“Yes. He’s known me for a few years. Or you can call the Globe. I’ve done several pieces for them.”
Granny was behind Tanisha. “Boo!” the ghost shouted, but Tanisha didn’t flinch. Granny leaned in close. “State your business, girl,” she demanded. Again, Tanisha gave no indication of hearing anything.
“I don’t think she can hear me,” Granny told Kelly. “Either that or she’s a mighty fine actress.” Granny moved around Tanisha and took up her place next to Kelly. She folded her arms across her small ghostly chest and scowled at the intruder as if it would intimidate her.
Still holding Tanisha’s card, Kelly asked, “What do you want to talk to me about?”
Tanisha gave Kelly a half-grin, then moved her eyes off to Kelly’s side, where she saw the hazy cluster. “I assume the ghost checked me out and approves?”
Granny smacked her hands together, but the action produced no sound. “I told you she could see me!” The tiny sprit hopped from foot to foot in a victory dance.
“Ghost? What in the world are you talking about?” Kelly knitted her brows. “I don’t have time for this nonsense.” She adjusted her backpack again and turned away.
“I know who your mother is and what she is. And I think you’re the same.”
Tanisha’s words stopped her in her tracks. This time Kelly didn’t turn around but stood cemented to the ground. Around them, the trees lining the street rustled their golden foliage in a final farewell. Very soon the trees would be bare and the air would turn cold. Even now, the breeze held a nip of winter’s prelude that would only grow as the afternoon wore on and the sun set.
After a few heartbeats, both women took a deep breath. Then, without a word, Kelly continued heading back to campus, leaving Tanisha alone on the sidewalk.
“I need your help, Kelly.” Tanisha closed the growing space between them in another effort.
Granny got in front of Tanisha, her hands on her hips. “Are you deaf, girl? Can’t you see Kelly wants to be left alone.”
Tanisha, seeing the haze clustered in front of her, stopped short, but determined to reach Kelly, she plowed through the spirit.
“Boy, I hate that!” sputtered Granny. “If the girl wants to know about ghosts, then she needs to learn some manners.”
Kelly was ready to answer Granny, but bit her lip. The reporter had no hard evidence Kelly could see and talk to ghosts like her mother, and she wasn’t about to give her any.
Slowing, but not stopping, Kelly said, “My mother is out of the country right now, but I’m sure if you e-mail or call her show, she’d consider assisting you with your article. I’m really not into the whole ghost thing.”
Tanisha kept up with her. “So you can’t see the ghost that’s with you right now?”
“Don’t say a word, Kelly,” Granny cautioned.
Kelly put her head down and kept moving, stopping only when she had to wait for a streetlight to change at a busy intersection. Tanisha stopped next to her on the curb.
“I want your help, Kelly,” Tanisha told her while keeping her eyes on the moving traffic. “Not your mother’s. And it’s not about an article I’m writing. I think…no, I know…a ghost is haunting me.” She turned to look at Kelly. “I’ve seen you in Gabby’s and you often have a spirit with you. I’m sure of it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Tanisha.”
“My friends call me T.”
As the pedestrian walk light came on, Kelly whipped her head around and confronted Tanisha. “Oh, so we’re friends now? And when did that happen? A few blocks ago? A few steps ago? Or maybe when you made up some lame story about ghosts?”
Undaunted, Tanisha kept steady with her purpose. “I need your help, Kelly. And the help of your ghost friend. I think the ghost who comes to me is trying to tell me something.” She paused, then added, her face intense with determination, “It may even be trying to hurt me.”
Kelly looked down at the business card still clutched in her hand. While Tanisha watched, she tore it up and tossed it into a nearby city trash can, then started off across the street. “Like I told you,” she shot over her shoulder. “You want my mother. I don’t know anything about ghosts. That’s her department.”
Chapter 3
“Where’ve you been, Granny?” Kelly asked as the ghost materialized next to her desk. “Haven’t seen you for a few days. Have you been with Mom?”
“We need to talk,” Granny answered, her arms crossed in front of her. It was her routine position when she had something serious to say or was displeased.
