A Ghost of a Chance

by Cherie Claire

  “Jennie Cowan came to Eureka to cure her blindness but didn’t get any relief from the Basin Spring,” Johnson says. “But at this spring, she regained her sight.”

  Off to the side are stone stairs leading up and I follow, ending up to the left of the spring and the group, hugged on one side by a cliff where a tree is growing in the middle of the rock. Viewing a majestic tree prospering despite its limitations gives me hope, and I’m suddenly feeling better, regardless of the fitful night’s sleep and the disturbing morning. I’m liking this town, especially the springs.

  “What are you doing?”

  I look down and find Richard scowling at me.

  “You Louisiana people never follow the rules, do you?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Uh, like you’re supposed to get out of town when a major storm is brewing so the rest of us don’t have to rescue you afterwards.”

  A fire rushes up my body and I’m about to give him a major piece of my mind but Richard’s already back in line with the group as they head to the next spring. I hurry down the stone steps and catch up, still fuming over his insensitive remarks.

  Next up is the town’s Carnegie Library — those wonderful old buildings constructed by the Carnegie Foundation in the early twentieth century that I love — and the delightful Crescent Spring beneath a canopy. I use the opportunity to close my eyes, listen to the water spewing forth and calm down. Thankfully, Richard has moved to the other side of the group.

  Before the library was built, a gazebo existed on this spot, Johnson explains, and marked the beginning of a staircase that led up to the Crescent Hotel. Around the corner is the First Presbyterian Church, built in 1886 from the hotel’s leftover stone.

  “And now we will take a drive to the springs on the outskirts of town,” Johnson informs us, and like magic, Alicia appears with the van.

  Stephanie, Joe and I are amazed at this well-tuned tour but Richard grumbles, “More springs?”

  “Well, we are in Eureka Springs,” Joe says.

  Richard shakes his head as Alicia approaches. “I don’t want to see any more springs. You’ve seen one water coming out of the earth, you’ve seen them all.”

  Poor Mr. Johnson stands there unsure of what to say — no doubt he’s used to people paying him money to take a tour of these unique waters and undoubtedly stay until the end — and the rest of us wince at Richard’s rudeness. Alicia, dear heart, comes to the rescue.

  “You can return to the hotel, if you want Richard. Maybe you can catch a quick nap before lunch.”

  Richard instantly perks up. “Great.”

  “But we’re on a schedule,” Alicia continues. “So if you want to do that, you’ll have to walk back.”

  This takes the wind out of Richard’s sails but he’s still itching for that hotel room. “Yeah, whatever. Is the hotel close?”

  “There’s a stairway on the upper side of Crescent Spring,” Johnson says. “Goes right to the hotel. Just walk up the stone steps to Crescent Drive, turn left and you’ll be right in back of your hotel.”

  “Thanks.”

  As Richard heads to the stairway, hidden behind the gardens of the Crescent Spring park, Alicia whisks us to the van. She’s moving too fast, I suspect, which means there’s some ulterior motive, but I’m just glad to be rid of the irritating man. When we get settled into the van and head off, Stephanie says, “You’re right Mr. Johnson, those springs are healing. I feel so much better.”

  We all know what she means, and I smile as we pass the stone stairway leading up to the Crescent Hotel, a steep incline winding through woods with Richard struggling through every step.

  Johnson offers to either show us historical and architectural sites or water and the three of us enthusiastically choose springs. We make a big loop around the north side of town, passing adorable gingerbread Victorians, several bed and breakfasts and a backyard dinosaur statue Johnson tells us used to belong to nearby Dinosaur World. We pause at the Grotto, a spring that’s hidden deep inside the mountain with a small stone staircase providing access into its cave. The temperature drops significantly and I pull my sweater close over my chest. Someone has placed candles on a makeshift altar, creating a glow that’s stunning.

  “The Grotto is considered by many to be very spiritual,” Johnson says and I’m so there.

