Revealing the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  Samantha stared at her son. “Danny, can you answer a question for me?”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  Samantha glanced around the group before going on. “Do you talk to your father? Or see him?”

  Danny nodded. “Sure. Not all the time, but sometimes.”

  “You never told me,” Samantha said.

  “You always get sad when you talk about him, so I didn’t tell you. And I don’t think he can talk to you, because you can’t hear him. He doesn’t exactly talk to me in words, but I can hear what he’s thinking.” Danny spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, as if talking to his dead father was an ordinary thing to do.

  “And how do you and Ellie talk?”

  “Ellie’s better at it than me. Mostly we talk out loud, but sometimes I hear words from her.”

  Samantha glanced at Abby. “Ellie?”

  “She’s not related, but she’s been communicating with some of her relatives all her life—without her mother or father knowing it.”

  “Dead relatives?” Samantha whispered.

  “Yes. It seems to be a hereditary ability. I’ve talked to a number of mine, since I moved to Massachusetts. And I think I told you that Ned and I are related, back several generations. Whatever it is seems to hang around for a long time. But as far as we know, we can’t do it with random strangers. Ellie told me she could link to Danny, and I get a little spark from him, but that’s all.”

  Samantha leaned back in her chair and seemed to wilt. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  “Please don’t cry!” Abby said. “It may be strange, but there’s nothing evil about it. Look, I already know that Danny’s a very smart boy, but sometimes he has trouble dealing with the real world. This ability can help him with that, if he works at it.”

  “And what about his teachers? Are they going to label him a psycho?”

  “I won’t kid you—you have to be careful. Ned and I, we’ve been doing some research since we learned about this, and we can see that a lot of people distrust it. I can’t blame them. And it can be hard to handle for the person who has it. I had some ancestors in Salem, I found. Two of them were hanged as witches while my direct ancestor watched, and let me tell you, that was painful, even after centuries. Strong emotions, both good and bad, linger for a very long time.”

  Samantha turned to Jack, who had sat watching her silently. “What about you? You’re the other new kid with this. How are you handling it?”

  “It’s been only a few days. And I don’t go around like with an antenna, seeing if I can pick up somebody else. But let me ask you this: how does it happen that we all met? My aunt Mary, who I never knew, suffered in this house. I came here because Ned’s mother happened to hire me for a plumbing job a while back, and I didn’t even know she had a son then. Abby here takes care of Ellie one afternoon a week, and Abby just happens to be there at the school and meets Danny. You bring him over here on a day I happen to be here, and look where that’s brought us. I’m not going to try to guess the whys and hows, but tell me there isn’t a reason behind our coming together?”

  “You’re thinking God, or Fate, or something like that?” Samantha demanded.

  “I’m not going to try to guess. Can’t we just say ‘something we don’t understand’ for now?”

  Samantha was shaking her head. “I can’t do this. My husband’s dead. I’ve got a child who I love with all my heart, but he’s got problems that he’ll never outgrow. I moved here so he could go to a good school, but I don’t have any friends here—or anywhere else, really. My job sucks but I sure don’t want to move again right now.”

  “Samantha,” Jack said, “you’ve got a family now. Maybe we’re all three generations twice removed, but we look after our own. The Maguires would welcome you, since there’s a good chance that Danny’s one of us. And you don’t have to talk about this other thing unless you want to.”

  “How are you going to deal with it, with your family?”

  “I don’t know. Most of my family has hard heads, and they’d laugh at me. But that doesn’t make it any less real. And if it’ll help you with your son, you need it.”

  Everyone sat in a stunned silence for long minutes. Then Abby said, “Ned, you’ve been awfully quiet so far. You have anything to add?”

  “I didn’t want to interrupt. I haven’t talked to Jack or Samantha, although I’ve watched Ellie and Danny together and I like what I see, for both of them. And you don’t know me. I’m a scientist, and I own a small tech company. I didn’t know I had this thing. But I did have a friend when I was about Danny’s age who wasn’t really there, but I never asked anybody about him, and he just kind of disappeared after a while. And when I got older I stopped thinking about it at all.

