I manipulated the wood with my fingers, like a doctor examining his patient.
“I admit defeat,” I finally said, pushing myself out from under the table. “No one wants to share secrets with me today.”
“Are you sure?” The twinkle had returned to Trina’s eye. She sat down in the chair in front of the section where I had been working and moved her hands under the table. I heard the soft scraping of wood against wood. “Look now.”
A drawer stood open beyond the edge of the table. “How did you…?”
Trina laughed. I found it the night we had Sandra for dinner. I sat here, remember? At dinner, my hands just happened to hit the right spot I guess, and the wood shifted. Later I checked it out and found the drawer.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ran my hands along the opened drawer, feeling the hardness of old wood and the smoothness from years of wear.
“And spoil your fun? But guess what else I found?”
“There’s more?”
“A diary!”
“What was a diary doing in the silver drawer?”
“Maybe keeping it hidden from her nosy father?”
“I’m not nosy…am I?”
“No, Dad.” Trina chuckled. “I’m just teasing. But the diary—it’s awesome! The writing’s faded, but it belonged to someone named Isabelle. Haven’t found a last name yet; I’ve only read a couple pages.”
I moved the drawer back into position, observing how the pieces of wood inter-connected and slid against each other to form hidden seams. “I can’t believe you found it.”
“I’m glad you finally got around to looking. It’s been really hard keeping the secret from you.”
“You don’t keep secrets from me?”
“Not usually,” she said, focusing on something outside the window.
“You kept this one.”
“Now that you know, I can keep reading the diary! I was afraid you would catch me or that I would get excited and talk about it, and then I would have to explain. “
Trina was rambling. That could only mean one thing. She had a secret, and keeping it was hard. Why suddenly didn’t my daughter want to share her life with me?
Her eyes widened, and she bolted up the staircase. The sound of retching and gagging reached me as I stood at the bottom of the stairs. I wondered if I should go up and offer help, or go get Ted. Before I could decide, the toilet flushed and Trina reappeared at the top of the stairs.
I stared at my daughter’s ashen face. All the excitement over the hidden drawer became inconsequential compared to my concern for Trina.
I walked the four blocks to Sandra’s and arrived fifteen minutes late. Lights were strung across the small yard from a tall pole in the center, creating a tent-like appearance. A dozen or so people sat around tables talking and smiling. More people filled their plates at a round table covered with silver serving dishes. I could smell barbeque.
Too many people.
I tugged at the collar of my shirt. Why had I agreed to come? Sandra would never miss me if I simply headed back to the house. This was a yearly event she had held since before her husband died. Trina told me Sandra had thought of cancelling because of Jimmy, but decided to hold it, thinking the distraction would be good for everyone.
“Bill! Come meet some people,” Sandra called from across the yard. “You’ll know most of them; they’re from the church.”
Sandra’s soft hand wrapped around mine.
After meeting people whose names I immediately forgot, I drifted to the side of the yard. The minister, Steve Morgan, clinging to a glass of iced tea, headed my way.
“Quite a party, but I need to get away for a while. My wife’s energized by crowds, but quite honestly, things like this drain me.”
“Isn’t that strange for a minister?”
“Probably.” He chuckled. “Now that you know my deep dark secret, what do I need to know about you?”
“My guess is Trina’s already filled you in. I lost my wife to breast cancer when Trina was ten. I’m here for the summer to help her and Ted repair the house so they can start a bed and breakfast.”
“A bed and breakfast? Good idea.” Grinning, he added, “What else would you do with all those bedrooms? Start a brothel?”
I looked at him and he laughed.
“OK, now you know two deep dark secrets.” He sipped his tea. “I imagine the house needs a lot of work.”
“It does, but we’ve got a lot done already. You should stop by some time and see it.” I wanted to grab the words and pull them back. What had possessed me to say that? All I needed was a preacher snooping around with a demon hiding inside somewhere. Hard to tell what would happen.
“How are you dealing with the heat in the house?”
“It doesn’t get too hot.”
“I imagine that big oak out front helps. How about the attic?”
“We don’t go up to the attic much,” I mumbled. “Probably need to put in ridge vents someday.”
The condensation from my glass seeped around my fingers. Voices blended. I could make out an occasional word, and the laughter of the woman with the red hair, but mostly the hum represented a social connectedness to which I was an outsider.
Sandra glanced my way and waved. I smiled back, marveling at her emotional strength. I could never have hosted a party this soon after Nancy died.
At my side, the pastor stared into the crowd, a hint of a smile turning his lips. Should I ask him? If he knew, he would position himself on the opposite side of the proverbial fence from where I now stood. Why ask him when it would probably end in a disagreement? But the words came out. “Ever hear of the house being haunted?”
Steve laughed. “Yeah, someone told me about your adventure. You know how the rumor mill is in a small town. Word is you saw the ghost of Jimmy.”
I skimmed my hand across the top of my head. I hadn’t considered that anyone else would know outside of Ted and Trina, and Sandra of course. The thought that half the town might be talking about it was embarrassing. My face heated; I was grateful we stood in shadows.
