They ran through the corridors and dim halls until they got into the newer part of the center. This was the area of the former monastery designated as the Sisters quarters. April led the way up the back stairs to the third floor. They stopped and listened every few feet; both were afraid to breathe.
“Are you sure they are all gone?”
“I think so,” April whispered.
April pointed to the room to their right. She put her hand on the door handle and pushed. They slipped in without a sound and looked around. The room was neat and tidy. There was a single bed, a dresser, and a bookcase, and in the corner a small round table and chairs. On the opposite wall there was a small desk and chair, and above the desk shelves full of books and photos.
April pointed to a framed photo. “There she is.” The photo was of a group of smiling beautiful people in the monastery garden. April gave the photo a quick look and handed it to Cassie.
“This is her standing next to Jacob, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Cassie felt a dark sadness settle upon her and she took April’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
They ran back down the stairs and came out the exit on the first floor near the laundry and garage area. Before they could get any farther, they heard the garage doors opening. The group was back from their trip. They ran down the hall and into the community room and sat down, each breathing hard. April turned on the television and scanned through until she found the news channel. They sat still and listened to the jumble of voices as everyone came into the center lobby. They sat without speaking, and hoped everyone would pass them by and go on about their business. But luck was not with them. Some of the guests came into the community room and Cassie was trapped there talking with them about their writing assignments until almost time for dinner.
April managed to escape out the side door that led to the vegetable garden. Cassie talked to the ladies from her class, but in the back of her mind she considered the next steps she and April must take and how to document everything. Of course, there was also the problem of appearing a bit looney as they went about their work. The odd combination of fear and happiness drove her on. The sound of the staff members coming down the hall and the ringing bells put an end to her thoughts for the moment.
They were able to get through dinner with the group and the staff, but Cassie could tell April had something to tell her. She was beginning to know April’s every expression. As soon as they could get away they headed outside to walk around to their wing of the building.
“Cassie, I called Professor Roland. He is one of my professors at school. He’ll be here Sunday at 2:30. If anyone knows about this place and about spirits it is him. He literally wrote a book about it.”
They turned the corner to their wing of the building. April gasped and stopped. She pointed at Shamus. He looked at them and barked. April called to him but he stood without moving. She took a step toward him and he took a step backward. He turned to his right and took a few steps and then stopped and looked back at them.
“He wants us to follow him,” April said.
They followed as Shamus wove his way through the garden area and around the side of the monastery. The meditation garden was ahead, and a walking path leading to the old monastery where the Sisters’ cemetery was ran beside it. They hurried to keep up with Shamus, but tried to stay far enough behind not to spook him. It was getting darker, but curiosity won out over fear.
Shamus slowed his pace and looked back at them again as if to make sure they were still following. They came around a bend in the path, and there it was, the Sisters’ cemetery. The grave markers were imbedded into the ground, and were plain flat slabs of stones lying on top of the ground. They were marked with the name, birth, and death dates. The markers were laid out in circles, and a statue of the Virgin Mary stood in the middle. There was a pot light buried in the ground, and it was pointed at the face of the statue which looked both ethereal and a little spooky in the fading light. Shamus looked up at them and then laid down on one of the grave stone markers. They leaned over to read the name on the stone. It read: Sister Maria Lambert, 1919-1955.
“What are you trying to tell us, Shamus? Who is Sister Lambert?” April asked.
Shamus looked up at them and whined.
“Okay Shamus, you got us here, now what?” Cassie glanced around hoping for some clue or some idea why they were led there.
Shamus stood up and turned around three times and laid back down on the grave again.
Cassie laughed. “Well okay, message received Shamus, but unless you are talking we better be getting back. We are not supposed to be here at all.” They started back down the path and this time Shamus followed them. They walked with care because the light was poor. They were about halfway back to the building when the clouds parted and the moonlight came through.
“Cassie, look…look over there.” April pointed to the garden.
It was Kathleen. She ran through the garden singing softly but they couldn’t understand the words. And then she turned toward them and said, ‘Ca bhfuil mo dheirfiur’?” It was almost the same thing she said to Cassie before, or at least she thought so.
“What is she saying, April?”
“She wants to know where her sister is, I think. She said, ‘where is my sister’?”
Cassie looked at April who was so pale she could have passed for a ghost herself.
When she looked back around, Kathleen was gone.
They ran back to the retreat center, Shamus close behind them.
“Well then, one more piece of the puzzle, Sister Maria Lambert grave. So what now, what do we do now?” April held her hands up to the sky as if she were imploring help from above.
“Let’s go down to the archives and find out about Sister Lambert,” Cassie said.
When they got to the archives they found Bernadette working on her project. Rather than push their luck any further, they decided to call it a night on the investigations and parted ways. About an hour later Cassie closed the file on her next class plan. She was about to get into her pajamas when she heard a little tapping at her door. She got up and put her ear against the door.
“Yes, who is it?”
“Cassie, it’s April.”
April was there holding a key and pointing to the room across the hall. The key to Lydia’s room. Suddenly, Cassie felt a surge of pure fear as she reached for the key.
