Seeing Things

by Suzanne Linsey-Mitellas

  Straight away, she saw the by now familiar face of Dr Maxwell; he was sitting on a bench, staring at a sparrow that was pecking about in the grass. He looked up slowly, and, seeing Rachel, he leapt to his feet, as if being seen sitting and slouching in the presence of a lady was unforgiveable.

  Jeremy had made some progress across the courtyard by the time Rachel emerged from the door. She saw him speaking to the doctor; he then sat down heavily on the bench, leaving Dr Maxwell to walk over to where Rachel stood.

  “Rachel, I didn’t expect to see you; you look a little cold… Oh, where are my manners?” He whisked his coat off and tried to put it around her shoulders to watch it fall straight through her to the ground. He looked sadly at her, and then bent to retrieve it. “Sorry, I often forget I am dead.”

  “I came to see you about an urgent matter; I wanted advice about something, and the only person I could think of to ask was you,” she explained.

  “Come, let’s sit over there.”

  The two of them walked slowly to a second bench, which faced the glass corridor. After they both sat down, Rachel looked across at the nurses playing with the children; they had in their hands what looked like sticks with hoops on the end.

  “How do you do that? I mean, sit on chairs and walk up stairs, and yet you can pass through doors. Either you can move through things or you can’t; it’s very confusing…” she declared.

  “Not really; it just takes concentration. If you want to do something like sit upon a chair, you have to think hard about the solidity of the seat before you sit down, or if you want to pass through something, such as a wall, you concentrate on what is beyond the wall – how unsolid it is, if you like – and then you pass through. It’s all about focussing the mind.” He paused. “However, doing these actions isn’t without issue. A chap can find himself on his backside with his head poking out of the seat of a chair if he does not do it right.”

  Jeremy was smiling at a pretty young nurse, standing before him; she seemed to be offering to look under his eye bandage.

  “Jeremy likes the ladies… Anyway, was that all you wanted to know? How we sit on chairs? Hardly the wonderings of a great mind.”

  “Er, no… I was just curious about that.” She turned to look at him carefully. She noticed he had quite light-coloured, hazel eyes, and very long, blond eyelashes; she had not noticed this before. She looked away, as his stare had become too intense.

  She continued, “I have been approached by the police to help solve the disappearance and possible murder of a young girl in some nearby woods. I went there and I saw the spirit of the girl, but I also saw something else; I just wanted your take on what this thing was.”

  “What did you see?” Dr Maxwell prompted.

  “A spirit I met in the woods seemed to think it was a sprite; I think that’s what he called it. It certainly wasn’t human, it was covered in fur, and I wondered if you had ever come across anything like it?”

  “A sprite, eh?” He rubbed his chin.

  She could still feel him staring at the side of her face; the sun was getting warmer. Jeremy and the spirit nurse started laughing as he offered her the contents of his hip flask.

  “Yes, there are such things as sprites, or whatever you want to call them. But are you sure it wasn’t a ghost? Someone who was alive but is now dead? Or a residual memory; that is, something that happened in time and recorded in one place that repeats over and over again? Did you interact with it?” Dr Maxwell asked.

  “Oh, yes; it spoke to me, it gestured, and I followed it. And, no, it certainly wasn’t human at all,” she confirmed.

  “Then, yes, I suspect you met a sprite; did it say much?”

  “No, just one word.”

  “Male or female voice?”

  Rachel remembered the single word the thing had uttered. “Neither; just… well, it was like a computer…” She stopped and looked at the doctor; would he even know what a computer was? “Er, it was like a robotic voice… I know that sounds silly, but it didn’t really have a tone to it.”

  He sat back on the bench. “I am sure you have heard of the word ‘poltergeist’? Do you know what they are?”

  “They haunt houses and throw stuff about?” She looked at him; he was smiling at her.

