Jessie's Ghosts

by Penny Garnsworthy

  There was a light. But it wasn’t any ordinary light. It was more like a glow. And it was coming from the portrait on the hall wall; the portrait of her grandfather’s family.

  Jessie’s knees trembled and her hands began to shake. Gripping the door frame, she swallowed hard as she continued to stare down at the portrait, her eyes wide with fear.

  The portrait was glowing, and the lady’s voice she had heard these past nights was coming out of the portrait, she was sure of it.

  All of a sudden she realised she had stopped breathing and as she did, she coughed. The glow died and the voice stopped.

  Jessie couldn’t move. She clung to the door frame, not sure now of what she had seen and heard. Gradually she could feel her legs again and raced back into her room, pulling the door firmly shut behind her.

  She stood for a moment, shaking, as the cold wrapped itself around her and then she dived into bed, pulling the doona up and over her head and rubbing her hands up and down her arms.

  What did it mean? The light, and the voice? What was it? Who was it? And how did it get there?

  Did Nanna know about this?

  Jessie assumed not, as Nanna wouldn’t be able to hear anything at night. And if I tell her Jessie thought, she won’t believe me. Would anyone?

  Did I really see the portrait glowing? And did a lady really speak? Jessie tossed from side to side in the bed, her thoughts spinning like a merry-go-round until she fell into an unsettled sleep.

  As sunlight streamed in through her bedroom window, Jessie opened her eyes. Nanna had opened the blinds and was now standing beside the bed.

  ‘This country air must be having a wonderful effect on you, love – you’ve slept in. Do you want some breakfast? Don’t forget you told Harmony you’d be over this morning.’

  ‘Can I stay in just a bit longer, please?’

  ‘Of course you can – I’ll be out in the garden, you just get up when you feel like it. There’s cereal on the table, and bread. Just pop a couple of slices into the toaster.’

  When Nanna left, Jessie rolled over on her stomach and buried her face in the pillow to keep out the light.

  I must have dreamed it, she thought. I must have dreamed that light in the hall and that lady’s voice. What else could it be?

  And why am I so tired this morning? Jessie tried to go back to sleep, but the room was full of light now so she dressed and walked down to the kitchen. As she passed the portrait in the hall, she looked up.

  ‘Did you really speak last night?’ she whispered to her great-grandmother, ‘or did I dream it?’

  Fleur was painting again in the garden when Jessie arrived, this time on her own. Now that she knew the way it only took a few minutes to walk over from Nanna’s.

  ‘As you can see, painting is a messy business,’ Fleur said, her arms and face marred with streaks of green and yellow.’

  ‘Is it hard to get the paint off?’ Jessie asked.

  ‘Well, not really. You see I put a lot of sunscreen on when I’m outside and the paint just doesn’t seem to stick.’

  ‘It’s nice out here the garden. Do you always paint flowers?’

  Fleur smiled. ‘Not always Jessie. But I do love bright colours, as you’ve probably noticed. And different kinds of flowers lend themselves to so many exciting textures.’

  ‘I wish I could paint,’ said Jessie.

  ‘It’s taken me many years to reach this stage in my painting, but anyone can do it, if they have the desire … and the passion.’

  Jessie nodded.

  ‘Harmony’s out the back,’ Fleur smiled, as she turned back to the easel, ‘you can find your way, can’t you?’

  Harmony was emailing her dad when Jessie arrived. She looked up, ‘Hi,’ she said, ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Yeah, that’d be great.’ Jessie always felt thirsty after her walk over from Nanna’s.

  As Harmony left the room, Jessie glanced at the message she hadn’t yet completed. In it Harmony had told her dad how much she was missing him and that she was always so bored at mum’s. Jessie almost turned away until she read the last sentence; … mum introduced me to her neighbour’s granddaughter, Jessie. She’s a lot younger than me, but she does know a bit about computers. We’re getting on okay and at least it’s a break from mum.

  What a horrible thing to say about Fleur, Jessie thought, as a frown slowly spread across her face.

  Harmony placed their drinks on the table and said, ‘I just need to finish this, okay?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Harmony typed a few more sentences and then sent the email. ‘So, what are you going to show me today?’ she asked.

  Jessie had planned to invite Harmony to join her on Facebook but now she wasn’t sure whether she wanted Harmony as a friend. Instead she showed her how to play a hidden object computer game. Harmony seemed a bit happier when they finished and Jessie wondered if she should mention to her about the voices.

  I have to tell someone, she thought, but Harmony will probably just laugh at me. Oh well, what does it matter? We’re not going to be friends anyway.

  CHAPTER 6

  ‘Can I tell you something? Jessie said.

  ‘Sure.’

  Jessie hesitated.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You probably won’t believe me.’

  Harmony frowned. ‘Try me.’

  ‘Well, for the past couple of nights I’ve been hearing voices, late at night. They wake me up.’

  ‘What sorts of voices?’

  ‘Well, first there was a lady’s voice. I thought Nanna was having a bad dream, or that she was talking in her sleep but I checked her room and she was okay. Then I heard a man’s voice. And then I got worried that there was someone outside.’

  ‘What did your Nanna say?’

