“Was that her name? The woman who came here last night?” Justin dragged his attention back to the conversation as Rose answered Tim’s question with one of her own. “I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t even see her. The last thing I remember, I was watching television. I heard the door open and the next thing I knew, I woke up in the attic.”
Tim bit his lip, trying to make some kind of sense out of Rose’s story. “I take it that’s not normal, even for you.”
She shook her head. “No. People come and go from this house freely and their entrance or departure never affects me one way or the other. While it’s true that I live in the attic and often flee there when an unknown person arrives, this time I did not have that chance. Instead, I merely lost consciousness and awoke there.”
“So you have no idea how you got to the attic?” Justin frowned, not liking the implications. “Was there someone else here other than Sophia? Could someone have carried you, maybe?”
“No,” Rose replied softly. “While it is possible for a person to interact with my physical form, had that happened, I would have woken up as soon as they tried to touch me. Unlike most ghosts, I can tolerate and sometimes even welcome a human’s touch. When someone does touch me, I wake up, even if I’m asleep.”
Tim frowned, again, clearly troubled by something. “You sleep? In general, Rose, ghosts don’t sleep. You know that, right?”
She sighed in exasperation. “Of course I know that. Remember that I have had my grandfather Ben with me off and on for many years. I know what it means to be a normal ghost. I also know that for some reason, I am not.”
“And that’s why you’re here, boys.” Both Tim and Justin jumped at the sound of a deep male voice that boomed out from behind them.
They turned to see a rather tall old man, clearly a ghost as well, with watery looking silver eyes standing in the living room entryway. He wore clothes from the late eighteen hundreds and looked to be in his early seventies, if not slightly older. As he removed a battered brown hat from his head, Justin noted that mixed in with his gray hair were streaks the same rich auburn color as Rose’s.
Rising from the chair, Rose came to stand beside the old ghost. “Tim. Justin. I’d like you to meet my grandfather, Ben Dorsey. Grandfather, I’d like you to meet Tim Hawthorne and Justin Grant. They’re paranormal investigators.” She gestured to each man in turn and as she did so, Justin knew with certain clarity that Rose had been born and bred to be a society hostess. That was part of what had initially attracted him to her.
“I can see you,” Justin informed the old ghost, brushing aside his previous thoughts, “and I really shouldn’t be able to.”
That brought a harrumph of disgust from Ben. “Know it all about ghosts, do you, boy?”
“I know what abilities I have and which ones I don’t,” Justin countered. “I know that, in general, I can’t see ghosts. My friend Tim here can, but not me.”
Ben turned to eye Tim critically before turning back to Justin. “Just as there are different types of people, son, there are different types of ghosts. You don’t think we’re all the same do you? Well, we’re not!”
Justin didn’t know how to answer that. He hadn’t given it much thought before, but now, as he mulled it over, he supposed that was what he had assumed. It was the conventional assumption in paranormal circles, after all, and he’d never found any reason to challenge it. Being in the house tonight was challenging so much of what he thought he knew about the paranormal. That didn’t bother him as much as he thought it should.
“Then what kind of ghost are you?” Tim asked, gathering his wits faster than Justin.
Ben’s eyes gleamed with a bit of respect for the other man, apparently recognizing a fellow soul who enjoyed a rousing discussion. “I’m what the spirit world calls an Intermediary. I’m not bound to either side and I come and go as I please. I can touch and move objects, like Rosie here, and anyone can see me, as long as I choose to allow it. My job is to help fix problems when the universe is out of whack, so to speak. I have knowledge of just about every event, past and present.”
“I take it the universe is out of whack then, if you’re here.” Tim seemed more at ease conversing with the old ghost than Justin was, though he supposed that was simply because his friend had far more experience with that kind of thing. He’d hate to think that it was because he had been slightly afraid of the old man in a pervious life, a rather unwelcome thought that had popped into Justin’s head as soon as he’d seen the old ghost.
