Forgotten Spirits

by Barbara Deese

  * * *

  Grace leaned forward, her eyes following along the right side of the road as far ahead as she could see, which wasn’t far at all. Robin’s eyes darted back and forth, covering the narrow swath of what she hoped was the road ahead. Wind drove snow straight at the windshield, blinding, yet mesmerizing.

  Robin’s hands ached from gripping the wheel, and yet she knew stopping was more perilous than forging ahead. If another driver were foolish enough to be out in this weather, they wouldn’t see each other until they collided. She’d heard of snowplow drivers unknowingly burying stalled cars with occupants still inside under tons of snow—a chilling thought in all respects. Besides, pulling off the road meant knowing where the edges of the road were, which she didn’t, and so she crept along, trying to ignore the fact that Grace kept her phone in her hands, ready to call for help the second they ran into a ditch or hit another car.

  It was not yet night, but dark nevertheless. Driving could only get worse when the last of the sunlight was gone, and that was coming soon enough.

  “The resort’s only five miles now.” Grace said. Glancing at the speedometer, she said, “I’m too tired to do the math, but I think it’ll be another half hour at this rate.”

  There was no point listening to the radio, which would only caution them to stay home and remind them that emergency vehicles were the only ones that had any business being on the road. Come to think of it, the tow truck was the last vehicle they’d seen.

  Chapter 28

  Removing her helmet, Foxy let her reddish curls spill out. She glowered at Vinnie as he pulled his machine up next to hers by the garage.

  Hopping off his snowmobile, he hit the quick release on his helmet. “Aw, c’mon Foxy. Don’t be mad.”

  She hated the way he did his sheepish look as if it righted all wrongs. “You were supposed to follow my lead and you took off on your own.” She bent into the wind to make her way to the lodge. The idea of being snowbound with Vinnie for days hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea when they were getting along. “Come on. Let’s not keep Matt waiting any longer.”

  Vinnie caught up with her.

  As soon as she opened the door, she felt something was wrong. There were no wonderful aromas of food when they stepped in, no happy humming from the kitchen. Outside, the storm was moaning, but inside it was eerily quiet.

  “Now I know what that sign meant,” Vinnie intoned and quoted a line from a horror movie they’d seen together. “Don’t go in the basement.”

  “Shut up!” she hissed and jabbed him with her elbow. Her voice shook when she called out, “Matt? We’re back.” She waited. They set their mitts and helmets on the long bench by the door.

  “Matt? Molly Pat?” Vinnie shouted, walking into the great room. More silence.

  Following him, Foxy’s breathing was shallow.

  “He’s over here,” Vinnie said in a loud whisper, and sure enough, Matt was napping in his favorite chair with his head tilted back. An empty wine glass sat on the side table next to him.

  Foxy had seen Matt drunk on exactly two occasions, and they’d both been years ago. She’d seen her share of mean drunks, but Matt was more of a sloppy drunk. All he did was get boisterous and silly. He had never, to her knowledge, drunk enough that he’d lost consciousness, and she’d never had a reason to think he had a problem with alcohol. She watched as Vinnie put a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently.

  Matt groaned. His head rolled, settling closer to his chest. He began to snore.

  “Frances, Vincent!” The voice came from the stairway and echoed in the high-ceilinged room.

  They both jumped. Foxy gasped at the unexpected sound. Looking for the source of the voice, Foxy felt her chest spasm painfully when her eyes landed on someone who looked exactly like Pastor Paul leaning with an arm on the railing at the top of the stairs, beaming down at them like they were long lost relatives. She knew it was just a hallucination. Pastor Paul was dead. Her mother had just told them so.

  She and Vinnie stood, as if in a freeze frame. Then Vinnie reached out and clasped her hand.

  The apparition began to descend the stairs, still wearing that ridiculous smile. A scream caught in her throat, emerging only as a squeak. Thoughts collided in her brain. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears.

  “Is that—? Jesus Christ, I thought he was dead,” Vinnie said in a rush of exhaled air.

