by Terri Reid
Mary evaded his eyes for a moment and then sighed. “It could happen,” she finally said.
“Aye, it could,” Ian added. “It’s many a time when I’ve walked alone on the misty moors of Scotland, the fog creeping in, the waves pounding against the shore, and the lone, eerie call of a dead chicken. Caaa-cluck. Caaa-cluck.”
Laughing in spite of herself, Mary turned and looked at Ian. “So, you’re in?” she asked, a twinkle in her eyes.
“Aye, darling, I wouldna miss it for the world,” he said sincerely.
Bradley looked at Ian and shook his head. “You know, you keep encouraging her, and you don’t have to live with her,” he said.
“Ah, well, I hate to admit it,” he said. “But I have a strong desire to see egg on the face of that braggart, too. He was fair cruel to that older couple.”
Dee nodded. “I have to agree,” he added. “It was uncomfortable to watch. I’d be happy to come along and film for you.”
“Well, Stanley and I can go to your house, start dinner and wait for Clarissa to get home from school,” Rosie offered.
Bradley looked around the table, finally stopping at Stanley. “Well?” he asked him.
“Iffen you don’t want to go,” Stanley said, “you can help Rosie with dinner, and I’ll go along with ‘em. ‘Side, I was figuring you’d want to put one over on that there fella who tried to bully Mary.”
The teasing left Bradley’s face, and he turned to his wife. “Someone was bullying you?” he asked. He looked around the cafeteria. “Where is he?”
“I handled it,” Mary said, sending an icy glance in Stanley’s direction.
He grinned back, unabashedly, and then settled down to eat his sandwich.
“Is he connected with this group?” Bradley asked.
Mary bit back a smile. “He’s one of their salesmen,” she said.
Picking up his phone, he pressed a number. “Hi Dorothy, it’s Bradley,” he said. “I’ve got to drive out of town later this afternoon. I’ll still be in Stephenson County, but I’ll be up closer to the Wisconsin border.” He paused and nodded. “Yeah, that will be good. I’ll call you when I get back in town.”
He hung up the phone and turned to Mary. “Okay, when do we leave?”
Finished with her lunch, Mary slipped out of her chair and picked up her plate. “Let me go talk with Kathi and see if there’s anyone on the schedule this afternoon we need to stay for,” she said. “If not, we can leave right away.”
Dee watched her walk away and then turned to the others at the table. “But it won’t be dark,” he said. “How can we film ghosts if it’s not dark?”
Ian looked over to see Gwen hovering behind Dee, and he smiled. “Has it been your experience that ghosts only come out at night?” he asked.
Dee shrugged. “Well, it just seems like that’s the way it is,” he replied.
“Perhaps it’s because the dark increases our own fears and insecurities and we listen more carefully,” Ian said. “But just because we’re more alert doesn’t mean they’re not surrounding us all the time.”
Shivering, Dee shook his head. “You really know how to creep a guy out,” he said.
Ian grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“He takes everything as a compliment,” Stanley grumbled. “I think it’s because he’s a foreigner. He don’t get it when we try and insult him.”
Ian chuckled and nodded at Stanley. “Aye, and I’ll take that as a compliment, too,” he laughed.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Mary walked over to Kathi’s table and sat down when Kathi invited her.
“So, what do you think so far?” Kathi asked.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Mary said. “The presenters really seem to love what they’re doing. And, for the most part, everyone has been very friendly.”
Kathi nodded. “For the most part it’s a tight-knit community,” she said. “We all have our specialties, and generally we’re not afraid to ask for help, or help someone else.”
“That’s kind of rare in this world,” Mary said. “I really like it.”
Kathi glanced around the room at the collection of people she had come to know and respect over the years. “I feel really blessed to be part of all of this,” she said. “And so many of them have been generous with their time and their ideas.”
“Well, don’t discount what a great friend you are,” Mary replied. “I’m sure they feel the same way about you.”
