“It’s her old classroom here in school, Monty. The room is of significance to her.” My wife paused. “It’s where she died. It’s also, roughly, about where we’re sitting now.”
So my wife hadn’t randomly chosen this room. And perhaps there was a reason it was empty. Perhaps one too many administrators had gotten the creeps? Perhaps.
“She’s waiting behind the door, Monty. Open it, honey. Open it for her.”
Huh? Like I wanted to let in a ghost? For all my skepticism, actually bumping into one of these things was a different ball game. Suppose she was a little demon or evil succubus or even just an angel looking for someone to escort to some soft, cloudy place?
But curiosity trumped fear, so I did it. Or I tried to. I kept having a weird image of light filling a hallway, perhaps coming from under the door.
Open the door.
Had those been my thoughts or my wife’s? I didn’t know. That ESP thing of hers might be contagious under the right circumstances.
The old door was still sitting there in my fantasy, with the number 9 etched deep into the wood. I saw a hand—my hand, perhaps—reaching for the latch. I pushed down on it.
Pulled it open.
Light filled wherever I was standing. And I’ll be damned if a cute little girl wasn’t waiting behind, in the old-fashioned outfit Ellen had described earlier. I thought I heard her whisper “Can I come in?”
I nodded and opened my mouth to speak, and what happened next I probably won’t ever forget. A little girl’s voice came out.
“Hello,” she said. Or, rather, I said. “I’m Sophia.”
Chapter Twelve
Maybe if the Sony recorder’s batteries hadn’t drained, I would have known for sure whether I was actually squeaking like a girl or if my ears simply perceived my own voice as such.
And from that idea grew another theory, that maybe real ghosts drew so much power to materialize that no camera or device could ever capture them, because they obliterated every type of mechanism that might measure their presence.
It was a theory I’d debate with Ellen later, but right now, there was girl in my throat and I didn’t have a clue what I was saying.
“Hello, Sophia,” Ellen said.
“The room is cold,” I said, though I was wearing my leather jacket and it was a bit warm. But maybe where Sophia had come from, “cold” was the normal state of things. I took it as a good sign because it probably meant she hadn’t just taken an elevator up from the lake of fire.
“I know, sweetie,” Ellen said. “You’ve probably been in there a long time.”
“Not so long,” I said.
“Do you know what year it is?”
I giggled. “You must be a teacher. You must think I’m dumb.”
“No, not at all,” Ellen said. “We’ve been looking for you.”
I looked around, blinking, and the part of me that was still present realized Ellen must have been talking about me as part of the “we.” That is, the me who was 38, bearded, and rapidly adopting a new set of spiritual beliefs.
“I’m right here,” I said in my girl voice. “Where else would I be?”
“Okay, then. Who is president?”
“Ulysses S. Grant. ‘Ulysses’ is a silly name for a president.”
I giggled again. I’d always thought little girls were silly, and I was glad I’d never had to be one. At least until now.
“Do you know where your parents are?”
Ellen said it gently, but I felt an unaccountable sadness creep over me. So much for the theory that ghosts were just little echoes, a few frames stuck in an endless loop in the film projector of life, residual entities that had no feelings or emotions.
“I’m late for dinner,” I said. “We’re going to have mashed potatoes and corn on the cob, my favorite.”
“I’m sure they’re keeping it warm for you, honey,” Ellen said, with a soothing charm that I admired even as I grappled with the uneasy realization that I was possessed. “Who are the other teachers here?”
“We only have Mr. Sigmund. He’s a good piano player, but he makes us learn stupid old Latin.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
My chest grew even colder. My heart beat faster. “He’s behind the door with the ‘9’ on it, too.”
“Where you came from.”
“Yes. He says I have to learn my lessons or I’ll have to stay after school for the rest of my life.”
My wife’s eyes glinted in the candlelight and a tear leaked from the corner of one eye. Now I understand why she felt her gifts were from a higher power, and why she had to use them for the power of good. As much as I’d have preferred her using that force at the Las Vegas roulette wheels and blackjack tables, all the money in the world wouldn’t help this little girl who was hiding inside me.
“Are there any others here?” Ellen asked. “Any like you?”
I shook my head. “Just me and Mr. Sigmund. Sometimes he goes away and I can hear him talking to people behind the door, but they’re all talking in Latin and I can’t understand what they’re saying.”
Ellen leaned across the table and held her hands toward me, palms up.
“Listen, Sophia, I have a very important favor to ask.”
I shivered in dread. And I didn’t know if it was Sophia’s dread or my dread. Ellen’s eyes were intense and earnest, and if I didn’t already love her, I would have fallen for them now. The series of orange flames danced in her pupils, twin mirages of the room where we sat in a séance, consorting with the dead. All the depth and hope of the world were in them, and I could tell this was her most important mission in life.
I couldn’t even be jealous, even though I am selfish by nature and prefer to have her attention directed toward me and my needs. I was just self-aware enough to know this scared girl might have needed help more than I did.
Ellen slid forward just a little and took my hands in hers. “It won’t hurt, will it?” I asked.
“No, I promise.”
“Mr. Sigmund said it wouldn’t hurt. But he lied.”
