The Ghost and Katie Coyle

by Anne Kelleher

  She looked at the window with a start. It was open again—she knew she’d shut it. Josh must’ve opened it—he’d used the bathroom before he left. She shut it again, firmly. The bathroom window overlooked the pines that bordered the cliff. Somewhere beneath those branches was the path that led down to the beach. She would have to explore the property tomorrow.

  She slipped out of her underwear and stepped into the hot water. There was nothing wrong with the water heater, that was for sure. The water was so hot it turned her flesh pink on contact. She settled back with a sigh, and closed her eyes. The scent from the water filled her nostrils, and she thought she caught a whiff of the same scent she’d smelled in the living room—that peculiar pungent spicy fragrance. She breathed in deeply just as the light over the sink flickered. Katie sat up, peering anxiously at the fixture. She’d replaced the bulb as soon as she’d cleaned up the glass, and it had seemed to work fine. She waited a few minutes. The light shone steadily. She sank down into the water, leaned back against the tub and closed her eyes. It was nothing. Josh had her head filled with all sorts of maintenance nightmares.

  His attitude in general had surprised and saddened her. How could he have so dismissed her passion? There had never been anything else she’d wanted to study so much, and working on her degrees had been the easy part. Finding a job had been nearly impossible. How could Josh fail to understand how lucky she was to have landed this one? Academic positions weren’t exactly a dime a dozen. She needed to establish herself in the field, and this was her first opportunity to do so. And if she could win the Sean Seamus Clancy Award…

  The light flickered again. She sat up with a sigh. Okay, okay, she thought. I’ll call the university tomorrow—as soon as I have a phone. She got out of the tub and toweled herself off, peering out the window. Except for the steady chirp of insects, the night was still. The leaves drooped on their branches and there was an almost expectant hush about the place. Even inside the house, she could feel it—something waiting, whispering a temptation to join it, to come dabble her toes in the waterfall’s rush, to pluck the purple heads of the lavender and rub the essence over her body, and dance on the plush green grass by the light of the moon. For a moment she considered going outside, but a wave of weariness overtook her. There would be plenty of time to explore tomorrow. And all the days after that.

  She padded into her bedroom, tugged her nightgown over her head, and suddenly felt so tired she wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep. She was just settling into a comfortable position when she thought she heard a voice—a man’s voice, low and yet distinct, calling in the night. She sat up, cocked her head and listened. For the briefest moment, she felt a stab of fear.

  But she heard nothing more. It was her imagination, she decided. Between coming to East Bay, arguing with Josh and moving into Pond House, it had been a full day. No wonder she was hearing things. It was an owl, most likely, hooting at the moon. With a yawn, she snuggled into her pillow and fell fast asleep.

  • • •

  Beneath the midnight moon, Derry faded back into the trees. He ought to feel like a cad for staring at the woman so blatantly, so boldly, but he’d known he was invisible. And this wasn’t just any woman—this was someone who reminded him of Caitlin so powerfully it reverberated through every aspect of his being.

  He’d been drawn to the sight of her as she’d moved through the house—the sound of the half-forgotten tunes she sang beneath her breath—and the lines of her face, the shape of her jaw. She wasn’t exactly Caitlin. He’d seen it at once when she’d shrugged away her clothes. Where Caitlin’s body had been lean and hard and almost boyish from a life of deprivation and struggle, this woman’s hips and breasts were lush and rounded, although her waist was slender enough to tell him she’d most likely never borne a child.

  With a sigh, he stepped back within the center of the vortex of energy. The energy sustained him in some way, he knew, even as it prevented him from moving too far from its center.

  “Help me!”

  The familiar cry shattered the still night, echoing through the forest. Derry stiffened. He wasn’t the only form of energy trapped by the Stones. His own voice calling for help when he’d died back there on the frozen path often replayed itself again and again. There were other echoes in the night, too, of course, and other shapes drifting and fading beneath the trees, but they had considerably less substance than he for some reason he had not fathomed in two hundred years. Somehow, the essence of his existence was more tangible, more concrete, than the shadows that slipped between this world and the next. They were only echoes of sights and sounds and smells from another time, trapped by the constant flow of the energy that emanated from the earth. He alone, it seemed, was trapped in this curious in-between existence, not quite of this world, nor yet of the other, and it was a puzzle with which he’d grappled since he’d watched his body be carried up from the beach two hundred years ago.

  In two hundred years, he’d yet to understand the mysteries of Pond House. And now it seemed it had added yet another. There had to be some reason for this woman’s presence. He’d slip inside Pond House the next time he saw her leave the property. It would give him a chance to discover more about her. He couldn’t help but hope that her arrival had some meaning for him. And if there was a way, any way at all, that he could find out what it was, he intended to discover it. As soon as he possibly could.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Katie stepped past the wide-flung French doors of the reception hall and leaned against the stone railing of the balcony. The late-afternoon sun glowed like a red Christmas tree ball just above the highest trees. It was going to be warm again tomorrow.