Kathi smiled at Mary. “So, what can I do for you?” she asked.
“Well, we’ve received a lead on something we’d like to check out,” Mary said. “But we don’t want to miss anything significant this afternoon. So, I wanted to check with you about the agenda.”
Kathi picked up the program and looked it over. “Okay, you have Dale from the Ghost Research Society in Chicago. He has over forty years of ghost hunting experience, and he’s just amazing,” she said. “He’s got photos and EVPs you won’t believe.”
“He sounds like a great speaker. Did he check out the asylum in Wisconsin?” Mary asked.
Kathi shook her head. “No, he wasn’t one of the groups that got in before the conference,” she said.
“Okay, who else is speaking?” Mary asked.
“We have a fellow who just finished a book about Ed Gein, and he’s going to give a presentation about the murders, the case files and the movies that were made about him,” Kathi said. “He’s going to be producing a documentary about him.”
“Ed Gein, mass murderer, Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Ed Gein?” Mary asked.
Kathi nodded. “Yes, that one,” she said.
“Creepy, and interesting,” Mary said. “Okay, anyone else?”
“No, we’ve given each of these guys ninety minutes for their presentations,” she said. “So after that we’ll close the doors for the night.”
“I think we’re going to skip this afternoon,” Mary said. “And follow up on that lead.”
“Anything interesting?” Kathi asked.
Mary smiled. “It could be,” she said. “Is there an opening at the end of the conference in case we have information we’d like to share?”
“Really? You? You want to do another presentation?” Kathi laughed.
“Only if we get good stuff,” she said. “Really good stuff.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
“This is good stuff,” Dee called out. “This is really good stuff.”
Mary smiled as she watched the ghosts of a flock of chickens move through the barn. “Okay Ian, sprinkle the corn once again,” she called.
Ian sprinkled small pieces of ground corn onto the ground in the middle of the barn and stepped back. Dee zoomed in on the corn and watched in amazement as invisible beaks moved the corn around the floor. “Who would have thought, dead chickens,” Dee said, looking up over the camera lens. “First course, dead chickens. Second course, eating crow.”
Mary nodded decisively. “That’s the meal I was interested in,” she said. “Okay, let’s check out the house.”
They walked from the barn toward the house in the cold, late fall afternoon, bundled in their coats against the wind. The trees were nearly naked except for a few final stragglers, and the cold wind was trying its hardest to pull them from the spindly branches they hung on to.
“So,” Bradley said, walking alongside Mary, their hands stuffed in their pockets to keep warm, “what’s the story behind the chickens?”
Mary turned to look at her husband, the wind whipping her hair across her face. “Excuse me?” she asked.
“The chickens,” he repeated. “Why haven’t they moved on?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Um, sweetheart, I’m good, but I don’t speak chicken.”
“What?” he asked, stopping in his tracks.
“Honey, even though they’re ghosts, they’re still chickens, and I can’t talk to chickens,” she explained, choking back laughter.
Embarrassed, Bradley shrugged. “Well, you know, I just thought I’d ask.”
Chuckling, she slipped her arm through his and leaned against him. “I just adore you,” she said.
He bent over and kissed the top of her head. “I feel the same way about you,” he said. “Although I am a little disappointed you don’t speak chicken.”
Laughing out loud, she nodded. “I’ll work on that.”
Ian and Dee jogged up from behind and joined them. “Hey Mary, Ian and I were just talking,” Dee said. “You know, about the chickens. Why are they still here?”
Bradley shook his head and made a slight sound of disgust. “What? Do you guys think that Mary can speak chicken?” he asked.
Mary buried her face in his coat to cover her smile.
“Well,” Ian said with a shrug, “he’s got a point there. They might be ghosts, but they’re still chickens. I guess we’ll never know.”
Mary shook her head. “No, I guess we never will,” she said with a wide grin. “But, it might have to do with the ghost of the fox I saw just outside the chicken coop that still looked hungry.”
