He was pensive, but nodded. “I know. I can understand that. I just want us back where we were, back to normal. Back to our plans for our life.”
“I do, too. Let me do what I have to do to get past this, and then maybe we can get on with that life. It’s what I want, too, Roger.”
Even as she said it, a tiny voice asked, Really? Could she really leave behind what she knew now and go back to who she was? Pursue the life she had planned? Be the person she was, who Roger wanted her to be, before she knew what she knew now?
Then again, maybe the reason her family didn’t communicate with her, had never shown themselves to her, was because they were gone, moved on. Maybe there was a message, after all—that she should do the same. Maybe that explained the Ace. Starting anew. Starting over.
The path was clear again, here in Roger’s arms. She’d been one person as a child, in her past, but she’d built a new life since then. She was a different person now. She had different wants and goals, and she’d worked hard for them. She didn’t want to ignore her past, but she also had to find a way to lay it to rest. She’d been able to close out the ghosts before. Obviously, Patrice’s murder had opened some doors, and Sophie was determined to close them again and get on with her life.
“I need to figure this out, and when it’s over, it’s over, Roger, everything is still going to happen for us.”
His arms tightened around her. “I love you, Sophie. I want to help, and if that means you have to pursue this ghost business or your past questions for now to put it all to behind you, then that’s what you have to do. I’m sorry I’ve acted like a lunatic. When I saw you with that guy the other day, and heard the way you cried out, I thought—I don’t know what I thought, but I should have trusted you more.”
It was what she needed to hear, what she’d been craving from him. “Yes, you should have, but I could have told you about it, too. I guess we have to get better at that. I’ll need to talk to him again. He’s the one who can help me work this out.”
Roger’s jaw straightened slightly, but he nodded. “If that’s what you think, then I can live with it. I checked him out, and he’s legit. In the meanwhile, though, your safety is my main concern.”
She smiled at him, feeling lighter than she had in days. “You can keep following me, I suppose. Maybe you should follow me back to my place, right now,” she suggested in a clear invitation.
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” he answered with a sexy smile, slinging his arm around her as they walked back toward the cars. Sophie curled in close, not wanting to lose the contact. She still held her deck in her hand, and tried to shove it back in her pocket, but felt some of the cards drop to the ground.
“Oops,” she said, pulling away to pick them up and pausing as she found several cards face down on the grass except for one, The Tower, which faced her squarely, sending a chill over her. She picked it up slowly, a distinct buzz of a warning shooting straight through her body.
“Sophie? What’s the matter?”
She shook her head, smiling at Roger and shoving the card back deep into the middle of the deck, and into her pocket. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Let’s go,” she said, though the uncomfortable hum of a warning stayed with her all the way back to the city.
Chapter Eleven
Sophie and Gabe went down into the cellar of the house in Charlestown, focused on their plan. She was rejuvenated after spending time with Roger and getting her head on straight about her life. She slept well and woke up more determined than ever to put this mess behind her. Spending the morning with Gabe, she’d gone through the KGD, the Known Ghosts Database, spending half the day searching photos of ghost sightings in Boston to no avail. Her ghost was apparently exclusively hers. After a late lunch/early dinner, they’d come here.
“I have to thank you again. After the other day, I wasn’t sure you’d want to talk to me again,” she said nervously, rubbing her hands together in the damp cold of the basement.
“I’m sorry it went the way it did. I thought that you wouldn’t want anything to do with me after I went ahead with the session,” he said apologetically, pushing his glasses back in place. “I understand completely why your fiancé was angry, but I’m sorrier it was so hard on you.”
“I was upset at the time, but I’m glad we did it. You were right. Knowing is better than not knowing. Once I get this all settled I can move on with my life. That’s what it’s all about.”
Gabe looked at her quietly and adjusted the settings on his video camera, the only equipment he’d brought with him.
