by K E O'Connor
“You could be right,” I said. “Maybe we’ve been looking at this all wrong. Just because the Bellamys’ children died doesn’t mean they'd automatically come back and start haunting their parents. The adult ghosts I’ve seen could be parents of the children in this photograph, and they are returning to the house to try to get their own children to join them.”
“That would explain that child ghost you saw when we were outside,” said Helen.
“It would. She was too old to have belonged to the Bellamys. And the way she was dressed suggested she came from a different era. She may be the unsettled ghost after all.”
“So Jasmine is being haunted by somebody else’s children,” said Helen.
“Poor Jasmine,” I said. “She’s struggling to cope with the grief she’s experiencing over losing her children to a tragedy. And she’s also being bothered by the ghost of somebody else’s child. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Perhaps they think they’re helping her,” said Helen. “The ghost child might believe she’s offering Jasmine comfort by being in the house.”
“Well, it’s not working. Jasmine is a nervous wreck.”
“I've just had an awful thought. What if one of those other ghosts harmed the Bellamy children?” asked Helen.
The light overhead blinked out, and I was shoved off my chair, just as Flipper let out a pitiful sounding howl. I heard Helen shriek and rolled onto my back to see if I could see where she was. As I did so, I came face-to-face with an angry looking male ghost.
Chapter 16
“Helen, are you okay?” I stared at the ghost hovering above me. His narrowed eyes and pinched mouth showed his fury.
“What just happened?” Helen groaned in the darkness. “Someone pushed me. And they didn’t do it gently.”
The ghost blinked out of sight, and a second later, the lights came on.
Flipper was at my side in an instant, sniffing my face and licking my hands to check I was okay.
I patted his head to reassure him, and then looked over at Helen. She was covered in slime.
Helen stared at me from her seat at the table, a look of horror on her face. “Who did this?” She raised one arm slowly as sticky residue dripped off her dress.
“We had a visitor. It was the male ghost I've seen before.”
“Why have I been slimed?” Helen grimaced as she inspected her clothes.
I bit my bottom lip. As scary as the experience had been, the look on Helen’s face made me want to laugh. “I don’t know why the ghost did that to you. He didn’t hurt you, did he?” I hopped up from the floor and rounded the table, avoiding globules of slime as I did so.
“I’m not hurt. But what is this stuff?” Helen pulled a piece of slime from her dress and flicked it on the floor. Flipper inspected it for a few seconds before growling and stepping away.
“Ectoplasm. It’s gross but harmless.” My hands hovered over Helen, not sure how to best start de-sliming her.
“You may think it’s harmless,” said Helen, “but you’re not the one covered in it.”
“It’s not my first experience with ectoplasm,” I said. “The best way to get rid of it is to go stand under the shower in your clothes. Then throw them into the washing machine. It comes out without any problem.”
“But what about my hair?” Helen pulled a sticky strand of blonde hair from her face.
“That will be fine as well,” I said. It was so hard not to laugh.
“But why did he slime me?”
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Maybe we were onto something with the whole ancient ghost haunting theory.” Helen stood slowly and more ectoplasm dripped onto the floor.
“That could be it,” I said. “The ghost was furious. He shoved me to the ground.”
“Better to be shoved than slimed.” Helen inched towards the bathroom. “I’m going to clean up.”
“I’ll deal with everything out here.” I looked at our ruined dinner and the globules of ectoplasm on the table and floor. So much for a quiet evening.
I’d just finished scraping the last of the ectoplasm from the floor, when I heard a knock on the annex door. I opened it to find Chris standing outside.
“Jasmine just told me there was a brief power cut earlier. Hope everything is okay in here.”
“We were eating dinner when it happened, and it was only for a few seconds.”
“I’m sure the wiring needs updating in this place,” said Chris. “We’ve had some of it done, but we need some of the really old lines dug out. It’s a tricky business.”
“No need to worry about us,” I said.
“I got you these.” Chris held out a torch and some candles. “Can’t have you eating in the dark if it happens again.”
I took the candles and torch from him. “Thanks for that. Are you expecting more power cuts?”
“Most likely,” said Chris. “These old houses tend to misbehave.”
“You make it sound as if the house is alive.” I thought back to what Marie had said in the cafe about the house being evil and stained with darkness.
“Not so much alive,” said Chris. “But I do think houses have a character of their own. I’ve researched this one’s history all the way back to when it was first built.”
“You have?” I asked. “Mind if I take a look at your research?”
Chris beamed at me. “I didn’t know you were a history buff.”
“I like to know about the places I’m living in,” I said. “Have you got time to show me now?”
“Of course! I’ll be glad of the company,” said Chris. “Jasmine isn’t feeling good again.”
“I’ve managed to get all the slime off...” Helen emerged from the bathroom and froze; one hand had been toweling her hair dry, and the other held a fluffy pink towel round her middle.
