Search for the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  “Good,” Abby said, with some relief. “Believe me, I know how crazy it all sounds, but it really does help to have someone to talk to about it. So, any insights?”

  “Not many. You know the family story, probably better than I do since you’ve started doing some of the genealogy. My side of the family produced a long line of only children, don’t ask me why, and there were things we were never allowed to talk about. As an adult, I came to understand why. I’ve always regretted that we have so little in the way of memorabilia—you know, letters, photos, that kind of thing—and you’ve already got the biggest, the chair. But to be fair, a lot of people choose not to keep old family stuff, just because they don’t like clutter. So that doesn’t mean there was anything lost, just that my grandmother and mother never had much to pass on. But at least it’s easier to get official records these days, what with all the computers.”

  “Yes, that does make things easier, but the catch-22 is, you have to know what—or who—you’re looking for in order the ask the right questions.”

  Abby and her mother hashed over what few facts they had and added a few guesses while they ate. It was frustrating to Abby that she had so little to work with, and her mother didn’t have much to add, but there was nothing to be done about it. “Mom, did you ever ‘feel’ anything or anyone?”

  “You mean, like a ghost?” Rebecca replied.

  “Well, that’s one thing people call them, although I don’t like the label much. But, yes, a spirit or visitor from the past.”

  Rebecca shook her head. “I can’t say that I ever have. Of course, I was never a fanciful child, and as a younger woman most of my thoughts were about young men. I usually had a job, but mostly that was a kind of placeholder until my real life began.”

  “With Daddy, you mean?”

  “Yes, with Marvin. Those stories I’ve already told you. He was the one and only, from the beginning, and we’ve been happy together.”

  “It showed, and you provided a good example. So even up the line, nobody had any psychic tendencies?”

  “Well, I had forgotten that both my mother and my grandmother used to read cards.”

  So her memory had been right. “Really?”

  “Yes. Not professionally, just for friends, when they were in the mood. I have no idea what they said to their friends when they did this, or if anything they talked about was true or would become true. That’s really about the only thing that seemed out of place in their lives, and we never really talked about it. I’ve never tried it—I don’t think I have the knack. Is that the sort of thing you’re looking for?”

  “Kind of,” Abby told her. “I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the history of spiritualism, which was very popular in New England in the nineteenth century. It took a lot of forms—spirit rapping, seances, for example. It’s really hard to know now what was fake and what was real, if any of it was. But there was enough of it going on, with enough skeptics watching like hawks, ready to debunk it, that I get the feeling there was something there. So I did a sort of test this past weekend: I went to a psychic fair here in town.”

  “What on earth is that?” Rebecca replied, sitting back in her chair.

  “Sort of a fundraising event, I gather. Some organizers gathered together a whole bunch of self-proclaimed psychics with a variety of skills, and then sold tickets for people to talk with however many you wanted. A portion of the money went to some worthy cause—I really wasn’t paying attention.”

  “And you decided to try it?”

  “Yes, just out of curiosity. And I took Sarah—Ned’s mother—along, so there would be a second set of eyes and ears.”

  Rebecca nodded. “That’s right, she has this thing too. And what did you find?”

  “Well, between us we sampled six different mediums. All women. All different. Most of them weren’t particularly interesting, although they may have had some talent, in varying degrees. But one of them . . .”

  “You clicked?”

  “Yes, kind of. Enough so that I wanted to talk to her more, so I invited her over on Sunday to talk one on one.”

  “And?”

  “I found I wanted to believe her, but I wasn’t sure. Until she was getting ready to leave, and she said something I couldn’t ignore.”

  “Which was?”

  Abby eyed her mother, wondering how she would react to what she was about to tell her. “She said, ‘Samuel says to tell Rebecca he’s sorry.’”

  Rebecca’s eyes widened. “Samuel? As in, my wandering grandfather?”

  “That’s my guess. And she knew your name too. One lucky guess I can accept, but two?”