“April, are we doing this?”
“We have to do it. We have started something and now we have to see what else we can find. Besides, we aren’t likely to find anything. It’s been almost four years since Lydia died in there. I think it was all cleaned and closed up afterward.”
“Why are we going in there?”
“To see if her energy still lingers there,” April said.
“You talked me into it, April, but two ghosts are two too many and might put me on a plane back to the United States.”
“I just think we will know if Lydia’s spirit is still around,” April whispered.
They looked down the hall. All was quiet. No one, ghost or flesh-and-blood, seemed to be near. Cassie’s hand shook as she put the key in the lock of Lydia’s former room. The door made a little squeak of protest as they pushed it in and April put her hand on the wall in search of the light switch. The lights did not work, causing them both to step back into the hall.
“I can get my candle in my hurricane lamp, but it’s not very bright,” Cassie said.
“Let’s wait until daylight, maybe tomorrow, and try again.”
Cassie nodded in agreement and gave the key back to April.
“Don’t get caught with all this key borrowing. I’m not sure how we’d explain things to them.”
“I’m careful. Good night and sweet dreams, Cassie. See you for breakfast.”
April went down the stairs to her room and Cassie dared a quick look at Lydia’s door before locking herself in her own room.
She went into the bathroo
m and washed her face with cold water. “You are being ridiculous, Cassie, no one is in the room across the hall,” she said to her pale face in the mirror.
Chapter 7
Jacob sat in his favorite pub in the village having a beer. A slow day at the bookstore made it even harder to concentrate on work and keep his mind off Cassie. The thing at the retreat center was something he found hard to accept. How could it be? Did he really see something in the garden? He couldn’t let himself think it could be real. If he allowed himself to believe, what would it mean? Lydia had talked about some ghost child for weeks until the doctor drugged her so much she didn’t know who she was. He put a stop to the over medication but nothing seemed to help. Lydia talked to herself all the time, and often in Gaelic. To his knowledge she didn’t know how to speak Gaelic before she got to the monastery. This fact had confused him even more.
To believe in this ghost would alter how he saw the world and he wasn’t ready for such as that. Might his wife still be alive if he had believed her instead of having her committed? God, thinking it was unbearable. And now there was Cassie, and his feelings for her. How did he get himself into this situation just when he was finally feeling normal again? His Aunt Bernadette dropped a few hints through the years about odd things that happened in the monastery. She hinted at some questionable things one old priest or his assistant did years ago, but Jacob did not pay her much attention. Bernadette’s behavior was a bit odd as far back as he could recall. She was known for her vivid imagination. One could read her poetry and see she thought in another realm sometimes. He convinced himself Lydia needed time out of the hospital and some rest in the monastery. He told himself it was the right thing to set Lydia back on the path to normal. It all went so wrong. Before he could understand what was happening, she went from scattered and depressed to downright psychotic at the monastery. Ghosts, bad spirits, murdered children were the constant topics of conversation. Lydia became obsessed with this ghost-child story, and when Cassie said those same words he felt his world tilt. All the confusion, guilt, and helplessness came back with a vengeance as he sat nursing the beer. Sick of thinking about it he went home with the hope of getting some sleep.
Jacob spent a fitful night tossing and turning. When he saw the dawn break, he dressed, went to work, drank too much coffee, and tried to put it all behind him for a while. But he knew he couldn’t do it for long. He must face it, his part in what happened to Lydia, and he must face Cassie tonight. What was there to say to her? What if she started up with the ghost-child thing again? He’d break things off with her. She was going back to America so there was no future for them. Why put himself through all this pain for nothing? He could go back to the way things were before he met her. His life was good enough then, wasn’t it? His thoughts went around and around like a stereo needle stuck on an old record track.
Jacob kept going back to that thought—was his life good enough? Was his life really good enough? He left the bookstore and went home to shower and change. He paced around the house unable to focus on anything for long. Tired of thinking about it, he picked up his car keys and headed for the door. He could put it off no longer. As he drove out to the retreat center he was haunted by two faces, Lydia’s and Cassie’s. Somehow, he ended up disappointing them both. The closer he got to the Center, the more his resolve to end things with Cassie weakened. He told himself there was no other logical choice. His body and mind seemed in conflict about this decision. He was sweating, and his hands were in a death grip on the steering wheel as he drove.
Jacob wondered if Cassie was as anxious about this evening as he, and with doubts of her own about him and their relationship. What did she think about his abrupt departure? He tried hard to keep his mind from straying to their time together. It was so easy between them until the ghost talk. He felt as if he had always known her. She was everything he wanted in a woman. He could now understand why some men said they were addicted to a woman. He never understood it before. He hated being distrustful of his own feelings now. He was not comfortable with the uncertainty now washing over him. In addition to the issues about this ghost-child, he didn’t know how she felt about him, not really. He didn’t think he was kidding himself. He believed she enjoyed being with him, he was sure of it. She said very little to him about her feelings, but they jumped so fast into their intense connection, they bypassed the stage most people spent getting to know each other.