“As kids, we used to think the house was full of ghosts,” Steve added. “Mr. Barnett—the man who lived there—he must have been a hundred years old when I was a kid. He didn’t get out much, so you can imagine the tales we kids made up.”
“Seriously, have you ever heard legitimate stories of the house being haunted?”
“No, can’t say I have. Nothing credible anyway.”
As much as I ached to talk to someone about my supernatural experience, this was not the person. A man of God would never allow his mind to be open enough to accept alternate possibilities. And then Barbara had made everything worse. I wished my sister would talk about it with me instead of jumping to her own narrow-minded conclusions.
“If I tell you something,” I heard myself say, “will you promise to keep it to yourself?”
“Sure, unless it’s against the law.”
“It’s not against the law, but it may be against your religion.” I continued to stare at the activity in front of me. I could have been at a theater, the scene in front of me a performance. I filled the role of spectator more than participant. From the corner of my eye, I could see the pastor turn toward me.
“You know about me seeing the ghost of Jimmy,” I said. “But I didn’t tell the police about the other ghost.” Why am I telling him this? The story gushed out of me like an unstoppable flood.
“My sister in Ohio has a picture of him hanging on her wall. The picture belonged to my grandfather. He didn’t know who the boy was, but thought he was an early relative.”
I could feel Pastor Steve staring at me.
“I’m not sure how Jimmy and my ancestor got together. None of my family has ever lived in the south, and according to Sandra, none of hers has ever gone north.”
A mosquito buzzed around me ear, and I swatted at empty air. The voices from the party faded into the background, like the music in
a department store that no one hears. The world contained only me and the preacher.
His opinion felt urgent. I stiffened as I continued, expecting any moment he would interrupt me like Betsy had, make excused and leave me for safer party entertainment.
“I have my own thoughts on what I saw,” I finally said, “but I would like to hear yours.”
The preacher was quiet for so long I began to wonder if he had decided not to answer.
Why had I told him about the other ghost? It had been unplanned, for sure. Trina hadn’t mentioned that the preacher would be there, nor had I anticipated sharing my evening with a man of God. Uncomfortable, I tried to think of a way to escape.
I had come to the party like I promised. No one said I had to stay forever. But the only way out of the yard meant I had to pass through its center. Going through the light felt as unpleasant as staying.
Steve wiped the moisture off his damp forehead. A mosquito landed on his arm, probably the same one that had been buzzing in my ear. He smashed it, and even in the dim light, I could see the red stain. “Did you feel threatened in any way?” he asked.
“They were just little boys.”
“The scripture is clear that when the soul leaves the body, it moves on to its next destination. Good or bad.” Now he was looking into the party, avoiding my glance. “Spirits don’t stick around, regardless of what popular television says.”
“But I saw the ghosts.”
“And ghosts being…?”
“The spirits of Jimmy and whoever was with him.”
“You know that’s impossible.”
“What if it isn’t? Can you prove that human ghosts don’t exist?”
“Let me ask you this,” Pastor Steve said slowly, turning toward me. “Have you always believed the souls of humans can remain after death?”
“No, my upbringing was in a conservative Christian church.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Except it stifles any thoughts outside a rigid framework of outdated beliefs.” Barbara’s words. When had I decided to accept them? A burning pain stabbed between my eyes. My vision blurred, then clarity returned, visual and mental. Pastor Steve was messing with my mind. I would not let him control my thoughts.
“And when did you decide you were being stifled?”
I had told this man too much, and I wasn’t ready to share anything else. He didn’t need to know how far outside the traditional realm of faith I had drifted. He didn’t need to know about Barbara.
“I had to make sense of the paranormal somehow,” I replied, “and I didn’t find the answers in the Bible.”
“Maybe you looked at the wrong scriptures.”
“Maybe I did.”
Darkness began to settle in. Laughter mingled with conversation, the buzz of night insects, the howl of dogs.
Shadows from the trees lengthened, and stretched for me. I allowed them to caress my confused spirit. There was comfort in their darkness.
I ached to return to the safety of my room. A voice whispered deep within me. Pastor Steve was dangerous. Anxious to leave, I searched for Sandra so I could say good bye.
“You know,” Pastor Steve said, staring into the yard, “Satan uses any opportunity he can to pull us from God. He uses our circumstances to kill our faith.”
Don’t listen to him! “I still believe in God” My voice sounded jerky and halting.
“As do the demons, and they tremble. James 2:19.”
Beads of sweat formed on my face.
“Satan loves Christians to live in the shadows between truth and deceit.” I felt him turn toward me. “We have folks who attend our church every Sunday and still walk in the shadows. They like it there, where they can turn their faces from the light, and yet keep it close by, just in case they need God for an emergency.”
Bile filled my throat.
“Let me ask you one more thing: Have you participated in the occult in any way, ever, in your lifetime?”
My heart pounded so hard it sounded like thunder in my ears. “Of course not.” The occult? Satanism and tarot cards and things like that? Who did he think I was?
