by Becky Durfee
“Out loud or in my head?” Jenny asked.
“Either. Hopefully he’ll reply,” Ingunn declared.
“Hopefully?”
Ingunn shrugged. “We can’t control them. We can only encourage them.”
Jenny blew out a breath as she tried to mentally prepare herself for the challenge. “Okay, so are we ready to go?”
“I’m ready whenever you are.”
Both women turned silently to the picture. Jenny studied Samuel’s face with scrutiny as the rest of the room seemed to disappear from sight. She focused on the contours of his face, which seemed to come alive off the canvas. She felt as if she’d known him. She could hear his laughter. She could see his joy. He had been a happy child, easy-going and carefree. He had liked his life. He had wanted for nothing.
And now she could feel him watching her.
Chapter 8
Jenny spoke softly. “What is it you want, Samuel?”
While Jenny heard no words, a feeling washed over her. Samuel missed his family, and he wanted to be reunited with them.
“They’ve crossed over,” Jenny explained quietly. “If you want to be with them, you need to cross too.”
She felt frustration. That clearly hadn’t been the answer Samuel had been looking for. With a sensation that felt like all the air being sucked out of the room, Jenny experienced a withdrawal that forced her to snap back into the moment.
Before Jenny had the chance to fully grasp what was going on, Ingunn flatly stated, “You angered him.”
“I-I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I don’t even know what I said to upset him.”
“It’s nothing you did wrong,” Ingunn replied as she stood up. “It happens sometimes.” She began to push her chair back to its original location.
Deducing that the contact session was over, Jenny did the same. “What else should I have said?” she asked. “If he wants to be with his family again, doesn’t he need to cross over?”
The light bulbs had cooled enough for Ingunn to touch them with her bare hands. They lit back up as she screwed each one in, making the room seem remarkably less eerie. “I guess that wasn’t what he meant.”
“I guess not,” Jenny noted. “I’m not sure how else he wants us to help him reunite with his family, though. He lived a hundred sixty years ago. We can’t change anything that had to do with his life.”
Ingunn walked past Jenny as she headed for the door. “I’m quite sure he doesn’t want us to.”
Jenny furrowed her brow. “What does that mean?”
Ingunn paused as her hand touched the doorknob. She turned back around to face Jenny as she said, “There’s something else he wants us to do. Something within our control.” She opened the door and added, “We just need to figure out what that is.”
Jenny burst into the Statesman room to find Zack relaxing on the bed with the remote in his hand. He had changed into the flannel pants he always slept in, and an open beer rested on the nightstand.
“You’ll never believe what happened,” Jenny proclaimed as she sat on the edge of the bed. She told the entire story to Zack in little more than one breath.
“Wow, that’s amazing,” Zack replied as he took a sip of his beer. “I wonder what upset him so badly.”
“I don’t know,” Jenny said with an excited shrug. “I guess we need to find out. But first,” she added with a raised finger, “I need to use the little girls’ room.” Hopping off the bed, Jenny looked down to see all of Zack’s clothes from the day scattered on the floor. The image briefly gave her pause; then she continued on her way.
She felt quite troubled as she entered the bathroom. Images of Zack’s old apartment flashed in her mind—the place had been so cluttered it was difficult to maneuver in there. Granted, the basement he lived in now wasn’t quite so messy, but he also hadn’t lived there that long. She imagined it was only a matter of time before disarray took over that space, too. If she accepted his proposal and they lived together as husband and wife, was that how he would treat their house? Would she spend the rest of her life picking up after him? Would she ultimately resent him for it? Would they end up one of those old couples that did nothing but bicker?
Would they end up divorced?
She placed her head in her hands, knowing that her thought process was spiraling out of control. She wished there was a way to discern how much of this train of thought was genuine and how much was due to pregnancy hormones—or even a disproportionate fear of failing at marriage again. Should clothes on the floor really have been that upsetting? They were just clothes, after all. However, she knew one of her biggest mistakes in her previous marriage had been keeping too quiet; she failed to mention all of the things that bothered her, and for that reason they continued to happen.
But was this even worth mentioning?
Since it was troubling her so badly, she decided she’d at least send out a feeler. Finishing up in the bathroom, she returned to her seat on the edge of the bed. “You look comfy,” she mentioned to Zack. Then she gestured to the pile on the floor. “I guess you were so eager to get into bed that you didn’t put your clothes away.”
He didn’t look away from the television. With a half-hearted shrug, he said, “I figure there’s no hurry; we’re going to be here for days. We won’t need to pack up for a while.” He took another sip of beer.
Jenny’s spirits sank; that was not the answer she’d been hoping to hear. She wordlessly got off the bed and took a seat in a nearby chair, opening her laptop. While she went through the motions of checking her email, she felt her insides stewing. Glancing at Zack with just her eyes, she noticed he seemed completely unaware that she was upset. She wondered how he could be so oblivious to something that, to her, seemed so painfully obvious.
You’re pregnant. You’re hormonal. There’s a good chance you’re overreacting, Jenny thought to herself. Sleep on this, and bring it up again in the morning if it’s still troubling you. Although Jenny logically knew that was the correct thing to do, she still felt irritated, seriously doubting that the morning would make her feel any differently.