Bradley looked astonished. “Why didn’t you tell me that when I asked you?”
“You asked her about the chickens, too?” Ian asked.
Bradley looked from Mary to Ian and then back to Mary. “I think we need to concentrate our efforts on the house,” he said, quickly striding ahead of the group towards the house.
Mary glanced at Ian and nodded. “He did,” she whispered, nodding her head.
Ian grinned. “And did he…”
Ian stopped mid-sentence and pointed forward. Mary turned to see the farmhouse door open wide on its own for Bradley as he walked up the front steps. He paused and looked at Mary.
“Well?” he asked.
Ian, Mary and Dee hurried forward. “Let’s all go in together,” Mary suggested. “I don’t want you to go in by yourself and have the door close and lock.”
Bradley nodded. “Yeah, I’m not too crazy about that idea either.”
The other three reached him, and they all entered the house.
“I guess I didn’t need the keys after all,” Mary said as she walked into the empty house.
The afternoon sun was low, but it was shining into the front windows, lighting the interior of the house. Ian looked around and smiled. “I can see the dust motes,” he said. He turned to Dee, who was lifting the camera up to his shoulder to start filming. “Do they appear as orbs?”
Dee nodded. “Yep, we got orbs,” he said with a smile.
Mary walked slowly through the house, trying to absorb the impressions that were washing over her. She moved from the living room into the country kitchen, looked around and smiled. The ghost of an elderly woman stood at the sink, busy with the echoes of a meal preparation from decades ago. The old farmer walked from the mudroom in the back of the house, pulling his gloves off and pushing them into the pockets of his overalls. He smiled behind his wife’s back and came up behind her. Placing his work-worn hands on her shoulders, he bent forward and placed a kiss on his bride’s neck. The old woman tittered like a school girl and, embarrassed, swatted at her husband. “Oh, Charles,” she said, a blush rising on her lined face. “You stop that.”
“I love you, Ginny,” he said. “Forever.”
She turned and smiled at him. “And you will always be my prince charming.” Then she faded away in front of him.
He sighed deeply and stood looking at the empty place she’d just occupied. “I’m trying to find you, Ginny,” he whispered. “I’m trying to find you.”
Chapter Forty
Mary stepped back into the living room. “You guys are going to want to come into the kitchen,” she said, her voice low. “Dee, keep recording as you walk, and make sure you’re recording audio, too.”
She moved back into the kitchen where Charles still stood, looking at the space his wife had occupied. “Hi, Charles,” she said.
The ghost turned quickly and stared at her. “You can see me?” he asked.
Mary nodded. “Yes, I can,” she said. “And I saw Ginny, too. She is so in love with you.”
Tears filled his translucent eyes, but he didn’t allow them to fall. He nodded and cleared his throat. “She’s everything to me,” he said. “But I can’t find her. I see her in this house doing the everyday chores she used to do or out in the yard hanging wash on the line. And we…” He paused and took an unsteady breath. “We get…moments. Only moments.”
“What’s going on?” Dee whispered to Ian.
“The old farmer is caught here on earth,” Ian said. “And somehow he gets glimpses of his wife, who has also passed on.”
“How does that happen?” Dee asked, looking around. “Is she haunting this place, too?”
Ian shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. But they have a connection with each other that’s stronger than this life or the next,” he explained. “And sometimes that connection allows her to visit him.”
“Charles, do you want more than moments?” Mary asked. “Do you want to be with Ginny?”
“With all my heart,” he said earnestly. “Can you do that? Can you bring her back here?”
Mary walked closer to Charles and shook her head. “I can’t bring her here to you,” she said. “But I can send you there to her.”
He looked at her and then shook his head. “You mean that light thing that’s always hanging around behind me?” he asked with a frown. “You think I’m going to go walking into the light without my Ginny? You must think I’m a fool.”
“Charles, Ginny is there, in the light,” Mary explained.