  “No, not really. Poltergeists are like electrical energy; they have no consciousness and no free will, really. Think of them like a modern plug with electricity flowing through it; you cannot have a good or bad plug… It is innate; just energy. They usually attach to someone who is very stressed or troubled, and manifest around them. They repeat words they hear, like a parrot will do; they hold no meaning to the words, but they can say simple things. You said it was covered in fur?”

  “Yes, definitely furry.”

  “That is the energy buzzing around it; I think, yes, you do have a poltergeist.”

  Rachel was not convinced. She couldn’t believe for a moment that the thing she had seen in the woods was an innate form of electrical energy; it seemed pretty much alive. She remembered feeling its presence near her, like when one looks over a cliff at a sheer drop, and feels pins and needles mixed with fear and excitement. That’s what she felt with the creature. Maybe it was some kind of electrical pulse it gave off. But she didn’t feel she could argue with Dr Maxwell; he had been dead a long time, so he should know.

  “Is it harmless, this poltergeist/sprite thing?”

  “It is neither harmful nor harmless. I told you, it’s like a source of electricity; it can be used to light your home or electrocute you. It depends on how it is used, but it certainly has no agenda. You have been stressed recently, what with your illness, and losing your job and your intended. It’s bound to upset a person.”

  She was amazed he had remembered this about her. “Yes, I suppose I have been very stressed.” (She hated that word).

  “There you have it, then. There are lots of entities that live in the world we inhabit: some good, some bad and some innate. You can obviously see them as well as us.”

  “So I shouldn’t worry about it?”

  “I would say not, no.”

  Rachel cast her mind back to the dark, shuffling thing. A poltergeist? A sprite? She still had this clinging, uneasy feeling, but, again, reassured herself that, as Dr Maxwell was dead, he should be an authority on these matters, so she had to trust him. She decided to change the subject, because the black creature had begun to fill her mind, like an ink drop contaminating a bowl of water. “What about you? You were a doctor, so where did you live before you… er… died?”

  His face went slightly ashen, only for a moment, but then it passed. “What is there to know? I was born in East London, then moved to the city when I decided to become a doctor, and worked in St Bartholomew’s Hospital; I assume you have heard of it?.”

  “Yes; yes, of course. It is still there now.”

  “It was very different in my day.”

  Jeremy had got off his bench and was walking towards the children now, accompanied by the pretty nurse.

  “Did you have a family?” Rachel enquired.

  “Yes. My wife and… ” He turned to look at Jeremy again. “He’s been around for a considerable time; did he tell you? He’s seen King Henry VIII and all.”

  “That’s who he was talking about?”

  “Yes. He died of some kind of sweating sickness thing; apparently, his so-called friends stole his clothes after he died.”

  “Yes, he did tell me.” Rachel was more interested in Dr Maxwell than Jeremy. “What happened to your wife? It must have been hard after you died.”

  His face closed down again. “She died. Just a little time after I did; the shock of me dying put her into…” He looked back at the birds, hopping on the grass. “It doesn’t matter; it was all a long time ago now.”

  “You said you died in a fire…” Rachel didn’t know how far she coul
d push the doctor on this; she could see he wasn’t happy speaking about it, but she was very interested in him and his life.

  “Yes. I think it was set deliberately in my lodgings. The door was locked so I couldn’t get out, and I swallowed too much smoke.”

  “Oh. Your wife was hurt in the fire?”

  He turned to her.

  “My wife was out when the fire was set… Why do you ask me all these things? I try to forget them.”

  “Sorry.” She could see he had become upset and agitated. No wonder, especially as the fire seemed to have been started deliberately.

  Jeremy, who had paused momentarily when Dr Maxwell raised his voice, turned back to the nurses and children, then proceeded to do a quick jig, presumably for their entertainment. The children started laughing around him and clapping.

  William got up. “I have things to attend to. Jeremy will see you out.” Rubbing his eyes, he quickly walked away, then passed through the brick wall next to the glass door, and was gone.