Kelly looked up from her work. “Geez, Granny, you look like you just ate something nasty. What’s up?” She became concerned and gave the ghost her full attention. “Is it Mom? Is she okay?”
“Emma’s fine. She sends her love.” Granny looked around the room.
“Is she having a good time in Australia?”
“Seems to be, especially now that Phil’s joined her.”
A slow smile crossed Kelly’s face. Phil Bowers was a crusty rancher/lawyer who adored Kelly’s mother. “Did Phil show up to be with Mom or to keep an eye on that cute archeologist that has the hots for her?”
“A bit of both, I’m thinking. A smart old rooster guards his hen from the fox.”
Kelly laughed and turned back to her studies. “I’m not so sure Mom would like being compared to a hen who needs protection.”
The ghost shrugged. “Maybe not, but that’s exactly what’s happening. But I don’t think Dr. Keenan has been around much. Emma said he got called to some place in Egypt right after Phil arrived.”
Kelly laughed again. “I’m not surprised. Phil can be pretty intimidating when he wants to be.” Looking out the window of her room, she thought about her mother halfway around the world caught between the attentions of two smart and charming men. She knew Emma was a beautiful woman, but it still felt weird to her that her mother was being chased like a popular high school girl. Her father had definitely taken Emma for granted.
“Granny,” she started, without turning around, “do you think Mom will marry Phil someday or does she have feelings for this Quinn Keenan guy?”
“My money’s on Phil,” the ghost answered with a determined jerk of her head. “He’s the only one eating crackers in her bed, and that wouldn’t be the case if she had any doubts about him. Emma’s not the type to play footsie with two men at a time. I think she’s decided Quinn is just a friend.”
“Don’t you like Dr. Keenan?”
“I like him real fine.” Granny drifted across the room as she gave the question more thought. “He’s taller than Phil. And younger and better looking in a lot of ways. Still has his hair. And Quinn has that devilish streak and swagger that a lot of the ladies like. And I do believe he’s sweet on Emma for real. If Phil wasn’t around, he might even be a good match for her. But Phil is a better one. He’s more stable and solid.” She studied Kelly with a sharp eye. “Why? Don’t you want your mother to marry Phil?”
Kelly turned back to look at the ghost. “I guess. I mean, what I really want is for Mom to be happy. Dad was so mean to her sometimes. She seems so happy with Phil and, well, when we’re all together with Phil and his family, it feels like we’re a normal family. As much as I love my father, it never felt that way with him. Not really. It always felt like we were his entourage, instead of his family.” Kelly let out a short laugh. “Mom used to call us Dad’s groupies.”
“It’s that foolish Hollywood nonsense, is all. Those people are all teched in the head.”
“Mom’s in show business.”
“Your mother has a sensible head on her shoulders and her feet planted solid on the ground, thanks to her parents.”
Kelly nodded in agreement and went back to her studies. Her mother, in spite of being a celebrity in her own right, was practical and down-to-earth and didn’t care for the trappings of Hollywood.
Granny looked around the dorm room. Only Kelly was present, but Granny wanted to be sure.
“Is your roommate around?”
“No, Delilah is with her new boyfriend.”
“Good. We need to talk about that Tanisha girl.”
“Tanisha?” Kelly dug through her memory trying to place the name. “Oh, you mean the reporter from a few days ago? The one from the coffee shop?”
“Yep, that’s the one.”
Kelly rolled her eyes, a habit developed in high school that her mother hated.
“Don’t roll those eyes at me, young lady,” Granny admonished, shaking an index finger at Kelly. “I’m not your mother.”
“You’ve done it to Mom, too,” Kelly shot back. “I’ve seen you do it. And she hates it just as much from you.”
“You know the old saying, Do as I say, not as I do? I think it’s appropriate here, don’t you? I am your elder.”
“Poor Mom. With you around, it’s like she’s raising two kids.”
“Humph,” Granny crossed her arms and plopped down on Kelly’s bed, her hazy outline looking like a Godzilla of a dust bunny. “Just let me know when you’re ready to talk about Tanisha like a grown-up.”
