by Tony Martin
“That’s just about the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard,” Joshua said, speaking through the collar of his shirt as he pulled it on.
“See?” Bethany said triumphantly. “This supernatural stuff just doesn’t stand up to the light of day in 2005, does it?”
“We’ll see,” said Joshua, giving Bethany a kiss on the cheek as he left.
Chapter Two – Aftermath
Joshua pulled his Altima into the driveway of the Tracy home. Jimmy was one of the more successful bankers in St. Helena; his home wasn’t extravagant, but it was comfortable. His wife Lydia had been a stay-at-home mom all of Christine’s life, and Christine had been a real pillar of the youth group at the church. He knew her to be stable and mature.
Jimmy met Joshua at the door. “Come on in,” he said, and walked him to their sun porch. The afternoon spring sun had warmed up the glassed-in patio. Christine sat in a white wicker chair, leaning forward, elbows on knees. She was wearing an Atlanta Braves cap, with her long dark hair pulled through the opening in the back. Joshua noted her pose; she looked anxious and uneasy.
“I’ll be in the family room,” said Jimmy. “I’ll let you two visit.””
Christine made no move to stand. She looked at Joshua, frightened.
“Christine, hon, what’s up?” asked Joshua. Christine looked away for a moment before answering.
“Brother Josh,” she began, “I don’t know where to start. I guess…well, I’d never really heard that scripture you preached on this morning.”
“It’s in there,” said Joshua. “You’re right, though. It’s not one we pay a lot of attention to.” He waited for her; he didn’t want to ask any leading questions.
“Do you know of the Dubose family?” she asked.
“Just by reputation, but even then I don’t know a lot,” Joshua said. He knew that the Duboses had been a noted family in the community for years. He also knew that in the early 1800’s Eleazar Dubose built the first large-scale sawmill in the county and made his fortune in lumber. He knew the family home was about seven miles from town on Highway 187 and that there were few, if any, descendents still around.
“So you don’t know Meredith Dubose, then, do you?” she asked.
“Afraid not.”
Christine took a deep breath. “Meredith is one of my best friends. Actually, she may be my very best friend. She’s a couple of years older than me – she’s twenty-one – and she’s been away at the University for the last couple of years.” “The University” was shorthand for the University of Alabama. “Anyway, she came home from school at Christmas and didn’t go back this semester. Did you know her folks?”
“I never met them. I know they turned up missing last year and never showed up.”
“Meredith’s the end of the line – at least, as far as the St. Helena Duboses are concerned. You know, her parents were just insanely rich.”
“Were?”
“Yes, sir. They had a place down in Panama City and spent more time there than they did here the last few years. Mr. Dubose had his hand in a lot of things around town, but mostly he just lived off the proceeds of the old sawmill. Somewhere back there he made a deal with Georgia Pacific and ended up as a silent partner in several land deals in the county. So I’ve heard. But her mamma and daddy drowned at the beach in August. At least, folks believe they drowned. No one ever found them.”
“That’s it,” said Joshua. “I do remember that.” It had been all the talk in St. Helena.
“Yes, sir. They had a good-sized sailboat, and just the two of them had gone out early one morning. When they didn’t get in before dark, and still didn’t show the next morning, their neighbors called the Coast Guard. They found the sailboat, but they never found them.”
“That’s pretty bizarre. Tragic.”
“Well, Meredith was just torn up. She’s an only child. She’s got one aunt, her mamma’s sister, in Monroeville, but she had to tend to a lot of the arrangements herself.”
Joshua couldn’t imagine a twenty-one year old college student having to have a funeral for her missing parents.
“She didn’t actually have the funerals for her folks until November,” Christine said. She waited almost four months, hoping for some word, anything. Nothing. No…bodies, no nothing.
“But, you know, she stayed in school until the end of the semester. I sure couldn’t have done that.” Christine put her head down, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I just can’t think what it would be like having to have a funeral for your folks, especially if there wasn’t anyone to bury.”
