Teenage Psychic on Campus

by Pamela Woods-Jackson

  “No, thanks.”

  Sean was silent for a rare moment. But the quiet didn’t last long. “Could it hurt to just come with us and maybe have some fun for once? And in the process, do your thing?”

  Gary let out an exasperated sigh. “Sean, I’ve got a full class load, a play to audition for, plus a part time job. Besides, you and your crew have all that expensive equipment. You don’t need me.”

  “Yes we do. EVPs only go so far. We need the help of a medium.”

  Gary reclaimed his laptop from Sean. He lay down with his computer balanced on his stomach and stretched out on the dorm room’s standard-size bed that barely fit his six-foot-five-inch frame. He peeked at the headline on the Ghost Stalkers’ website: Local B&B seeks help in getting rid of pesky ghost. But Gary wasn’t the least bit tempted. “For the last time, Sean, I’m not a medium. Mediums talk to crossed-over spirits. I can only talk to the earthbounds that get in my face. Why don’t you snag that roommate of Annabeth’s? Isn’t she a medium?”

  “She’s too busy with the campus newspaper.”

  “Then you’ll have to rely on your high-tech Electronic Voice Phenomenon,” Gary said.

  “Annabeth thinks this is a good human interest story, since it’s local.”

  Gary shrugged. “Well, I’m not going ghost hunting at some run-down farmhouse, just so your club with its cameras and fancy equipment can get a feature story in the campus newspaper.” He sat up again, readjusted his laptop on the bed and got back to Shakespeare, even though he was pretty sure the wheels inside his best friend’s head were still churning.

  “Fine, man,” Sean said as he pulled himself off the bed, sat down at his desk and opened his own laptop. “Be that way.”

  ****

  The next morning Gary walked from his dorm room across the small Hamilton Liberal Arts College campus, headed for the Thomas Belford Performing Arts Building, named after the town’s founder. Late October in Indiana was usually mild, with the added bonus of the leaves changing colors from green to vivid reds and oranges, but today the air was crisp with a hint of frost. Gary thought about going back to his dorm for a heavier jacket, but a quick glance at the clock tower told him he was short of time, so he just pulled up the hood on his Colts sweatshirt and shoved his hands in the front pocket.

  The Commons, the open grassy area in the center of the campus that was surrounded by all of the classroom buildings, was already decorated for Halloween, with bales of hay and carved pumpkins strewn about. Gary remembered the first time he had come here. It was just about a year ago when his mom had insisted they do some campus visits during his high school fall break, even though neither of them really knew at that point how they were going to pay for his college education.

  “Gary, look how quaint,” Brenda had said, pointing to the historic buildings as she read from the campus guidebook. “This used to be a military post until the 1880s. And that,” she said, stopping in front of what appeared to be a nineteenth century residence, “was where the post’s commanding officer lived.”

  “Well, he left behind one of his soldiers,” Gary replied, tilting his head in the direction of a hundred-year-old oak tree.

  Brenda’s eyes followed her son’s. “We’ve got a ghost?”

  Gary shrugged. “He’s gone.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “No, thank God.”

  Brenda smiled and patted her son’s arm. “A campus that was once a military outpost probably has a few lingering spirits. It’s part of the charm.” She spun herself in a complete circle, admiring all the old buildings as she twirled, then abruptly stopped when she noticed a group of students staring at her. “Come on, let’s go. I didn’t mean to attract attention.”

  “You always attract attention, Mom.” At age thirty-three, Brenda was still what his friends called a “hot babe.”

  Brenda had blushed, and the two of them had moved along on their campus tour. Despite the expense of a private school, his mom had talked him into applying for admission. “Their theatre department is one of the best in Indiana.”

  “And just how do you propose I pay for it?” Gary had asked her.

  “You want to be a Shakespearean actor? This is where you need to be. We’ll figure it out.”

