The hair on the back of Nonie’s neck stood at attention. She didn’t care for what crossed her mind in that second. Strange things were happening at Clara’s house, and that sudden prickly feeling at the back of her neck was usually a sign that a ghost was nearby. She couldn’t help but wonder if Anna Mae might be the one causing the poltergeist activity. If that was the case, it meant Anna Mae was dead. In light of the embarrassing fight at the funeral home, could she have taken her own life? Nonie quickly discarded the thought. Anna Mae had been too full of life and self-righteousness to commit suicide.
“That really does sound strange,” Nonie said to Clara, not knowing what else to say.
“I know,” Clara said, still whispering. “It’s just another thing I don’t know what to do about. I’m really kind of afraid to go back to my own house, and I should be there in case Anna Mae calls.” She looked down at her coffee cup then back up at Nonie. “Would . . . would you mind coming with me to my house and taking a look around? See if you see anything strange going on? Maybe see if you find anything I might have missed that would give me a clue as to where Anna Mae might have gone?”
Nonie tried not to flinch. She’d been expecting the question. “I don’t know if my going there would do you any good, Ms. Clara.”
Clara rested her cup on the table and took one of Nonie’s hands in both of hers. “Please come with me. Just check things out. I’m really scared to go back there by myself.”
“I don’t—” Nonie began, and Clara squeezed her hand tighter.
“Please, please, just come and check things out,” Clara begged. “You don’t have to stay. I’ve been gone since early this morning, and I’m afraid of what I might find when I go back home. It could just be me going off my rocker because Anna Mae’s gone missing. Another pair of eyes would help me so very much.”
“All right,” Nonie said finally. “If you’ll wait until after Uncle Fezzo is finished with Ms. Inez, I’ll ask him to come with us. We’ll have a look around, see if there are any clues that might lead us to Anna Mae.”
“And if there’s anything weird going on?”
“We’ll check that out, too. Make sure there isn’t a logical explanation for it.”
Clara blew out a breath. “Thank you. Thank you so much. The police didn’t even come to my house to look around for clues about Anna Mae. Is that sad or what?”
Nonie gave a little shrug, not wanting to comment one way or the other.
“Any idea how long it’ll take Mr. Broussard to finish with Inez?”
“It may be a while,” Nonie said. “Uncle Fezzo has to drive the hearse to the church, then wait until they’re done at the cemetery in back of the church.”
“Okay. Then I’ll go and visit Anna Mae’s brother in Lafayette, see if he’s heard anything new. I’ll leave you his phone number. If you don’t mind, when y’all are done, give me a call, and I’ll hurry back here. It should only take me thirty minutes or so to get back.”
“No problem,” Nonie said.
“Oh, and if you don’t mind, please don’t tell your uncle about the weird things going on in my house. If something happens while the two of you are there then it happens. But if nothing is out of sorts, then I don’t want him to think I’m crazy.”
“No problem, Ms. Clara. As soon as Uncle Fezzo is done, I’ll give you a call, and we’ll meet up at your house.” Nonie got to her feet, hoping it would signal Clara that it was time for her to be on her way.
Clara stood up, went over to Nonie, and gave her a hug. “Thank you again. It’s hard when you’re carrying something so big inside of you and nobody wants to listen to what you have to say. Know what I’m saying?”
More than you know, Nonie thought. More than you know.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Guy didn’t like the fact that he was hiding out in Helen Richardson’s attic along with her sidekick, the grouchy Captain. But he’d owed her one. At this very moment Helen’s son was downstairs packing up her memorabilia, which she planned on unpacking as soon as he left. She’d asked Guy to come with her to help. He hadn’t wanted to leave Nonie’s side, but Helen had taught him to blip, which he found to be a huge time saver. Since he already knew how to manipulate objects, she’d asked for his help in unpacking. Helen’s hope was that if her son found what he’d packed unpacked enough times, he’d finally get the idea and leave her stuff alone and in its rightful place.
The blip she’d taught him, how to transport from one place to another in the blink of an eye, took awhile for Guy to get down right. Helen had told him that all he’d needed to do was close his eyes and concentrate on the place he wanted to be the most. Then she warned that a warm, fuzzy feeling would churn in his gut and that he wasn’t to open his eyes until that feeling passed. This would get him to where he wanted to be in a blink instead of him having to hide in the back of vans or sneak around buildings or through rooms so Nonie wouldn’t spot him, especially if she was pissed.
The first few times Guy tried the technique, he didn’t quite make his mark. Once he envisioned being in Nonie’s bedroom and wound up in her bathroom. Another attempt and he’d found himself at Meemaw’s Café. Finally, Helen had taken him by the hand, walked him through the concentration it took to blip, then described her house in the minutest detail. The attic, all the army cots, Captain and the details of his features, the Confederate uniforms that lay on the cots in the attic. She painted a picture so vivid that when the warm and fuzzy feeling churned in his gut he waited for it to dissipate, then opened his eyes and found himself along with Helen standing in the middle of her attic.