Noticing her inbox was filled with nothing but junk, Jenny leaned back in the chair and reconsidered the episode with Samuel. He had clearly been upset by her response, although she had no idea why. He wanted her to do something, and helping him cross was not the answer. She wished he would be more direct and simply tell her what he wanted her to do instead of being cryptic and getting upset when she guessed wrong.
Suddenly Jenny noticed the parallels between Samuel’s unsuccessful contact and Zack’s clothes on the floor. Like Samuel had done to her, Jenny had gotten upset with Zack because he didn’t automatically know what she wanted. If she wanted him to pick up his clothes, she needed to expressly tell him that. Simply getting angry about it wasn’t fair, especially if she had given him no indication that’s what she wanted.
With that thought the anger left Jenny’s body, and she relaxed into her chair. While she didn’t feel like getting into it at the moment, she knew the answer to her dilemma was simple—communication—just like her friend Susan had told her several months earlier over lunch.
As Jenny enjoyed the inner peace she’d just found, she began to feel a tug. Mechanically standing up and reaching for her purse, she briefly said to Zack, “Let’s go.”
With that Zack hopped off the bed and slipped into his shoes. He followed Jenny out the door to the Statesman Room and down the curved stairwell. They wordlessly went outside and got into Jenny’s car, which she started and headed down the driveway. She turned toward Route two-fifty-seven, but once she reached the main thoroughfare she took a right instead of a left, leading her further down the road than she’d ever been. After only a couple of miles, she pulled the car over into a small church parking lot. Silently getting out of the car, she headed toward the small cemetery in the back, arriving with determination at the largest headstone of the bunch, which was marked with the names Jeremiah and Sarah Davies.
&nbs
p; “Holy shit,” Zack remarked, “this is the family.”
The years of their births and deaths were listed below the names. Jeremiah had been born in 1808 and had died in 1844; his wife Sarah had been born two years later but died the same year.
“They were young,” Jenny proclaimed compassionately as she sunk down to look at the headstones at eye level. “He was thirty-six and she was thirty-four.”
“Wow,” Zack said, “and they managed to have eight kids? That’s crazy.”
“Well, there was no birth control back then,” Jenny noted. “I think big families were pretty common.”
“They both died the same year. I wonder if it was at the same time.”
“I don’t know,” Jenny said. “I wish it had specific dates.” She glanced at the headstone next to her, noting it was smaller but also read the name Davies. “This one is named William,” she announced. “He was born in 1832 and also died in 1844.”
“Good Lord,” Zack added as he took a few steps away, “here’s another one. This is Elizabeth’s grave. She was fourteen when she died in forty-four.”
Jenny stood and walked over to Zack. “Apparently that was the girl from my vision. She looked very ill when I saw her. I guess she didn’t make it.” Jenny hung her head despite the fact she had suspected that already.
“Who was the other person you saw?” Zack posed.
“Andrew.”
“Well there he is.” Zack pointed to another headstone, brandishing the dates 1828-1843. “It appears he lived to be fifteen.”
“And it looks like he died before the others,” Jenny noted. “Maybe that’s why I saw him first in my visions; he could have been the first one to succumb to…whatever it was.”
“Oh God,” Zach said as he read another epitaph. “Do yourself a favor and don’t look at this one.”
Heeding his advice and keeping her eyes averted, Jenny asked, “Is it the baby?”
“Well, a three-year-old. She died in 1844, too.”
“Jesus,” Jenny whispered under her breath. “Something took out this entire family.”
“Well, maybe not the entire family,” Zack added. “Are you noticing what I’m noticing?”
She looked at him quizzically. “No, what are you talking about?”
“Count them,” he replied. “There’s the mother, the father, and seven children.”
“Only seven?” Jenny posed.
“Yup. And I’ll give you three guesses which one’s missing.”
“Maybe he’s just in a different area,” Jenny deduced as she looked at the other headstones in the small cemetery. After reading them all, however, she had to acknowledge that Samuel simply wasn’t there.
“Could it be that he was the lone survivor of this thing that killed the rest of his family?” Zack asked.
Jenny wiped her hands down her face. “I supposed it’s possible. And based on the fact that he’s not here, I imagine it’s probable. But that means this poor kid watched his entire family die. Based on their ages in the painting, I’m figuring Samuel was what, about seven or eight when that happened?” Jenny shook her head. “That poor kid.”
“No wonder why his spirit has unrest.”
“And I guess that’s what he meant when he said he wanted to reunite with his family. Maybe he’s just upset that everyone left him alone on this earth.”
Zack looked at Jenny as he pointed to the ground. “Or maybe he’s upset that he’s not here.”
“You think he wants to be buried here? That’s what’s bothering him?”
With a shrug Zack replied, “It could be.”
Jenny noted the layer of gray that covered the area as sun began to set; their time to explore would soon have to come to an end. “He may have grown into adulthood and was laid to rest with his own wife and children. In that case, I doubt he’d want to be here.”
“Is there any way we can find that information out?” Zack asked.
Jenny’s cheeks puffed out as she slowly exhaled. “I have absolutely no idea.”