“I think one way to proceed here would be to do a reading and see what happens. Maybe you can set out some cards to just get a feel for the spot, what happened here, and it might stir up some energy, get Eliza’s attention?”
Sophie shrugged. “Maybe. I didn’t have much luck trying that with my family.”
“But they had never appeared to you before. Not all deaths, even murders, result in ghostly activity. Eliza is a known quantity to some extent. She’s appeared to you once, so I think it’s reasonable to assume she might appear again. Remember, this power comes from inside of you. They are attracted to your power, not the opposite, so it’s learning how to control that.”
“Okay,” Sophie said, taking a seat on the landing at the bottom of the steps, uncertain how to approach her reading. It all felt pretty un-natural to her, but she tried to relax and remember the last time she’d seen Eliza. Soon the thoughts became words, and for lack of a better idea, she began to talk out loud, forgetting Gabe was even there as he moved back to a dark corner of the basement.
“Eliza, my name is Sophie, and I’m here to help,” she said simply, unsure how to communicate with a ten-year-old girl who was also a one-hundred-year-old ghost. “You shouldn’t be afraid any more. I know it’s confusing, but if you can let me talk to you, maybe we can make you feel better. I could try to answer your questions,” Sophie said softly, feeling some level of kinship suddenly for the confused young girl.
“I know what it’s like, to wonder why this bad thing happened to you, why you’re stuck and can’t seem to move forward,” Sophie said, finishing her shuffle and turning out a card.
“The Empress. Of course. Your mother. That’s who you want. I can understand that, too. My mother left me, too,” Sophie said, shivering as she felt the temperature of the basement dip drastically.
Her attention sharpened. This was actually working. She tried to maintain her concentration through a mixture of excitement and fear. The last time Eliza had made an appearance, she wasn’t exactly quiet and peaceful.
“I’ve always missed my mother, even though I’m also angry with her for leaving me. Your mother came here to find you, Eliza, but it was too late. Do you understand? If you could talk to your mother, what would you say?”
Sophie turned out another card.
“The Devil,” she said quietly, respecting the power of the Trumps facing her, but also feeling a tingle of confusion, her intuition leading her in a different direction than she’d been going. She saw a shimmer in the air before her, and her stomach vaulted suddenly, the room spinning.
“Sophie. Are you okay?”
Disappointingly, the shimmer faded.
She placed her hand on the cool platform of the landing, and took a deep breath. “Yeah. I always have some kind of physical response to their appearance, a headache or feeling dizzy or sick,” she said shakily. “She can hear me, but I’m not clear on what’s going on yet.”
Sophie focused and tried to get her steadiness back, and laid out another card.
“Eight of Swords.” She looked at the three cards together, and took into account that this was the message of a ten year old girl who would very likely think more literally than symbolically, even if she was a spirit. Gabe had said ghosts, in a lot of ways, were like regular people, so Sophie tried reading the cards the way a ten year old might see them.
“Your mother was a good, loving person, but your stepf
ather was evil—abusive—he hurt her. He’d been keeping her prisoner. She wouldn’t ask for help, even though you always wished she would. You wanted to ask, but she warned you not to. No one would have questioned him, or stopped him from doing what he was doing,” she said, thinking of the stories of domestic violence that Roger sometimes conveyed to her, and wondering how some things never changed. “It’s not your fault, Eliza. It wasn’t her fault either. He was just bad.”
Sophie fought the slight nausea that attacked again and focused on the shimmering in front of her, noticing the same silvery light in two other spots of the cellar. The image of the girl she saw on the stairs appeared yet again, three different ones, all seemingly ignoring each other. One simply stared at Sophie with wary eyes. One looked up the stairs, as if waiting for something. The other spun angrily, pushing a table over with a crash, startling all in the room, human and spirit.
“Eliza, the only way I can help you is if you can try to tell me what you want, but I need you to calm down and help me,” Sophie said. Kids wanted to help, to be involved, and this one needed to know she had some control over what was happening to her, or what had happened to her.