With much exaggeration, Kelly rolled her eyes again and went back to her work. “I don’t have time for her B.S., Granny. It’s early in the school year, and I already have a lot of studying to do.”
“I think we should help her,” Granny persisted. “Or at least look into the ghost pestering her.”
With a deep sigh, Kelly turned her attention back to Granny. “You’re not going to let up on this, are you?”
Granny jutted her chin out and shook her head slowly. “You need to at least check out her story, Kelly. It won’t take long. Then I’ll leave you be and you can get back to your schoolwork.”
Kelly got up and went to the mini-fridge she and Delilah kept in the room. From it she grabbed a carton of Greek yogurt. From a holder on top of the fridge, she snagged a plastic spoon. “Did you talk to Mom about this?”
Instead of answering, Granny pursed her lips and stared up at the ceiling, letting Kelly know the ghost hadn’t said a word to Emma.
“You know her rules.” Kelly opened the yogurt. “You and I can visit as long as it doesn’t interfere with my studies. This sounds an awful lot like interference.”
The ghost’s face softened as she winked at Kelly. “Don’t worry, what happens in Boston, stays in Boston.”
Kelly swallowed a spoonful of yogurt as she considered the tempting possibilities of Granny’s words.
Upon learning a few months earlier that her daughter could see and hear Granny, Emma Whitecastle had sat them both down and established guidelines for their visits.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Granny pushed. “Don’t you want to take your ghost skills out for a test-drive? You know, kick the tires a little and see what’s under the hood?” She emphasized her comment with a slight kick of her foot.
Kelly stopped eating and stared at Granny. Granny, whose real name was Ish Reynolds, had died at the end of the 1800’s. She was from Julian, California, a gold rush town in Southern California located in the mountains just north of San Diego. She had lived on a small homestead when she was alive and even in death wore standard pioneer garb of a floor-length homespun skirt, a long-sleeved cotton blouse, and work boots. Her hair was braided and worn up, encircling her head. Granny spent as much time on earth with her living family as she spent wherever ghosts went when they weren’t earthbound, and had developed an obsessive fondness for TV and movies, especially crime dramas, and professional football.
“Mom’s right, you do watch way too much TV.” Kelly took her snack and return to her desk, attempting to put the topic to rest by not addressing it further, but Granny was not in the mood to be ignored. She got up and floated over to Kelly’s desk.
“I’m telling ya, that Tanisha has talent. Not like you and your mother maybe, but who knows if it might turn into something more?”
“Have you been stalking Tanisha?” Kelly put her yogurt down and turned her attention back to Granny, clearly not happy with the ghost. “Is that where you’ve been for the past few days?”
“I’m not stalking nobody.” Granny stuck her chin out in defiance. “I’m just doing good detective work, that’s all. She came to you for help with a spirit and I wanted to check it out and see if she was telling the truth.”
“And is she?”
Granny paced the room as she spoke. “I popped in at the coffee shop the past couple of days and waited until Tanisha showed up. She finally did yesterday. When she left, I followed her. I didn’t see any sign of spirits until she went back to her apartment.”
“Her apartment is haunted? You really saw a ghost there?” Kelly forgot her schoolwork.
“Not really,” Granny admitted. “But I did sense the presence of at least one spirit, even if I didn’t see it.” Granny stopped pacing. “Whatever is there, it’s disturbed.”
Kelly’s eyes widened. “You mean evil?”
Granny shook her head. “No, not evil. At least that’s not the feeling I got. But it’s definitely agitated and miserable. I called to it to show itself, letting it know I was there to help, but the feeling just swelled and ebbed, like a wild thing that’s not sure if you’re going to feed it or kill it if it gets too close.”
“Did Tanisha know you were there?”
“Yes, I believe she did. Her apartment isn’t very far from the coffee shop. When I was following her, every now and then she’d stop in her tracks and look around, like she knew someone was tailing her.”
“Tailing?” Kelly shook her head as she’d seen her mother do so often when Granny exhibited jargon she’d picked up from shows on television.