“You see,” Helen had said. “All it takes is true concentration. You have to get your mind off of that girl and on wherever it is you want to go. The location, not the person in the location. If you’re going to get anything accomplished while you’re stuck here, you’re going to have to concentrate on more than her.”
“But she’s the reason I’m here,” Guy argued.
“I told you, you’ve got to let that girl live her life.”
“But she’s my girlfriend.”
“She was your girlfriend,” Helen said. “I hate to be so black and white about it, but that’s the truth. She was your girlfriend. She can see you, you can see her, and that’s what makes it so hard for both of you to let go. If she didn’t have the ability to see the dead, you’d be the only one doing the seeing, and she’d have moved on with her life by now. But because she can see you, she’s stuck. The same way you’re stuck. I know she loves you. I can feel it in her. But she’s locked between what she feels for you and the desire for more. What did you say, it’s been nine years since you passed?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a long time to keep someone waiting.”
“She’s been on dates. It’s not like I’m suffocating her.”
“Did you interrupt those dates by chance?” Helen asked, then suddenly threw up a hand. “Aw, listen to that. I heard the sawhorse downstairs move. He’s trying to pack my saddle. I’m glad you’re here to help because that would be a bit heavy for me to move by myself.”
“But don’t you move things with your mind?” Guy asked.
“Yes, but I can only move with my mind what I could physically move when I was alive. In other words, if it was too heavy for me to move when I was alive, my mind can’t seem to compensate for the weight. I can make it move, but not that much. I don’t know why I can’t get through to my son when I got through so easily to your girlfriend. He can’t even feel when I’m right next to him. It’s sad really.”
“You see, you even called her my girlfriend,” Guy said.
“As a point of reference. You know what I’m talking about. I’ll call her Nonie from now on. Just Nonie. Lord, listen to all that racket downstairs. I wish he’d leave everything alone. I know he wants to renovate the place, and I don’t want that to happen. I want it to stay the way it is. Have people come through the house and see my pictures with famous people, my saddle, and
all the things I collected over the years. Why he’d want to pack that all away is beyond me. I can’t get him to hear me, get him to understand that the house would be more valuable if he left it as it is.”
“Maybe he just wants to sell it and be done with it,” Guy said.
Helen gasped. “I didn’t think of that. You need to help me stop him. We’re just going to keep unpacking everything he packs.”
“But I can’t stay here with you, Helen. Every time your son comes here, he’ll pack again, and it looks like he comes every day. I can’t stay with you to help with the unpacking every day. My job here is to take care of Nonie.”
“This would be a good diversion for you,” Helen insisted. “Help wean you off Nonie. Think of it like that.”
“I don’t want to think of it like that. She’s the reason I didn’t go to the light when I died. I wanted to protect her, to be with her. We were meant to be together forever.”
“Maybe so, but that’s when both of you were alive. It doesn’t work that way now that you’re dead. Think about it. How would she marry a ghost? How would she have children with a ghost? You’re not being fair to her.”
“She’s the one not being fair,” Guy said. “I’m the one who stayed behind for her.”
“My boy, that was your choice not hers. You can’t blame her for that and you can’t expect her to live in gratitude because you didn’t move over into the light. I keep telling you that what you’re doing is hindering her, but that message doesn’t seem to be sinking into your thick head. I don’t mean to be ugly, but you’re not listening to what I’ve been telling you.” Helen suddenly clapped her hands. “Oh, listen . . . The front door closed. Let’s go see how much damage he did this time. Now remember, we don’t have to go down the attic stairs to get to the living room. We can blip ourselves there. That’ll give you some practice. Do you want some help doing it again?”
“Maybe so. I might wind up at Roy’s Grocery back in Clay Point.”
Helen took him by the hand. “Okay, concentrate on my living room and everything in it. My pictures, the sawhorse and saddle, the sofa with the blue afghan, all of it. You’ve got it in your head?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got the warm and fuzzies?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, give my hand a squeeze when the wfs start to go away and we’ll blip into the living
room.”
Guy opened his eyes. “The wfs?”
Helen tsked. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, the warm and fuzzies.”
“Oh, okay.” He closed his eyes again, and as soon as his stomach felt the wfs begin to wane, he gave Helen’s hand a little squeeze.
In a nanosecond, Guy found himself standing in Helen’s living room. In that same moment, they heard the lock click into place on the front door.
“We could have simply stayed downstairs while your son was here. It’s not like he would have seen us.”
“I know, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I get upset when I see him packing, and when I get upset sometimes things have a tendency to go a bit wonky. You know, ceramics flying off the mantle, dishes rattling in the kitchen. I don’t want to scare him like that. He means well, my son I mean. He just doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t know what my wishes are. He’s only doing the best he knows how. I’m hoping that the continuous unpacking will give him the message somehow. He knows it’s not a burglar doing it because nothing’s missing. Now help me move this saddle back on the sawhorse.”
The saddle had been placed on the couch and covered with a blanket. Helen took the blanket off the saddle and grabbed the horn while Guy grabbed the backend of the saddle, and together they jostled it back onto the sawhorse. Then they busied themselves unpacking the boxes her son had packed, with Guy asking every other minute, “Where do you want this? Where do you want that?”