“That’s what we need to find out, but we can’t do it without your help. You’ll have to be a big, brave girl.”
I tilted my head up and said with defiance, “I’m 11. I’m brave.”
Well, that’s what she said. I was as scared as I’d ever been, because not only was my worldview rapidly breaking apart and a dead person was inside my skin and making my lips move, Ellen’s tone suggested that something very bad was about to happen.
My wife. She was the fearless one. I just liked to talk a good game.
But one thing I’d learned, when somebody else is inside your head—and maybe sharing your soul, if such a thing exists—there’s not really anywhere you can go to hide from them.
Ellen smiled. “I know you’re brave, sweetie. I can tell.”
I think she was talking to me, too.
“What do you want?” I asked in my Sophia voice.
“I want you to take us to him. Mr. Sigmund. So we can talk to him.”
I glanced toward the corner of the room, the direction from which the little dead girl had come. It was just a wall now, the flames of candles making shadows dance.
She was scared, and I wondered just what the hell was waiting back there that had tormented her so.
“Can you do it?” Ellen said. “We’ll protect you, I promise.”
“How come you didn’t protect me all the other times?” I asked.
Good question, thought the me who was Monty Drew. Why should she believe us? After all, we’re grown-ups.
Ellen gave that dewy, saintly gaze again, and, hell, I would have followed her into a kiddie pool full of sharks. “Because we weren’t here before,” Ellen said. “Now we are.”
That seemed to satisfy her, and I looked once more toward the corner of the room.
“Okay,” Sophia said, and then she was gone.
I blinked and rubbed the arms of my leather jacket, trying to get circulati
on back into my arms.
“Ellen?” I said, relieved to hear my own voice. “Did the thing I think just happened really happen?”
“You always said you’d believe it when you saw it.”
“But I still don’t believe it.”
“Well, your days as a skeptic might be nearing an end, my love. And don’t get too comfortable in your own skin. You’ve got a job to do.”
“A job?”
“I have to stay here, because one of us needs to be grounded. But you’re going in there and finding Mr. Sigmund.”
Chapter Thirteen
I was feeling lightheaded and a little queasy. And oddly hungry, too. But hungry for something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Ellen, I’m not...” I paused. My lower jaw had decided to shake almost violently. I bit down, calming myself. I tried again. “Ellen, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here.”
“Then let me catch you up to speed, love,” said my wife. “You were just possessed by the discarnate soul of an eleven-year-old girl.”
“That much I get.”
“And when she returns, she’s going to lead you through Door Number Nine.”
“Okay, this is where I’m getting a little fuzzy. She’s going to lead me through a door that doesn’t exist?”
“Not in this now,” said Ellen.
“But it exists in another now?”
“Right. Her now.”
“And her now is a hundred and fifty years ago, where Door Number Nine still exists?”
“Exactly.”
“And this doesn’t sound insane to you?”
“Makes perfect sense.”
“Of course it does.” And now my head hurt, too. “And behind Door Number Nine exists the Dark Master.”
“It’s his old classroom. He’s connected to it, too, much the same way that Sophia is.”
“Where he did bad things.”
“Bad enough to kill her.”
“So he’s here, then,” I said.
Ellen closed her eyes and cocked her head to one side. “He’s nearby, certainly, but he’s keeping his distance for now.”
“Why?”
“This is new to him, too. I sense he’s waiting to see what happens next before he acts.”
“So what does happen next?”
“We’re waiting for Sophia,” said my wife.
“And where did she go?”
“Oh, she’s here, standing next to you. She felt your desire to come through again and gave you your space.”
“How sweet. Ghostly etiquette. So she’s waiting for me?”
“Yes.”
I was about to say something else when I realized what I was suddenly hungry for. “Peach pie!”
“What an odd thing to say,” said my wife.
“I’m hungry,” I said, frowning slightly. “For peach pie.”
Ellen smiled gently at me. “When have you ever had peach pie?”
“Almost never.” And then it hit me. “She wants peach pie.”
And just like that, little Sophia was back.
“He’s not going to be happy,” said Sophia, her small voice coming out of my mouth in a way that I would never, ever get used to. Same with the odd, static tingling that coursed through me. It was a feeling I had often felt before. A curious one, certainly, and one that was often followed by unusual encounters of one sort or another. My wife claimed that these were moments of spiritual contact.
Well, I was certainly in contact with a spirit now, and my skin was practically electrified. In fact, I was sure the hair on my head would have been standing on end, too, if I weren’t wearing my ball cap. Whether it was due to an outside energy altering my personal electromagnetic field or merely my brain’s physical reaction to a deeply seated fear and primal excitement, that was for the scientists to determine.
“We need to talk to him, Sophia. We will protect you.”
“He’s a mean man. He scares me.”
“He can’t hurt you, Sophia.”
I started shaking my head. “He hurt me bad.” I found myself reaching for my throat, and felt a tightening there that actually put some real fright in me. Then the tightening subsided. I gasped.