  Back in the van we stop at Magnetic Springs, the only spring in town that’s drinkable but none of us choose to try it out. Since there’s a large, deep basin where the water collects, Stephanie does take the opportunity to dunk her arthritic feet into its depth. After a few minutes, the cold water proves too much for my co-traveler so we drive to Cold Spring and Soldier Spring, both located away from town and tourists.

  “Federal soldiers reportedly killed two bushwhackers in front of this cave,” Johnson explains in front of Soldier Spring.

  “Want more?” he asks after the van pulls away and the three of us glance at each other for confirmation; we all do. Johnson tells us there are dozens of springs and “seeps” in the area, with nineteen pocket springs and parks in town, all maintained by the Eureka Springs Parks and Recreation Commission. Alicia politely adds, however, that we’re due to meet up with Henry and the next tour.

  “One more loop around a neighborhood,” Johnson says. “And the last three are fun ones.”

  Turns out Carrie Nation, the hatchet-wielding, saloon-smashing prohibitionist made her way to Eureka Springs at the turn of the twentieth century and we pass what used to be her house. Being from New Orleans and a lover of cocktails, I make a joke about the radical member of the temperance movement but Johnson quickly corrects me, claiming she was acting out in protest of women who were victims to family members who couldn’t hold their liquor. Nation married an alcoholic physician who died of alcohol poisoning, which drove her to do what she did, he informs us. Her protests ranged from the meek singing hymns in bars to smashing bottles with her hatchet, which landed her in jail more than two dozen times. Many bars hung a sign that read, “All Nations welcome but Carrie.”

  In her later years Carrie Nation ran a boarding house and girl’s school in Eureka Springs, aptly titled Hatchet Hall, and she never hesitated knocking cigars out of youngsters’ mouths and protesting alcohol sales.

  “There’s a story that Carrie had a vision of a spring across from her boarding house,” Johnson tells us as we drive down Flint Street. “She hired workers to blast through the rock and sure enough, there was a spring.”

  We also pass Onyx Spring, which was used by locals for washing laundry, which makes us all gasp in horror. We pause at Little Eureka Spring, its water once labeled as the purest at the 1904 World’s Fair and a favorite with people with arthritis, which makes Stephanie perk up.

  The road ends at Lake Eureka, a spring that was damned to produce a swimming hole, although it’s anything but a lake. The small body of water — more like a pond — rests in the turn of the road deadly still and a bit rancid around the edges, although dragonflies are flitting everywhere. This corner of the world is on private property — I spot a house up to the left of the lake and a gravel road hugging the right. No doubt the owners have left the swimming hole to run wild with nature. Which isn’t a bad thing, I suppose.

  We disembark the van to check out both spring and lake while Johnson tells us about the last spring on our list, the Cave Spring up Douglas Street that’s reportedly haunted. That strange tingling sensation I had back in my hotel room returns in a rush, buzzing me like an electrical shock. I swallow hard, trying to regain my balance — and sanity — and return to that peace I had known at the previous stops. Johnson keeps talking about ghosts and I find it’s both difficult to breathe and walk, so I pause while the others head to the lake’s edge and look out on what used to be a popular gathering spot in summertime.

  “Why is the Cave Spring haunted?” I manage to ask before Mr. Johnson moves too far away.

  “No one knows but there are plenty of stories. Of course, they say the
same thing about this turn in the road, that it’s not safe to be down here late at night.”

  Joe laughs. “Sounds like the perfect teenage date scare. Take a girl down a dark road late at night, a place with spooky placid waters and tell her ghost stories so she’ll jump in your arms.”

  “Yeah, they’re pretty placid all right,” Stephanie adds. “I wouldn’t want to hang around here after dark.”

  “That cave isn’t much better,” Johnson adds. “Dark and cool inside, with several rooms cut out of the bluff. It’s awesome to see, will take you there if you want, but it’s pretty spooky at night.”

  My head hurts when he speaks these words and something tells me that what he’s saying is important.