Joshua had seen plenty of grief, even in his few years of ministry. Still, he shivered.
“So, now she’s home, in that big old house. She’s not by herself. Her folks had a full-time maid that lives in the house, a sweet older widow lady named Bernadine, and Bernadine has kept house and bought groceries and done all that stuff even before Meredith was born. Boy, can she cook! She makes the best corn bread…” Christine managed a little smile. “I think Mr. Joseph – her daddy - left Bernadine in real good shape financially. She adores Meredith, and Meredith just loves her. And, Meredith’s told me that her folks have money set up for her in trusts and stocks and other stuff. Meredith won’t ever have to work, if she doesn’t want to. That’s the way it’s been for the Duboses for the last hundred or so years.”
“So,” said Joshua, “I know Meredith is probably hurting. Is that what’s wrong? If I can ask, what’s that got to do with my sermon this morning?”
“I’m getting there,” said Christine. “Sorry. That sounded rude. Right after the first of the year, Meredith began complaining of having dizzy spells. She even fainted a couple of times. I figured – and she did, too – that it was just pure depression or anxiety or something. She also started complaining of heart palpitations, you know, when your heart just races for no real reason.”
“Did she see a doctor?”
“Yes, sir. She went to Dr. McKinley here in town, and he sent her to a cardiologist in Birmingham at the UAB Medical Center. Daddy and I took her. Turns out, she’s got a heart problem. I forgot what it’s called. She could tell you. She’s on medication for it, but she seems awfully frail these days.”
Joshua still wondered what this all had to do with his sermon, but he wanted Christine to finish her story. “So how’s she doing now?”
“Physically, she seems to be doing better.” Christine paused, collecting her thoughts. Finally, she said, “I don’t know how to tell you the rest.”
“Give it a shot,” said Joshua. “I’m a good listener.”
“Brother Josh, I heard you preach this morning about Saul and how he used a medium to call up the spirit of Samuel. Like I said, I’d never really looked at that scripture before. It’s pretty weird. Do…do you think something like that could happen today?”
“How do you mean?” asked Joshua.
“Well…about three weeks ago, I was spending the night with Meredith. She was awfully down. She said she was really missing her parents. She said she’d been thinking all day about what had happened to them, wondering if she’d ever know for sure. She wondered if there was any way to know, ‘cause the police in Panama City or the Coast Guard or whoever had closed the case.” Christine looked at her lap, biting her lip.
“Go on,” Joshua said gently.
“Brother Josh,” Christine said, “Meredith went to Wal-Mart and bought a Ouija board. You know what that it?”
Joshua suppressed a smile. Of course he did; he’d had one as a kid. “I sure do. What happened?”
“Meredith had been reading on the web about parapsychology and mediums. She had convinced herself that she could use that Ouija board to find out what had happened to her folks. She even thought that if they were dead, she might be able to talk to them. You know, like a séance. What do you think about that?”
Joshua though back to his early teenage years, about how he and about a half-dozen of his friends had used a Ouija board to try to find out who
shot JFK. It hadn’t worked; he knew that involuntary muscle movements were what caused the planchette to move. Besides, they’d gotten scared, and started giggling because they were scared, and that was that.
“Christine,” Joshua said, “part of me believes that messing with that kind of stuff is a harmless game, but part of me also says that from a purely Christian standpoint it’s dabbling in evil. I don’t mean to speak ill of Meredith or you, but my guess is that even if you’re just fooling around, it’s better to leave that kind of thing alone. Understand why?”
“I know,” said Christine, “and I was just playing along with Meredith. It just meant so much to her right then, and I thought, what the heck, what could it hurt? Let me tell you what happened.”
Joshua inched forward in his seat. “What?”
“Nothing,” said Christine. “Absolutely nothing. She and I put our hands on that pointer thing, and she asked if anyone was there, you know, the way they do it in movies and all. It just sat there. She asked again, and still nothing happened. It was creepy, but it was kinda dumb too, y’know? Then she asked if her mamma was there. I gotta tell you, I didn’t like that too much. Still nothing happened. After a few minutes of that, she finally said, ‘this is dumb,’ and laughed. We put the board and the pointer back in its box. That was that. We stayed up for a while longer, watching a movie, and we went to bed just a little before midnight. We were staying in her bedroom. She’s got this gorgeous four-poster bed.