  Rebecca’s mouth twitched. “Do you think he’s already apologized to Ruth and Patience?”

  Abby smiled. “I wondered the same thing.”

  Chapter 17

  Maybe she and her mother weren’t so different after all. Still, Abby was surprised when her mother spoke firmly, “Is that invitation to stay the night still open?”

  “Sure, if you don’t mind a rather lousy bed. Ned and I don’t seem to think about having overnight guests, and we use the home improvement projects as an excuse not to do anything about the furniture. It’s worked so far.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t. Hasn’t Ellie stayed over?”

  “Yes, but she’s a kid. They can sleep anywhere—or at least, she can. I assume you have higher standards.”

  Rebecca grinned. “Well, sweetie, let’s say that the spirit is willing, but the flesh has a touch of sciatica, so a newer bed is important. You want me to talk to Leslie?” Rebecca volunteered.

  That was the last thing Abby wanted. Leslie was already bent out of shape about Ellie’s situation, and knowing that even more people knew about it could be disastrous. “Oh, no, please don’t!” Abby said, almost before she could think. “We’ll work it out, but we don’t want to force anything. She could cut off all contact between Ned and Ellie, and we don’t want that.”

  “Doesn’t he have any rights?”

  “I don’t know. Ned told me that the original plan was for him to be a donor, period—no contact, and no strings attached, legal or otherwise. Then things kind of happened when I came into the picture and that became impossible. I want both of us to be available to help Ellie, which is one of the reasons why we’re pushing to learn more, but only if Leslie is willing. Uh, Mom, did you ever wonder about me?”

  Rebecca seemed unfazed by Abby’s abrupt change of subject. “You mean, whether you had some sort of unusual ability, as a child? Not that I recall. We always knew you were smart, and good in school. You had a nice group of friends. You worked hard, and you never gave us any trouble.”

  Abby burst out laughing. “Wow, do I sound like a boring kid!”

  “Do you think I missed something?” Rebecca asked anxiously. “Or that I saw only what I wanted to see? I like to think I would have noticed if you’d had any serious problems.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom—I don’t think I had any significant problems. My working theory is that this, uh, ability was activated when I started running into all those ancestors around here, after I moved to Massachusetts. There were none in the neighborhood when I was growing up, so I had no reason to know about it.” She sobered. “I wish I had known your mother. I know we spent some time together, but I guess things never got personal. She was kind of scary.”

  “Looking back now, I think she was an unhappy person.”

  She’s never said that before, Abby thought. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, her mother was an angry woman. She’d lost a child, and then her husband upped and disappeared for the rest of his life. She had to scrabble just to survive. So Patience—my mother—grew up with no father, no siblings, and a mother who was bitter. It had to have colored her life, don’t you think?”

  “I’d think so. How did you come out so normal?”

  Rebecca smiled. “Thank you for calling me normal. I don’t think I can take any great credit for it—I think it’s someth
ing in the genes. I was just a placid child, and not terribly sensitive or observant. That’s probably what saved me.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if anybody lives an ordinary life,” Abby said, with more bitterness than she expected. “I’m beginning to ask myself why anybody does any genealogy at all. We keep stumbling over family secrets without even looking for them. It’s like there’s the official story that gets handed down, all tidied up, or maybe even inflated a bit, and then there’s the ‘real’ story. Lots of affairs, and illegitimate kids, and cruel, angry people. Financial disasters. War injuries. Crimes. I guess researchers all hope they’ll find they’re descended from somebody famous, but mostly they dig up dirt.”

  “Why are you so upset, Abigail?” her mother asked gently.

  Abby sighed, and took a moment to calm herself down. “I guess because I just want to live my life. I thought I was, and then everything flew apart—Brad, my job, any plans I might have made. Don’t get me wrong: I love Ned. He’s a wonderful, smart, caring man. But there’s this whole other thing between us, like baggage we have to carry around all the time. You probably don’t have a clue how distracting it can be, if, say, we’re trying to have an ordinary conversation about groceries or something, and he happens to touch me, and suddenly every thought flies out of my head and all I want to do is jump his bones.”