  Joe snaps a few pictures but no one’s impressed so everyone moves to get back in the van. “Aren’t you going to check it out,” Stephanie asks me.

  I realize I haven’t moved from my spot, still vibrating as if I stepped in a puddle during a lightning storm. My head is screaming for me to get out of there, but something else I can’t explain is pulling me forward. I nod to Stephanie and gingerly take a few steps toward the lake, my hands clutched tightly around my camera.

  “Just take a photo and get the hell out of here,” I tell myself. “It’s an ordinary body of water.”

  I stop at the pond’s edge, knowing for sure, now, that something’s very wrong here. The journalist in me is desperate to know what, but my beating heart demands I flee. Off to the right a stone wall rises up the mountain and in its center a hole about four feet by four feet. I’d say it’s a cave but it looks too clean cut to not be manmade and its dark interior tells me it travels fairly deep into the mountainside.

  I raise my camera to my eyes and adjust the telephoto lens dial, and take a quick photo of the odd little box cave, although I can’t explain why. Then I turn toward the lake and point to a distant spot across the water that offers the best composition while taking in the scope of the scene before me.

  As the far shore comes into focus, I see them. Three girls. One standing off to the side, blood pouring down from her head, staining her clothes and screaming to the heavens, and the other two holding hands, crying and begging for their lives. I swallow, doubting that this scene is real, but I take the photo anyway, then several more. As I watch these women standing horrified in pain, I realize that I have completely lost my mind. But I do what any confused person would in these circumstances, point to my ghosts and scream bloody murder.

  Chapter Twelve

  I’m waiting for Madman Maddox to show, watching Jesus with his arms outstretched turn colors as the sun descends to my right. I nurse my now familiar martini while trying to get my story straight, something that explains what happened today without me admitting that I have survived Katrina’s watery destruction only to fall off the proverbial deep end of the ocean. My journalist brain screams, “Enough with the clichés!”

  After my blood-curling scream at the lake’s edge, Alicia had come running, along with Joe who grabbed my arm and gave me a once-over to see if I was hurt. All I could manage was to point across the water and say something about helping three murdered women. At least that’s what I heard Joe telling the cops when they arrived.

  To make matters worse, Merrill or Cassiopeia or whatever the hell her name is showed up with a contingent of protestors, carrying signs about a new development that’s threatening the water supply of Eureka Springs. Stephanie told me just before Alicia whisked our group away to lunch — and leaving me to contend with the cops — that Merrill had planned to meet us at Sweet Spring, but the bus carrying the protestors had broken down on Highway 62, delaying their arrival.

  Adding icing to the cake, the mayor arrived, and guess who’s standing there, next to the crime scene and a hoard of protestors, shaking for all she’s worth? Then, as if on cue, the news van pulled up and began taping us all.

  After an hour of watching Merrill and her cousin go at it, then the mayor taking turns with me while the cops had a million questions, Henry arrived to rescue me back to the Crescent, where he left me while continuing his tour, and Alicia took my group to the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge, something my editor specifically wanted me to include in the article.

  “I think it’s best that you stay here for the afternoon,” Henry had said as he planted me on the steps of the Victorian hotel and I’m picturing him scratching me off the list for good.

  The door to the balcony bar opens and my heart races. I still haven’t figured out what to tell the Eureka Springs Police Department as a formal statement, but it’s TB and for once, I’m thrilled to see him.

  “What on earth happened?” He plops down next to me. “You didn’t show up for lunch and then I hear you uncovered some body?”

  “I don’t know,” I lie. “We were doing a walking tour of the springs and I saw something. Turns out it was a bone. A girl’s forearm sticking out of the mud.”

  “Yeah, Alicia said they found what they think are remains.”

  I nod, still unsure of what I’m supposed to admit.

  “She also said you screamed and yelled something about girls covered in blood.”

  I close my eyes trying to blot out that painful memory. Why oh why did I have to open my mouth? When I look up again, the waiter is passing by and I signal for another round.

  “Vi, you’ve had enough.”