Picking up the cards, Sophie took another approach. “Sometimes, we choose cards to represent us, who we are. Which card would you like to be?” she asked, trying to make it sound like a game for the young girl.
A clear image came to her mind, flowing robes and flowers in her hair, and Sophie smiled. “A Princess, of course. But which one? Cups?”
Yes.
She found the Princess of Cups and laid it out on the floor. “This is a nice card. Doesn’t she have a pretty dress?” Sophie asked, as if the girl standing before her were any normal little girl. Brightness increased around her as she noticed the aspect of Eliza that had been staring at the door moved closer, as if curious.
“The Princess of Cups shows that you were a loving child, Eliza. You had a kind heart, like your mother. But what about how smart you were?” Sophie laid out the Princess of Swords, and then the Wands, “And creative. And you loved to play outside, do you remember?” She asked as she laid out the Princess of Coins. “All of these parts of you belong together, Eliza. That’s the only way we can help you find your mom,” Sophie tried to explain.
Still, the angry, feral version of the child stayed to the back corner, peering behind the turned table.
“I know. It’s not easy to trust grown-ups after what you’ve suffered.”
Sophie noticed that the image of Eliza before her was a little more solid, and there were only two of them now. Her heart raced; the ghost was integrating, becoming more whole. Intuitively, she knew Gabe was right. This was a healing thing, a good thing.
“Show me what I can do to help, Eliza,” Sophie said, and waited quietly, shuffling the cards. She stopped and turned one out.
The Hermit.
Sophie frowned. The Hermit was about meditation and withdrawl from the world, seeking wisdom, looking inside instead of outward for what you need. How could this apply to a ten year old? Sophie looked at the card again, using her Goddess Deck which was a little different than the traditional decks, but it was gentler for this situation.
The image of Chang, the Chinese Moon Goddess, looked up at her, though the image of the more traditional Hermit, with his lantern and his stick, pushed forward in her mind. The Hermit was about seeking. In the simplest sense, a child’s sense, the Hermit was looking for something with his lamp.
“Yes, I know you’re looking for your mother,” she said, and decided to take a chance, searching in her bag for her more traditional deck, since those images were the ones reaching her anyway.
She quickly found the Empress and then the Devil. Sophie found the Hermit as well and put that card by the Chang card. She looked up at Eliza. “Do you understand? Your mother has moved on. She isn’t. . .here,” Sophie whispered, watching Eliza walk back to the corner where her other aspect stood. Beneath a defunct oil lamp.
The girls became one, and Sophie was hit with a powerful force of emotion, like a punch in the stomach. Her hands trembled as she shuffled again. She dealt Judgment. Resurrection, rebirth, and. . .the image of a grave.
She’s right here!
The child’s cry was so plaintive and sad that it caused physical pain for Sophie, just for a moment, before she could focus again. The little girls stood, finally becoming a single image of the girl so real Sophie thought she could reach out and touch her. She turned to Gabe, who had been like a ghost himself, almost invisible in the corner.
“Gabe, you said things are routinely destroyed and knocked over down here?”
“Yes.”
“Is there any pattern to her destruction?”
“No one mentioned anything,” he said, sounding both awestruck and bewildered.
“I think I know what she wants. She hasn’t been searching or throwing tantrums. She’s been trying to show everyone where to look,” Sophie said sadly, somberly.
The ghost of the young girl stood in the corner by the upset table, staring down, ignoring them completely.
“We need to get someone in here to dig.”
* * *
Several hours later, near midnight, Sophie sat in the car, exhausted and practically vibrating with excitement at the same time. She’d done it. She’d interacted with the dead girl, and she’d managed to find out why the little ghost had been causing such a ruckus. Eliza wasn’t searching for her mother’s spirit; she’d wanted someone to find her mother’s body, buried in that basement floor under those tables and shelves. The moment Sophie had figured it out, Eliza had faded from view. Sophie wondered where she went, and if she’d come back. Time would tell.