  Rachel sat there and felt a huge welling of sorrow. She had never meant to upset him; obviously, his death had been a horrible occurrence, and his wife’s as well. She guessed most people’s deaths were unpleasant at the very least, and some – such as dying in a fire that someone had started on purpose – were particularly horrible. She reflected on her own parents’ demise; it had been sudden, and their doctor had told her that they had died instantly in the crash and knew nothing about it. Sometimes she wondered if he had been honest with her, and often contemplated on the accident in depth. What if one had died first, then had seen the other dead and smashed to bits before passing? It tormented her. Rachel was convinced she should have been with them and died too.

  Why couldn’t she see them? To see her parents one last time, even in the distance, to show her they were safe and together again would have been enough; but maybe they had moved on and not got stuck like the poor souls here, so she should be grateful. Perhaps they chose to not show themselves to her, knowing it may cause her upset. Who knew?

  She had amazed herself by how accustomed she had become to seeing ghosts now. She could imagine some people would be freaked out at the prospect, but she had got used to them. At the end of the day, ghosts were just the spirits of people, and people – like ghosts – came in all shapes and sizes. Ghosts tended to be portrayed as scary, tormented spirits that floated around disused, old houses at night, but this really wasn’t the case. They were everywhere, literally everywhere: in the street, in her flat and by the roadside, day and night. In fact, some spirits were scared of the dark, so tried to avoid night times. Some were evil and some kind, but they were all different, and most of them were searching for how to move on; she just wished she could help them more.

  The sun had gone in, and she realised that Jeremy and the nurses were no longer there. She hadn’t seen them go. Rachel realised that she was feeling cold; it was probably time she left as well.

  Chapter 26

  It took Rachel two days to return to the police station; she had asked Andy if he had wanted to come with her, but he said he was busy on a job. She wasn’t sure what job it was; he always advertised he worked with a psychic now, who was her, so what kind of job he did alone, she didn’t know. It was not her business, really.

  Again, she found herself sitting by the bland police station counter. She had waited thirty minutes to be seen, as the person in front of her had spent ages shouting and screaming at the officer on the front desk about being wrongfully arrested. As Rachel sat waiting, more people began to build up: two youths who swore constantly, an African woman who spoke in a foreign accent on her phone and an elderly lady.

  When it was Rachel’s turn and she was signalled in, one of the waiting youths said, “You better not be too long in there lady; we’re in a hurry.”

  She went into the counter area.

  “Yes?” enquired a middle-aged woman. Although she wore a uniform, a badge on her lapel simply said ‘Police Volunteer’.

  “I need to speak to Ronald Easton or DI Johnson,” replied Rachel.

  “Have you an appointment?”

  “No, it is about the Kayleigh Lovall case.”

  Completely disinterested, the woman stood up and went to the back of the counter; Rachel saw her picking up a phone and speaking into it.

  Rachel heard a loud bang behind her, which made her jump out of her skin, and she looked around to see the African lady had pushed one of the youths against the Perspex screen that separated the counter and the waiting area.

  “They aren’t here,” said the volunteer blankly.

  “My name is Rachel Holloway; please tell them that if they want to know where the body of Kayleigh Lovall is, they had best ring me.”

  Despite this revelation, the woman behind the counter continued to stare vacantly.

  Rachel got up, feeling claustrophobic, and hurried through the door that led outside to the waiting area.

  “Skank!” shouted the African woman as Rachel walked past.

  Rachel turned to reply, but then immediately saw the whole waiting area shimmer, shake and change softly. The plastic chairs morphed into upholstered seating, black metal railings began to spring up outside the window like fast growing plants, and a blue police lantern appeared above the door. She was going back in time again, and she really didn’t have time for this shit now.

  “Whatever,” she uttered under her breath, then walked out onto the street, narrowly dodging the metal gate that had sprung up before her.