  ‘First she said I was probably dreaming, but then she told me that sometimes in the country you can hear voices from a long way away. She thought maybe it was someone talking up on the road.’

  ‘Mmm. You don’t think so, do you?’

  ‘No. I think it’s something else.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I saw something last night. Something … strange.’

  ‘Like what?’ Harmony raised her eyebrows.

  ‘There’s a painting, well it’s a portrait, in my Nanna’s hallway. And last night there was a strange light coming out of it.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘What do you think it was?’

  ‘Mum says that some of the old houses around here are haunted. Maybe there’s a ghost in your Nanna’s house.’

  ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’

  ‘Of course,’ Harmony replied, ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’

  ‘Well, they’re everywhere. You just have to be sensitive to them.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You just have to be aware they’re there. I did a project on it at summer school.’

  ‘What’s summer school?’

  ‘I went there when my parents split up. They do … different things than school, like drawing, and music. And there was this class on the paranormal – ghosts - that I went to.’

  ‘Do ghosts only haunt houses?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, do they ever haunt anything … inside houses?’

  Now Harmony looked confused. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, like this portrait for instance? Nanna brought it down from the loft and put it up in the hall. Last night it wasn’t just glowing though; I’m pretty sure those voices I heard were actually coming out of the portrait.’

  Harmony’s eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped open.

  ‘You have a haunted portrait? That’s so cool!’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Does your Nanna know about this?’

  ‘Nanna wears hearing aids, and …’

  ‘Yeah, I noticed.’

  Jessie smiled as she continued, ‘Well she takes them out at n
ight so she doesn’t hear anything.’

  ‘Wow. What a blast!’

  ‘But what am I going to do about it?’

  ‘Why would you need to do anything about it?’

  ‘Well, they’re keeping me awake at night.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Harmony said, her mouth twisted in thought. ‘I don’t know what you can do about it. Ghosts pretty well have a mind of their own.’

  After sandwiches and an apple Harmony walked Jessie back to Nanna’s. While Jessie had played with the computer Harmony had repainted her nails, a very dark shade of brown. Her eyes were so dark, Jessie wondered now long it took her to apply her makeup every morning, and how many bottles of nail polish she owned.

  ‘Are you going to do anything? About the portrait I mean?’ Harmony asked.

  ‘I’m going to listen really well tonight. I want to hear what they’re saying.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, not all ghosts are good you know.’ Harmony raised an eyebrow and her eyes seemed to become even darker. ‘Some are downright evil.’

  Jessie flinched.

  ‘Well,’ Harmony said brightly, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow I guess.’

  Evil? Jessie couldn’t imagine her great-grandparents were evil, but the thought worried her anyway.

  Later that night as she lay in bed, she heard the woman’s voice again. She slipped out of bed and tiptoed across to the door. Remembering that last night the voices had stopped as soon as she coughed she had purposely left her door wide open so there would be no risk of her making any noise as she went out into the hall.

  The lady was speaking as she rounded the corner, one slow step, and then another. Jessie could see the portrait glowing. Then the lady stopped talking.

  Jessie moaned inwardly. She hadn’t made a noise at all, she was sure of it. Why had the woman stopped?

  But then the man spoke. Jessie backed herself up against the wall, stood perfectly still and listened.

  ‘Mother, it was an accident.’

  ‘My son, you must report what happened to the constable.’

  ‘They will send me to prison.’

  ‘Harold, you must speak the truth - for the sake of your father.’

  Jessie crept a little further down the wall, her bare feet soundless on the timber floor. There was a pause and she held her breath, not wanting the voices to stop. The conversation continued.

  ‘Father?’ Harold asked desperately, ‘If it had not been for father, this tragedy would not have happened. Can you not see that mother? Can you not understand how much I love Gwyn? I must have her. I must.’

  ‘Harold, you cannot,’ his mother replied sternly, ‘She is engaged to your brother.’

  ‘Can Frederick love her the way I do?’ Harold pleaded, ‘I adore her, mother.’

  ‘Harold! You must not speak this way. She belongs to Frederick.’

  ‘What must I do then mother? How shall I live without her?’

  What were they talking about? Jessie wondered as she moved a little further down the wall.

  She was now only a metre from the portrait. The conversation paused again. She knew Frederick was her grandfather and Harold was his brother, but who was Gwyn?

  ‘You must go away my son. Leave this place.’

  ‘And leave you too?’ Harold cried.

  Finally Jessie was almost opposite the portrait. She looked up. The woman, her great-grandmother, was speaking and as she did, Harold turned away. Great-grandmother moved her hands to gently rest them on Harold’s shoulders.

  They moved! Jessie thought, flinging her hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. They actually moved!

  Chills were running up and down her body and her legs were trembling.

  ‘It is the honourable thing to do. Your father would have wanted it.’ great-grandmother said.

  At that point Harold broke down and cried. Jessie was so close to the portrait she could see the pain in Harold’s eyes.

  The people in the portrait were moving, and speaking. The hand over her mouth started to shake and her heart was beating so fast she thought it would explode right out of her chest.