“Can we talk with you two for a moment?” one of the officers who had come to the scene beckoned them back to the cellar, where Howard Prentiss, the owner of the building, stood, looking very worried.
“Sure,” Gabe responded, taking Sophie by the elbow and going back down the cellar steps where another officer taped areas off several areas, in each corner of the basement.
“The spot you indicate does show some skeletal remains in a shallow grave,” the young officer reported. “But there are three other disturbed areas down here.”
Sophie wrapped her arms around herself, looking at the taped off areas.
Gabe frowned. “What are you saying?”
“We scanned three more graves down here with the GPR.”
“GPR?”
“Ground penetrating radar scanner. From the composition of the dirt, they seem much more recent. We have a team coming now to start excavating the burial site. You two are going to have to stick around and offer a former statement about finding that first body and anything else you might know.”
“Three. Three more,” Sophie said, seeing Eliza form again over in the corner, the little girl’s empty eyes meeting hers for a long moment before she disappeared again. Sophie swallowed. “What a nightmare.”
Eliza wanted her mother found, but she also had to know she was leading them to other graves. She’d been trying to tell someone, to get someone to notice, so that maybe it would stop.
Sophie pulled the deck of cards out of her bag, looking down at The Hermit, resting at the top of the deck. Could it be the killer? The person who put the bodies in the basement? A man who lived alone, maybe even an academic of some sort? Someone who sought knowledge? A seeker? A researcher or investigator of some sort?
“If you can just wait here, a detective will be on the scene shortly to take your statements,” the officer said, turning back to his partner, but not quite letting them out of eyesight.
“Hell of a night,” Gabe said, and Sophie murmured agreement as they waited to be interviewed. Here she was again, in the middle of death. But surely no one could think she was a serial killer?
She groaned, reaching into her bag.
“What’s wrong?” Gabe asked.
“I forgot to turn my cell phone back on.” She looked at the screen and saw a lis
t of messages from Mags and Roger marked urgent, and her stomach knotted as she whispered, “This can’t be good.”
She jumped out of her skin as the phone rang in her hand, and she saw it was Margaret. This late?
“Sophie! Where have you been?” Mags sounded uncharacteristically worked up.
“I’ve been with Gabe on a ghost hunt. We have kind of a. . .situation here. Roger knew – what’s going on?”
“It’s the store,” Margaret choked, sucking in a hard breath to steady her voice. “Someone got in here and did a lot of damage.”
“What do you mean? What kind of damage? How much?”
“They made a mess, knocked things off shelves, broke a bunch of stuff. But they didn’t take any money, didn’t even check the register.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can, but I can’t say when,” Sophie said guiltily.
“The police were here, and I’ve been cleaning up all night. I was trying to get in touch with you for hours,” Margaret said, not completely able to hide the subtle note of accusation.
“I’m so sorry, Mags, I just can’t be there right now. We have police on this end, too, but I can’t say why yet. Please, go home, and we’ll talk in the morning,” Sophie said
“I can’t leave things like this, so I’ll stay and get as much done as I can. Mind if I crash up in your place later?”
“Of course not, Mags. I’m so sorry I can’t be there.”
“It’s okay. I’ll deal with it. Are you okay?” Margaret asked.
“Yeah. I’ll explain when I see you. Thanks so much,” Sophie said, grateful for her friend’s understanding. She hung up and thought about calling Roger, but as she did, saw two more vehicles pull up to the curb. Gabe leaned in.
“What’s wrong?”
“Someone broke in to the store and trashed it.”
He frowned. “How bad?”
“Hard to say from Margaret’s description. She was pretty upset still. I should be there,” she said.
“Well, looks like maybe you just got a break,” he said, as they watched Roger emerge from the car at the curb. They all froze, looking at each other, and Roger shook his head in disbelief, making his way to them.
Past Tense Page 17