by Alexie Aaron
She may have been responsible for Mia’s fall from grace which still pained her a little. Rose was ten and Mia was five when Mia confided in the older girl that she was afraid of the cemetery.
“Everyone is afraid of the cemetery, silly,” Rose said, putting a protective arm around Mia.
“Does everyone see the dead?” the child asked innocently.
“I don’t know, I’ll ask.”
And she did ask, every mother of each student in Bakersfield Kindergarten. Her technique was the same with each overprotective parent, “Mia sees dead people. Does your child?” Rose didn’t see it as mean. She wanted to know. Maybe all kindergarteners saw dead people. She wasn’t gossiping, she was just asking questions.
Poor Mia became persona non grata before the first grade. Rose saw her from time to time sitting alone on the swings while the other little girls jumped rope, standing apart while secrets were shared. Yes, there was a tinge of conscience but only a tinge.
What had got her started thinking of Mia today? Oh yes, the paranormal investigators. They were due back this weekend to start working at April Johnston’s house, and Rose’s help was needed. She, of course, offered to find them a place to stay, and she contracted Mia to set up temporary, lit road markers so the crews would be able to find their way to and from the Johnston property after dark. What Mike and Burt really wanted was Mia’s help day or night, but Mia said for Ruth to tell them to “go screw themselves.”
What was Mia’s problem? Wouldn’t getting evidence that there are ghosts validate Mia’s claims? Rose didn’t charge PEEPs anything because she knew she was getting something more precious than money. She was getting gossip.
Restoration Realty was the perfect place for Rose to work. The sheer nature of the realty market was gossip. Why are you selling? Where are you going? Where are you coming from? All were innocently answered questions. The answers were happily stored in Rose’s hungry mind. The business had renovated an old hardware store in the middle of town to use as their office. Big glass windows gave Rose a view of all that was going on along Bakersfield Road from the courthouse to the diner.
Rose’s attention wavered as she spotted the mayor’s wife exiting the beauty parlor. “That was twice this week,” she thought. “Something’s up.” She grabbed her coat and headed out the door to follow her.
Chapter Six
April was just about finished stowing away her breakables in preparation for the arrival of the ghost-hunting team when she noticed the room getting colder. “No, this can’t be,” she worried. “It’s only eight PM.” She turned around slowly and looked around the living room. The light from the lamps framing the sofa seemed to fade. No longer was she comforted by their golden glow. All she had was the cold blue light emanating from the kitchen that barely penetrated the gloom of the March evening.
“Calm down, it’s just going to be the lady, and she’s going to walk right by me and...” she swallowed hard, “go to the window.” She tried to comfort herself. Dealing with the paranormal investigators was one thing, but this was way outside her training.
She could see her breath now. The air was so cold it hurt to breathe in. April put her hand to her chest to make sure her heart was still beating.
The lady appeared as before, but this time she walked to the door. The knob rattled as the apparition tried to open it. Frustrated, the woman twisted harder. To April’s horror, the knob started to turn. The door opened inward slowly, and the lady faded away.
Relieved, April sprinted for the door to shut it. She barreled into the door, but it didn’t give an inch. “No, no, no, shut damn you!” She dug in her heels and pushed. She was rewarded with the door giving a little, and then it slammed back open causing April to fall on the floor. “Go away!” she screamed at the black mass forming on the threshold.
It wavered a bit, as if it were startled to see her there cowering on the floor, before it thickened, darker and darker, blocking out the light from the porch. Anger, malice and hunger pushed out of the void inside the now formed outline of a man.
April skidded back on her polished wood floor, trying to get a foothold in order to get up.
“CRACK!” the sound of an axe bounced off the walls. The black form vanished. For a brief moment, April thought she saw the image of a man tip his hat before he walked back into the yard with an axe in hand.
Chapter Seven
“Whatcha doing?” Whit’s voice broke through her concentration and scared the crap out of Mia. “Hell, hon, you just about jumped two feet.” He started laughing. “Hope you didn’t piss yourself.”
Mia recovered quickly and turned away from her truck bed where she was counting stakes. “What the hell, man? What the hell?” Mia pushed her hat back off her brow. “You should talk about pissing yourself.”
“Now don’t go and bring that old chestnut to light.” Whit walked over and leaned over the side of the truck bed and whistled. “Whatcha doing?” he repeated.
Mia looked with appreciation at Whit’s jean-clad backside before answering. “These are going to be markers,” she said as she leaned in and grabbed one. From her pocket she drew out a small battery-operated light. She affixed it to the top and turned it on. The light glared red for a moment and then started to blink. “Hopefully, the boys will be able to follow them in and out of the hollow.”
“The boys?”
Mia looked up and down the street. She was parked in front of Restoration Realty. Lowering her voice, she answered him, “The guys from Kansas. I call them the boys, but I understand they’re bringing some women with them.”
“Oh, the paranormal investigators. Damn, I pretty much thought that happened already.”
“So, you heard about them.”
“Don’t act surprised, I’m in the loop.” Whit puffed up and straightened his shoulders. “Law enforcement professional, that’s me. I have my finger...”