“I’m not sure what time it was. It must’ve been around three that morning. I woke up with the oddest feeling. You know how when you were little and had done something wrong and you felt like your folks were going to find out, you just had this sense of dread, sort of, that something bad was going to happen? Because you’d been bad and were about to get caught?”
“I think so,” said Joshua.
“It was kinda like that,” said Christine. “I woke up and just felt terrible, just like this sick feeling was all over me, because something was about to happen. I lay there a minute, wide-awake, but couldn’t see a thing. Meredith’s room is pretty dark. There’s no streetlights out there in the country, y’know?
“Then I just sort of reached over, I guess to reassure myself, and realized that Meredith wasn’t next to me in the bed. I thought maybe she’d gone to the bathroom.
“Then – and Brother Josh, this really scares me – I heard Meredith from the other side of the room. It wasn’t like she was crying, but she was making this awful noise. It was a kind of an ‘ahh – ahh – ahh’ sound. Like she was trying to scream and couldn’t get it out. Kind of like an animal panting. It was terrible.
“I reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. And there was Meredith. She was standing all scrunched up in the corner of the room, opposite the bed. She had her hands flat against the wall. It was like she’d backed up as far as she could go. I could tell she’d been crying. What really got me was that she was staring, not toward me, but toward the old fireplace in her room. Her eyes were wide open.
“I thought she might be having some kind of seizure or something. ‘Meredith, what’s wrong,’ I said. She ignored me, but kept looking toward the fireplace. She made that ‘ahh – ahh’ sound again. Ugh.
“So I climbed out of bed and went over to her. I just barely touched her shoulder. And, Brother Josh, she screamed. It was the worst thing I ever heard. It was this high-pitched, squealing sound. I’ve never heard anyone make that kind of noise.
“I stepped back, and then all of a sudden it was like she snapped out of it. She looked at me like she’d never seen me before. Then she got this look of surprise on her face and said, ‘Chrissy?’
“’It’s me,’ I said. Then she just grabbed me and squeezed me and started crying. Really cried. We went over and sat on the bed.
“I waited for her to stop crying. I thought she never would. I asked her what was wrong. I thought maybe she’d had the mother of all nightmares or something.
“’I can’t tell you,’ she said. ‘No, wait. There’s nothing wrong. Really.’
“I wasn’t buying that. So I asked her again. She looked straight at me and said, ‘No! There’s nothing to talk about.’
“I didn’t know what else to say. We sure didn’t sleep any more that night. We both lay back down with the lights on. Sure enough, she didn’t say anything else to me. I could tell she'd been scared and scared bad. Me too.”
Joshua waited to see if there was any more to the story. He’d already made up his mind as to what happened. Two young ladies, one of them grieving over the loss of her parents. A Ouija board, that hoary old prop from B-movies. A “séance.” The power of suggestion, a bad dream run amuck … he had it all figured out. He just didn’t see immediately how to explain this all to Christine.
“That’s about what happened,” said Christine. “So I thought. Then a couple of days ago – I guess this was last Thursday – Meredith called me. We hadn’t talked at all about what had happened when I spent the night with her.”
“What did she say?” asked Joshua.
“This is about the worst of all,” Christine said. “Brother Josh, she said that ever since that night when she got so scared – and she still hasn’t said what scared her – that she’s had this real sense that someone besides Bernadine was in the house with her. She said that more than once, she’d heard people talking when no one was there.”
“What were they saying?” Joshua asked, then regretted it. It was a lame question.
Christine took it seriously. “She said she couldn’t really make out any words. It was like whispers, just little snatches of phrases or half-sentences, but nothing you could really understand. It’s really got her upset. It’s not like her to make things like this up.”
