The Guidance

by Marley Gibson

  "We'll do our best," Loreen assures her.

  "Okay, Celia, fill them in on what we've got so far."

  After Celia details everything we know to date, Father Mass frowns.

  "I don't know about this whole oppression thing. I think we're dealing with something more serious. Perhaps demonic."

  "Kendall would know if she was dealing with something demonic," Loreen says sharply.

  "I don't think it's—" I begin. However, the adults talk around me, not hearing what I'm saying.

  Loreen seems exasperated at Father Massimo. "You're being a stick-in-the-mud."

  "And you're taking this too lightly," he responds. "If you want me involved, I'll need to bring the bishop in on this and get his permission for a formal exorcism."

  Loreen scoffs at him. "Under your rules and regulations, that'll take weeks. This girl doesn't have weeks."

  "I know that!"

  I try to mediate. "You guys—"

  Continuing, Loreen insists, "Courtney's in the driver's seat with this and she has to get rid of the spirit herself."

  I notice that the more these two argue, the closer they get. Their auras are practically on fire with desire and passion, whether for the topic or for ... each other? Seriously? That's what I'm picking up? Honest to Pete, if that's the case, why don't they just do it and get it over with? Sheesh!

  "Can't you do this for her?" Loreen shouts.

  "You want me to lose my job?" Father Mass says back sternly.

  Loreen pushes her strawberry blond curls out of her face. "I didn't know they could fire priests."

  "I can lose my parish."

  "Guys! Please!" I say, waving my arms. "I appreciate both of your suggestions and we'll take everything into account. As long as I know you're both onboard, that's what matters. We've got a lot of research to do before our next step. Courtney reached out to me, but will the soldier allow her near us? That remains to be seen. We'll see what we can do." I glance at Loreen. "With your help, of course."

  Her eyes light up. "Whatever you need. Right, Father?"

  He stares her down with his dark eyes and I can see his hesitation melt somewhat.

  "You don't have to do anything that the bishop wouldn't approve of," she says. "Just be there for Kendall. Can you do that?"

  "Then it's settled," I say. "Loreen, Father Mass, we'll set up Saturday night for an investigation. We want you both with us. Ten, okay?"

  "Absolutely," she says.

  Father Mass is still noncommittal. "I can't promise anything, Kendall. I have to operate under the rules of the church."

  "You have to do what you have to do, Father. So do I."

  "I'll pray for you all," he notes.

  Celia stands up. "Then we go back to the Crawford house and start figuring this out."

  Yep. We'll get to the bottom of this. My Spidey senses tell me so!

  ***

  On Friday night, at the Crawfords' Miss Evelyn sets down an antique chest that she's pulled out of the attic. Dust floats out in gentle puffs as she heaves the lid off to delve into the contents.

  "I haven't opened this in years." She plunders through delicate silk materials that appear as thin as butterfly wings and removes a jewelry box, a pack of letters, and several deep red journals with crinkled old pages. "I read Ada's diaries when I was in my teens, but I couldn't tell you for the life of me what's in them. The only thing I recall is feeling like I was reading a romance novel."

  "Great," Becca says with a sneer. I knock her in the side with my elbow.

  Miss Evelyn hands the three diaries over to me. I promptly turn to Becca and plunk them in her arms. "I think you and Taylor should read over these while Celia and I try to get a sketch of the soldier."

  "Whatever you gals need," Miss Evelyn says. "Stephanie, you help them however they want."

  "Yes, Mom."

  The front-door bell chimes, and next thing I know, Jason and Clay walk in.

  Jason kisses me quickly on my temple and slips his arm around my waist. "What do you need me to do?"

  "Yeah, put me to work," Clay says with a wink to Celia.

  She blushes slightly at the obvious PDA.

  "Jason, you can help Taylor and Becca read the diaries. The quicker we can get a handle on Ada Parry's background and whatever angst she put in her journals, the sooner we can piece this together."

  Celia hands an EMF detector to Clay and sets him off to explore the Crawford house and draw a map of the layout, highlighting the areas of high electrical energy coming from fixtures and plugs. The Tillsons and Becca spread out on the couch in the living room and get to work reading. Tomorrow night's the ghost hunt, so tonight—Friday—we're doing some preliminary research, trying to find out as much as we can about Ada Parry and what happened in this house so long ago.