“Go to hell, you’re Whitney Pee Pants,” Mia dismissed him and disconnected the light before putting the stake back in the truck. “So you working undercover?” she asked, taking in the broad set of shoulders straining in the too small varsity baseball T-shirt.
“Nah, day off. I’m supposed to be cleaning out the garage. Sherry wants to have a garage sale next weekend.”
“Wannna earn some money?” Mia asked seriously.
“I keep telling you that I’m not a whore. You got to go to the big city...”
“You shithead, I could use some help. That clay is going to wear me out, pounding in these stakes,” Mia explained.
Whit looked at the tiny little fireball in front of him and thought, why not? “Sure, but I don’t want money. I want you to bake me some cookies.”
“Which kind?”
“Oh, you know what kind, the ones you won a blue ribbon for.”
“Quackers? Lord, that was five years ago. Okay, two dozen Quackers for the day’s work,” she said, holding out her hand.
Whit shook it. “Deal.”
“Can you leave now, or do you have to ask wifey?”
“Nope, better not. You got a sledgehammer?”
“Yep, I got two,” Mia said. “Let’s roll.”
Whit joined her inside the truck after grabbing a jacket from his car. Mia backed out and headed out towards the hollow, oblivious to the open-mouthed Rose who had witnessed the whole thing from just behind Pulaski’s butcher shop sign on the corner.
“So Whitney doesn’t have to ask Sherry... I wonder if Sherry knows that,” she said aloud as her whole face lit up with glee.
“Pardon?” Ed Jenkins asked as he walked by her. “Are you talking to me?”
“No, just me talking to myself,” she explained. “So how is that new baby?” she asked to change the subject.
“Fine, fine. Karen is losing her mind with the late nights but...”
So Ed says Karen is losing her mind, thought Rose. Now I wonder if the Ladies Aid at Saint Michael’s knows about this? Rose listened intently, skewing the facts as they were gi
ven to her way of thinking.
~
Sherry stepped back and admired her work. “Shit.” The colors were all wrong. “Fuck this!” She slammed down the paintbrush and sunk to her knees. “How the hell am I supposed to create within these tacky walls?” She started to cry and gave in to the despair that she kept hidden from Whit and the world.
She rolled on her back and reran her life plan in her head. First, she would be an exhibited artist at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. That would make her mother’s looks of condescension stop. Then she would move on to Paris, Whit or no Whit. She would hate to leave him behind, but he was what he was, a half-rate northern Illinois county deputy sheriff. How was that going to look in Art Today?
A smile replaced the tears, and she got up, picked up her brush and started again.
~
Whack! The sound of the sledgehammer hitting wood echoed across the hollow. Whit hit it again as Mia nodded. This was the last marker. She placed it on the northwest corner of the turn into Murphy’s place. She smiled to herself as she listened to the whack of the sledge followed by the crack of an axe. Murphy was keeping up with Whit which was pretty good considering Murph had a hundred and fifty years on the deputy.
“This good?” Whit asked, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
“Yep. Fantastic.” Mia fixed the last signal light on, tested it, and when it performed, she turned it off. “Thank you so much. I don’t know what was in my head when I thought I could do this alone.”
“Fuzz.”
“What? Oh, yeah fuzz. You’re probably right. I have to let the homeowner know I’m finished. Want to come?”
“No, I’m going to stand here and hitch a ride home.” Whit looked at her and shook his head. “You don’t want to go in there,” he said, nodding towards April’s house, “do you?”
“Long story...” Mia said quietly. “There’s something in there.”
“Well, I hope so, otherwise all of this trouble would be for nothing.”
“No, it’s not that... Sure, she has probably seen something. All old houses have memories that get brought out once you start working on them. You’d be surprised what happens when you tear out old plumbing.”
“Plumbing?”
Mia shook her head again. “Whit, I’m going to tell you something that I don’t want to hear all over town or CNN,” she said, looking him in the eyes. “Can I trust you?”
He sighed, “Always could, always will. After all I’m a law...”
“Professional,” she finished and smiled. “The reason I don’t want to go in the house is that there are memories there, and I don’t want to see them. Something bad happened. I don’t have any proof, but the feeling I got last time I was out here upset my stomach.”
“You mean the axeman is back?” Whit paled.
“No, Murphy never left.”
“Murphy! You’re on first names with this ghost?” Whit asked appalled.
“Shhh, listen. I’ll tell you about Murphy later, but right now I need that gray matter between your ears engaged.”
“Does he talk to you?” Whit asked, refusing to move on.
“I can’t hear him if he does,” she explained. “Murphy died one winter chopping down a tree. By the time his people noticed he was missing, he was frozen with his axe in his hand. They put him in the old ice house.”
“There’s no ice house...”
“There was one over there by the woodpile. They put him in it and sealed it shut. Maybe their intention was to bury him in the spring, but they forgot, and he’s still in there.”
“So in a sense, he had a burial. Why didn’t he move on?”
“I don’t know, but I do know that this place meant more to Murphy than anything in the world. He loves it here. This is his religion, taking care of his homestead and chopping wood.”
“If you can’t hear him, how do you know all of this?”