  “Then I met Abby, or she kind of fell over in front of me, and it all came back. She’s going to be mad at me forever because I didn’t tell her about it for a long time, because I was using her as a test subject. Believe me, I’ve apologized over and over. Now, before you get scared, I’m not interested in this because I want to make a lot of money or get famous. I do it because I want to understand it, because I have it and Abby has it, and apparently so do you both, and other people we know. It’s one of those things nobody really talks about, but it’s real. Abby wants to use this ability as a way to help kids like Danny, make it easier for them to communicate with other people. I think it’s a great idea, but we haven’t worked out any details yet.”

  He leaned forward in his chair. “We’d love to have Danny involved, because he’s already Ellie’s friend, and he’s smart, and he’s still open to the idea. But you don’t have to get him involved unless you’re comfortable with it. And there’s no deadline, except I think it would be a shame to tell him to forget about it. Look, he says he’s talking to his father. Maybe he’s hallucinating, but maybe it’s real, and it’s the only way he’ll ever know him. You want to tell him it’s wrong and he shouldn’t? At least give him the chance. And trust him.”

  “I need some time to think about all this,” Samantha finally said. “I know you mean well, and I know you believe what you’re saying, but it’s a lot to wrap my head around right now. Can we just set it aside for the moment?”

  “Of course. Listen, does anybody want to eat? Or I could just send you home with stew and cake—I won’t be offended.”

  Jack cocked at eyebrow at Samantha and smiled. “You look like you could use a good home-cooked meal, and I’m sure the boy would like it too. What say we keep our talk to easier things, like how the Patriots are doing this season?”

  Samantha managed a watery smile. “Deal. But I’ve never had much time to watch the games on Sunday, so you’ll have to explain some of the rules to me.”

  Jack turned to Danny. “Does that suit you, young man?”

  “Well, I’m hungry, but I don’t know much about football. What do I call you?”

  “Hmm, good question. How about Grampa Jack? But maybe not in front of my family, at least for now. And Bill would be kind of a cousin, but you can call him Bill. All right?”

  “That’s good . . . Grampa.”

  “Can I dish up now?” Abby asked plaintively. “Because I’m starving too.”

  Ned stood up. “I’ll help.” He followed Abby to the kitchen, while Samantha and Jack stayed at the dining room table and began to talk tentatively. He said quietly, “Well done. If ever I need to do an ad campaign, I’d hire you. I think you won them over.”

  “I hope so. Samantha needs a family, and so does Danny, and it looks like somehow we found one for them.”

  Epilogue

  Samantha and Danny, and Jack as well, had left fairly quickly after dinner, pleading work and school, and Abby didn’t try to keep them any longer. They had a lot to think about, but they’d made a good start in understanding what had happened with Mary, and how it had somehow carried forward into the present.

  But after doing the dishes with Ned, Abby was still oddly restless. “You ready to go up?” Ned asked. />
  “I . . . think I need to go up to the attic now.” She didn’t know how to explain, but it seemed to be important to her.

  “You want company?” Ned asked.

  “Yes, I think so. Why don’t you turn out the lights and make sure the doors are locked, and then meet me up there?”

  “Will do,” Ned said, leaving Abby free to make her way upstairs. On the second floor she paused in front of the attic door, uncertain of what she was looking for. Finally she opened the door, and cold air rushed over her. She fumbled with the light switch, then went carefully up the stairs. She should have brought a flashlight, she thought, but she had a feeling that what she was looking for would be visible without one.

  At the top of the stairs she turned toward what had been Mary’s room. The door was shut, but it opened easily when she turned the handle. For a long moment she stood in the doorway, listening, searching for some connection, some sense of the poor young woman who had been the room’s occupant nearly a century earlier.

  Something kindled in her mind. Nothing like a sound, or maybe an electrical tickle. “Mary?” she whispered. Nobody answered, not in words, but Abby could sense that something had changed in the atmosphere in the room. But Mary’s presence—if that was what it was—was elusive and formless.

  Ned came up the stairs to stand behind Abby. She didn’t turn to greet him but said only, “Put you hands on my shoulders. Please?”