  “You just got here, how do you know?”

  “Because I can tell when you’re headed to never-never land.”

  I gaze at my husband of eight years and am both horrified and thankful he knows me at least that much. “I saw three girls at the far edge of that pond,” I whisper. “And they weren’t really there, know what I mean? Don’t you think that deserves another martini?”

  TB sighs and raises two fingers toward the waiter. “I don’t know why you’re surprised. You’ve seen ghosts before.”

  I lean back in my chair and study him. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve always been a little psychic. Remember that time we took Lillye to the Myrtles Plantation and you kept saying how it was all a scam, them being the most haunted place in America?”

  “It is a scam,” I say with a snort. “They said an antique mirror had a ghost image in it. Antique mirrors age that way naturally. And some shadow in a corner of a photo was the slave who killed the plantation wife and children with oleander tea? I looked into this, couldn’t find anything about a murderous slave.”

  TB turns and looks me in the eye. “You see? You rationalize everything. But you’re the one who saw the door close on its own and that weird light out back in the yard.”

  I wave him away. “Could have been anything.”

  “Yeah, but it probably wasn’t.”

  The waiter arrives with two martinis and sets them down in front of us. I want to gulp mine down like the previous drink I ordered but I’m too shy to do it while TB’s watching.

  “You could always interpret my dreams.” TB sips his drink.

  I savor that tangy combination of gin and vermouth, eating the olives immediately. “Not very hard to do. You dream the same thing over and over again.”

  TB looks away thoughtfully. “I can never catch that fish.”

  The fish probably symbolizes me, but I’m not going there.

  TB shakes his head as if forcing it to get back on track. “There was that time in Lafayette too. Remember, on our honeymoon?”

  We had little money when we married, TB working for the Orleans Parish School Board as a carpenter and me pregnant, fresh out of college. I wore a store-bought dress for the ceremony at City Hall and our parents hosted the reception at TB’s Catholic church (you know my mother loved that). Our friends chipped in and gave us two nights at a Lafayette bed and breakfast called T-Freres, which means Little Brother in Cajun, so we drove the two hours into Cajun Country for sex, crawfish and zydeco dancing.

  And a ghost named Amelie.

  “I don’t know TB. Maybe I was influenced by what the pr
oprietor told us; she gave us the whole story the moment we arrived. I know I said I saw the French lady with the bun on her head but who knows what I really saw.”

  TB places his drink on the table. “Some days, Vi, you sound just like your mother.”

  This is the last thing I want to hear coming from a man who shows up on my first press trip unannounced, not to mention with whom I legally filed a separation that he’s ignoring. Besides, of all people he knows how much that comment smarts. I start to give him my view on things when Madman Maddox strolls through the door, emerging on to the balcony of the Crescent Hotel, hands on his gun belt, chiseled chin in the air like a TV series character.

  I smile like a schoolgirl and for a moment I think he doesn’t recognize me again. TB notices my reaction, huffs and rises. “I’ll be in the room when you’re done with Jack Shephard.”

  I look up at my husband, always amazed at his occasional right-on perceptions. Regardless, I play dumb. “What do you mean by that? Besides, the Lost reference.”

  “I’m not blind, Vi. I know you’ve had a thing for him.”

  I start to protest but TB heads for the door, saying as he passes Maddox, “She’s over there.”

  Maddox claims the seat TB occupied while pulling out his notebook. “Viola, right?”

  “Yeah.” Damn, he doesn’t remember. “From the New Orleans Post.”

  Maddox nods and says nonchalant, “Right, the Bead Burglar.”

  “Seven years.”

  “What?”

  We worked together for years, you insensitive moron. I don’t say that, of course. Now that he’s right in front of me, I’m too shy to be honest but I’m also noticing how he’s not that handsome, after all. “I need another drink. Where is that waiter?”

  He leans in close, his elbows on his knees. “Are you going to explain to me how you knew there was a dead body in Lake Eureka?”

  “It’s hardly a lake,” I clarify.