After what seemed to be an eternity of unpacking pictures, bric-a-brac, medals, books, and putting them back just so, Guy suddenly got a gnawing sensation in his gut. It was a Nonie alarm.
“Something’s going on with Nonie,” he said to Helen. “I need to get back to her. She’s either in trouble or about to get into trouble.”
“But you promised you’d help me with this mess.”
“I did. I’ve been helping. Look I know you taught me how to blip, but I’m still not sure of myself, and I could use your help. Something’s going on with Nonie, and I have to get to her. I’m sensing some kind of danger around her. I need your help to make sure I get to her right away and stop her from going there.”
“Going where?”
“I’m not sure yet, but it’s someplace she’s not supposed to be. I have a feeling she’s going to wind up seeing something she doesn’t want to see, shouldn’t have to see.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Helen said.
“You’re going to have to trust me like I trusted you with this whole blipping thing,” Guy said. “I know Nonie. I feel her. And she’s about to do something that she needs to stay away from. I’ve got to convince her of that. Look, I’ll come back here with you when we’re done with Nonie, but please, help me get to her.”
With a nod, Helen took hold of Guy’s hand. “Remember, we have to concentrate on a place, not a person. Do you know where she is right now?”
“I suppose her apartment. She had the day off of work today. But I don’t feel like she’s there.”
“Do you have any feel for where she might be?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, then let’s concentrate on her apartment. Even if she’s not there now, she’ll eventually go back there, right?”
“I suppose so. Everything’s so scrambled in my head. I usually have a pretty good bead on where she is most of the time. Not right now, though. Maybe it’s the blipping that has my radar off.”
“Okay, stop freaking out, and we’ll start with her apartment,” Helen said.
Guy nodded and closed his eyes. He soon saw in his mind’s eye Nonie’s dinette set, her kitchen, her beige Naugahyde couch, the brown, overstuffed chair, her television set that sat on an oak, pressboard stand. He focused on the scent of her apartment, a mixture of lavender and cinnamon, just like Nonie.
As the wfs went cold in his belly, Guy heard a slight whooshing sound. He opened his eyes and found himself standing in the middle of Nonie’s apartment. Alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
By two that afternoon Jack labeled the last segment of his Pro Audio Editing program. His head was pounding. He’d been watching video and editing the audio to clean up the white noise since nine that morning. He’d only stopped once to grab a slice of bologna and a Coke from his fridge. They’d picked up so much evidence, both on audio and video, he didn’t know where to start placing things on a jump drive to show the producers. Without a doubt, the two locations they’d investigated were prime for Something’s Out There. He wanted to make sure he had all of the camera shots cleaned and audio marked on the exact segments so he could loop the EVPs they’d collected.
One thing that amazed him was that every EVP they’d captured had been a class A, which meant a word or two came through clear and precise. One didn’t have to strain an ear to make out what was said, as was often the case with many paranormal investigation programs now on television. He’d never heard any this clear before. It was a rare find, like waking up on Christmas morning to find the one present you’d always wanted under the tree.
The video and stills had contained some remarkable evidence. At the Richardson place, there were stills of ectoplasm, which were white wisps of smoke with red and green streaks running through it. He’d found at least four with arcs of mist and streaks. He ran the photos through an editing program to make certain that what they’d captured hadn’t been light fragmentation or equipment malfunction. All had checked out perfectly.
He’d found video of what looked like a shadow figure, its form defined well enough to identify it as female. That had been captured upstairs, w
here the Confederate uniforms had been laid across three cots that had been used during the Civil War. Along with the female shadow, they’d also captured a darker shape on one of the cots. It looked like a man lying on his back, and at one point, you actually saw it roll to its side. Neither of the shadow figures had facial features that could be identified, but there was little question they were human . . . or had been.
The EVPs he had collected himself had produced a few class B, a woman whispering, “Hi,” at the Richardson’s, and another one from the old plantation that seemed to ask a question but all he heard was the word, “Who . . .?” The EVPs that Nonie had collected, however, were all Class As.
As he listened to the recordings through the editing suite, he heard Nonie speaking to someone. Buggy had been up in the Richardson attic with Nonie, but the response picked up on the recorder wasn’t Buggy. There were quite a few places where it sounded like Nonie was having a conversation with someone. Her voice came through clear, but oftentimes what followed was dead air. On occasion, a single word came through that didn’t quite make sense. Not in relation to what Nonie was discussing anyway. Nonie’s EVPs picked up words like, “television” and “I want.” They’d even gotten a complete sentence— “What’s your name?”—which was rare in electronic voice phenomena. Usually a spirit had enough energy to produce a word or two, but one who spoke complete sentences had to be drawing extra power from something . . . or someone.
What stuck with Jack the most, though, was his question regarding who Nonie had been talking to. In his gut, he just knew that she was speaking directly with a spirit. That she could see them. In his years of investigating, he’d worked with a few mediums, some real, some phony. With the mediums who were the real deal, he’d always hear a one-sided conversation. The medium speaking to the spirits. He always questioned their validity, however, until he picked up a corresponding EVP.
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