  *

  The police phoned Rachel later that night, and she provided them with a detailed description of where the body could be found. She heard nothing more until the following day, when DI Johnson called her and explained that Kayleigh’s remains had been discovered at the exact location she had described to them.

  He had asked her the $1,000,000 question: how did she know the body was there?

  She heard herself reply simply that Kayleigh’s spirit had shown her. She didn’t want to mention the poltergeist, sprite or whatever the hell it was. She had a nagging suspicion that the fewer people who knew about the horrible, furry, dark thing in the woods, the better.

  *

  Andy was having it large. The success of taking on Rachel had instantly made him a rather famous and increasingly wealthy man. He had been using Rachel on some of his bigger ghost-hunting jobs, which by now were flooding in, but he still decided to do the smaller jobs – ones he suspected of being fakery, or down to a rampant cat or loose plumbing – himself. That meant any fee paid would go to him alone.

  However, he was grateful for Rachel and made sure that she had enough money to get by; Mrs Braithwaite had warned him that if he didn’t give Rachel what she was owed or look after her, with her powers, she would go elsewhere, which was the last thing he wanted. Besides, he had changed his website and newspaper ads to say he was ‘The only paranormal investigator in London to boast a real psychic’. If other investigators wanted to sue him, let them. He had also changed his company name; before, he was simply ‘Andy Horton Paranormal Investigator’, but he had changed it two weeks ago to ‘Spirit of London Paranormal Investigations’. He thought it made the business sound like it was a larger concern, and was, in his opinion, a good play on words.

  Andy had big plans. He had already met up with the curator of Howland Hall: a huge, local, stately home built in the early 1700s. They had struck a deal that, once every couple of months, he and Rachel would lead ghost hunts throughout the hall at £10 a ticket, then tempt thirsty ghost hunters to the bar around the back when it was finished. For this, Andy got 30% of the bar profits to share with Rachel, as well as 50% of ticket sales, which was, in his opinion, a very good deal indeed. He would help to sell the tickets through his website. The first event was due to take place in three weeks’ time, so he thought he had better get his skates on and tell her about it.

 
His only issue was Rachel’s flakiness; she often got severe headaches and migraines, and so would drop out of events at a moment’s notice. After pondering the matter, he decided that it would only be vital for her to be at the first couple of tours. He would than ask her what spirits were there, and just say he could ‘feel their presence’ if he had to lead future events alone – being a showman came easily to him.

  Andy had been amazed when Rachel told him she had actually discovered Kayleigh’s body. He must remember to put this out in his marketing information for the Howland Hall tours; that would be a unique selling point for sure, as ghost hunts were ten a penny in London. He still wasn’t totally sure what he believed about her powers. In the back of his mind, he often pondered whether she had some kind of delusion or mental illness, or whether it was perfectly true, and she could indeed see dead people. For the present moment, he didn’t care, as long as fame and fortune remained on his doorstep.

  When speaking to the curator, he had insisted on increasing participant numbers to 100 people per tour. The curator suggested a maximum of fifty, otherwise it would be too unwieldy, but Andy wouldn’t have it – more people coming on the tours meant more cash for him. Sweet.

  His dream was to make enough money to buy a decent car for himself, and some new curtains, furniture and carpets for Mrs Braithwaite, but who knew? If this celebrity status continued, he might even be able to buy a house of his own. Andy felt giddy and almost sick from the excitement. There would be no more damp, miserable, pointless ghost hunts that left him out of pocket, no siree; there was hard cash to be had finding spooks, and Andy was going to make sure he made as much as he could before the bubble burst, as it inevitably would.

  Chapter 27

  The spirit Jews were outside the flat again, but this time there were more of them. They stood silently this time, with no chanting, shouting or waving of hands. Standing in a dark circle, some bobbing gently, each of them holding the Torah, their lips moved wordlessly against the wind. From her position, they just looked like a small sea of large, black hats just standing there. Their ages varied from, she guessed, twenty to seventy plus.