“Every now and then I’d materialize. You know, just to test her.” Granny was relishing her role as a private investigator and was telling the story with gusto. “I don’t think she can see me clearly like you can, and I still don’t think she can hear me, but there were times she knew I was there. And that I wasn’t her usual visitor.”
“How can you be sure?”
Granny stopped moving and stared at Kelly like she’d missed an important part of the story. “Well, because Tanisha called to me. Twice, she called out, ‘Who’s there?’ and ‘What do you want?’ That’s how I know.” Granny went back to crossing back and forth in the room. “I spoke to her a couple of times, but I’m sure she didn’t hear me. And when I was in her apartment, you could tell she was on alert, like she knew stuff was going on that she couldn’t see. I went back again this morning, and it was the same thing.”
Granny floated back to stand in front of Kelly. “The spirit in Tanisha’s apartment needs us, Kelly. I’m sure of it. More importantly, Tanisha needs us. Whatever spirit is there is taking a toll on the girl. I think the ghost is transferring her misery onto Tanisha, making her depressed and melancholy. At least that’s what it looked like to me when I was there. Tanisha wasn’t near as perky as when we first met her. It’s like she’s shouldering the ghost’s sorrow, whether she wants to or not. We have to help that ghost and that will help Tanisha.”
Kelly became alarmed. “Is it like that ghost you and Mom dealt with earlier this year? You know, the one causing people to kill themselves?”
“I don’t think this ghost is trying to hurt Tanisha outright, but in pressuring her for help, maybe it’s engulfing her with the same despair it feels, like infecting her with a cold.”
Kelly turned back to her studies, but her mind wasn’t focused. “You know I don’t like reporters, Granny. You can’t trust them. And I’m sure there are other people around with much more experience who can help Tanisha. I don’t know that much about it.”
“Yes, but she came to you, Kelly. She specifically wants you to help her.”
Kelly whipped her head around. “And why do you think that is?” When Granny didn’t answer, she added, “Because I’m the daughter of Grant and Emma Whitecastle, that’s why. It’s a possible twofer for Tanisha. She can exorcise her ghost and get a juicy story on top of it
.”
Kelly spread her hands in the air like she was hanging a banner. “Baby Whitecastle sees ghosts!” She dropped her hands and scowled. “Dad’s producer will want me on his show, I guarantee it. Like I was one of Dad’s other freaky, gossip-rag guests.”
“And your mother?” asked Granny. “She’s the one with the paranormal TV show.”
Kelly paused and took a deep breath. “Mom will be horrified. She’ll want to hide me away from it all. Maybe take me on a long trip until it blows over.”
Granny’s heart broke for Kelly. She’d seen Emma go through similar worries when she’d first discovered she could see and hear spirits. Concern over sensational headlines and snooping gossip reporters was always in the back of Emma’s mind, even now, although so far she had managed to handle it with grace and minimal exposure. When she’d first learned Kelly had the same gift, Emma hadn’t been pleased. It had been difficult enough to give Kelly a normal upbringing. And now, with the added burden of worrying about others discovering Kelly’s newly minted paranormal talents, Emma was even more determined that her daughter have a regular life and college experience. Unlike Grant Whitecastle, Emma didn’t seek the limelight and headlines. Granny was happy that Kelly took more after her mother than her father.
The ghost approached Kelly and lovingly stroked her head. Her hazy hand went through Kelly with each pass, but Granny continued the movement, wishing she could do it for real and that Kelly could feel it.
“I know your concerns, sugar,” the ghost cooed, dropping her usual brusque manner. “I’ve seen your mother go through the same thing. But my heart tells me this Tanisha is different. Her gift seems to be a lot like your Gram’s, but somewhat limited. While Elizabeth can hear spirits, Tanisha cannot. She can only sense their presence. She won’t be able to help that wretched spirit, and I don’t think she’s interested in sensationalizing anything.”
Granny stopped caressing Kelly and moved to face her. “I’ve watched this Tanisha for two days and all I’ve seen is a young woman trying to battle something she doesn’t understand. She also seems very serious about doing the right thing and building a proper career. There are honorable news people, aren’t there?”
4 The Silent Ghost Page 2