“Sometimes people get into occult activities believing they’re meaningless fun. Like fortune tellers at fairs. Most of them are fake, but every now and then, you run across a real one. All of them are dangerous.”
Fortune tellers? Not the occult as I know it. “And what’s the harm in that?” The words croaked out of my constricted throat. “No one really takes what those people say seriously.”
“Satan does, and you can bet he has some of his henchmen assigned to the fortune tellers, watching who comes and might be open to having a demon-escort for a while.”
Is that what happened to me? “Why would a demon follow someone who went to a fortune teller for fun?” Don’t listen, don’t listen.
“To wait for the opportunity to enter him.”
My thundering heart lurched. I stared at the man, horror beginning to take root. Barbara had been possessed, for a short time, but it had happened. She had said she served as a conduit. Was it more than that?
“What do you think demons are?” Steve asked.
“I don’t know. Satan’s angels I guess.” Every cell in my body told me to run, but I was glued in place by the man’s words. “Why would a demon want to enter someone?”
“Think about it,” Pastor Steve said. “Satan is pure evil. There is not one spec of kindness or light in him. He wants only to harm.”
Everything Pastor Steve said made sense. A finger of doubt stirred my reasoning. Had I accepted Barbara’s explanations of lingering souls too easily?
“You must be turning into a real Southerner.” Steve chuckled. “You just shivered, and it must still be eighty degrees outside.”
A force pulled me from one belief to another, moving me, shifting me. Was there a tug of war going on for my soul? Had I become a pawn more than a player?
Run—get away from Pastor Steve, from Sandra, from the south! The plastic cup splintered in my hand.
Steve grabbed my arm. “I have friends with expertise in this area. Can I share your story with them?”
“Sure, sure. Go ahead.” I didn’t care what he did; I just needed to leave.
Trying not to rush but wanting to run, I said a quick goodbye to Sandra and fled toward home.
As the noise from the party faded, the sound of crickets and bullfrogs mingled with my own pounding heartbeat. After a block, I stopped to catch my breath. Never in my life had I been this confused and unable to sort out my thoughts.
I glanced toward the darkened sky. Was God really up there? If He was, why didn’t He care about me or Trina or little ghost boys?
18
For my own sanity, I needed to resolve the whole ghost thing. What had I seen in the attic? The spirits of two dead boys or something else? Vacillating back and forth was driving me crazy. But without Barbara, there was nothing I could do but wait for Pastor Steve to get back with me. It had been a week since Sandra’s party, and I had heard nothing.
I needed access to Barbara’s gift, but at the same time, I was repulsed by the memory of the demon using her body. She said she was a Christian, she said she could contact Jimmy, but the risk was too great that she might bring more evil to the house. Even though I was still unable to locate the demon, I knew he was there, somewhere, waiting. I could feel him, and now Ted sensed him too.
Adding to my internal tension, Mitch still hung around like a leech. I needed to figure out the kid’s agenda before he hurt Trina.
Trina. The more I observed her, the more she reminded me of Nancy during the early days of her illness. Suspecting the truth about my daughter made everything else unimportant.
I was supposed to be rolling sunny yellow paint on the kitchen walls as a compromise for not tearing the room apart until next summer. Betsy hadn’t called me since our last conversation. It was her turn. Our arguments had never lasted this long before. I pulled the cellphone out of my pock
et and stared at it, willing it to ring.
Trina found me there, sitting on the back stoop. She had changed from her work clothes into a fresh pair of shorts and a clean top. “Dad, can you do me a favor? Will you take these cookies to Sandra? I need to return her plate, and I hate to send it back empty.”
The last thing I wanted to do was be alone with Sandra. Being with Sandra was tolerable if Trina was there. She could carry the conversation. Even the party had not been bad. But alone?
“I had planned to stop by her house on my way to Florence,” Trina said, “but I’m running late.”
“Running late for what?”
She placed a plate covered with plastic wrap into my hands.
Staring at the plate with as much enthusiasm as a hotdog approaching a bun, I burrowed deeper into my black hole. Ghosts and death. That’s all the south had brought me. I no longer felt the sun, heard the birds, or smelled the fragrance from the flowering bushes that surrounded the house. I shoved the cellphone back into my pocket.
After changing into a clean shirt, I walked the short distance to Sandra’s house.
As soon as I reached her door, my mood improved. It was as though a sign were suspended over her house that said “No Black Holes of Despair Allowed.”
Few people seemed to have their acts together as well as Sandra. It had only been a month since Jimmy’s abduction, but she remained a loving and gracious woman. Instead of being irritated by her perfection, I found her to be an elixir, a healer of all that ailed me—as long as I could look at her from a distance.
Instead of a porch, a simple cement stoop graced the front door of Sandra’s house. Every southern house should have a porch, and one could be added easily enough. I knocked on the door.
“Bill! What a surprise; come in. Actually, I was going to stop by your place later.”
I smiled at her lilting voice and soft southern accent. “Trina wanted me to return your plate.”
“Looks like you brought more than the plate.” Sandra sniffed at the cookies. “Mmm. They smell fresh. Come on in. I’ll get us some iced tea and we can sample these.”
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