“Glad you’re all clean.” I shielded her from Chris’s view as best I could. “Chris has offered to show me details about the house; when it was first built, that sort of thing.”
“Sounds interesting.” Helen nodded as she backed towards the bathroom. Her gaze landed on a piece of ectoplasm I had missed, and her eyebrows shot up.
I looked over at Chris to see if he’d also spotted it, but he was being too much of a gentleman, and his gaze was fixed on something in the hallway to spare Helen’s blushes.
“Shall we go have a look at those house details?” I asked him.
“Good idea.” Chris kept his gaze averted, earning him some brownie points from me. Any man who was able to avoid leering at a half-naked woman was okay in my books.
“I’ll see you later,” I said to Helen as I shut the door.
I followed Chris along the hallway and into his study. He spent a few minutes rifling through papers in his drawer, before extracting several sets of drawings and a map. “I have a copy of the original house deeds and information on all the modifications and extensions to the building. It’s a listed building, so we needed to know all this before we did our own alterations. You know how uptight local councils can be if you do something without telling them first.”
“Did it used to be farm workers’ cottages?” I peered at the drawing Chris had laid out in front of me.
“Exactly that,” said Chris. “There was a row of six farmhand dwellings on this piece of land, and they were knocked into one over the years. Before that, they were two up two down structures, with no running water inside and a basic toilet in the garden. In fact, I believe when the houses were first built, there was a single toilet for all six of the properties. Can you imagine that?”
“Very different from what we have these days,” I said.
“I don’t think we realize how lucky we are,” said Chris. “Here’s a picture of the original structures.” He pointed to a hand drawn diagram.
“And the houses were knocked together over a period of time?”
“That’s right,” said Chris. “It’s a simple enough process to knock down a dividing wall and enlarge the space.
Might need to do some staircase shuffling at some point to make it all fit better, but that’s no big challenge when you know what you’re doing.”
“Do you know anything about the families who lived in the cottages before the modifications took place?” I asked.
“Not an awful lot,” said Chris. “The landowner would have given the cottages to their workers as a benefit for taking the job. They didn’t always keep accurate records of who was living here. Workers moved around, especially if the work was seasonal.”
“I imagine there were a few families who lived in these cottages over the years,” I said.
“Must have been a number of different families. It was also common for the children to go out and work in the fields alongside their parents,” said Chris. “It was an easy way of getting cheap labor. Back when these cottages were first built, children didn’t stay in school for long, if at all. It was important they started earning money from a young age, so they could provide for themselves. Working on the land was never going to make a person wealthy, and their parents would have needed all the help they could get.”
I studied the papers for a few more moments, but couldn’t see any more useful information about the families who used to live there.
Chris shuffled his feet and cleared his throat a few times. “Jasmine mentioned you went into the village today.”
I looked up from the papers. “That’s right. We went to the cafe.”
“It’s encouraging to hear she’s going out again,” said Chris. “Sometimes, Jasmine stays in her room for weeks. It’s difficult for both of us. But I know it can’t do her any good staying in this house alone all the time.”
“Did your wife tell you what happened when we went to the cafe?”
“I got the impression she didn’t enjoy herself,” said Chris. “But she wouldn’t tell me what happened.”
“Some of the local residents were not as friendly as they could have been,” I said. “I wasn’t there when it happened, but I think she had a confrontation with two of them.”
Chris pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can imagine what they said. Some nasty remarks about what happened to our children. I never realized that living in a small village would mean living alongside people with such small minds as well.”
“May I ask why they think something bad happened to your children?”
Chris shuffled the papers back into order and shoved them in a desk drawer. “Because idle minds like to make up unpleasant things. Our children died because of a defect in their hearts. But if you listen to the gossip, you’d think we sacrificed our children to some savage god in the middle of the village.”
“I don’t think that,” I said.
“No one should think that.” Chris slumped into the seat by his desk. “I hoped the rumors would go away. But perhaps I need to pay a visit to a few people and remind them of what actually happened. I can take death certificates if I have too. But it’s not fair the way they hound Jasmine. They’ve targeted her for some unknown reason.”
“Have they done anything else?”
“We’ve had a few notes through the door,” said Chris, “people suggesting it was time we leave and find somewhere else to live. I even found someone with a spray can in their hand standing at the front door. Although they denied it, I was sure they were planning on writing something unpleasant on the door. I wish people would just leave us alone.”
“That’s horrible,” I said. “And it’s not a surprise Jasmine decides not to go out if she has to face such behavior every time she leaves the house.”
“I think that’s part of the problem, though,” said Chris. “The fact Jasmine has secluded herself so much means people will talk. She’s not there to defend herself. And rumors spread and grow and become some horrible, vicious thing before you know what’s happened. I have encouraged her to go out more. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I wanted you here. And it’s working. Although your trip out wasn’t a success today, with more of them, and in time, I believe we can get past these rumors and be happy here.”