  Rebecca laughed out loud at that. “And you’re complaining about that?” she asked when she finally stopped. “Plenty of women would call you lucky. As long as he feels the same way, of course.”

  “I know, but still . . . There are other things I want to do with my life. In addition to that.” Abby smiled reluctantly.

  “Of course there are. So what are you doing about it, beyond wallowing in self-pity?”

  “I’m not wallowing! I’m investigating. Doing research. Ned and I are working together. I’m doing the historical side, and the face-to-face encounters with suspects, er, subjects. Ned’s doing the science, or at least the biological side of it. He’s recruited a friend who’s a genius with electronic brain monitoring, or so he says. We’re hoping that we can put our results together and come closer to understanding what’s going on between us. By the way, Kevin—that’s the friend—says he can see sparks flying—literally—when Ned and I touch.”

  “Oh, my.” Rebecca took the time to think about her next question. “And say you do come up with some sort of greater understanding—like, the left whatsit node in the upper whichever generates impulses at a particular frequency that can be seen on a scan, and we know that that particular area of the brain is responsible for your hearing or eye coloring or finger length and can be passed down to your offspring. If you’re lucky it will turn out to be the site of your psychic generator, if you want to call it that. What then?”

  “We haven’t gotten that far,” Abby said, ashamed of sounding sulky. “Ned and I have been together for less than a year, and we’ve learned a lot, and we’re still learning, every day. Like with Christine the medium—that was the first time I’ve dipped my toe into that whole side of things, and I did it only because I’ve been reading up on it. It’s not like we’re looking for a product to market, thank goodness. Can’t you see it? Cheesy commercials on obscure cable networks, hawking stuff like, ‘Increase your ability to see other people’s thoughts! Find great-grandpa’s lost will and inherit millions!’ Even if it turned out to be possible, it could be a disaster. The government would probably track us down and lock us both in a back room somewhere and make us try to read the minds or ‘see’ the plans for some nefarious plot belonging to our enemy of the moment. It’s happened before. Even now the government is dabbling in projects like remote viewing—to find lost military vehicles, that kind of thing.”

  Abby took a sip of her now-cold coffee. “And we don’t exactly want to start up a church or some sort of official organization. If I had to define our goal, beyond simply understanding what’s going on, I’d say we want to help people who have this ability in one form or another to function in the world without alienating people or being hung as witches. People like Ellie. Or maybe kids with learning disabilities could use it. There must be more of us, but the problem is finding them.”

  Rebecca nodded. “That seems like a worthwhile goal. But you’d have to be careful how you use it, so that you don’t scare the public.”

  “I know, Mom. And that scares me too. But at the same time, if this ability exists, even in some small percentage of the population, it would be a criminal waste to suppress it when it could do some good.”

  “No mind control?” Rebecca asked.

  Abby checked to see if she was joking. “It doesn’t work like that, at least not for Ned and me. And his mother. We can see and hear, but we can’t make anyone do anything. We’re looking for more people, because our sample population is ridiculously small, but we can’t exactly put an ad in the local paper and say ‘Psychics Wanted.’”

  “What about that Psychic Faire where you found Christine?”

  “I was exploring options there, but I’m not sure who to trust. There are plenty of fakes, and I don’t want to waste my time with them. And before you ask, I can’t just eyeball people or touch them to see if they’re the real thing. It’s not that simple. And there are apparently too many forms of psychic ability to find one test that fits them all. They don’t necessarily overlap.”

  Rebecca looked interested. “You mean, if you can read cards, you can’t necessarily find out anything by laying hands on a person? Or if you can see auras, or whatever they’re called, you may not be able to call up spirits?”