  "You ready for me?" I ask Celia.

  Picking up a small fishing-tackle box and a large drawing pad, she asks me, "Where you wanna do this?"

  "Let's go back into the ballroom where we got the pictures of the guy and where I first saw him clearly."

  The ballroom seems so empty compared with its festive appearance at the Halloween party. On the back wall is a century-old crushed-velvet settee. I lower myself to it, feeling the aged springs creak under my weight. Celia sprawls on the floor in front of me and opens the tablet. She nabs a few pencils and is ready to get down to business.

  Over the next fifteen minutes, I describe the soldier to the best of my ability. She's sketching away furiously, with her tongue wiggling out of her mouth. She probably isn't even aware that she's concentrating so hard on the drawing.

  "No, closer together," I say, pointing to the outline of the eyes that she's drawn. "And his mustache isn't that bushy."

  "Back off, Moorehead," she says with a laugh. "I'm still creating."

  A few minutes later and Celia flips the pad my way. "Voila!"

  "Un-freaking-believable," I say with a gasp. "You nailed him."

  She smiles up at me from the floor.

  Stephanie enters the room with two Diet Cokes for us. She freezes in her tracks when she see Celia's latest masterpiece. The sodas nearly slip from her hands. "Holy shit! That's him!" She gives us the sodas.

  "Who him?" I ask.

  Pointing, Stephanie says, "The guy. I've seen him in our backyard and over at my grandparents' house." She shakes the memory out of her head. "I always thought I was dreaming or hallucinating. It was a few years back, when Dad still lived here. I saw this dude outside and he was laughing. Mom and Dad were having one of their famous fights and I'd left the house to give them some room. That guy was there. He was, I swear."

  I move in to hold her hand and comfort her. "I believe you, Steph."

  "But ... but ... but he's a ghost? I saw a ghost? That is beyond freaky."

  I scrunch up my face. Welcome to my world.

  "He's obviously connected to you, your family, and your house."

  She begins to shake in my grip. "Don't worry, Steph. We're here and we're going to help."

  We've got to get through those diaries and find out what on God's green earth is going on here.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "Anyone want anything from the kitchen?" Celia asks.

  I stifle a yawn with the back of my hand. "I'll have another Diet Coke."

  Taylor looks up from the diary she's reading and shifts her eyes to the clock. "It's way past one, Kendall. You'll never get any sleep with that much caffeine in your system."

  "Like I ever really sleep anymore."

  You need your sleep, Kendall ...

  I bolt up, startled by Emily's appearance in my thoughts.

  Where have you been?

  Trying not to get in your way ...

  But I need your help with this ghost, I nearly beg inside my mind.

  You're doing just fine. Your friends are all the help you need right now ...

  "But—"

  Emily's gone though, just as quickly as she popped in.

  "Check thi
s out," Becca says. She moves the pile of papers Celia printed out from Stephanie's computer and comes over to where Taylor and I are sprawled on the rug. "There's this passage here in Ada's diary that mentions spending a lot of time with a Union soldier named Major Nathan Fair, from Columbus, Ohio. She says he was kind to her, 'not like the rest of those beasts.' Wonder if that's our guy?" She clutches the sketch Celia did, as if she's trying to see if the drawing matches what she's been reading about.

  "I didn't realize people from Ohio were in Sherman's ranks," I say.

  Celia sticks a pen behind her right ear. "Sure. By that time, a lot of the corps and divisions were scattered and devastated due to loss of life and armies splitting to go in different directions. After Sherman left Atlanta, he divided his army into two wings that went separate ways to the sea. I think one of them headed to Macon, while the other moved toward Savannah and Augusta. They flanked each other by about twenty or so miles, never getting too far apart, in case they needed to pull back together for any leftover Confederate resistance."

  "And that's when they did all of the raping and pillaging?" Taylor asks.

  I shake my head. "It couldn't have been that bad, since Ada Parry wrote about it in her diaries so calmly, like Miss Evelyn said."