  After some online research, Gary had to admit his mom was right about the theatre department. He also liked the small campus itself, especially The Commons area with its manicured lawn and huge clock tower in the center, which chimed every hour. The clock was striking now. Gary looked up and realized he was running late for his all-important presentation in Oral Interpretation class. He’d practiced and practiced this monologue, the Hamlet ode to indecision, but it wouldn’t hurt to run through it one more time as he hurried to class. “To be or not to be…” he said under his breath.

  “Hey, watch it!”

  Gary came out of his head just as he collided head-on with a girl who looked familiar, knocking her bag out of her hand and spilling all its contents. “I’m sorry,” he said as he stooped down to help her gather her belongings. “I was…”

  “Not looking,” she said, hands on her hips. “Yeah, I got that.” She reached around him and finished putting her stuff back in the bag.

  One notebook had escaped and tumbled down the sidewalk, landing in a pile of green, golden and red leaves. Gary picked it up, dusted it off, and was about to hand it back to her when he caught a glimpse of its cover. “Journalism major?”

  “Yeah,” she said, snatching it and stuffing it back in her bag. “And you’re an actor.” She pointed to his attire.

  He blushed in embarrassment as he looked down at his torn jeans and paint-stained sweatshirt. “Well, I was running late and…” Just because he was wearing the clothes he’d worn when painting the backdrop for Midsummer Night’s Dream last summer at Shakespeare in the Park was no reason this girl should stereotype him. He didn’t always dress like this. He shifted his oversized backpack onto his other shoulder. “Gary Riddell,” he said, extending his right hand.

  She didn’t extend her hand in return. “Yes, I know. Caryn Alderson. We met last summer. Apparently I didn’t make much of an impression.”

  He self-consciously pulled his hand back and wiped his sweaty palm on his jeans. “Oh, yeah. Annabeth Walton’s roommate?”

  “Yeah. And you and Annabeth’s boyfriend—” She broke off with a shrug.

  “Right. I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve run into you on campus.” Gary rolled his eyes when he realized what he’d just said.

  Caryn didn’t react to his pun as she checked her bag to make sure she had everything.

  Well, she looks the part of an aspiring newspaper woman, Gary thought. She was medium height, meaning a good deal shorter than him, with shoulder-length brown hair that she’d pushed back with a headband, revealing tiny pearl stud earrings. Her crisply starched jeans were paired with a tailored corduroy blazer, and carrying that Coach bag knock-off made her look like a woman most definitely headed to corporate America. “Nice to see you again, Carolyn,” he said. “Gotta go. Late for class.” He turned his back and hurried off.

  “CarYN!” she called after him.

  He rushed into his classroom just as Dr. Danson stepped to the podium at the front of the room to address the students. “Sorry I’m late.” Gary slid into his seat and quietly pulled out his laptop as the instructor raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, before we begin our presentations today, please keep in mind the two minute time limit.” Dr. Danson glanced at his tablet. “Mr. Riddell, I believe you’re first.”

  Gary pulled himself up out of the too-small desk chair and walked to the front of the classroom. As prepared as he was for this interpretive piece, a familiar churning in his belly gave him pause. All great actors get butterflies, he told himself in positive pep-talk style. Yeah, but who said you were a great actor? his negative ego answered back. He swallowed hard.

  “Come on, Riddell, we haven’t got all day,” s
houted Foster Benning from the back of the room.

  Foster was a fellow freshman, an African-American scholarship student from an urban theatre arts charter school in Indianapolis. Since he was rumored to be the next student director for the fall production, Gary didn’t want to get on his bad side. He shook off the sudden case of nerves and pulled himself up to his considerable height, faced his audience aka his classmates, cleared his throat and began.

  “Hamlet’s soliloquy is probably one of the most well-known in literature, certainly the first speech that springs to mind when Shakespeare’s tragedy is mentioned. Hamlet’s dilemma is not only his dissatisfaction with life and its many torments, but he’s unsure and even frightened by what death may bring, including the damnation of suicide.