My wife got up slowly from behind the table and came over to me, where I was still sitting in the chair. She hugged me deeply and protectively. She whispered in my ear, and I welcomed the strength in her voice. The power in her voice. My wife was a badass. “He will never hurt you again, sweetheart. Ever. And soon, very soon, you will be far away from this place.”
“Heaven,” I said, and I heard the hope in my voice.
“Of course, angel. Heaven.” My wife’s words were so full of love and hope that I began to weep nearly uncontrollably. I realized how lost I was, how alone I was, how scared I was.
And this woman. This beautiful, kind woman who reminded me of my mother was telling me everything was going to be okay.
And now this beautiful woman was holding me close, like my mother, and it was the greatest feeling in the world. I also felt warm for the first time in a long, long time.
So warm, and so much love.
I continued weeping.
When I had gotten some control of myself—or, rather, when Sophia had—I looked back toward the corner of the abandoned office and saw, to my utter shock, a glowing outline of a door. Faint at first, and then much sharper and brighter.
I looked at the kind woman standing next to me, smiling encouragingly, radiating love and hope to me. A part of me recognized her as my wife, but a greater part of me saw her as the stranger she was. The beautiful stranger.
A goddamned angel.
“Okay,” Sophia said through me. “I’m ready.”
And now I found myself getting up and moving toward the glowing door, reaching for the handle.
Opening it.
Inside, bright light filled the room, and also the sound of a piano playing. There, in the radiant depths, was a man. A very tall and gaunt man sitting behind a glowing piano, hair in a crazed shock of salt and pepper, a black top hat perched on his head. He wore a dark frock jacket, with a gold watch chain looping from one pocket.
He turned and looked at me and I gasped.
“You are a bad little girl, Sophia.” He tugged on the black cravat around his neck. “Very bad.”
And then he tilted his head, and I sensed that he was looking at me, Monty Drew, the thirty-eight-year-old man. “And you, sir, have no idea what you have gotten yourself into.”
Chapter Fourteen
I took a moment to wrap my head around that. He’s the one who was dead but he’s acting like I’m the one who wasn’t supposed to be there.
He looked like a foppish dandy, or a dandyish fop, one of those know-it-alls that you’d love to punch in the face if they gave you a good reason. Except I was pretty sure my fist would just keep on going right through his head, and I’d crack my knuckles on the piano, assuming the piano was really there.
“So you’re Mr. Sigmund,” I said. “Or should I say ‘O Dark Master’?”
He slammed the bottom of his fist on the piano keys, launching a low and discordant rumble. “You’re meddling with forces you don’t understand.”
“I understand there’s an unhappy little girl here and my wife thinks you’re the bastard that’s caused all her misery,” I said, though I felt a little queasy, like my head was floating. Maybe the Denny’s pancakes had sat under the heat lamp too long.
“You and that evil woman think you can impose your human law and order.” He glanced toward Door Number Nine, and I followed his gaze to find the door was gone and we were in some sort of smoky, stone-lined chamber. “You’re just like all the others, afraid to see the real workings of the world.”
“No, I see it. I get ‘The History Channel.’ But I guess you wouldn’t know about that. Seeing as how you’re so busy playing with the unseen powers and shit.”
I was talking a little tough because I was a little scared. Ellen hadn’t given
me any guidance on what to do once I was in here, but I trusted she was working with all her sensory powers to keep the channel open to possibility. In return, she trusted me to follow my instincts.
And instinct was all I had, because I sure didn’t have much experience in dealing with dead dabblers in the dark arts.
Hell, an hour ago I hadn’t even believed in ghosts.
“Okay, sir, if you insist on entering my classroom, I will instruct you in the lessons of a Dark Master.”
The smoke thickened and I batted at it, trying to orient myself. I glimpsed Sophia cowering on the far side of Mr. Sigmund, as if she were shrinking away from whatever horrible confrontation was about to take place. Apparently she had enough sense to abandon her possession of me, and I had a feeling whatever happened next was going to be a little bit on the unpleasant side.
Mr. Sigmund seemed to grow about three feet taller, and I swear his eyes flickered, as if reflecting some kind of hellfire below. For the record, I was a little numb, so I couldn’t get a good grasp of the room temperature, and since it was my soul in Room Number Nine instead of my body, any evidence I could have collected wouldn’t pass muster on a paragroupie Facebook page, much less a peer review.
He began jabbering in more of the Latin mumbo jumbo, and a few words stood out, the “Non omnis moriar” that Stevens had made such a big deal out of. Something about how he would find a way to cheat death.
The way I figured it, being a ghost was one pretty damned good way of doing that. Which was fine with me. The fop could float around and chant Latin until Rapture for all I cared, but he had no right to hold little Sophia here against her will.
“Okay, Ellen,” I yelled, though it was probably more like a murmur, since my body was in trance somewhere back in the conference room. “Devil Boy’s growing horns in here, and I have no idea what to do next.”
Her words drifted across my mind, almost like subtitles in a movie: “Go toward the light.”
I was a little annoyed. We’d made fun of that “Touched By An Angel” crap, where all the problems of the universe were solved simply by helping a dead person resolve a minor family dilemma. But Good and Evil fought on a much larger stage than a Hollywood sound lot, and I needed to break out the big guns.
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