  "Sherman and his guys were real dicks," Celia assures us. "They ravaged farms and livestock and God knows what else. I mean, it horrified Southerners. All that time, they'd thought they were safe in their own homes, but there comes Sherman and his band, and soon people were hungry, had very few belongings, and were generally demoralized in every way. You saw Gone With the Wind. Seldom did the Union troops show sympathy for the towns and farms they raided, so it's an anomaly that Ada would write about any of the soldiers in any kind of a romantic manner."

  A pent-up sigh escapes from my lips. "Wars are just the stupidest things ever. Started by men because of pride and power and prestige. And who gets hurt? Women, children, animals, and soldiers who had to fight for what they thought was right."

  "Yeah, if women were in charge, things would be different." Taylor raises her fist high and cries out. "Alimenter aux femmes! Power to women!"

  I know I started the topic, but the pain from so many Civil War soldiers—from both sides—permeates the very land and air here in Radisson. The jillions of tombstones in the Radisson cemetery from that time are a testament to the death toll in the town. Citizens, strangers, slaves, and Indians. Death wasn't discriminatory. "I don't mean to put a damper on your twenty-first-century suffragette movement, but we need to concentrate on the diaries," I say. "Can we get back to this Major Fair character?"

  "Sure," Becca says. She carefully flips a couple of pages back in one of Ada's journals and reads out loud:

  "'Today Major Fair brought me an egg. I haven't had one in weeks. The soldiers have taken all of our chickens and either eaten them or cooped them up to take when they leave. If they leave. The egg was a special gift and an answer to my prayers to God. I believe Major Fair took pity on my soul because a few days earlier he had found me praying in what was left of my mother's treasured rose garden. I was crying to the Heavenly Father, asking his mercy and deliverance from this fate we were experiencing. Major Fair approached me with his hat in his hand and extended a tattered and yellowed handkerchief. The gesture was appreciated, even if it was from a Yankee.'

  "Then three days later, there's another entry," Becca tells us.

  "'Major Fair brought me vegetables today, along with two roasted chicken legs. One carrot, one potato, one radish, and one beet. I used the ingredients to make a soup for Father, who is still feeble and weak from the scarlet fever that spread through the county. Major Fair understands that my concern for Father and my younger sister is greater than that for my own well-being. I simply want these Yankees off my family's land so we can start anew.'"

  Jason clomps into the room holding a diary. "Are y'all talking about the Union soldier Ada had a crush on?"

  "A crush?" I ask, somewhat taken aback. "What have you been reading?"

  "Yeah," Jason says, thumbing through the journal. "She took walks with him and he brought her flowers and courted her like a proper gentleman, even though it was a weirded-out sitch."

  "You can say that again," Celia chimes in.

  "Go on," Taylor prompts her brother.

  "Well, Ada gushes on for a ton of pages about poetry they talked about and music and how she always wanted to travel to Vienna, Austria. He told her about Columbus, Ohio, where he was from, and how the people weren't any different than Georgians. The people of Columbus were just as affected by the war."

  As an aside, Celia says, "Did you know that ninety percent of the bullets used in the Civil War—and the railroad ties of the time—came from the factories in Ohio? The North's industrial strength allowed it—"

  I stop her with my hand. "Celia. Not now. History class is Monday."

  She blows her bangs out of her eyes. "But it's all part of the puzzle, Kendall. The more we understand about these people and what they experienced, the more we'll be able to talk to this soldier on his own level and convince him to leave Courtney alone, once and for all."

  My heart pings as I remember that I also need to help this ghost cross into the light. Into peace. "You're right, Cel."

  "What else did you read, Jason?" Taylor asks.

  He scratches his blond head. "I know I'm just a guy and stuff, but I swear Ada was bat-shit crazy over this Fair person, even though he was the enemy and occupying her land. He treated her like a lady and protected her from the other horny men in the unit."

  Becca snickers. "You just said horny and unit in the same sentence."

  Jason smacks at her with the old diary and the two of them laugh. Celia dives over to retrieve the precious historic book.

  "Jesus, Tillson! That thing's like a hundred and fifty years old! Careful!"