  Abby smiled in spite of herself. “More or less. Are you sure you want to get into all this, Mom? You could just go back home and pretend you never heard any of it.”

  “Abigail, how can I do that, knowing what I know? You’re my daughter. I love you. Whatever this thing is, you seem pretty sure it came through my side of the family, not your father’s. So I’m part of it whether you like it or not. You might as well keep me informed. And you know I’ll help any way I can. I’m sorry my family didn’t keep very many documents or pictures, or even talk much. That makes me sad, but there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  Rebecca’s comment suggested something to Abby, but she couldn’t put her finger on it yet. “I know. It’s not your fault. The landfills of the world are filled with stuff that people thought they didn’t need, until their children or grandchildren decided they did, but too late. But even if there were trunks full of letters and photos, they might not include any hint of psychic ability. People had mixed feelings about spiritualism and the like, when it first became public, and they were probably as likely to hide it as to celebrate it. That’s why Ned and I feel we have to look at the physical evidence, if there is any to be found.”

  “That makes sense to me.” Rebecca suddenly slapped her hands on the table. “Let’s get out of the house and do something.”

  Abby was startled by her mother’s abrupt change of subject, but maybe Rebecca had decided she’d heard as much as she could process for one day. “You have an idea?” she asked, although the gleam in her mother’s eye suggested that she did.

  “Yes. Let’s go find a bed. Where’s the nearest furniture store?”

  “Uh . . . a mall?”

  “And where would that be? Come on, sweetie—we’re not looking for a priceless antique. We’re looking for something comfortable to sleep on. Maybe some pillows and sheets and stuff. You seriously haven’t gone looking since you moved in here?”

  “No. I felt it was Ned’s house, and I was kind of an intruder.”

  “Abigail, he asked you to move in, right?” When Abby nodded, her mother forged on. “He was not just offering you a place to crash while you sorted yourself out. You two have been sharing a bed, right?”

  Abby could feel herself blushing. When had her mother become so direct? “Well, yes.”

  “Did you assume that was your payment for the right to stay here?”

  “No, of cour
se not,” Abby protested. “Wouldn’t that be, like, prostitution?”

  “Maybe. Is it because you don’t feel right spending his money?”

  “Kind of. I don’t have much of my own, you know.”

  “Has he complained? About you spending money? Or not earning your own?”

  “Uh, no. He understands why I’m not. I’ve told him I want to work, but it’s complicated.”

  Rebecca nodded. “From what you’ve told me, he has far more money than he needs, and he’s happy to share. If you’re really partners, you’ll let him. So you think you can spring for a bed and all the fixings?”

  “I guess so. Let me check the computer and see where the nearest places are.”

  “That’s my girl. And when you have a moment, think about why you’re still so afraid to commit to whatever the two of you have. Because let me tell you, you’ve both got it bad. You might as well face it.”

  To Abby’s surprise, the rest of the afternoon segued into a ladies’ day out, shopping at a nearby mall, something Abby seldom did. She didn’t care much about clothes, although Brad had pushed her to look more high-style when she was working in fundraising. It hadn’t stuck. But they weren’t even looking for clothes: they were looking for a bed. Maybe even two beds. Her mother didn’t insist on “name” stores, but she wasn’t a manic bargain hunter either. Luckily the same region encompassed both big box stores and outlets, and they had little trouble finding something that made sense to both of them. The tiebreaker was getting same-day delivery, which Rebecca achieved with a mix of “helpless little old me” and a cheerful smile to go with her insistence. Abby sat back and admired the show; she had little aptitude for negotiation or bargaining.

  When they emerged from the furniture store, clutching the receipt and delivery invoice, Rebecca said, “Done! Do you have sheets for a double?”

  “Yes, I’m pretty sure we do. You were amazing in there, Mom. You were persuasive without being pushy. You made that poor guy do what you wanted him to do while letting him believe it was all his idea. I am in awe.”