He shook his head. “No. No, you’re wrong,” he said. “I watched Ginny. I watched her for years. She couldn’t see me. She couldn’t hear me. It would break my heart when I watched her sit on the edge of the bed and cry for me. She ain’t there.”
“Do you remember when you died?” Mary asked.
Charles paused for a moment, shocked at her question, and then he thought about it. “Funny, ain’t it, how you kinda forget that,” he said. He thought about it for a few moments more. “I think, near as I can remember, it was in 1965. We were finished with the harvest, and the weather was still kinda warm. So I decided to go ahead and get the anhydrous ammonia into the soil.
“I was walking into the barn and thought I smelled something,” he continued. “I saw the leak, and then I was choking. It didn’t take no time at all. Then I was gone.”
He looked up at Mary. “Took me a while, months maybe,” he said, “to figure out I was gone.” He half-smiled. “I guess I even missed my own funeral. But, I saw Ginny come home from it, dressed in all black and weeping like her heart had been ripped out.”
“How old were you when you died?” Mary asked.
He shrugged. “We were close to retiring,” he said. “I was sixty, and Ginny was fifty-eight.”
“Charles, you died over fifty years ago,” Mary said. “Ginny would be over one hundred and eight years old now. Is that who you see when you get your moments? A woman who is one hundred years old?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “She’s a little bit older, but not much.”
“Ginny died, too, Charles,” Mary said. “And now she’s on the other side, waiting for you.”
He shook his head. “I’d sure like to believe you and all,” he said sadly. “But that there light looks like a one-way trip. What if I get there and find out you were wrong? What if Ginny’s here, searching for me?”
Mary nodded. “I can see your point,” she said. “Can I call a friend of mine to help?”
“Sure, if he can help.”
“Oh, he can,” Mary assured him.
She turned and called out. “Mike. Mike, can you hear me? I need your help.”
Dee looked over at Ian and Bradley, confusion clearly written on his face. “Okay, so I get that I’m only hearing one side of the conversation,” he whispered. “But who the hell is Mike?”
Bradley and
Ian exchanged grins, and then Bradley said, “He’s a member of the family.”
“Yeah,” Ian agreed. “A unique member of the family.”
“I don’t get it,” Dee said.
“Well, he was actually a ghost Mary helped,” Bradley explained.
“And then he stuck around and helped her,” Ian added, “until he died.”
Bradley looked at Ian. “He didn’t die; he was a ghost. He was already dead,” he said, and then he turned to Dee. “But he did finally have to pass over.”
“Oh,” Dee said, still looking confused. “So, he’s moved on.”
“Well, yes, but he came back,” Ian added. “As a guardian angel.”
“You guys have angels?” Dee asked. “For real?”
“For real,” Bradley said with a smile. “And, they’re not anything like what you’d imagine.”
Chapter Forty-one
“Who’s not like anything you’d imagine?” Mike asked, appearing next to them.
“Mike,” Mary called before Ian or Bradley could answer. “I need you over here.”
“Duty calls,” he said with a smile then glided across the room and stopped next to Mary.
“Charles, this is my friend Mike,” Mary said. “Mike, this is Charles.”
“Hi,” Mike said. “It’s a real pleasure to meet you. I know your wife, Ginny. She’s a real angel.”
Charles looked at Mike and shook his head. “Are you a ghost, too?” he asked.
Mike shook his head and smiled. “No, I’m like your wife,” he said with a laugh. “A real angel.”
“Ginny’s an angel?” Charles asked.
Mike stared at Charles for a moment and then shook his head. “Did you ever doubt for one moment that your sweet wife would be an angel once she died?” he asked. “She’s been looking over your children, your grandchildren and great-grandchildren for about forty years now.” He smiled fondly. “She’s got a real soft spot for a two-year-old called Charlie. He’s a real pistol.”
Charlie smiled. “Charlie, huh?” he asked.