  Ned did, without comment. They stood there for a few seconds, until their abilities merged and Abby could pick up more than before. A wisp of a voice, a sense of an intelligence, something hard to define, and fleeting.

  But she recognized something, vague though it was. She smiled into the darkness. “Thank you, Mary.”

  Then it was gone, and Abby turned to Ned, still smiling. “I think Mary was autistic.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Something about the thoughts or feelings or whatever it was she was projecting reminded me of the kids at the school. And in Danny. It’s hard to explain, because it’s kind of a jumble of sights and sounds and impressions, but I’ve felt that before.”

  “It’s not just wishful thinking on your part?” Ned asked carefully.

  “I don’t think so. And if she was autistic it would explain a lot of things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like why Mary made a good servant. She probably didn’t talk much, but she understood orders and could carry them out well. She did her job quietly. And being a good Catholic girl and Irish as well as autistic, she probably didn’t understand what that jerk of a kid wanted from her until it was too late. And she probably didn’t understand that she was pregnant and had no idea what to do, which may have led to her death. I know, this is a lot of guesswork, but it fits with what little we know. Poor Mary. None of this was her fault. The Baxters got a quiet servant, probably for no more than her room and board, and her family was probably happy that she had a place. And if you want one more piece of the puzzle, I’ve read articles that suggest that autism can be hereditary, which might have had something to do with Danny’s autism. I know, there’s nothing like proof here, but it all seems to fit.”

  “Are you going to tell Jack?” Ned asked.

  “I don’t know yet. He seems to have accepted Danny into the family—and pretty quickly, I have to say—and I don’t know if having more of the story would make things any better for anyone. I may just leave things where they are. I’m glad they all found each other, and I’d like to think Mary played some small part in making that happen.”

  Books by Sheila Connolly

  See all of Sheila Connolly’s books

  available now at Kobo!

  Once She Knew

  “The Rising of the Moon”

  Reunion with Death

  “Under the Hill”

  “A Necessary Death”

  Relatively Dead Mysteries

  Relatively Dead

  Seeing the Dead

  Defending the Dead

  Watch for the Dead

  Search for the Dead

  Revealing the Dead

  Orchard Mysteries

  One Bad Apple

  Rotten to the Core

  Red Delicious Death

  A Killer Crop

  Bitter Harvest

  Sour Apples

  “Called Home”

  Golden Malicious

  Picked to Die

  A Gala Event

  Seeds of Deception

  A Late Frost

  Museum Mysteries

  Fundraising the Dead

  Let’s Play Dead

  Fire Engine Dead

  “Dead Letters”

  Monument to the Dead

  Razing the Dead

  Privy to the Dead

  Dead End Street

  County Cork Mysteries

  Buried in a Bog

  Scandal in Skibbereen

  An Early Wake

  A Turn for the Bad

  Cruel Winter

  Many a Twist

  Victorian Village Mysteries

  Murder at the Mansion

  Writing as Sarah Atwell

  Glassblowing Mysteries

  Through a Glass, Deadly

  Pane of Death

  Snake in the Glass

  About the Author

  After collecting too many degrees and exploring careers ranging from art historian to investment banker to professional genealogist, Sheila Connolly began writing mysteries in 2001 and is now a full-time writer.

  She wrote her first mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime under the name Sarah Atwell, and the first book, Through a Glass, Deadly, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

  Under her own name, her Orchard Mystery Series debuted with One Bad Apple as has been followed by nine more books in the series.

  Her Museum Mysteries, set in the Philadelphia museum community, opened with Fundraising the Dead and continued with seven more books.

  Her new series, the County Cork Mysteries, debuted with Buried in a Bog and was followed by three more novels.

  She has also published ten original ebooks with Beyond the Page: Sour Apples, Once She Knew, The Rising of the Moon, Reunion with Death, Under the Hill, Relatively Dead, Seeing the Dead, Defending the Dead, Watch for the Dead, and Search for the Dead.

  Sheila is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America. She is a former President of Sisters in Crime New England, and was cochair for the 2011 New England Crime Bake conference.