  She found her voice. “Mom said he died of pneumonia.”

  He reached the bottom of the stairs and headed in their direction, not floating as she expected, but taking normal, human steps. This was not a ghostly image she could see through, but what appeared to be a flesh-and-blood man in robust health.

  “It must be Peter,” Vinnie said out of the corner of his mouth.

  The two looked similar, but that booming voice could belong to only one person.

  “Is it the father or the son?” Vinnie asked. He laughed nervously and added, “Or the holy ghost?”

  Foxy didn’t laugh. Unless Peter had grown several inches, this was definitely his father. “It’s the father, Pastor Paul.”

  Vinnie blinked, starting to regain his composure. “Obviously, your mother was confused.” He squeezed her hand. “You okay?”

  “No.” Even in the event her mother had gotten it wrong about his death, which was a real possibility, Foxy had seen her old pastor at the nursing home just over a month ago. He’d been in a wheelchair, sagging to one side and totally out of it. Certainly he hadn’t appeared to be physically or mentally capable of walking down a flight of stairs. How, in God’s name, she asked herself, could he be here now, in this place?

  She and Vinnie stood utterly immobile as he neared them, holding out his arms like a father calling his small children to him. “Oh, dear, I frightened you. I’m terribly sorry. Didn’t Matthew tell you I was coming?”

  Matt not mentioning this little detail seemed as implausible to Foxy as Pastor Niemi’s miraculous recovery. Matt had not been a big fan of this man, even before he’d tried to pray him straight. Why would he allow him to come to his resort? And even if, for some reason, Matt had known he was coming, he would have been anxious enough about it to mention it to his own sister, wouldn’t he? “No,” she said emphatically. “He never said a word.” None of this was making any sense.

  Paul reached out and placed his hands on her arms in an awkward greeting. “Frances, it’s a pleasure seeing you again.” He turned to Vinnie and shook his hand. “And you too. What a delightful surprise! I didn’t realize you were back together.”

  Vinnie said nothing. His face was a mask.

  Foxy’s skin crawled under his touch. She extracted herself from Niemi’s grip, taking a step to put herself between him and Matt. “What’s wrong with my brother?”

  Paul’s avuncular expression was new to Foxy. He threw a fond glance in Matt’s direction. “Matthew is drunk, I’m afraid.”

  Everything she saw supported that conclusion, but she still couldn’t believe it. She looked around. “Where’s my dog?”

  “That little terrier? Asleep on the bed.” He pointed to the room at the top of the stairs. The door stood open, just as she’d left it.

  “Molly Pat,” she called. “Come here, girl.” She heard the jangling of her tags and then a furry muzzle appeared between the slats of the railing upstairs. Molly gave a yip and yawned. With a little more coaxing, she reluctantly came down the stairs, and immediately stretched out in front of the fireplace.

  “I didn’t see your car,” Vinnie said.

  “I parked over there,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the west. “I assumed Matthew was going to put me up in the same cabin he did before.”

  Before? Although the cabin on that side was only a few yards from the lodge, it was almost completely hidden from view. She had to admit it was plausible. Seeing her
dog acting unafraid of Paul, she began to relax, and even felt a little foolish for being in such a panic seeing this man who’d been so prominent in her youth. He was nowhere near as imposing as he’d been in those days. His face was wrinkled now, and the enlarged knuckles on his hands told her he suffered from arthritis. Her practiced eye as a healer told her he was favoring his hip.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” Pastor Paul said. “You two must be freezing. Come, there’s a nice fire.”

  Foxy crouched next to Molly Pat and ran a hand from the top of her head to her tail. She seemed perfectly fine, although tired. When Vinnie suggested the dog may have gotten into the wine too, Foxy chuckled. “She was tearing all over the place when we first got here. She always has to check out every room and sniff every smell until she wears herself out.” The dog yawned again and closed her eyes.

  Outside, the wind blew and gusted. Icy pellets clicked against the windowpanes like the keys of an old typewriter.

  “Before he passed out, your brother told me you two had decided to go out snowmobiling in this blizzard. Not very smart.” He wagged his finger in a teasing way.