Jenny lay perfectly still in bed as the morning light made its way through the cracks in the curtains. Zack managed to sleep soundly next to her, invoking an overwhelming sense of jealousy. She breathed deeply with her eyes closed, desperately trying to rid herself of her intense desire to vomit. She knew if she moved even one muscle she would instantly be sick; she only hoped that staying still long enough would make the urge go away.
Zack rolled over clumsily in his sleep, causing the entire bed to shake. Unfortunately, that was all the motion Jenny needed to put her over the top. She immediately got out of bed, speed-walking to the bathroom, eventually kneeling in front of the toilet as a cold sweat encompassed her body. Sadly, after much effort and a series of disgusting noises, she was only able to vomit a little bit of bile.
Straightening out her posture, she wiped her hand down her sweaty face. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Zack leaning against the doorway. Although she realized it was most likely her own noises that had woken him, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted an audience at that moment.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
In a move that at any other moment would have been terribly upsetting, Jenny leaned her elbow on the rim of the toilet and placed her head in her hand. “I will be. I think.”
“Do you have the flu?”
Jenny shook her head feebly. “I don’t feel feverish. Honestly, I think it’s just morning sickness.”
“Huh,” Zack said, sounding as if he was contemplating something. “I’ll be right back.”
In Zack’s absence, Jenny battled several more rounds of nausea. Every time she thought she was feeling well enough to stand up and go about her day, her body let her know she was mistaken. As a result, she continued to sit on the floor, leaning up against the wall near the toilet, wondering if the marriage proposal was still on the table considering what Zack had just witnessed.
A few minutes later, he reappeared with a plate of toast and a glass of apple juice. “Hey,” he said softly, “I found Jessica, and she told me she’d had bad morning sickness, too. She said that a little bit of food can sometimes do the trick. I’m not sure if you’re up to eating, but this might make you feel better if you can stomach it.” He sat across from Jenny on the bathroom floor and leaned against opposite wall.
Jenny managed a smile despite the fact that she felt like she’d been hit by a truck. “You’re my hero, you know that?” She reached out to grab a piece of toast.
Zack pulled the plate away. “Okay, you’ve been gripping the toilet with that hand. I can either wash your hand for you or feed you the toast, but I’m going to be a little grossed out if you touch the toilet and then touch the toast and then eat it.”
Jenny rolled her eyes as she pulled some toilet paper off the roll. She wrapped it around her hand, using it as a mitten as she took the toast off the plate. Although she wasn’t sure food would actually make her feel better, she was pretty sure she couldn’t feel much worse. She took a small bite and chewed slowly, washing it down with a sip of apple juice.
The food went down smoothly. Encouraged, Jenny pointed at Zack with her toast and weakly said, “It’s your daughter that’s doing this to me you know.”
“As if,” he replied.
“Seriously,” Jenny replied, “it’s estrogen overload, I guarantee it. It’s totally a girl making me sick.”
“Actually, Jessica told me it may be low blood sugar. She recommended you eat something right before bed and keep some crackers on the nightstand for when you wake up. And that makes sense, you see, because all of your nutrients are being used to make our son all big and strong. I’m sure it takes a lot of energy to make those manly Larrabee muscles.” Zack flexed his biceps.
Jenny curled her lip but didn’t respond. After a few more bites of toast, she noted, “I actually feel like a human being again.” She smiled at Zack sincerely. “Thank you.”
He shrugged. “I did this to you. Getting you toast is the least I ca
n do.”
Her face looked defeated. “You’ve seen me vomit.”
“I’ve seen most of my friends vomit, just for a different reason.”
Jenny managed a laugh. “I’m glad you’re such a good sport about this.”
“Well, I don’t mind that you were puking,” he replied, “but I do have to pee. Is there any way you can scoot over so I can have a turn at the bowl?”
Finally managing to stand up without being overcome with nausea, Jenny said, “It’s all yours, chief. Have at it.”
He looked at her with a smile. “Don’t mind if I do.”
“Is it okay if I sit down?” Jessica asked as Zack and Jenny finished up their pancake breakfast.
“Absolutely,” Zack replied, gesturing to an empty chair. “It’ll give me another chance to thank you for this morning. The toast really did the trick for her.”
“Yes,” Jenny said emphatically, “it sure did.”
Jessica scooted her seat in so she was sitting at the table with Zack and Jenny. “I had terrible morning sickness with my youngest,” she explained. “I found the only thing that helped me was making sure my stomach was never too empty or too full. As long as I ate little bits throughout the day—and night—I did okay.”
“Was your youngest a boy or a girl?” Jenny asked.
“A girl.”
Jenny made wide eyes at Zack, who in return shook his head confidently.
“But the reason I’m here,” Jessica added, “is to let you know they’ve identified some of the victims off the highway, in case you hadn’t heard already.”
Jenny’s mood instantly became serious. “No, we hadn’t heard. Who were they?”
“Well, they’ve only released three of the names. One was a girl from Georgia, although I can’t remember her name. Apparently she was a runaway; she was determined to make a singing career for herself in New York City. Obviously she never made it.”