  "Sorry!"

  These diaries allude to a special relationship between Ada Parry and Major Nathan Fair, but was there more? I reach up and take the journal from Celia and clutch it to my heart. The metal buckle on the outside of the book radiates energy that tickles the ends of my fingers. Is this Ada's vigor coming through to me, like when I held Evelyn Crawford's keys?

  "Ada, if you're here, please talk to me," I whisper.

  Nothing. No psychic vibrations. No headache. No tingles.

  "Ada? I'd really love to connect with you."

  "We have a lot of questions," Celia pipes up, trying to help.

  Still, the airwaves are silent.

  I grip the book tighter, like that's going to help. "Please?"

  She's long passed, Kendall ...

  So are you.

  It's different ...

  How so?

  Ada Parry has crossed over and is at peace.

  And you're not. My shoulders sag forward. I can't even help Emily. How am I supposed to help Fair?

  I breathe in the musty tang of the old pages, trapped in time and filled with flowing memories of a society long gone. I can't fathom what it must have been like for Ada Parry—only eighteen years old—when the Union soldiers marched into her town and took over her home. Her mother gone and her father sick, Ada was the only barrier protecting her eleven-year-old sister, according to her missives. It was a total tectonic shift to her entire world. Gone were the afternoon picnics on the lush green lawns. No longer did their ballroom ring with sweet string melodies for fine ladies and gentlemen to reel along with. Those days of wine and roses were gone, replaced with hardships, lack of food, and immense poverty. Still, I clearly see Ada, her clothes dirty and torn, her hair falling from its usually neat bun, forging ahead through all of this. She stands tall against Sherman's men, keeping her family first and her own needs second.

  Until...

  It's so lucid to me, almost as if I'm sleepwalking through her life. No, that's not a good way to put it. It's more like flashed images. Frame-by-frame instances. The overall plot of her life's tale spun out for me. The message is clear. In a wor
ld gone mad around her, Ada Parry found love. Not just any love, but the love of her life. The kind that poets write about and pop singers croon about. A deep, powerful adoration based on mutual respect and intense attraction.

  "Ada Parry was in love with Nathan Fair."

  Jason's eyes pop and he stares at me. "Damn, Kendall. You are good. I'd just gotten to that part in the diary."

  Taylor holds up a bundle of letters that's held together with a faded pink ribbon. "That might explain these. Love letters."

  "They're from Fair to Ada, aren't they?" I don't even wait for her answer because the flowing words of unadulterated devotion scroll across my mind like I'm reading them myself.

  "My Southern beauty who's been touched by the sun to shine on my dreary day and make it bright with the light of your heart's glow."

  Wow. Fair knew how to woo.

  Taylor carefully rummages through the letters, scan-reading as fast as she can. At times, she places her hand to her heart. At others, her blue eyes fill with tears.

  "What is it?" Celia asks.

  One droplet escapes down Taylor's cheek, and she quickly swipes it away. I can see that she's thinking of the love her own parents once shared. Seeing the love of Fair and Ada on the page before her is conjuring up the melancholy she tries so hard to keep below the surface.

  "This is poetry to the one he loved," she says with a sniff.

  Jason's true thoughts are betrayed when I see him roll his eyes at his sister from across the room.

  "He professes his love and affection for her in such a beautiful way. Star-crossed lovers. Enemies in their time. Yet they found a way to be together."

  I need details. "Can you sum up what you've read?"

  Taylor nods and then shuffles through the precious memories in her hand. "Major Fair was in Radisson for two months while the brigade gathered supplies and made decisions as to the next course of action. He was with the part of the army that was portioned off to go to Savannah. He didn't want to go—begged his commanding officer to let him stay—but soon he was off. There's a letter here from Savannah and another from Augusta."

  I take over, using my psychic senses, because everything is suddenly crystal clear. Like a light has illuminated the pathway before me. All I can do is follow and relay what's being told to me. "I see him. It's the soldier I've run into. He matches the drawing Cel did. He's the one who constantly laughs in my head. The one who's toying with Courtney. The one who was so totally butt-crazy in love with Ada. Now, he's ... well, he's very bitter about everything."