  Foxy didn’t budge. Her head turned toward Matt, whose chest continued to rise and fall with his snoring.

  “It looks like he’s out for the count,” Paul said, following her gaze. “Let me make you some cocoa. I’ll gladly take my turn as host until he’s back on his feet.” When they didn’t answer, he turned and walked into the kitchen.

  “Could this be any weirder?” she whispered to Vinnie.

  He shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t imagine how.”

  “Take your wet clothes off and make yourselves comfortable,” called the voice from the kitchen. “I’ll take care of everything.” When Vinnie reached up to unzip his suit the rest of the way, Foxy shook her head vigorously and he let his hand drop.

  Still in their bulky suits, they perched on the edge of the leather sofa, side by side, and listened to sounds of Paul searching in cupboards and drawers. Niemi poked his head out and again urged them to relax. Vinnie started talking loudly, babbling actually, about the weather and the exhilaration of driving a snowmobile for the first time. It was the way he coped with a case of nerves. All the time, his eyes stayed on hers, communicating something beneath the small talk—puzzlement, and also a warning.

  Matt’s light snoring was interrupted by a loud snort. His head jerked, and then settled back.

  Foxy went to him, taking his face in her hands, trying to ease his head into a more comfortable position. His eyes opened to slits. He smiled crookedly and muttered something incoherent before falling back to sleep. She found a small pillow and placed it where it would cradle his neck. “Do you think I should call for help? Should we be worried about alcohol poisoning?” she whispered to Vinnie.

  Vinnie hovered over him. “Did you see this?” He picked up Matt’s hand so she could see the blood oozing through and around a Band-Aid on his thumb.

  “He’s fine.” Paul said. He stood, framed in the archway between kitchen and great room. “When I arrived, he’d just cut himself with a kitchen knife. It’s nothing serious, I can assure you. I bandaged it myself.”

  Evidently it could get weirder!

  “It happens all the time,” Paul said, appearing at her side with a paper towel to blot the seepage. Handing Foxy a fresh Band-Aid, he removed the sodden one and wrapped it in the paper towel. “People have a glass of wine or two while they prepare dinner, and without giving it a second’s though, they pick up the cutlery.” He patted Matt on the hand. “Were you aware of his drinking problem?”

  Foxy shook her head.

  “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but I think you should know this isn’t the first time I’ve seen him overindulge. Last year when I came up here, well, I’m afraid he got drunk then, too.”

  Foxy wanted to say, Maybe drinking is the only way he can be in the same room with a man who thought of him as an abomination!

  “I suppose I should have paid more attention to how much he was drinking. I suspect he started long before I got here. Addicts can be very creative in hiding their behaviors.”

  Foxy felt Vinnie’s nervousness.

  “The next day he was quite embarrassed about it, so I think it best if we don’t make a fuss. Let him keep his dignity.” His eyes passed over Matt in a way that Foxy thought might be compassion. Maybe the old fire-and-brimstone preacher had mellowed in his later years.

  Still, there was something very wrong with this scene.

  Chapter 29

  Foxy stared at her former pastor, still not able to understand why he set her nerves on edge. “I didn’t realize you and my brother were on such a friendly basis.”

  His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “I hope you’re not insinuating anything untoward in our relationship.”

  “What? Of course not!”

  “Just to be clear, I care about him more as his pastor than as a friend, even though he’s fallen away from the church. Once his pastor, always his pastor, you know.” Then his smile returned and he said, “I come up here because it’s a chance to be out in nature and away from the demands of my work. Clergy are always on call, you know. We live life in a fishbowl. It’s necessary to take a break from that. My job at the synod is quite demanding, and Peter’s church expects a great deal from him. When we get a chance to get away from all of that, this is one of our favorite places to come.”

  “Peter’s here too?”

  “Heavens no! It’s Advent.” He went back to the kitchen.

  “Freak!” Vinnie whispered close to her ear.