  Inside, she could hear the babble of voices and the clink of glasses and plates. She drew a deep breath. Maybe Josh hadn’t been entirely wrong, after all. With few exceptions, her new colleagues were notable only for their polite distance. The reception to welcome new faculty was only supposed to last two hours, but this first hour had seemed at least twice as long as that.

  Her head ached from the tension of trying to socialize with strangers, and she was tired from the long day of moving. But she’d been determined to seem eager and cheerful and glad to be here. It was so important that she make a good impression. If she didn’t, Josh might yet get his wish. Already she wondered if she’d last for more than one semester. So many new faces, so many new names.

  She sighed so loudly that she startled herself. At least Terence Callahan, the dean of interdepartmental studies, was clearly in her corner. He’d gone out of his way to introduce her around. And to be fair, most of the people she’d met from the History and English Departments seemed friendly enough, if a little distant. She was the only new member in either department, and that made it a little harder to break the ice. Carolyn Holt, the chairman of the History Department, seemed marginally interested in her work, and Terry Callahan was as grandfatherly as she remembered from her interviews.

  Unfortunately, the one who’d been the most hostile was also the person she needed most to impress. Reginald Proser, chairman of the English Department and her immediate boss, had made it quite clear that he regarded the whole idea of interdisciplinary studies as a “dilution of the disciplines.” She understood all too well what the pompous little man meant by that. He was afraid his department budget would be cut to make room for faculty whose expertise crossed a number of department lines.

  Terry Callahan had taken pains to assure her that Proser’s chilly greeting had nothing to do with Katie personally. Katie was still nervous. Proser had been on sabbatical in England when she’d come for her interviews, and she wasn’t sure she’d have accepted the position if she’d known about his hostility. As her department chair, Proser wielded a fair amount of power over her future at East Bay.

  Katie rubbed her temples and gazed out over the green quad. Ivy-covered buildings rose on either side, each no more than three or four stories. East Bay was only about fifty years old, but the architecture m
ade it look as if it dated back to Tudor England. Maybe Josh was right. Maybe this was just a pretentious little place filled with pretentious little people. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to turn Columbia down.

  “Had enough punch and cookies?”

  The deep masculine voice startled her out of her reverie, and she jumped, knocking her knee against the high stone railing. “Ow!” she cried out involuntarily as she turned.

  A tall, blond man dressed in black trousers and a flowing red shirt was leaning against the frame of the French doors. His flamboyant clothes were in stark contrast to the staid navy blazers and khaki trousers the other men were wearing, and his expression was one of bemused interest. He looked young enough to be a graduate assistant. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she laughed, a little unsteadily. “I’m fine.”

  “Sorry if I startled you. My father told me you were out here—I wanted to say hello.” He gave her a crooked grin and stuck out his hand.

  “Your father?”

  “I’m Alistair Proser. Your new boss is my dad.” He made a deprecating little face. “Not that you should be intimidated or anything.”

  For a minute, Katie paused. Alistair Proser was a name she knew she recognized, but the exact recollection eluded her. “I’m very glad to meet you.” She shook his hand as she silently searched her memory.

  “I wanted to say hello,” he continued. “Especially since our areas are so closely aligned.”

  “Oh?” Even as she said it, the memory burst into her awareness. “You can’t be—you aren’t the Alistair Proser who published the book last year on Irish politics and the Catholic Church?” She stared up at him. Alistair Proser was one of the most well-respected names in her field. His book on Ireland in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been well received by critics and academics on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, but she had never connected the name of the English Department chair with him.

  He glanced down and shrugged, a sheepish little grin at the comers of his mouth. “Well, yes. I am.”

  She stared. He was so young—surely he couldn’t be much older than she was. She felt completely intimidated. “I—I had no idea. I thought you were at Yale—I never imagined you would be here…” She heard herself babbling and shut her mouth to stop the nervous flow of words.

  He gave her another boyish grin. “Well, I was. But since I decided to apply for the Sean Seamus Clancy Award, I thought I’d come here for a semester or two, and concentrate. Although I have to say—meeting you makes the thought of spending long hours in a library with my nose in dusty old books less than appealing.”

  She coughed a little. His attempt at gallantry was cute in a clumsy sort of way. But the thought that he intended to apply for the Clancy made her heart sink. There was no way she could hope to compete with a scholar of his reputation. She shook her head as if to clear it. “I’m very honored to meet you. I’m just a little surprised—I never imagined Dr. Proser was your father.”

  “Oh, please. Call him Reg. Everyone does.”

  Well, she thought, maybe everyone else does. Somehow the thought of addressing Alistair’s stuffed-shirt father as “Reg” seemed as incongruous as addressing her twin sister Meg as “Margaret.” Instead she only smiled and nodded, and hoped he would think her as casually at ease as he seemed to be. “It’s a very great pleasure to meet you,” she said awkwardly, and berated herself inwardly for sounding like the most obsequious of graduate students.

  “I think the greater pleasure is mine,” he replied. He grinned down at her, and the wind suddenly ruffled his long, blond hair. He pushed a strand behind one ear. “I’m looking forward to seeing more of you.”