Ben nodded. “It is and has been since you all died. That’s a mighty long time, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”
“Then you’re going to have to help us fix whatever is wrong so that we can find a way to help our client. After all, her family hired us, not you. Generally, humans, not ghosts, are our clients.” Tim leaned back against the wall and studied both Ben and Rose intently.
Ben laughed. “You don’t pull punches, do you, son? You never did, Jonah, and that’s one of the things I always liked about you. Back then, there were days I wished my Rosie would have chosen you instead.”
Justin frowned at the ghost’s words and a spark of jealousy ignited inside him. How dare anyone think that Tim was the better choice for Rose? She had been his wife!
That thought only made him frown harder and Justin knew he had to get out of this house before he lost all sense of himself. It was becoming more difficult to remember that he was Justin and not Rose’s long-dead husband.
“First,” Tim corrected coolly, “my name isn’t Jonah, it’s Tim. Second, while I’d like to help Rose, my first duty is to Sophia Hamlin. That has to come first.” There was a look in Tim’s eyes that had never been there before, one of cold calculation that Justin didn’t like.
The seeming callousness of Tim’s words also made the hackles on Justin’s neck rise. Couldn’t his friend see that the ghosts were the ones in need of help and not some woman they’d never met? If nothing else, Rose needed help. She needed to be free of this place, Justin thought, as anger at her situation mixed with a passion deep in his soul that he hadn’t known was there.
That thought brought Justin up short. The truth was, he didn’t know Rose or Ben. Why should he care if they were free to cross over to the Other Side or not? Suddenly, his head hurt again and he began to wonder if he should make an appointment with Elliott Scarnatti, Ghosts Inc.’s staff physician. Maybe he had some kind of serious illness, or perhaps even a parasite, that was affecting his brain and he didn’t know it.
However, neither Ben nor Rose seemed to take any offense to Tim’s words. Stepping forward, Rose looked them both directly in the eyes before speaking. “I understand your loyalties, but the decision might not be yours to make. There are powers at work that are far greater than you know, with bonds and spells you cannot break.”
Tim was about to reply when Justin stepped forward and, unthinkingly, touched Rose’s hand. “Then we’ll do what we can to help both you and Miss Hamlin.” He glanced backwards to glare at Tim, daring his friend to contradict him.
For his part, Tim merely shrugged in that same cold way and Justin was struck again by the subtle change in his friend’s behavior and mannerisms. It was as if the man he had known for all of his adult life was disappearing and being replaced by a coolly, carefully controlled stranger. “We’ll do what we can, I guess. But first, we need to know what, exactly, went on here that night.”
At those words, Ben began worrying his hat between his hands, some of his earlier cockiness gone. “Well, if I knew that, we wouldn’t be in this fix.”
Justin frowned, feeling another surge of protective feelings towards Rose. “You mean you don’t know? How can that be? You just told us you knew about past events.”
“I said most past events,” Ben corrected. “Seems the parts I don’t know concern what went on here that night.”
Tim sighed and for a moment, to Justin’s eyes anyway, his friend’s form seemed to shimmer so that Tim appeared in
the same black clothes he had been wearing in the hallway vision. Justin rubbed his eyes until the misty image cleared. There was something seriously wrong with this house and, maybe, with him, too.
“What do you remember?” There was a hard note to Tim’s voice that Justin never remembered being there before, yet somehow seemed familiar.
It was now Ben’s turn to sigh. “I know that someone killed James to get to my Rosie, though up until that night, I had no idea anyone wanted James dead to get what they wanted.”
“Who is James?” Justin asked, confused. He’d been the one to die in that hallway, or so he’d thought.
The old ghost rolled his eyes as if Justin were the dimmest person on the planet. “Back then, your name was James, not Justin. Your friend Tim here, despite what he thinks, was called Jonah.”