I didn’t think I’d be as brave as Chris or Jasmine. If something so sad had happened to me, I’d want nothing more than to get as far away as possible. But I could understand why they wanted to be here; with their children buried in the graveyard, they didn’t want to leave them behind.
“Well, thanks for showing me the building details,” I said. “It was fascinating.”
“Any time you want to have another look just ask,” said Chris. “I can be a bit of a geek when it comes to history, and I’m always happy to have a fellow enthusiast on board.”
I nodded thanks and left the study. I made my way back to the annex and found Helen dressed and dried and sitting at the kitchen table.
“Did you get any useful information about the house from Chris?” asked Helen.
“He showed me the plans of the original houses,” I said. “And you were right, they were separate buildings and have all been knocked into one.”
“And what about the families?”
“Not many details on them,” I said. “But we might be able to find out some information about them. Birth and death records were kept even back then.”
“We could try the church,” said Helen. “That would have been here this whole time. They have records in there. And what about that museum the guy we met in the pub looks after? Could be full of interesting stuff.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” I looked over Helen for any signs of ectoplasm. “I see you’re goo free.”
“Yes, and our unfriendly ghost had better not come back and do it again,” said Helen. “I’ve done nothing bad to him, and he goes and covers me in that disgusting muck.”
“You did suggest he killed the Bellamys’ children,” I said. “And if he didn’t, he’d be right to be angry with you.”
“It was only a suggestion,” said Helen.
“Well, it would explain why he’s appearing in the house. Feeling guilty because of what he did could trap him here,” I said. “But I have no clue how we can prove that, and I want to get this sorted quickly. I don’t appreciate being shoved off my chair when I’m eating dinner.”
“And I don’t appreciate being covered in ectoplasm,” said Helen. “Next time, make sure he slimes you.”
“I’ll put a request to him in writing,” I said.
“And dinner has been ruined,” said Helen. “I’m not making any more.”
“How about some toast?”
“I’ve got chocolate ice cream,” said Helen. “Will that do?”
“That will be perfect,” I said. “Dessert always helps me puzzle through difficult problems.”
Helen went to the freezer and pulled out the ice cream and two spoons from a drawer. “The puzzle being three possible suspects who may have killed Michael and Mirabel, and a family of angry ghosts who don’t like us.”
“That's right,” I said.
“We’ll need more than a tub of ice cream to solve this dilemma.” Helen returned to the table and sat down before passing me a spoon.
“We have to start somewhere,” I said. “It may as well be with dessert.”
Chapter 17
Two days passed, and the ghosts had been quiet. There was no ghostly laughing, no sudden appearances of angry ghosts, and no more ectoplasm. I had to admit I was relieved. Chasing after mystery ghosts, and worrying that I was about to be jumped upon by an angry spirit, was exhausting.
Still, I was worried about the children’s deaths. Why were they still haunting the house if nothing bad had happened to them? It could be they were confused and didn’t know how to move on. And if that was true, I wasn’t sure how to help them. I’d never received a how-to-guide when I gained these ghost-seeing abilities. I just muddled through helping ghosts with their earthly dilemmas, so they could move onto wherever they went next.
But Michael and Mirabel’s deaths were tragic, and I needed to make sure they hadn’t been killed. The appearance of the other ghosts
could simply be connected to my arrival. My abilities sometimes attracted ghosts, and maybe the adult ghosts in the Bellamy house had sensed I was able to detect them and wanted to make their presence felt. I didn’t mind if that was the case, but I also wanted to make sure they didn’t need assistance, or at least, they stopped glaring at me and covering Helen in slime.
As I walked through the door of the annex at the end of the working day, Helen threw my coat at me. “We’re going out.”
“Where are we going?”
“I went for a walk at lunchtime and met someone,” said Helen.
“A handsome someone?”
“Nothing like that.” Helen wrinkled her nose. “Besides, he was wearing a dog collar. And I never date a member of the clergy.”
“You met a vicar?”
“Exactly. And he’s invited us to tea.”
“Why are we going to have tea with the vicar?”
“Because he will give us access to the birth and death records the church holds.”
I shrugged on my jacket. “You are so much more than a pretty face. Have I ever told you that?”
Helen gave me a shove. “As much as I like my blonde hair and curves, I’m more grateful for the fact that I do have a brain between my ears.”
I grinned at her. “And if you work your charms on the vicar, we can find out more about the family who lived here. If we can figure out their names and what went on with their children, it will give us a clue as to why their ghosts are hanging out at the Bellamys.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Helen, “but I draw the line at flirting with a vicar.”
“He might like it, though,” I said. “I expect his congregation is not as easy on the eyes as you.”
“I don’t want to frighten the man,” said Helen.
“A gentle pat on his knee won’t do him any harm.”
“It will do me harm! I might end up in Hell if I manipulate a member of the clergy.”
“But you’re doing it for a good cause.” I locked the annex and followed Helen and Flipper to the front door.