  To the uninitiated, this reference would have made little sense, but Foxy knew a minister’s life was ruled by the liturgical calendar. Advent, the weeks leading up to Christmas, and Lent, the forty days culminating in Easter, were especially demanding on a minister. “So, how did you manage to get away?” She spoke loudly so he could hear her in the kitchen.

  He poked his head around the corner. “I’m an administrator at the synod offices now. This isn’t a particularly busy time for us, and so I took some time off.”

  Improbable, all of it, but it was remotely possible he was telling the truth about coming here on a regular basis. She and Matt didn’t talk as frequently as they should, and they rarely shared confidences, so perhaps the subject just hadn’t come up, but why? Why would he keep it to himself that Paul and Peter frequented the resort?

  Pastor Paul came back with two large mugs, which he set on the coffee table in front of them. The pattern on hers was a lake scene. Vinnie’s bore the silhouette of a howling wolf. “I put a little cinnamon on top. I hope it tastes all right. I couldn’t find an expiration date on the box of cocoa.”

  “Freak!” Vinnie said again without moving his lips.

  “I’ll be right back.” As Paul turned back toward the kitchen, Foxy studied his walk. She’d worked on enough clients with joint replacements to recognize the limp. He must have noticed her noticing because when he came out with his own steaming mug, he said, “I had a hip replacement a few weeks ago. It was bone on bone, so it had to be done. I’ll be back to work full time after the first of the year.” He sat across from them again. Foxy recognized the mug he’d chosen for himself. She’d given it to Matt for his birthday one year. It said, “Think you can’t walk on water? Try ice fishing.”

  Foxy reflected on her mother’s hip replacement almost a decade ago. She and Matt had been worried about her bouncing back from such major surgery, and urged her to do rehab at the facility in Pine Glen. Her recovery had been impressive, and so when they were looking for a place for her to take up permanent residence when her memory issues became a problem, they were relieved and delighted to find out the place in Pine Glen had an opening.

  Pastor Paul at the Pine Glen nursing home—of course! If her mother hadn’t thrown her off by insist
ing he’d died, Foxy would have figured out right away that he’d been there to recuperate from surgery. What she’d assumed to be ill health and even senility when she’d seen him in November had been nothing more than exhaustion from major surgery. He was probably on some powerful opiates too. She pictured him slouched in a wheelchair with his head drooping on his chest, much the way Matt was right now—nothing like this man who was obviously still vital and still very much on top of his game.

  Pastor Paul sipped from his mug and raised it like he was toasting them. “Drink up.”

  “I’ll wait for it to cool off a bit,” she said, planting her hand on top of Vinnie’s and pressing hard before he could drink anything.

  Paul shrugged and took another sip. He rested his elbows on the chair arms and tented his fingers, his dark eyes meeting hers. “I can’t think of when I saw you last, Frances.”

  It sounded like an offhand remark, yet it put her instantly on guard. For some reason, Foxy didn’t want to reveal she’d seen him at the nursing home, and it wasn’t, as he’d used the phrase in reference to Matt, “to let him keep his dignity.”

  “I believe the last I saw you, you’d come home for a visit,” he prompted. “How long ago was that? It was before I moved to Minneapolis, obviously. I seem to recall you had a friend with you.”

  She filled in the name. “Sierra.”

  “Yes, yes, I remembered it was an unusual name.”

  And suddenly she was flooded with memories of that trip. It had been both fun and disturbing. Sierra had pulled out all the stops, turning her charms on Peter as soon as she’d found out he was a seminary student. At the time, Foxy had gotten the impression that it wasn’t so much that Sierra wanted to pursue Peter for who he was, but for what he represented. Over the course of a few days, she’d behaved as if it were a game to see if she could cause Peter to break his fundamentalist vows of chastity.

  Luckily his father, Pastor Paul, had comprehended what was going on and decided to put a stop to the nonsense. Foxy had found her friend’s behavior embarrassing. In discussing the whole matter on the plane ride home, Sierra had laughed and said Peter’s father wouldn’t even be interfering in his grown son’s sex life if he were happy with his own. It was classic Sierra.