  To be, or not to be, that is the question:

  Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

  The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

  Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

  And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,

  No more…

  Gary stopped mid-soliloquy and blinked a couple of times at what was standing at the back of the classroom, right behind Foster. “What” pretty much summed it up. The ghost looked like she’d probably walked in this building when it was new. She was wearing a tight-fitting blue satin shirt-waist jacket that matched her skirt with its huge bustle in back, dangly earrings, a weird bun-type hairstyle and a small hat sitting precariously on top of her head. She appeared to be in her early twenties, making Gary a little sad that she had died so young. But she was dead and had been for a long time. She was trying to say something, so he shut his eyes and attempted to tune her out. “Bad timing, lady,” he muttered.

  “Uh, Mr. Riddell,” Dr. Danson said. “You’ve hardly used up your two minutes. And to my recollection, there’s no reference to a lady in Hamlet’s soliloquy.”

  “Oh, uh….” Gary gulped. He lowered his head a moment, cracked an eye open as he glanced toward the back of the room, and the apparition was gone. He finished his speech, but unfortunately not with the skill and pathos he’d practiced it. He cringed when Foster smirked and wrote something on his notepad.

  The class finally ended. After watching classmate after classmate give flawless presentations, Gary was humiliated and couldn’t wait to escape the building. He berated himself yet again for letting his attention be distracted. After all the preparation, and knowing what was riding on his midterm grades, he wanted to kick himself for not ignoring the ghost. He saw them all the time, so why he’d let this one throw him off, he had no idea.

  Gary rushed out onto The Commons, squinted as the afternoon sun shone into his eyes, and finally took refuge under the large shady oak tree that was its centerpiece. Pathetic, he chided himself. He wished the ghost world would just leave him alone, let him have some semblance of a normal life. For as long as he could remember he’d been hounded by the undead, sort of like that kid in the movie Sixth Sense. No, he didn’t see bloody or mangled corpses lumbering along zombie-style, but seeing normal-looking ghosts, and yes, hearing them, was almost as bad.

  Gary’s first memory talking to a ghost was at age five, a little boy about his age who looked so sad and just wanted to play. Gary was all dressed for his first day of kindergarten in the clothes his mom had laid out—brand new jeans, a clean white golf shirt, and new red sneakers. He heard her calling repeatedly from the kitchen to come eat his breakfast, but when he hadn’t responded, Brenda had come to check on him and found her son in an animated conversation with the wall.

  “Gary, what are you doing?” Brenda had asked him.

  “Talking to my new friend.”

  “Oh. An imagin—a new friend.” Brenda had smiled indulgently, taken his hand and led him out of the bedroom.

  Even though Gary was just a little boy at the time, years later Brenda told him how she’d been afraid for his mental state as the ‘imaginary friend’ seemed to crop up more and more in their conversations.

  Brenda, who was very young herself then, barely twenty-one, began poring over childrearing books and the Internet to find possible causes, none of them good: autism, ADHD, ingested toxins causing hallucinations, or even loneliness. She even took him to her employer, Dr. Paxton. The doctor assured Gary’s mom that this was a phase that would pass. But it didn’t. Gary kept telling his mom that the imaginary friend was hanging out in his bedroom. Brenda was at her wits’ end, but she had no one to talk to, not even her parents. They wouldn’t have understood, and his bio dad had never been in his life.

  Finally a few weeks later, Gary said, “Don’t worry, Mom. My friend’s gone.”

  Brenda had seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “How do you know?”

  “I asked him if there were any kids to play with where he lived, and he said they were always trying to get him to cross over the bridge and join them. He just kept telling them he couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Gary had burst out laughing. “He thought I was lonely.”

  After that, Gary continued talking to more and more invisible people, and not just in his bedroom. He even insisted to his mom that some of them were long-dead family members, like his great-grandpa. Eventually, Brenda began to believe Gary really could talk to ghosts. She never made fun of him or tried to convince him it was his imagination, and always told him he was special.