Jacob got out of the car at the center and his stomach did a flip-flop. He knew this night with Cassie, and what might happen afterward, could be life changing. Now as he stood beside his car reluctant to take the next step, he realized he wasn’t totally sure how he wanted things to go. He wasn’t sure he was ready for a woman like Cassie. Then again, she may wave goodbye in a few months and never think of him again. It was the one thought pushing him on now. Yes, he would do it, follow his plan and end things tonight.
When he walked into the community room Cassie was the first person he saw. She wore a tight fitting black dress that exposed most of her back. Her long hair was pulled back and twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck. Black pearls dangled from her ears, and matching strands of black pearls were wrapped around her neck. He wondered if they were a gift from a past lover. His stomach clenched at the thought. She laughed at something April said, and gave April a long hug. Then she turned and saw him standing there. Cassie smiled and gave him a little wave. Jacob felt as though his feet were bolted to the floor. He watched Cassie say something else to April, and then she walked toward him, her high heels clicking on the tile floor.
“Hi, I just need to grab my purse on the table in the hall and I’m all yours.”
He smiled at her because it was all he could do for some reason. Cassie turned away from him to get her purse. Jacob could do nothing else but watch her and wonder how he could let her go now.
Jacob could sense April and the others in the community room were watching them but he didn’t care. As Cassie walked back toward him his thoughts went to fantasy mode. He saw her face looking up at him from the stark white pillow on her bed. He saw her hair fanned out across the pillow, her pink lips parted, and waiting for him.
It took him a few seconds to realize Cassie had stopped in front of him and was looking up at him with a puzzled expression. “Earth to Jacob.”
“What…oh, sorry was I staring at you?”
“Yes, I think you were.”
“You look very, ah, very stare-able.”
“Stare-able, Jacob?”
“A new word just for the occasion.” He steered her toward the door.
“Is that a compliment word or are you appalled by my appearance?”
“Oh yes, Cassie, appalled.”
“Just checking; I don’t want to embarrass you in public.”
“Every man will be jealous of me tonight. Don’t think I don’t know it.”
“Thank you, Jacob.”
He put his hand on her back and steered her toward the car. “We have a table reserved for 7:30 at Mick’s so we need to be on our way.”
“I heard it is a very good restaurant. Some of our writing students found it. Do you eat there often?”
“I used to go there a lot but not so much these last few years. I haven’t dated much since Lydia died. But let’s not go back in time. I’m sure you have been filled in on what happened with Lydia. I was going to tell you about it.”
“Yes, I think it was mentioned a time or two. I expect it must be hard to change your life all around after something like that. I can’t imagine it has been easy.”
“No, it hasn’t. I was… I am, just getting my life back to the point where I feel sort of normal I guess.”
Jacob could see Cassie was as tense as he was and searched his brain for a new topic of conversation.
“Jacob, I know we skimmed over a lot of personal things when we talked before, and I mentioned I was about to be engaged, or thought I was. I failed to say he was also my boss, so it was very traumatic leaving
Jed and my job at the same time, and just after the death of my dad. I know it doesn’t compare with what you went through exactly, but I know it takes time to regroup.”
“How long were you together with…your…in your relationship?”
“Jed and I dated for several years. I thought I was in love with him but I know now it was not true. I sort of talked myself into it because I was with him all the time. He owned the publishing company where I worked. I worked for years trying to advance in the company. When I got to the point of dues paid, and had proven myself, he passed me over for a promotion because…it wouldn’t look right to promote me because we are involved.”
“That’s pretty harsh. You didn’t see it coming?”
“Not at all. There was a huge fight, then my father died, and Jed gave me some time off. He was very kind and when I was very depressed he gave me the space I needed when I asked for it. Though thinking back now, he was quick to give me space, and seemed to want to stay away from me. It was too much work for him to comfort me. I see it now.”
“We all might make different choices sometimes if we could go back. Don’t blame yourself for doing what you thought was best, Cassie.”
“I can see a lot of things now, of course. Jed called me one day when he had reached the end of his patience, or maybe needed help at the office, and insisted I come back to work. It is just the way he is and the way he handles things. He is used to getting his way in all things. He was not about to let my dad’s death and my depression get in the way of his master plan, whatever that was. It worked on me, just like he knew it would. I get angry at myself now when I think about how easily he manipulated me. Jed needed me so I agreed to go back to work. Then I went to his house one day to surprise him and found a woman there with him.”
“Ouch, that must have been a shock. Did he have a history of doing this?”
“I have no idea, Jacob. I didn’t know him at all as it turned out. Finding out was the breaking point for me, of course, and it was a blessing in disguise. I was feeling so lost and vulnerable from losing my mother and father both in less than two years, and then not getting the promotion. I might have gone back to Jed and the way things were if I had not come face to face with his cheating, literally. I am not normally a risk taker or impulsive person, but I quit the job, quit him, and here I am.”
The Ghost of Kathleen Murphy Page 8