  “Well, well, Alistair.” An older woman stood just outside the French doors. She wore a pink sundress, and her gray hair was twisted into a knot at the top of her head. “Home again for a visit?”

  “Ah, Florence.” Alistair turned at the sound of his name. The woman advanced, and he bent down and pecked awkwardly at her cheek. “Do you know the newest member of the English department? Katherine Coyle?”

  The woman looked at Katie with a measuring eye. “How do you do, Katherine Coyle? I’m Florence Clatterbuck. I teach modern European history.” She shook Katie’s hand firmly and turned back to Alistair as Katie murmured an appropriate response. “I read your latest.”

  He seemed to stand a few inches taller and squared his shoulders. “That was nice of you, Flo. What did you think?”

  Florence Clatterbuck cocked her head and frowned. “Your premise was, as usual, surprising and calculatedly controversial. However, where did you find some of that obscure source material? I’d no idea some of those documents existed.”

  “Well.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away, over the woman’s head. “You know, sometimes you just get lucky.”

  Florence glanced at Katie, then back at Alistair. Katie thought that a troubled expression flitted across the woman’s plain, square-featured face. “Well, yes,” she said after a pause. “Sometimes you do.” She looked at Katie and smiled. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Katherine Coyle. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other once the semester starts. Good luck here at East Bay. And you behave yourself, Alistair.” With a little nod, she marched back inside.

  “So many new faces,” said Katie. “I hope I can keep them all straight.”

  “Oh, Flo would never hold it against you if you forgot her name. She’s a harmless old biddy who’s been here forever. Coming back here is like stepping into a time warp for me. Nothing ever changes, as you’ll find out.” He stuck out his hand once again. “I should get back to work. I just wanted to make sure I said hello. I’m sure we’ll see each other around.”

  “I’m sure we will.”

  “I’m counting on it,” he replied.

  Katie watched him make his way through the crowd, laughing, shaking hands, and clapping other men on the shoulder. Against the drab navies and khakis, Alistair stood out like a golden child. He clearly was the fair-haired boy. She felt a twinge of envy. Some day—some day soon—she’d win for herself the same ease, that same feeling of belonging. Academia was like a club, a club in which one had to earn the respect of one’s peers in order to be fully accepted. That acceptance and accompanying respect were only earned with hard work.

  She glanced up at the sun hovering just over the tops of the trees. It was getting late. Inside, the crowd had thinned out. She would find Dr. Callahan—she would have to get used to calling him Terry—and say her good-byes. There was still so much work to be done at Pond House.

  • • •

  Derry eased across the floor, dust motes swirling in his wake. The little house was cozy now that the woman had begun to unpack her things. He stopped before the sink. A white mug rested upside down on the drying rack. He picked it up and examined it. “Katherine” was written on it in a flowing black script. On the other side, a short paragraph explained a brief history of the name. So her name was Katherine…‌not so different from Caitlin.

  Still carrying the mug, he walked into the living room. Books were piled everywhere. He reached for the closest one. The title nearly made him drop the mug. Wolfe Tone and the Boys of ’98. Wolfe Tone? This woman knew about Wolfe Tone and the Rebellion of 1798? He placed the mug down, and carefully read the titles of the other books. Nearly all of them dealt with some period of Irish history. A burst of energy swept through him.

  A stack of papers fell to the floor and scattered, but he ignored them. Not only did this woman remind him of Caitlin so fiercely he felt as though he’d been pierced to the heart, but she cared about Ireland? And its history? A thought, which both amused and saddened him, crossed his mind: If Caitlin had ever been able to read a book, surely one of these would be just what she would have chosen. If only he’d had the time to teach her to read.

  His ghostly fingers danced lightly over the books. The entire history of Ireland was represented in the titles, as well as the art, the literat
ure and the religion. This couldn’t be just coincidence, he thought. There must be some meaning to Katherine’s presence, and her amazing resemblance to Caitlin. There had to be some reason for her arrival. Perhaps they were meant to be together. Perhaps she had the power to set him free, although the thought of leaving Pond House was less than appealing as long as she was here. He desperately wanted to talk to her—to find out who she was and why she’d come here and what it might mean to him, and to her. He’d have to try and figure out some way to get her attention without frightening her so thoroughly she’d never want anything to do with him. The lights of a car glinted momentarily through the window. She was home. He’d stay for a while, silent and invisible, and try to decide what the best way to reach out to her might be.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The sun had sunk behind the trees by the time Katie pulled her car into the open space behind the house. She fumbled in her purse for a moment, searching for the key, and prayed that the lock wouldn’t be quite as sticky as it had been for Josh.

  It was now or never, she thought as she got out of the car. When she’d left the house for the first time yesterday to take Josh back to campus, she’d left the door open. There hadn’t been anything of value inside at the time. Now, with most of her possessions still in boxes, Katie thought it only prudent to lock the doors. But the last thing she needed after her busy day was trouble getting into the house.

  She inserted the key and turned it, expecting it to stick. To her surprise, it turned easily, and the door swung open with minimal effort. She placed her purse on the couch and smiled. So much for Josh’s dire predictions that she wouldn’t be able to get back in.