  Part of her so badly wanted to run back to the safety of her room but the other part wanted to stay, to hear the rest of what her ancestors had to say. Before she could decide though, Harold spoke again.

  ‘Mother, I am doomed - am I not?’ he was pleading, ‘How can I live with myself? Father is gone and Gwyn, … oh, Gwyn, the love of my life!’

  ‘My son,’ his mother was saying, ‘My son. You must leave this place, you must leave tonight. I love you Harold, I always will. But you must go. For all our sakes.’

  The light diminished, and the voices stopped. Jessie’s legs refused to move until she slapped her hands against her thighs. Her feet were like frozen blocks of ice as she walked quickly back to her room and got into bed.

  What accident? And who was Gwyn? Jessie didn’t understand any of this.

  The photographs! Maybe there was a photograph of Gwyn. She remembered the albums were still on the kitchen table.

  Jessie slipped out of bed again and pulled on her dressing gown and slippers before walking down the hall to the kitchen. As she passed the portrait she saw that great-grandmother and Harold were back in their original places; as if they had never moved.

  Jessie gasped, and then took a deep breath.

  ‘I don’t know what this is all about,’ she whispered, ‘But I’m going to find out.’

  CHAPTER 7

  Stumbling over chairs in the dark, Jessie finally located the light switch and sat down at the kitchen table. She pulled the albums towards her and slowly turned the pages of the first.

  These photos were mostly of her great-grandparents on their wedding day, and some of her grandfather as a baby. The next album had photographs of her grandfather growing up with his younger brother Harold.

  But the third album was the one she was looking for. Her grandfather and his brother were older now, perhaps teenagers Jessie decided. As she turned the pages she saw her grandfather in pictures with her grandmother, and the caption read ‘Fred and Ruth’, but there didn’t seem to be any other women in the photographs. She kept turning until she came to more photos of their wedding day.

  The caption below the photograph read: Frederick and Gwynneth Marshall, June 10, 1951.

  ‘Gwynneth?’ Jessie said, ‘but that’s Nanna.’

  How confusing was this? Nanna’s name was Ruth. Why was she called Gwynneth in the photo?

  ‘Nanna, who is Gwynneth?’ Jessie asked as the next morning she scooped rich yellow yolk out of an egg cup and laid it on her toast.

  Nanna laughed and said, ‘Why, that’s my real name, Jessie.’

  ‘But your name is Ruth,’ Jessie protested.

  ‘Yes, that’s right too, love. I was never happy with the name Gwynneth – as a child I found it very hard to pronounce, and at school I could never spell it. Ruth is my middle name, so I just told everyone my name was Ruth and that’s what I’ve been called ever since.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘How did you find out my name was Gwynneth?’

  ‘I heard … I mean it was written under one of the photos in the albums.’ Phew.

  ‘Oh, of course. I’d forgotten about that, it was such a long time ago. At weddings you always have to use your real name, so on my wedding day I was Gwynneth.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Well, are you going over to see Harmony?’

  Later, she thought. But right now she needed time to think.

  ‘I might go for a walk first … to look at the animals.’

  ‘Just watch out for Daisy, the big cow. She can get pretty irritable with strangers.’

  Away from the house Jessie found a big old tree with lots of leafy branches and sat down in the soft green grass beneath it. She pulled a notebook and pen out of her pocket and started to write. Considering how late it had been last night and how frightened and tire
d she had been, Jessie was surprised at how much of the portrait conversation she actually remembered.

  First she wrote that Harold had said it was an accident and that he would go to prison if he told the police. Alongside this fact Jessie wrote: What accident?

  Then she wrote that Harold said it was his father’s fault this had all happened. Alongside that she wrote: Why was it his father’s fault?

  Finally she wrote that Harold said he loved Gwynneth and could not live without her. Well, at least Jessie now knew who Gwynneth was and that she was engaged to be married to Fred - pop - at the time. Why then would Harold say he loved her?

  Now that she had the facts straight, she needed answers. Would Nanna know the answers? There was only one way to find out. But she would need to be really careful about what she asked, or Nanna would wonder where she got her information.

  Nanna had said that pop had hidden the portrait in the loft - maybe she could start with that. She packed up her notebook and pen and brushed herself off. Daisy was grazing close to the house and mooed loudly at Jessie as she walked by. Jessie could just make out a sweet little black and white calf standing behind Daisy. She would have loved to pat the calf but knew Daisy would never allow it. She was just being protective.

  Seeing this made Jessie think about Sarah and then she realised she hadn’t been thinking about Sarah, or home, at all. This holiday wasn’t turning out to be too bad after all.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Jessie said as she bounced into the kitchen. Nanna was sitting at the table, sorting through different coloured wools, a partly knitted striped scarf over her knees.

  ‘Of course, love.’

  Jessie took a seat opposite Nanna. ‘Remember when I asked you about the portrait and you said you had found it in the loft and that you thought pop had hidden it up there?

  Nanna nodded as she took up her knitting needles and they began to click.

  ‘Well, why do you suppose he never brought it down and hung it?’

  Nanna’s face became serious and she put down her knitting.

  ‘Why do you ask, Jessie?’

  Now she was stumped. She couldn’t tell Nanna about it being haunted, could she?