a priest.”
“There’s a difference?” Adam scratched his head.
Mia smiled. “I’m going to resist the rather obvious temptation to make a disgusting joke, and say yes. And, what else do you think he wants? Trying to sell his cult door to door. Oh, I didn’t see you there Sunday. You really should attend. Your souls are at risk, and so on.”
“Ahh. No problem with him?”
“Other than being pushy, not really. Can’t tell if he’s a sinister cult leader or a kindly older guy who genuinely believes he has an imaginary friend in the sky.”
Adam laughed. “We’ve got an imaginary friend in the kitchen.”
“As soon as god leaves footprints in our pancake mix, I’ll change my mind.” She stabbed her last piece of asparagus.
“I’ll get the dishes.”
Mia leaned her weight on her elbows and flashed an alluring smile. “Why do men do that?”
Adam picked up the plates and carried them to the sink. “Do what?”
The Spirits of Six Minstrel Run Page 5