  As Gary got older, he didn’t feel special at all. In fact, ghosts were constantly disrupting his life. By the time he got to middle school at age twelve, it was pretty embarrassing to be having conversations with the dead. When he’d stop mid-sentence to listen to something no one else could see or hear and kids looked at him funny, he’d laugh it off as no big deal.

  By freshman year in high school he still hadn’t gotten any better at handling the unexpected ghostly visitor. He’d be in the middle of class or in a conversation with friends and would mutter under his breath or swat at something next to his ear. Luckily for Gary, the high school drama teacher was convinced all that pantomiming represented theatrical ability, so Gary signed up for the school’s drama classes and started auditioning for plays. After that, if he happened to be talking to dead people, kids just thought he was rehearsing. An added bonus was that he loved acting and was good at it.

  Still, Gary hated being harassed by the undead with their otherworldly agendas. Their timing always sucked. And today another ghost had trashed his Oral Interp presentation. The chilly fresh air in The Commons was helping to clear his head after that disaster, but it wasn’t making the reality of it go away.

  “Now can you help me, sir?”

  Gary blinked and saw the same nineteenth century lady standing next to him by the oak tree. His eyes darted around to see who might be watching. No one was near, so Gary thought he was in the clear. “Help you what?”

  The ghost was wringing her hands. “Help me find my son. Have you seen my little Horace? He’s only two years old.”

  Gary did some quick mental math. If her son was two in the 1880s and lived to adulthood, he most likely died in the mid-twentieth century. “When did you last see him?”

  The lady shook her head and a wave of sadness flashed across her semi-solid face. “I was ill, feverish, and my husband kept Horace away, fearful of contagion.”

  Oh, okay, she died from whatever it was that brought on the fever and didn’t realize time had passed her by. “Isn’t there a bright light on your side?” Gary asked her. “I’m sure if you walk into it, Horace will be waiting for you.”

  The apparition turned around and looked off into the distance. She then smiled, lifted her arms as if to embrace someone, took a few steps and disappeared.

  “Good riddance and thanks for nothing!” Gary called after her. He knew that was uncalled for, but the frustration still rankled. He turned around and there was Caryn Alderson, watching him from the other side of The Commons. She lifted her eyebrow and went on her way.

  “Great,” Gary muttered. “Not only does she th
ink I’m clumsy, now she’s convinced I’m a head case.” He groaned, but didn’t have time to think about it because he was already late for work at the bookstore.

  ****

  There he was again, talking to a tree. Either he was in the zone with his acting, or just zoned out. He shifted his book bag to the other shoulder, ducked his head, and hurried off.

  “Uncle Omar!” I called out, then tapped my foot impatiently, waiting for him to materialize.

  Uncle Omar finally appeared in front of me. “You bellowed?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but took a good look at him and burst out laughing. “You look like—”

  He leaned against the same tree Gary had been talking to, folded his arms in front of his waistcoat, adjusted his top hat, and crossed one knee-high leather boot over the other. “Mr. Darcy,” Uncle Omar finished for me. “I’m trying it out as a Halloween costume.”

  I must have looked really surprised, because my uncle gave me a mischievous grin. “What? You don’t think we have parties over here?”

  Pride and Prejudice is my favorite Jane Austen novel, and I had to admit my uncle made a dashing Mr. Darcy, but still… “I guess I never thought about it.”

  “So you needed something? I’m on my way—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said with a wave of my hand. “Remember that guy I met last summer? Gary Riddell? You told me he was interesting, but from where I stand he’s a head case, talking to trees.”

  “One might think you’re talking to trees yourself.”

  Ohmigod. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and plastered it to my ear. Back in high school when Uncle Omar first appeared in my life, I didn’t have a cell phone and I always wished for one, if for no other reason than to keep people from staring when I talked to him or any other spirits that popped by. Once I finally got a phone, I discovered it was a good cover to avoid the kinds of looks that I had been giving Gary just now.

  Uncle Omar smirked. “He’s not talking to trees any more than you are. He’s talking to ghosts.”