“Hoo, boy,” said Joshua. This was a first in ministry for him. He had a seriously frightened young lady on his hands – and her friend who was showing signs of psychosis. He knew what was coming.
“Brother Josh,” said Christine plaintively, “do you think you could go see her? Maybe if I went, too?”
Joshua paused. His first inclination was just to say, “No, Christine, but I’ll be praying for Meredith,” which would be a standard reply. In light of his sermon – he saw how it all fit together – he felt that perhaps a visit wouldn’t hurt. He wanted to keep a good relationship with the Tracy family, after all.
“Sure, Christine,” he said, but without too much enthusiasm. “Maybe you could call Meredith and work out a time for both of us to go.”
Christine seemed relieved, but was sensitive enough to notice Joshua’s hesitation. “It would mean a lot to me. Maybe you can help, or at least listen.”
“You know me well enough to know I’d be glad to,” said Joshua.
“Good. Whew.” Christine relaxed a little for the first time. Then her face clouded again. “Brother Joshua – you don’t think we might’ve made something mad by this séance thing, do you?’”
Joshua laughed aloud, and then checked himself. “That’s almost exactly what Bethany said about my sermon today,” he said.
He rose to leave. Impulsively, Christine gave him a big hug. “You are just too sweet to do this,” she said, her eyes bright.
Joshua beamed. “Really, hon, I’m glad to help out. I’ll just wait to hear from you, OK?”
“OK!” Christine said. She allowed herself a smile. Joshua couldn’t help but think about the ever-changing moods of women. He’d never understand it.
“I’m headed home,” Joshua said. He stopped long enough to speak to Jimmy.
“I appreciate you taking the time to listen to Christine,” Jimmy said. “What do you make of all that?”
“It’s a little soon to tell,” said Joshua. “It’s kind of bizarre, but it’s a big deal to her, obviously. She really wants to help out.”
“Sometime, I’ll have to fill you in on that whole Dubose situation,” said Jimmy. “You’ll like Meredith. A sweet, solid kid. You can imagine what she’s been through.”
“Just barely,” said Joshua. “It’s all so tragic.”
“It is,” said Jimmy. “I don’t know how much truth there is to her story, but there’s no question she’s really dealt with a lot. I do appreciate your helping.”
“I may want you to go with me,” said Joshua. “Just to sort of ease all the introductions and all.”
“I can do that,” said Jimmy. He looked out toward the sun porch. Meredith looked up and waved at them, grinning. “Kids,” he said.
“Yeah. You’ve got a sweetheart there,” Joshua said.
“Don’t remind me. I hate boys. Some clown calls her daily. Some kid from school.”
“We’ll walk her through this,” said Joshua, and turned to leave. Jimmy saw him to the car. Joshua settled down behind the wheel, mumbled, “What have I got myself into?” and headed home.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Bethany. She and Joshua were sitting at the dining room table.
“I wouldn’t kid about this,” said Joshua. He’d just finished telling the story he’d heard from Christine Tracy.
“Josh,” Bethany said, leaning forward, “I’ve been telling and I’ve been told ghost stories all my life. It’s a blast around campfires wile eating s’mores. But surely you aren’t buying all this, are you?”
“I do know that I’ve got an upset family that’s looking toward me for help,” said Joshua. “And I’m really not at a place that I can judge what the Dubose girl said. I think I can help. At least, I can listen. And don’t call me Shirley.”
Bethany studied him closely. “You really kinda get into this sort of thing, don’t you?”
Joshua smiled wearily. “You know, I really do. This has been an age-long fascination for me. You’ve got to admit this is more compelling than just making a hospital visit to someone getting over gall bladder surgery.”
“That’s important, too, buddy,” said Bethany. “But if this is something you need to dig into, then by all means dig.”
“My guess is that Meredith Dubose is finally coming to grips with the loss of her parents,” said Joshua. “People deal with grief in different ways. She may actually be hallucinating, and may need some professional intervention. I think I can make that evaluation if I can visit with her. It sure wouldn’t hurt.”