“I was James.” Justin nodded. “Tim was Jonah. Someone wanted me dead. Got it. What else?” He wanted to get the particulars and get out of here before he lost his mind, something that was becoming more and more likely. The pressure inside his head was building again and Justin was afraid that if he stayed in the house much longer, he might not have a mind left.
Ben turned to look out the window. “I don’t know much more,” the ghost finally admitted. “Someone wanted you dead, James, and they succeeded. We, meaning the powers that rule the Other Side, now think it was to free Rose to marry another. We don’t know for sure.”
“But something else happened,” Tim prodded. “Something that was unexpected and upset the balance of the universe.”
The ghost nodded. “Rose died that night, too, and somehow, she got stuck here. We still don’t know who killed her. She can’t move on and she can’t go back. To make matters worse, a few hours later, you died too, Jonah, along with another woman named Margaret Covington.”
“How was I connected to this?” Tim asked, the brittle tone back in his voice. “Better yet, how was this Miss Covington connected and where is she now? If what you say is true, then it stands to reason that we were all reborn, including Miss Covington.”
At that, Ben shrugged. “I don’t know.” When Tim glared at him, Ben held up his hands. “I honestly don’t know. I wasn’t there when it happened. Years later when I died, I assumed I’d be able to see into the past and find out exactly what happened.”
“But you can’t.” Justin, still struggling to keep his rising feelings, not to mention his rising panic, in check, found himself growing frustrated and angry. “What can you see?”
“Figures, mostly,” Ben admitted. “I can’t tell who the people are because it’s like I’m looking through fog. They’re moving through an unfamiliar house, almost like they’re dancing. That’s it. There’s nothing else. I can’t even see what happened in the hallway. I just see what happened after.”
Tim, now looking rather thoughtful, inclined his head towards Ben. “Rose died here, in this house, too? Are you sure of that?”
Ben nodded. “We found her body in her bedroom. She… She was…” He reached out and gripped Rose’s hand for comfort.
Though she’d been silent through most of the exchange, Rose now took over her grandfather’s narrative. “I was mostly naked, though not completely, when they found me.” When Tim sent her a questioning look, she shrugged. “I know because that’s how I woke up, sans most of my clothes, only to find that I’d died.”
She gestured to the dress she now wore. “I chose these clothes for myself once I was able.”
Tim nodded, seemingly accepting her words at face value. “Then I guess the last thing I need to know is who was Margaret Covington?”
At that, Rose and her grandfather exchanged glances. Finally, it was Rose who spoke up. “She was a woman who lived on the outskirts of town, up in the mountains. I didn’t know her well, but she seemed nice enough.”
“And?” Tim queried and Justin’s gut knotted. It was the same sensation he’d had in the upstairs hallway just before he’d had the vision.
Rose sighed. “People thought she was a witch,” she admitted. “There were also rumors that she and the town doctor, namely you, Tim, were having an affair.”
At her words, Justin felt his world began to sway again, his vision swirling as it had done earlier. Just as suddenly, the gauzy veil lifted and Justin found himself sitting in the parlor, the same one where he had just been talking to Rose, Ben and Tim. Only once more, the house was decorated with period furniture and instantly, he knew he was seeing the past again.
Unlike earlier, this time, Justin heard voices approaching and he wasn’t at all surprised when he saw himself, dressed in period clothing, step into the parlor, Tim on his heels, dressed once again in all black and carrying his medical bag. That seemed to be his preferred outfit of choice.
“I can find nothing wrong, James,” Tim, or rather Jonah, said. “Rose simply hasn’t conceived yet. You are only six months into your marriage. Give it time.”
Justin watched himself pace the room, clearly agitated. “We need a child to cement this marriage. Until then, he won’t believe the marriage has actually been consummated and will do everything in his power to take her away from me! You know that!”
“I do,” Jonah replied quietly “but there is nothing I can do other than talk to him myself and assure him that your union is solid, and consummated, even though there is no child as of yet.”