“Well, I can see him, and he responds to me when I talk. I gather things from his actions mostly, sort of like performance art.”
“Did you know him when he, he...”
“Scared the piss out of you? No, I’d seen him, but we weren’t pals or anything.”
“What a bizarre conversation we’re having. So, if you’re in with Murphy, then why are you afraid of the house?”
“Finally, we come to the point. Murphy won’t even go in the house. Why?”
“I don’t know. You’re the expert on Murphy.”
“He’s scared I think. Before they renovated the house, he didn’t go in because she’s in there. It was her space. He was just fine with the barn and the great outdoors.”
“Okay, who is she?” Whit asked.
“Don’t know. Once, I saw a woman looking out the window. I think that’s who the Johnston woman is seeing.”
“But this isn’t who is scaring you and Murphy?”
“No, because she never caused any trouble before. She was cool inside, Murph was cool outside, and I was cool staying away from this place.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You are being quite understanding, so unlike you,” Mia teased him.
“No, I’m thinking that this is all a dream, and any moment, Sherry is going to shake me awake and ask me why I’m saying your name in my sleep.”
“You talk about me often?”
“You wish... Okay, let’s go in there together. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and she’ll step out on the porch.” He thought a moment, and his blue eyes lit up. “I have an idea. Let’s get real muddy, and she won’t want us in the house.”
“You’re a genius!” Mia squealed in delight. “All this time I just thought you were a piece of meat.” She kicked up some dirt and began rubbing it on her clothes.
~
The woman that answered the door bore a faint resemblance to April Johnston. Her demeanor was cowed, and her appearance was messy. Her hair was wild, and it looked like she had slept in her clothes. She reached out a hand and touched Mia’s arm as if she was testing the solidity of her.
“Miss Johnston, are you alright?” Mia asked.
April pulled her hand through her hair and started crying. “No, I’m not alright,” she said as Mia gently moved her away from the door and encouraged her to sit on the porch steps.
Whit was less than useless. He just stood there and gaped.
“I haven’t slept all night,” April said flatly.
“Are you excited about PEEPs coming? I know you must be excited,” Mia fished.
“I wish that was it. The lady was alright, but last night... That changed everything.”
“Why don’t you tell us about it? I’m a good listener, and Whit’s a law enforcement specialist,” Mia added as if Whit’s occupation would validate them as trustworthy.
April sniffed and looked up at Whit who did his best to emote a sense of security. Mia noticed Murphy standing at the corner of the house. Was he listening?
“It started around eight o’clock last night...” April recounted everything that happened as if she was reading a script. Her voice was flat and only wavered when she told them about fighting the door. “I was so certain that black thing was going to hurt me when... there was this noise, and it disappeared.” She sighed, “If it wasn’t for the faded man, I really think it would have.”
Mia’s eyes shot a look at Murphy as April continued to describe him. Murphy just pushed his hat back on his head and returned her stare.
“So, you both think I’m nuts?” April looked from Mia to Whit.
“No, no, I’m just shocked,” Whit admitted. “A lot to take in for this country cop.”
Mia flashed a wry smile his way and sobered before talking to April. “Frankly, I think you’re very brave. I mean, I would have started packing the first time that lady appeared, but you stayed, what, two weeks? After last night, I would have relocated at least ten states from here.” Mia felt bad about lying, and Murphy and Whit both gave her a bullshit look, each in their own special way
.
“Well, PEEPs is coming tomorrow, and I’ve already booked into the B&B down by the water for the week they’re going to be here. Maryanne, the owner, said I could come tonight.”
“That sounds like a smart idea. How soon are you leaving?”
“I have another hour on Redwing’s time before I can leave.”
“Beg your pardon?” Whit asked, “Redwing?”
“The phone company. I’m a customer service rep. I switched my hours to daytime while the investigation was going on,” she explained. “I normally work at night. It pays better.”
“I hear ya,” he agreed. Whit, who never seemed to have enough cash, pulled many a night shift to please Sherry.
“We have all the road markers up for PEEPs. I’ll be back before dark to turn them on tomorrow,” Mia said, getting to her feet.
“I’ll let them know, um...” April looked at Whit. “Do you mind coming in and having a look around?”
Whit was startled by the request. “I guess, maybe, I should but...” he indicated his muddy state.
April winced. “Just take off your shoes.”
Mia shot a sympathetic look at him. “I’ll just wait for you outside. I have a call to make.”
Whit followed April inside, and Mia grinned as she noticed he left the door open. She waited until she was halfway down the drive and her Bluetooth in before addressing Murphy. “What a hero you are.”
Murphy just shrugged. He pointed to the house.
“She’s leaving, at least for the nights. You know those guys I was with? Well, they’re coming back tomorrow and bringing a shitload of equipment... stuff... cameras and things.” Mia paused not knowing if Murphy was getting it. “Anyway, you stay clear or you may get your photo taken.”
Murphy straightened up, put the axe on his shoulder and smiled.
“Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind having a copy of that picture, you handsome devil,” Mia laughed. “I’m serious. I’d put you on the mantel right next to Grandma Fred.”