Justin watched as his friend paced the room. “Besides,” Jonah continued, “Rose loves you. You need to believe in that love, know that you have your place here in society, even if he chooses not to accept it. Rose is highly regarded, James. She’s not like…”
At that, Jonah’s voice trailed off the same way Tim’s often did when confronted with something he didn’t want to discuss. If there had been any doubt before as to whether or not Jonah and Tim were the same person, there wasn’t any more.
“Who is she, Jonah?” he heard himself ask Tim. “Who are you seeing that isn’t acceptable to society?”
His friend shrugged and instantly, Justin knew that this version of Tim, though physically identical, was colder, more remote than his friend was today. He also sounded more like the man that had been questioning Rose and Ben a few moments before, rather than the normally affable investigator Justin knew. The big, bulky body might have been the same but the soul was slightly different. This man had lived a far harsher life than Tim had.
“There is no woman, nor will there ever be,” Jonah insisted. “Leave it be, James.”
Justin heard himself give a familiar humph, which lent credence to the idea that he had, indeed been James Morgan. “There is and I won’t leave it. If it’s Margaret, and I suspect that it is, no good can come of an association with her. You know that, Jonah.”
His friend turned and Tim’s familiar blue eyes burned with an anger that Justin had never seen before. “Even if I were involved with Margaret, it would be my business, but I am not. She is a good woman, despite what others think and I will not have her name dragged through the mud because of nonsense rumors. So leave it be.”
With that, the vision ended and Justin found himself back in the present and sprawled on the floor of Rosewood House, more confused than he had been before. The only thing he knew for certain was that whatever had happened in this house it had been very, very bad and that he and Tim were both firmly tangled up in it.
Chapter Five
Early the next morning, Justin stood in front of Rosewood House, the bright sun illuminating the faded pink paint. No matter how he turned the events of the night before over in his mind, it just didn’t make sense. None of it did.
After he had returned home, Justin lay in bed and relived the two visions from earlier in the evening, his thoughts a jumble of ideas and possibilities. When he’d woken up on the floor of the house for a second time, he’d described to everyone bits and pieces of the vision he had experienced while Tim helped him to his feet.
Neither Ben nor Rose had any knowledge of the conversation, nor could they recall who might hav
e been trying to break up her marriage to James. Tim, still reluctant to believe that he had once been the cold and distant Jonah, wasn’t much help either. After assuring both Ben and Rose that they would keep investigating, Justin and Tim had left Rosewood House for the evening, promising to return soon.
Curiously, the farther away they went from the house, the more their odd behavior seemed to vanish. Justin no longer felt the burning desire to protect Rose at all costs and Tim became less cold and more his usual jovial self. It was as if they had started to take on the personality traits of the people they had once been the longer they were in the house.
After only a little prodding, Tim had finally admitted that he hadn’t felt like himself in the house either. Rather than his usual calm and controlled personality, Tim had admitted that he’d felt trapped, stifled and angry, as if life hadn’t been fair to him. He also admitted to feeling as if he were wrestling with a life or death decision that involved a woman, which only confirmed what Justin had seen in the second vision. Margaret Covington was somehow involved in whatever had occurred on that long ago night.
The only problem was, none of them could remember exactly what Margaret looked like, not even Rose, who had admittedly been friendly with the woman.
Justin had given up on all pretense of sleep just before dawn and placed a quick call to Mia, who, much to his surprise, was already awake. She knew what had occurred at Rosewood and he assumed that Tim had filled her in after he and Justin had returned to the city. Though Justin felt something was off about that scenario, he put it aside to ponder over later and instead did something that just the day before he probably wouldn’t have even considered.
He made a heartfelt plea to Mia and nearly begged her to reassign the rest of his caseload for the next few days so that he could concentrate solely on the mystery surrounding Rosewood House. He also prayed that, even for a brief moment, some of Mia’s humanity would surface and that she would agree to his unusual request.
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